Monday, December 07, 2009 

Preventing Terrorism at Home - The View from Ground Zero.

A late contender for post of the year, this superb treatise on local racism, the decay and depression of outer-city housing estates and with it the potential for extremism, also contains a paragraph that gives me heart that permanently pulling up the tabloids on their bullshit, however many times you repeat yourself, is worth it:

The impulse to segregate was compounded by the messages that seemed to reinforce the idea that the treatment in Southmead reflected the mood and views of the rest of Britain. "Hundreds of thousands of migrants here for handouts, says senior judge". "Britain paying migrants £1,700 to return home BEFORE they've even got here" "The violent new breed of migrants who will let nothing stop them coming to Britain" These headlines were just three of many that were printed in the Mail, a right-wing daily during my time in Southmead. I don't usually take much notice of the headlines in the Sun and the Mail unless they are truly shocking, but in Southmead the headlines seemed to have an impact on the treatment we received. The level of low-level hostility from adults seemed to be directly linked to the content of the headlines. More outright hostility from younger adults and children followed a day or so later.

Do go and read the whole thing.

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12/07/2009 11:07:00 PM | | | links to this post

Wednesday, December 17, 2008 

Abu Beavis does prison (having already done al-Qaida in Iraq?)

There seems to be a surprising lack of comment regarding Bilal Abdulla, convicted yesterday of his role as Abu Beavis in the Beavis and Abu Butthead do jihad plot and today sentenced to 32 years in prison. Surprising because, on the surface at least, Abdulla is the first verifiable example of genuine blowback against this country as a result of our involvement in the war against Iraq.

Unlike the 7/7 bombers and others since who have blamed their actions on foreign policy, Abdulla is the only actual Iraqi to have so far played any discernible part in terrorism plots in this country. Born here, but having gone back to live in Saddam's Iraq when he was 5, he personally witnessed the sanctions regime which crippled the country, resulting in the deaths arguably of 500,000 children, a figure which the US secretary of state at the time, Madeleine Albright, described as worth it. It doesn't seem however that he was fully radicalised until the invasion in 2003, losing at least one friend from university in the sectarian violence which emerged in the anarchy created by the development of the insurgency. He blamed not just the Americans, but the Shia also, according to one of his friends in Cambridge being fully supportive of sectarian warfare, as long as it targeted Iraq's long subjugated majority.

At the end of 2004 he came to study, as mentioned above, in Cambridge. Here's where it's difficult to know when his full radicalisation took place: it's known that he was a member or at least associated with the radical Islamist group Hizb-ut-Tahrir, but HuT usually serves as a stepping stone between the caliphate which HuT supports and the murderous, worldwide caliphate which appeals to the takfirists of al-Qaida. In any event, it was in Cambridge that he met Kafeel Ahmed, an Indian born Muslim also apparently radicalised, but more by the usual methods of alienation and anger over the perceived treatment of Muslims worldwide, as well as the inequality and injustice often served to the Muslim minority in his homeland. Together they would they come up with the plot to target the Tiger Tiger nightclub, using incredibly amateurish bombs that failed to detonate, in one case because it lacked an oxidiser and in another because the wiring had come loose. When that failed, they settled on an apparent suicide mission which succeeded in as much as Ahmed died, but sadly for their chances of receiving the much debated 72 virgins, without killing anyone else.

Most of interest here though is just what links Abdulla had with the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq, or as it was formerly known, al-Qaida in Iraq. Accounts seem to differ: the Guardian and BBC seem to discount the idea that Abdulla had anything more than a passing acquittance with the group, apparently in contact with some representatives of it online, and who might have helped, while the Times, quoting those all important security sources, claims that Abdulla during his time at Baghdad University came into contact with the forebears of al-Qaida in Iraq, even fighting with them before he left to come to Cambridge. This seems less believable: al-Qaida in Iraq at the time was still establishing itself, by no means yet the group which managed up until the middle of last year to control vast swathes of the "Sunni Triangle", still mostly a sect centred around Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. His group did not pledge allegiance to Osama bin Laden until late 2004, just the time that Abdulla was leaving to come to this country.

More feasible was the prosecution evidence that in May 2006 Abdulla had returned to Iraq and stayed there for three months. Their case was that it was during this time that he joined up with the now far more powerful al-Qaida in Iraq, known at the time as the Mujahideen Shura Council. Again, there is conflicting stories of just how involved he was: the Guardian reports that Scotland Yard found little evidence he was personally involved in the insurgency, while the Times' sources suggest that he had planned to be a suicide bomber, only for his handlers to decide that with his qualifications and passport he should instead target this country. The evidence that he was the first member of al-Qaida in Iraq to attack this country rests mainly on his will, which was directed to the "Soldiers of the Islamic State of Iraq", and on an audiotape, released only a couple of months back featuring the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq, in which the group very belatedly claimed responsibility for the London and Glasgow failed attacks, even ascribing the failure to a mistake made by the bomb-maker, which, as it turns out, is in at least one of the cases eerily accurate. At the time I was suspicious that the group should so belatedly, and mid-trial claim responsibility for the attack, especially as the ISI has been so emasculated over the last year, reduced to only a fraction of its former power. With the additional evidence now though, the claim looks far more credible.

Worth mentioning at this point is the fact that Abdulla was a doctor and Ahmed was an engineer, something that attracted more comment than it probably should have. While few of those dedicated to al-Qaida's ideological bent are as well qualified or with such bright potential prospects as Abdulla and Ahmed, poverty and poor qualifications are not generally good signifers of radicalisation, as the leaked MI5 document suggested. As Majjid Nawaz of the Quilliam Foundation pointed out on Newsnight, Osama bin Laden is an engineer, following in his father's footsteps, while Ayman al-Zahawiri is a doctor. Intellectuals with similar interests to Abdulla and Ahmed have often been well represented in the jihadi movement, it's just that as is often the case in other armies and terrorist groups, it tends to be those considered expendable that do the actual fighting. Hence Abdulla was considered too good to be a suicide bomber, or at least in Iraq, especially when at that point there was still more than enough willing young "martyrdom seekers" without such credentials.

Regardless of Abdulla's alleged links to al-Qaida in Iraq, it seems he received little in actual funding, if any, from the group itself. Nor did he apparently learn to make bombs whilst there; it was Ahmed instead who apparently set himself that task, experimenting in India. The bombs were originally described as similar to those used by AQI, but this was erroneous; AQI had resources far removed from patio gas canisters, hence their horrific and continued success at car and suicide bombs, and considering how unlikely it was that Abdulla would get his hands on actual explosives, it would probably have been wasted anyway. They instead settled on a plan which was always going to be difficult to pull off, and as a demonstration by the BBC's resident explosives expert showed, even if the bombs had gone off, it seems hardly likely that they would have resulted in the carnage which the prosecution itself claimed, let alone the "thousands" of deaths even more sensational press coverage has suggested. If they had succeeded in getting the 4x4 into Glasgow Airport, and the car bomb had successfully ignited, there could have been a very dangerous fire which could have quickly raged out of control. People could have died in the panic and smoke, but most likely not in the numbers claimed. This was a suicide mission where those most likely to die were the two men in the car, as it so proved.

There will obviously be debate about whether Abdulla did have links with AQI prior to coming to Britain, and where and when he moved beyond simple anger and hatred of American and Britons, from being a passive Islamic radical to being a radicalised jihadist prepared to kill people, but no one is denying that our role in Iraq had a substantial role in his radicalisation, perhaps even providing the catalyst that persuaded him that violence and murder could be justified as revenge for the calamity that Iraq was between 2004 and mid-2007 when he launched his assault. This should not be seen as being an argument for not involving ourselves in action like that in Iraq again, or as a veto on action because terrorists might attack us as a result, but as the evidence that has long been disputed by those in power who ignored those, both outside government and inside it who warned that the invasion of Iraq would result in more insecurity and more terrorism, not less, and that al-Qaida itself would win a massive propaganda victory, with more recruits than it could ever than have imagined. That has long been their modus operandi: they know they cannot possibly defeat this country or the United States, but what they can do is draw us in where they can attack and kill the "infidels" and "crusaders" far easier than they can ever manage in our own countries. Prior to the invasion of Iraq, al-Qaida in that country did not exist. We created it just as much as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi did.

The good or bad news, depending on your perspective, is that Abdulla, if he was involved with AQI, was poorly trained and that he picked a partner in jihad whose bomb making skills were just as poor. Undoubtedly however other Brits have fought with AQI, and might well have already returned, far better "educated" in the "university of terrorism" than they were, also potentially without wider links to al-Qaida central or other known extremists. While the threat remains often exaggerated, what is clear is that those who apparently slip through the net such as Abdulla are potentially far more dangerous than those trained in Pakistan/Afghanistan and known about. We cannot be blamed for the situation in Pakistan, however much grievance you imbibe; we can for what we have created in Iraq. Abdulla may be a one off; he might be just the beginning.

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12/17/2008 10:41:00 PM | | | links to this post

Friday, September 26, 2008 

On the jihad in Iraq and online.

By almost all accounts, the extreme-Salafist takfiri jihad in Iraq is not going well. Down mainly to the Awakening movement, which started when the Sunni tribes tired of the sectarian bloodshed, indiscriminate murder and imposition of the most harsh and ridiculous interpretation of Sharia law rose against the Islamic State of Iraq (formerly al-Qaida in Iraq and the Mujahideen Shura Council) and its allies, over time attracting other former insurgents, and to on a much lesser level, the US troop surge, the few remaining sanctuaries are Mosul in the north and Diyala province in the centre of the country. Along with the continuing ceasefire by the Mahdi army (and its eventual dissolution), which for a time had been the main cause of casualties to US troops in and around Baghdad, combined with the effective ghettoisation of the capital into sectarian enclaves, the drop in violence has resulted in the number of troop deaths falling to its lowest since the start of the war, with just 13 killed in July. Civilian deaths are still though rarely below three figures a week, even if the suicide bombings which were once a daily occurrence in the capital have fallen significantly.

Away from the real war, the online propaganda war is also, if you listen to some of the hyperbolic jihad watchers, in trouble. The most prominent jihadi forum, al-ehklass.net, has been down for almost two weeks, and its front page currently resolves to a domain bought place holder. Also down, or at least were, were three of the main four forum sites, with only the most exclusive, al-Hesbah, remaining up, but even that at the moment appears to be down. Why they are down, or rather, who is responsible is equally unclear; those who have formerly and continue to involve themselves in removing jihadi material from the web have refused to comment or denied it. The main point of taking down the forums was to deny as-Sahab, al-Qaida's media arm, from being able to distribute their yearly video marking September the 11th. Not only was this successful, but when the video was eventually posted for distribution and mirrored across the net, the password to the archive was wrong, further delaying and disillusioning those waiting for it.

The Islamic State of Iraq would still presumably prefer to be in as-Sahab's position. As it becomes apparent even to the most deluded and dedicated of its supporters that it faces a battle for its very survival, even if still clinging on in Diyala and Mosul, its media releases are increasingly being derided. Their "Two Years with an Islamic State" video claimed that they had chemical warheads capable of reaching Israel, something which not even the most die-hard supporter of the group or most swivel-eyed jihad watcher could possibly believe.

For as ISI declines, a group that had existed in Iraq long before al-Zarqawi's organisation pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden continues to punch well above its apparent weight. Ansar al-Islam, first formed in 2001 and active in the autonomous Kurdish north, and which may well have sheltered Zarqawi before he moved south and established the forerunners of the ISI, continues to impress (if that's the right word) both those in the "online jihadi community" and observers of it. While sharing almost exactly the same ideology as the ISI, the same brand of extreme Salafi Islam which led it to carry out one of the most notorious atrocities of the insurgency, the execution of 12 Nepalese hostages, it has never allied with the group, even if they have often carried out operations together. More recently the group, previously known as Ansar al-Sunnah, reverted to its original name, and with it established a media arm based on both As-Sahab and al-Furqan, al-Ansar. Their latest video, The Earth Rain, is even by the high production standards of those two "media organisations" especially ambitious: featuring a host, translated, apparently non-Googlish English subtitles and credits at the end, it attempts to document last year's American "Arrowhead Ripper" operation in Diyala province. Whether Ansar al-Islam with this new approach intends to become a rival to al-Qaida in general remains to be seen, but the aspiration appears to be there.

The bringing down of the jihadi forums though, however satisfying for those in the short-term who seem to imagine that doing so is striking a blow against the movement in its entirety, is by no means necessarily a good thing. Putting matters of censorship aside, it not only makes things more difficult for those on them, but also for those with the equally important task of monitoring the forums. Whilst doubtless the intelligence agencies have moles on the inside and at probably the very highest levels of the administration on them, not every activity on them can be monitored by the security services, which is why civilian organisations that do so have sprung up. While these tend to be rabid and completely overstate the level of threat from takfirist jihadists, their role is still a noble one. It isn't just the monitoring of them for potential threats though which is important, they're also a goldmine for the also vital research into who exactly it is that is most likely to become a jihadi sympathiser. As the leaked document from MI5 showed, this is an area in which the stereotypes generally don't apply. Only through delving into more backgrounds and the lives of those on these forums might we improve our ways of targeting and stopping radicalisation before it takes place. Just knocking the suppliers down while not targeting the source itself will do nothing to help in that.

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9/26/2008 10:02:00 PM | | | links to this post

Thursday, August 21, 2008 

Understanding radicalisation.

The MI5 report "leaked" to the Guardian, titled Understanding radicalisation and violent extremism in the UK, does the reassuring job of telling you little which you didn't already know while confirming just that which you did.

Firstly, it makes clear the idea that that there a number of extremist preachers doing most of the radicalising, or even brainwashing is either completely out-of-date, if it ever was the case. Rather, it's what a number of individuals have been arguing for quite some time: that those who become radicalised are often first exposed to extremist material online, become engaged in those communities, but also often have to have some sort of real world link to either a charismatic or popular local figure also versed in radical Islam. Once inside such small autonomous groupings, the emotional reward of belonging comes into play, giving meaning to a life which might have been up till then wholly lacking in it, with the other members almost becoming like an extended family, similar to criminal gangs.

Perhaps the ultimate example of this in action could be the 7/7 bombers. Whilst the ringleader of the 9/11 attacks, Mohamed Atta, has since been portrayed as an angry self-obsessed sexually frustrated, even constipated psychopath, almost the opposite is the case when you consider Mohammad Sidique Khan, the alleged 7/7 ringleader. On the face of it, MSK had everything to live for: his daughter had only just past her 1st birthday, he had previously worked as a teaching assistant and youth worker, and very few people generally had a bad word to say about him. He appears to have been conscientious, charismatic and well-liked; everything which ultimately led to those around him deciding to end their lives whilst murdering others around them.

The idea that MSK was after the promised 72 virgins for martyrs doesn't seem convincing when he was so clearly devoted both to his child and his wife; he was not, perhaps unlike the other bombers, stuck in dead-end, unrewarding jobs and so frustrated with his lot in life; and whilst he didn't talk about his religious beliefs to many people, he was certainly devout without being overbearing. He played the role of the gatherer, the charismatic leader which those around him looked up to and enjoyed the company of. The abiding image we have of him, outside of the few other video clips, including the one where he says goodbye, movingly, to his daughter, is the "martyrdom video" he recorded which was subsequently released by As-Sahab, al-Qaida's media arm. His self-serving justifications, now all too familiar, belie the man that he clearly was in private.

Also noted in the report that by no means are those who become radicalised well versed in Islam in its totality. Indeed, few are probably anywhere near as versed as this Islamist blogger suggests for training recruits, and that is mostly a collection of the familiar radical preachers. Probably closer would be the suggestions made by this forum inhabitant, both courtesy of the excellent Jihadica blog. While opinion is divided over whether Islam is inherently violent, and neither side should be dismissed out of hand, it's probably telling that those who have emerged from radical groups have done so only after they have properly assessed a far wider spectrum of theological thought, Ed Husain, Maajid Nawaz et al. Rachel North, who has more reason than most for wanting to get to the very bottom of what motivates radicalisation and subsequently terrorism, has reported that Atila Ahmet, one of those recently jailed as part of the "paintball jihad" had to be segregated from other extremists, due to his studies into Islam and renunication of his past beliefs.

Additionally left on the myth heap is the idea that all of those radicalised or involved in extremism are asylum seekers, when half of those evaluated by MI5 were born here, with the other half mostly immigrating here mainly for economic reasons, that poverty is not an issue, as shown by the amount of those stuck in "McJobs" despite in many cases having decent qualifications, and that only those who are "pure" in their past behaviour are eligible, is if that wasn't laughable enough considering the criminal schemes which those who have carried out attacks have indulged in. Also doubtful is the claim by one group which suggested that those raided often didn't have any pornography on their computers when they were searched; the report suggests that despite it being generally being considered haram to consume alcohol in Islam, some were drinkers, drug-takers and even used prostitutes, although again the 9/11 example of some of the attackers visiting a strip club the night before also should have put paid to that one. Some of this could perhaps be a result of the jihadis adopting the ideology of extremist groups such as Takfir wal-Hirja, whose members "blended in" by shaving their beards, drinking, etc, although again, it might just be that like everyone else, jihadis can't live up to their own moral standards and so can be seen as hypocrites.

There are a couple of things that do appear to be missing from the report however. There doesn't seem to be any mention, for example, of the role that foreign policy plays in the radicalisation progress. Whilst we should never fall into the trap of dismissing terrorism as being purely down to our own actions in countries considered Muslim states, it would be equally naive to dismiss the idea that it has no role whatsoever. Yet nowhere, at least in the Guardian report of the document, does it allude to our actions in either Afghanistan or Iraq, which seems strange, especially when you consider that the security services themselves warned that action in the latter would lead directly to an increase in attacks. Also, perhaps less suprisingly, there doesn't seem to be any reference to the security services' own role in helping radicalisation along. Only today we learn indisputably that MI5 were involved in the interrogation of Binyam Mohamed, currently languishing in Guantanamo and potentially facing execution, which led to his horrendous torture in both Pakistan and Morocco. Yesterday I mentioned the role of MI5 in the rendition of Bisher al-Rawi and Jamil al-Banna, both of whom had had direct relations with the service. This is without also mentioning the unsubtle actions of the police, for instance in the raid on Forest Gate, which contributes to the victimhood mentality which most certainly is a part of radicalisation. The report also makes clear that this is not just a mentality or illusion; racism, discrimination, inequality, "mainstream UK media coverage that perpetuates negative stereotypes of Muslims", all play a role which is heightened and repeated again and again until the only response is to strike back physically, with the religious ideology as the justification.

If all this suggests that the fight against terrorism and radicalisation is as infinitely complex as the process itself is, then it doesn't necessarily need to be so. What is clear is that the heavy-handed government approach is still at the moment part of the problem rather than the solution. Also unhelpful is the continuing demonisation of Islam as a whole, as shown recently by Peter Oborne (PDF). Instead, as if it wasn't already obvious, the fight has to be led from inside and within rather than from above. Organisations like the Quilliam Foundation are almost certainly part of the mix, although they could do with turning down the rhetoric a shade, or at least Ed Husain could. The security services need to end their complicity in torture and rendition, if they have not already. Subtlety, rather than constant new big initiatives and huge police operations, especially when accompanied by egregious exaggeration are also key.

If we exclude the apparent failed attempt by the convert in Exeter, then there hasn't been a major foiled plot or failed, serious attempt at a terrorist attack in this country now for over a year. The vast majority of those who do become radicalised in any case are mostly not interested in attacking Britain; their concerns are more with either fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan or any of the other current jihadi hot spots. The real worry might well be when those who have graduated from those "universities of terrorism" potentially return, and we can hardly say then that we were not in any way responsible for the blow-back.

Related:
Spy Blog - Whistleblower leak or propaganda briefing?

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8/21/2008 09:44:00 PM | | | links to this post

Monday, February 04, 2008 

Changing the language of "terror".

Doubtless the allegations of political correctness and dhimmification will be loudly levelled at the Home Office by the usual suspects after a new counter-terrorism phrasebook emphasising the language to use when discussing and debating extremist Islamist terrorism has been leaked to the Granuiad.

As is usual whenever allegations of political correctness are thrown about, even slightly valid or not, there's almost always a good reason for it in the first place. The reasons for it in this case don't come much more compelling or challenging: ever since 9/11, the Muslim community as a whole has increasingly seen it come under ever more enduring scrutiny, with ever harsher and looser language used against it, and as a result has turned itself off, has dismissed legitimate concerns, and indulged in conspiracy theories, when it is naturally the first port of call in tackling the extremists in its midst.

If the above reads unlike what you'll usually find on this blog, it's because both sides in this debate are wrong. Only some within the Muslim community have reacted in such a way, just as an even tinier number within it is enthralled and involved in extremism. The difficulty has been that the organisations meant to represent Muslims, such as the Muslim Council of Britain, have themselves refused to recognise that there is a problem, or indeed that they are nowhere near as representative as they claim to be. Since Abdul Bari took over from Iqbal Sacranie there seems to have a reforming agenda that wasn't recognisable before, and the organisation, including the previously bin Laden admiring Inayat Bunglawala have seemingly mellowed, and over the Sudan teddy affair for instance, were very effective in damning the decisions overseas. There doesn't seem to have been much change from the position held though that foreign policy was chiefly responsible for the 7/7 attacks and the plots foiled since, and that radicalisation, however atomised, is the main cause. However much role the illegal invasion and consequent occupation of Iraq have had upon certain individuals becoming radicalised, it's naive and myopic to believe it's the sole or even chief motivation for the blowing up of innocent civilians, even if it is the main excuse.

Just as it is for the Home Office to apparently think that by merely changing the language used that it'll engage the Muslim community more in the challenge/threat (the Home Office endorsed way to describe what has previously been called the "war on terror", which was always an idiotic way to define the al-Qaida/Salafist/takfirist mentality). The phrasebook diplomacy section of the Grauniad article doesn't seem to have been reproduced online, but it shows the difficulties of trying to substitute certain phrases for others which seem if anything to be worse. For instance, "radicalisation" is supposedly heard by the Muslim community as "Terrorism is a product of Islam" (not easily understood or translated into Urdu/Arabic). Is it really, or indeed, are the suggested alternatives, "brainwashing" or "indoctrination" better? We might be quibbling over synonyms, but radicalisation is a far better description of what happens than brainwashing or indoctrination is, especially as there is very little evidence that either are actively going on; quite the opposite, if anything, with personal research or already friendly groups being the most often ways that an individual becomes "radicalised". Similarly, "jihadi/fundamentalist" is according to the HO research heard as "there is an explicit link between Islam and terrorism", with criminal/murderer/thug the suggested replacements. While all of the latter are accurate descriptions of those who are convicted of terrorism offences, how are we meant to be able to describe those who are jihadists, or my preferred term, takfirist jihadists, who haven't actually broken any laws, but who do provide material support or at least believe in the righteousness of the extremist, al-Qaida interpretation of Wahhabist/Salafist Islam if we don't in effect call a spade a spade?

Being careful over the use of language is of course important, and it's completely true that to talk of a clash of cultures, civilisations, or a war against an abstract noun is preposterous. It's also entirely wrong to attack the Muslim community as a whole for sheltering extremists, or to put the onus on it to do the work of exposing those within that are radicalised. All breed mistrust, and risk the response that they're being unfairly stigmatised, which would again be true. Rather than throwing the baby out with the bathwater, which is what the Home Office appears to be doing, it's "what is being heard" that has to be tackled, not the language itself. Why are some within the Muslim community convinced that they are personally to blame? Could it be because of some of the disingenuous and dangerous media coverage, such as that surrounding Jack Straw's comments on the veil, the leaking over alleged plots and the ridiculous allegations from the likes of Policy Exchange and reports that "a sect linked to the Taliban" has control over a large proportion of British mosques? The first thing that could be sorted is that there is no such thing as moderates and extremists. There is everyone of us, then there are the extremists. Likewise, we have to acknowledge that talking about the Muslim community as if it was a homogenuous block is ridiculous. It makes for convenient shorthand, but little more. There are Sufis, Shiites and Sunnis out there, even if the latter are the majority, just as there are former Muslims. It's little wonder some are so exasperated at the labelling when they are entirely removed from what is being discussed.

Perhaps more insulting than any of the above is the impression given, especially by the talk of brainwashing and indoctrination, is that Muslims can't think for themselves. This view is given credence by the likes of Martin Amis and others who contend that Islam provides an all encompassing ideology which itself cannot be altered or challenged, let alone reformed. This is clearly nonsense, as so many Muslim thinkers, past and present have aptly demonstrated. Over the last couple of years we've had John Reid, the head of MI5 and Jacqui Smith all commenting on how Muslim children are being "brainwashed" or "groomed" as if they were the victims of a predatory paedophile, all without providing a single scrap of evidence that this is happening. That's what breeds mistrust and cynicism. Stop insulting peoples' intelligence and understand why "they" think the way they do, then change the language used. Only then might we start getting somewhere.

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2/04/2008 08:43:00 PM | | | links to this post

Friday, January 18, 2008 

Tackling extremism and radicalisation online.

You know that there's been a step-change in priorities in academic circles when organisations like the wordy mouthful that is the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence are being set-up and then holding two-day conferences that attract the home secretary. Alongside such alumni as Peter Bergen, former head of MI6 Richard Dearlove and everyone's favourite security correspondent, Frank Gardner, Jacqui Smith yesterday made her first speech on terrorism, focusing mainly on the threat from the internet and how to tackle it.

Of course, it would help greatly if any media organisation or indeed the ICSR had made available Smith's speech in full, but that seems to be beyond their capabilities. Perhaps it's deliberate: we don't want the nasty jihadis to be getting full wind of the government's plans, do we? Joking aside, it's impossible to comment thoroughly on exactly what she outlined when we have to make do with relatively short reports in the newspapers. Going by them, there's plenty of reasons to be concerned about this latest ploy at blocking out unpleasantness on the internet.

The most acute immediate problem with the rhetoric and reasoning coming from Smith is that she and the government seems to think that the ways in which child pornography is tackled is an appropriate model. As Frank Fisher sets out on CiF, this is an incredibly arbitrary way of going about it - the Internet Watch Foundation provides the sites to be blocked, and they are then blocked by the ISPs. No debate, no review, just a complete cutting off. Mostly, this does seem to work but there have been problems; in one case, the anonymous image posting board 4chan, which occasionally gets flooded with child pornography by trolls was blocked, but only seemingly by certain ISPs. Such blanket censorship with no genuine recourse is the kind imposed by totalitarian states, not supposed democracies.

Even more naive and also insulting is taking the internet predator model from those who surf chatrooms and social networking sites for prey and applying it to the online world of cyber-jihadism. That there are supposed "terror svengalis who work to seduce young people" is utter nonsense. The case of "Irhabi007" provides the reality: a Moroccan who arrived here with his father in 2001, he was radicalised not by someone "grooming" him but through his own research, as well as by images of atrocities committed in Iraq, such as the infamous video from a US bomber of a missile being dropped into a crowd of fleeing civilians in Fallujah, with the pilots laughing as it exploded. Newsnight then had the temerity to claim that the circumstances surrounding it had never been comprehensively established. Not every young person "radicalised" is going to go to the extremes that Younes Tsouli did, helping to distribute jihadist video releases and then to spreading presentations and videos on how to prepare bombs and attacks, mainly because now with sites such as Rapidshare, Megaupload and FileFlyer you don't need to hack other websites or use public FTPs to get the material around, but it does provide the example that as well as those willing to launch attacks there is an underbelly online that provides support to those thinking about doing so.

One of the other problems is just whether the material being distributed is actually illegal or not. Beheadings and murder which are sometimes depicted would fall foul of the Obscene Publications Act, but what about the numerous mortar attacks and IED videos which the various insurgent groups in Iraq for instance release? Most don't show anyone dying or being killed, but they are designed to provide succour to online supporters, and are also helpful propaganda showing the failure of coalition forces. Banning such material might make the government sleep slightly easier, but how they would manage it when as outlined above the distribution networks are now so autonomous and use other public download sites to do so? It's true that those that monitor online jihadis regularly report the material and get it removed, except from those sites that provide complete freedom of speech and expression, but is it even necessary? In any case, if the publicly available jihadist forums are blocked, those currently using them will just move to private, more secure sites, as the remnants of Al-Muhajiroun are now rumoured to have done.

Then there's the possibility that the very attempt to ban, censor and block could be counter-productive on more than one point. There's currently a burgeoning online movement dedicated to monitoring such sites which would fall on its face just at the moment when Smith herself admits that the government itself cannot be relied upon to do everything. (The main problem with the movement described here is its ideological background, which I may well expand upon in due course.) Moreover, as always when you ban something, you make it infinitely more attractive as well as shoving it into the undergrowth. Those who are already going to search out extremist ideas and think for themselves will find this material whether it's outlawed or not, and while it continues to be posted on sites like YouTube and LiveLeak, where the government most certainly can't restrict it but where it does get criticised, there's very little they can realistically do.

It's taken a while, but the government does thankfully seem to have finally realised that the way to tackle extremist Islam is not through force and condemnation, but through argument and tackling prejudice at the base source. Those who are seen as heroes or as admirable, as Justin writes, are often the most laughable and easy to mock figures. How for instance can anyone take Sayyid Qutb seriously when you know that he took a woman coming onto him in the United States as either a challenge from God or as being sent to corrupt him by the CIA? Battling Salafism, with its sentimental romanticism about an age of Islam that never really existed, ought to be based on modernism. Making clear that the takfiri ideology doesn't discriminate between any sort of Muslim and "kafir" is vital, as is that those with these views are not practising Islam but a perversion of it that Muhammad would certainly not recognise. All this could have been already achieved and helped significantly if we hadn't involved ourselves in the cowboy operation in Iraq, but it's too late to change that now. Nor will the imposition of 42 days without charge for "terrorist suspects", the hypocrisy of Smith's statement that victory will not be assumed through authoritarianism all too rank.

Again, as Fisher writes, if any of this is to go ahead there needs to be at the very least an established legal framework and footing for these measures, with full oversight and all the information surrounding it being placed in the public domain. That this government's record doesn't in the slightest inspire confidence that this will be forthcoming only amplifies the reasons for why this ought to be resisted until then.

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1/18/2008 09:30:00 PM | | | links to this post

Thursday, September 13, 2007 

We're all doomed part 94.

Even the Grauniad on occasion likes to try and scare its readers: what other reason for plastering "Al-Qaida has revived, spread and is capable of a spectacular" in a font bigger than the masthead across its front page?

The alarm bells ought to start ringing when the article notes, around 300 words in, that the International Institute for Strategic Studies's director of transnational threats and political risk is one Nigel Inkster, a former spook who was in the frame for becoming the head of MI6 three years ago before he left. Unsurprisingly then, he goes further than the report itself in stating without hesitation that "al-Qaida" is stronger than it was prior to 9/11 and capable of carrying out a similarly spectacular attack.

The proof behind this? Very little. Apparently, the mere fact that a planned attack was foiled last week in Germany involving vast amounts of hydrogen peroxide, and that last summer's "liquid bombs" plot was similarly stopped shows that al-Qaida still has the ambition to carry out spectaculars. We shouldn't let the facts get in the way of the IISS's certainty: that the group allegedly behind the German plot was the "Islamic Jihad Union", a group meant to have split from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, although Craig Murray relates that he was never able to find any proof that the IJU had even existed. It's quite true that IMU has found something of a safe haven in Waziristan, the same Pakistani tribal area where the Taliban have been regrouping and where it's most likely that the real al-Qaida itself is slowly regenerating, but this plot involved two home-grown Germans, rather than all involving foreigners. As for the liquid bombs plot, we're no nearer to discovering whether the attacks were even viable, let alone whether those arrested have established links to al-Qaida.

Where the report does it get it right is in suggesting that al-Qaida's ideology is taking root: this is sadly the case, and most certainly 9/11's real legacy. The threat it also likely to get worse before it does get better: that threat however does not necessarily come from al-Qaida itself, but through those highly influenced by the same takfirist ideology who take matters into their own hands. It also places too much emphasis on the fact that the al-Qaida brand is taking off across the world: that the GSPC has changed its name matters not one jot, except to Algerians themselves. The real danger remains that when the US does finally withdraw from Iraq, we're going to have a lot of redundant mujahideen much more globalised in their thinking than they were either at the end of Soviet invasion of Afghanistan or from Bosnia. Some are likely to join other struggles wherever they are then, but others are also going to turn their attention to the West. Such experienced fighters are always going to be far more dangerous than the idiots who try to blow up airports with patio gas canisters, petrol and matches.

What the report doesn't say is that we are ourselves are getting far better, both at tackling radicalisation and at spotting the dangers themselves. The defection by Maajid Nawaz, formerly of Hizb-ut-Tahrir to arguing against the politicisation of Islam as practiced by the group is incredibly welcome, especially as unlike Ed Husain he isn't calling for its banning and recognises that most of those within it are actually just typically young: angry and alienated rather than potential terrorists. Someone with his authority tackling the message of such groups, and doing so theologically rather than just rhetorically is the biggest threat which those who prosper on ignorance and one interpretation face, far beyond anything that the government's policies on cohesion can produce.

As Jason Burke also identifies, the report also mentions how climate change has the potential to have an effect similar to nuclear war, far beyond anything that any terrorist group can ever achieve. Putting too much stock in immediate rather than gradual doom may have been around for centuries, but it's still no less virulent today.

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9/13/2007 10:00:00 PM | | | links to this post

Friday, September 07, 2007 

"Hate on the state" and "hardline takeovers".

After a slight hiatus, the past week has seen something of a renewed desire to try to make mountains out of molehills. First up, Newsnight on Wednesday dwelled heavily on a report (PDF) from the Centre of Social Cohesion, itself an off-shoot of the right-wing thinktank Civitas, which discovered that libraries tend to have books in them. Yeah, I was surprised as well: I'd assumed that they'd been abolished a few years back in favour of filling the buildings with DVDs, CDs, computers plugged into the internet and coffee shops.

To be serious for a second, the most eye-catching part of the report was that they'd found two books by Abu Hamza and one by Sheikh Abdullah al-Faisal in Tower Hamlets' Islamic collection. Both men are currently serving time for incitement to murder. Let's get the condemnation out of the way: it ought to be obvious to anyone that books by those two perhaps shouldn't be on the shelves, as likely as they are to cause gratuitous offense, and at the very least they should perhaps be kept back and only loaned out on specific request. Where, however, do you draw the line? Throughout the discussion, politicians and commentators alike couldn't get enough references and comparions to Mein Kampf in, yet we have no problems with that remaining on the library shelves. One of my more optimistic sixth-form history teachers even suggested at one point that we read it. I think we declined her kind offer.

The rest of the report mainly dealt with the fact that the Tower Hamlets council's Islamic collection (the report itself also deals with what it found on the shelves of Waltham Forest and Birmingham council's collection) also had 11 copies of Sayid Qutb's Milestones, a well-known radical text which has influenced jihadists as well as the Muslim Brotherhood which Qutb belonged to, and also books by Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab and Muhammad Jamil Zino, which contained such charming theoretical questions and answers as:

"Is it allowed to support and love disbelievers?" he asks. The answer is simply "no".

Well, there go my chances of copping off with an niqab-wearing babe.

The problem is, as Douglas Murray, co-author of the report admits on his blog posting responding to the council's responses, many of the writings are historic and scholarly works. One of the first places to go to understand the jihadi mindset is to read Qutb, who famously went to America in the late 40s, had a woman come on to him and recoiled like a teenager caught looking at pornography by his mother. It's one thing discarding "Women who deserve to go to hell", curiously written by the armless Hamza, quite another to then start accusing libraries of providing "Hate on the State" by stocking Qutb. Incidentally, in case some of you were wondering, Murray is indeed the same Murray who has recently popped up on Question Time and been roundly disliked for having all the personality and charm of a randy rhino, and he has his own humourous literary creation, Neoconseservatism: Why We Need It, filling up remainder buckets as you read this.

To be clear, it's not as though Murray and his cohorts are advocating removing such books from the shelves altogether, just that they need to be balanced with more liberal scholarly interpretations of Islam, which is a decent aim. It does however seem something of a cheap shot, being purely used to bash the liberal consensus with. It's not as if books/speeches by all the above are not freely available online: Qutb's Wikipedia page links directly to Milestones, provided by err, an anti-Islamist website. It's also well known, despite constant attempts to suggest otherwise, that the vast majority of radicalisation is not currently occurring either in mosques or universities, but online, through personal research or meeting like-minds. It's that we have to quickly learn how to tackle, not keep watch on who's taking out semi-coherent rants by bearded fanatics.

Today's story in the Times is broadly similar, except ever so slightly more hysterical:

Hardline takeover of British mosques

Almost half of Britain’s mosques are under the control of a hardline Islamic sect whose leading preacher loathes Western values and has called on Muslims to “shed blood” for Allah, an investigation by The Times has found.

Riyadh ul Haq, who supports armed jihad and preaches contempt for Jews, Christians and Hindus, is in line to become the spiritual leader of the Deobandi sect in Britain. The ultra-conservative movement, which gave birth to the Taleban in Afghanistan, now runs more than 600 of Britain’s 1,350 mosques, according to a police report seen by The Times.


Ignore the bit about hardline takeover of British mosques; it's bollocks. The Deobandi "sect" has long been popular in this country, and saying it gave birth to the Taliban, while strictly true, is similar to suggesting that the co-operative movement gave birth to Stalinism.

Rather what the Times has uncovered is that Riyadh ul Haq, now predicted to become the spiritual leader of the Deobandis in the UK by becoming the head of the influential Bury seminary, has made a series of speeches which vary from the idiotic (calling New York "Jew York") to those similar to the remarks featured in the Dispatches documentary Undercover Mosque (“Allah has warned us in the Koran, do not befriend the kuffar [unbelievers], do not align yourselves with the kuffar”). Unlike the Channel 4 documentary, the Times has avoided the accusation of selectively quoting or taking the remarks out of context, publishing 5 of the speeches in full.

It appears then that ul Haq is, to quote one of David T from Harry's Place's comments on CiF:

- preaching the nastiest racism about jews and calling for god to punish jews.

- praising the Taliban

- telling muslims not to be friends with, or behave in any way like, non-muslims


Which does pretty much sum it up. It is also highly disconcerting that this man, with such views once he's out of earshot or sight of "non-Muslims", is apparently about to take over as the spiritual leader of the Deobandis in this country. His views need to be condemned, ridiculed and contradicted, as does those at least of two of his students, also quoted making similar comments.

Let's not give into a fantasy however that this is what is being preached in all 600 of those mosques every Friday. The Times does attempt to cover its bases by including interviews with two other graduates of the Bury seminary who repudiate ul-Haq's speeches, saying in the original article that "It is not suggested that all British Muslims who worship at Deobandi mosques subscribe to the isolationist message preached by Mr ul Haq" and in a second article going out of its way to be as reasonable as possible, mentioning that "in one talk, Mr ul Haq tells British Muslims that he is 'not suggesting that we should rise here - I'm sure we are all sensible enough to know that" and "we will not endanger the life of any innocent person" but at its core this is still a piece designed to cause not just concern, but anger, dismay and fear at what is potentially being preached throughout the country. It comes at a time when, as Sunny writes today on Pickled Politics, ever more disparate but liberal brown voices are making themselves heard, and when the government itself admits that it hasn't been listening widely and broadly enough. The last thing we need is to get back into the cycle from last year where for a time there seemed to be a free for all in in attacking Muslims as a whole.

This is not to underestimate the seriousness that the views of a minority can pose. This though is an example of how a well-sourced, balanced article quickly gets turned on its head, containing none of the caveats of the original:

Hate sect runs 600 mosques

NEARLY half of Britain’s mosques are run by an Islamic sect that orders followers to “shed blood” for Allah, it emerged last night.

A probe by The Times revealed more than 600 out of 1,350 mosques are controlled by the extremist Deobandi sect, which helped create the Taliban in Afghanistan.

One of the movement’s most senior clerics is British-born Riyadh Ul Haq, a hardline preacher once quizzed by cops over a fatal shooting in Leicester in 2003. He has branded New York “Jew York” in sermons and has also warned followers they should distance themselves from the “kuffar” (non-believers).

In another sermon, about Israel, Ul Haq warned: “We will consider it an honour and a privilege to shed blood.”


And so on. Where is this rewriting of the original from? From within the same building.

We have to be better at countering this than just issuing damp apologetics, as both Ajmal Masroor and Inayat Bunglawala do on CiF. We have to ask why we don't already know about how such views are being preached at such a high level. We can't pretend it isn't there, or that it will go away. What we can do is found out why this isn't such common knowledge, and move on from there into countering such a message. At the same time, we have to remember, that this is the view of 99%, as elucidated by Sheikh Ibrahim Mogra:

I don’t see why my creator would want me not to live in peace and harmony with my non-Muslim neighbours. This is a country which allows me to be a Muslim and which gives us so many freedoms. My Government has done some things that I’m not proud of, but a lot more that I am very proud of. I would not wish to live anywhere else.

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9/07/2007 08:54:00 PM | | | links to this post

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