UK CT: it's bilateral, not international help that matters for the police
The author of this article is the former head of UK police CT; his actual title is 'The Importance of Bilateral Collaboration in International Counter-Terrorism Investigations' and is carefully worded.
Link:https://policyexchange.org.uk/the-im...nvestigations/
Two passages:
Quote:
Judging by the speed of the response in Libya to the Manchester attack last week, the UK has demonstrated that it still has the capability, capacity and global reach to be effective in international counter terrorist investigations.
The UK’s international CT network has played a key role in this and will continue to be a vital part of its ongoing defenses against terrorism. Cooperation with European states is very much part of that – but that will not be affected by Brexit.
Contrary to some authors elsewhere the UK's CT police network and more is not part of the "Five Eyes" arrangement, from what is known in the public domain.
Eight minutes and they're dead
Footage - 37 seconds - has today emerged of how the London Bridge attackers were shot dead:https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...and-terrorists
There are some remarks alongside, such as:
Quote:
No more than 20 seconds elapse from the officers leaving their ARV to the attackers lying still on the floor.
A couple of days ago now a backgrounder on the UK police's armed response policy and practice:https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...-eight-minutes
The BBC News has a "one stop" collection of reports:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40150689 There is an excellent commentary on the radicalisation factor from ICSR:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40161333
The next terror attack in a jail is waiting to happen
The UK has a variety of problems with its prison system, amongst them is how it copes with increasing numbers of prisoners who are Muslim or have been converted and the threat from radicalization - which ends in Islamism.
Ian Acheson was asked to conduct a review in 2015; the linked article summarizes his experience and he is very critical:https://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/04/...n-our-prisons/
The actual report is not in the public domain, but there is this official summary:https://www.gov.uk/government/public...-youth-justice
There are a growing number of convicted Islamist terrorists in UK prisons (mainly in England), not all of them are held in 'high security' prisons.
Just how this issue has been effectively ignored, so becoming a real threat inside prison, let alone when prisoners "return to the community" undermines the UK's strategy.
One of two worth reading: Rise of Low-End Urban Terrorism
One article (not two as per title) worthy of a pointer. 'Rise of Low-End Urban Terrorism' is from Singapore and is a clear explanation of what is the emerging threat - not just in the UK, so it may be copied to another thread on ISIS.
Two passages:
Quote:
By resorting to low-end terrorist tactics, IS has raised the cost of counterterrorism in Western cities and further lowered the security threshold. These attacks are random and unpredictable because of
their low entry barrier. No expertise in bomb-making or formal militant training is needed. Preventing such attacks is almost impossible because the terrorists engaging in low-tech terrorism can
attack anything anywhere and at any time. By doing this, IS has virtually bypassed the operational phases of the terrorist attack cycle i.e. recruitment, training, planning, target selection, logistics, and execution.
This leaves IS with only one challenge: how to radicalize disenfranchised and vulnerable Muslim youth to do its terrorist bidding. Most of this is done online now thanks to IS’ revolutionization of social media for recruitment and propaganda operations. The group’s ability to link individual grievances with its jihadist narrative by providing aspiring jihadists with a stronger sense of belonging and empowerment has helped it
overcome social, geographical, and linguistic barriers to recruit from diverse backgrounds.
Link:http://ippreview.com/index.php/Blog/single/id/481.html
Perspective on Terrorism in the UK
In the wake of the recent deadly anti-Muslim attacks in Portland and London, a number of media commentators have opined that “right-wing” terrorism is being ignored, and that it is equivalent to Islamist terrorism.
Neither assertion is true. Law enforcement in both the United States and Britain have prevented various “right-wing” plots from being carried out, and in fact “right-wing” terrorism was the priority for Anglo-American security services throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
Yet what is “right-wing” terrorism? According to the statistics produced by the New America Foundation, “right-wing terrorism” is a catch-all or polite euphemism for political violence carried out by white perpetrators, including:
- Fanatical Christians targeting abortion providers
- Militant libertarians (e.g. “sovereigntists” or “freemen”) targeting local or national authorities
- White supremacists targeting non-whites
- Anti-Muslim whites targeting Muslims
In contrast to the disparate ideologies and organizations above, Islamist terrorism is very specific, and I believe that apples are being compared to oranges here in order to make the statistical disparities less obvious.
In the United Kingdom, just under 4.50% of the population is comprised of Muslims. However, from 2000 to present:
- 92 people have been killed by Islamist terrorists
- 4 people have been killed by right-wing terrorists including 2 in anti-Muslim attacks and 1 as part of the Troubles (by the UVF)
The same pattern is found in Australia, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden and the United States:
- 621 people have been killed by Islamist terrorists (excluding 9/11)
- 50 people have been killed by right-wing terrorists including 25 in anti-Muslim attacks
Only in Canada (Mosque shooting) and Norway (Breivik) does right-wing fatal terrorism exceed that of Islamists.
In terms of putting the Islamist terrorist threat in perspective, 0.08% of the Catholic and Protestant populations of Northern Ireland were members of their respective paramilitaries at any given time.
If 3,000 Muslims in Britain are being monitored by MI5 as jihadis (estimates range from 2,000 to 23,000), then that would make the participation rate 0.10%, or worse than the Troubles on both an absolute and relative basis, given that the Muslim population is almost double that of Northern Ireland.
End-to-end encryption back door 'a bad idea'
The UK government has placed stress on the dangers posed by enemies and suspects having secure communications, even after extending the legal powers to conduct surveillance.
So when a former GCHQ Director disagrees publicly one should sit up. There is a short BBC radio interview, AM today and is summarised as:
Quote:
The former head of GCHQ has said that cooperation between government agencies and private companies is the best solution "to target the people who are abusing encryption systems."
Robert Hannigan warned that "building back doors" in encryption systems was "a threat to everybody" and suggested that the government and private companies work more closely together to tackle the problem.
Link to podcast (hopefully it can be viewed outside the UK):http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0588hvv
A specialist IT online journal has a longer article; other issues were covered.
Link:https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/0...ption_debate/?
Al-Muhajiroun and the simmering divisions in British society
An excellent overview of this small activist group, that has always maintained it was not violent, just that so many passed through who did turn to violence, by Raffaello Pantucci - on his publishers website:http://www.hurstpublishers.com/al-mu...itish-society/
One passage:
Quote:
But the reality is that they (UK CT) are addressing the same threat that has been managed for the past two decades. Incremental improvements are made in our response, some bad policies are binned, and some are steered off a path to violence, but it is not clear that we are materially eradicating the ideas and groups that are ultimately behind the violence on our streets.
Deaths from Terrorism 1970-2017
There is an article, with graphs on a newspaper website:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/ma...st-attacks-uk/
Via Twitter:https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DFvKkm5XUAEOfWH.jpg
Not sure why state action is labelled 'terrorism'. The author has clarified that 259 deaths due to 'state terrorism' were those killed in the Pan-Am Flight 103, that hit Lockerbie, Scotland December 21st 1988.
Birmingham terror plot: perhaps the most bizarre terror trial I've ever witnessed
After a four month long trial as this BBC report goes into details rarely seen in public and part of the trail was held in secret. Note two defendants were convicted AQ supporters had moved to support Daesh / ISIS. They await sentencing.
Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40716747
Added later, a second detailed report:https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...rrorist-attack
The author tweeted:
Quote:
Inside the secret op that caught the "three musketeers": perhaps the most bizarre terror trial I've ever witnessed.
The report starts with:
Quote:
Four men have been convicted of planning a major terror attack in Birmingham after being caught in an elaborate undercover operation. The trial of Naweed Ali, Khobaib Hussain, Mohibur Rahman and Tahir Aziz at the Old Bailey has been one of the strangest - and most vigorously contested - terrorism cases of the past decade.
A significant feature became public, a police & MI5 "honey trap":
Quote:
Hero Couriers had been in operation for up to four years. It had all the trappings of a real courier firm - vans, a corporate logo and a supposed headquarters in Hilton Hall, a stately home converted to offices, near Wolverhampton.But it was all bogus. The firm had no customers - it did no real deliveries. It existed only in order to watch suspects.
One undercover police officer spent two weeks in the witness box facing numerous allegations by the defence, as indicated in a report months ago:https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...fying-evidence
Added. Sentenced:
Quote:
Ali, Hussain and Rahman - who called themselves the Three Musketeers in group messages - were each sentenced to a minimum of 20 years in prison. All three refused to attend court. They have all previously served prison sentences for terrorism offences.Aziz, who joined the group days before the arrests. was sentenced to a minimum term of 15 years in prison.
Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40810970
Was stand alone until merged into the main UK CT thread.
How ISIS has changed the terrorist threat in the UK: an interview with David Wells
David Wells is a UK-based risk analyst and his background is in Anglo-Australian intelligence analysis. The link is to the transcript of an interview:http://www.bicom.org.uk/blogpost/day...w-david-wells/
He ends with a comment wider than the UK:
Quote:
There have been different waves of threats over the decades that have different defining factors and the international community needs to keep up with the current wave and its next shift. There’s a danger that some governments are still dealing with the wave of 10-15 years ago, where people in the West fitted the model of ‘radicalisation due to the lack of opportunity and education’. Unfortunately, this model (which I’m simplifying here) isn’t necessarily widely applicable today.
The interview is part of a series 'The day after ISIS', by a previously unheard of group Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre or BICOM and their explanation:
Quote:
In this conversation on the future of the Middle East after the Islamic State (IS), we bring together experts to debate the prospects for reconstruction and governance in IS-held territory, the future of the Jihadi movement, how to mitigate against the return of IS fighters, and the future regional security framework. We ask the experts what policymakers need to start thinking and planning after the territorial defeat of the most dangerous terrorist group to date.
Link to the interview series, back to May 2017:http://www.bicom.org.uk/analysis/day...islamic-state/
We are facing 20-30yrs of threat
Last week Jonathan Evans, ex-Mi5 Director General (ret'd in 2013) was interviewed on BBC Radio:
Quote:
Over that period the threat has come and gone but the underlying threat has continued. Since 2013 there have been 19 attempted attacks that have been disrupted and even since the attack at Westminster we are told there have been six disruptions, so this is a permanent state of preparedness.We're at least 20 years into this. My guess is that we will still be dealing with the long tail in over 20 years' time. I think this is genuinely a generational problem. I think we are going to be facing 20 to 30 years of terrorist threat and therefore we need, absolutely critically, to persevere.
Link to article:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40890328 and link to the interview itself:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-poli...at-for-decades
In the radio programme the UK's current senior CT police officer did a Q&A interview:http://news.met.police.uk/blog_posts...errorism-60655
For Caliph and Country: Exploring how British jihadis join a global movement
A short report from The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change and the summary says:
Quote:
For more than 30 years, British jihadis have been fighting under the banner of an extreme Islamist ideology in conflicts from Algeria to the Philippines. For half of that time, the streets of the UK have been seen as a legitimate target. Ideologues made their home in Britain, having been rejected from Muslim-majority countries because the ideas they expounded were considered dangerous. From the UK, they influenced many. In the last five years, the conflict in Syria alone has attracted over 800 British fighters.
Their ideology justifies the use of violent jihad to achieve its aims. Its proponents believe in imposing their interpretation of Islam on others as state law, with no tolerance for alternatives. They believe in brutally punishing apostates and subjugating women. It is Muslims who make up the majority of their victims.
The global jihadi network they are a part of goes back decades. The violence it wreaks is felt all over the world. In the final months of 2016, more than 18,000 lives were lost to jihadi violence or efforts against it. In all, some 58 jihadi groups were involved in at least 2,312 violent incidents in 41 countries.
What connects these disaffected individuals from Beeston to Brighton? How has a global, violent ideology captured the minds of so many British citizens and residents? And what can be done to stop others going down this path?
Overview of the research method:
Quote:
This research is based on the biographies of 113 British men, both citizens and residents, who had engaged in, supported, or abetted violent jihad. Information on each individual was gathered using open-source data. We used a wide range of online and offline sources to collect a comprehensive account of each individual’s background and journey to violent extremism. We examined socio-economic indicators, educational background, and international travel, among other factors, in order to build a picture of an individual’s life before and after their involvement with jihadism. The biographies were later coded according to recurring themes or traits across the sample. This allowed researchers to quantify the data and conduct more detailed analysis.
Link:http://institute.global/sites/defaul...y_04.09.17.pdf
Perhaps one day this will be merged into the radicalization thread.