Foreign Fighters: preventative action (UK mainly)

[davidbfpo]

As the UK debates what next, with some frankly bizarre proposals, an academic who has watched has a column:http://www.theguardian.com/commentis...sation-britons

Instead, government focus needs to be upon enabling the messy, unpredictable and contingent “dirty work” of local counter-terrorism on the ground, and learning the lessons about what works and what doesn’t from recent experience. This reflects what we know from a growing body of research about the radicalisation process....In sum, what the more successful police forces had worked out was that soft power was more effective in solving problems than an over-reliance on the hard power of coercive law enforcement. It is this understanding that should be developed.

[davidbfpo]

Alyas Karmani, a British Muslim based in Bradford, Yorkshire has long been involved in counter-radicalisation and was interviewed in The Independent on Sunday. He starts with:

What the recent events in Syria show is the abject failure of a counter-messaging and counter-narrative strategy – it just isn't there. We've been talking about this de-radicalisation strategy for many years and yet there's nothing in place.

(Later) Prevent is a tainted brand and a failed strategy; you can't keep on giving life to something which is fundamentally broken. It is disproportionate in that is focuses on Muslim extremism. Prevent is defunct now as far as I'm concerned. It has no credibility whatsoever.

Prevent being part of the UK national CT strategy.

Link:http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...m-9687897.html

[davidbfpo]

A short article by Professor Andrew Silke, whilst it may apply beyond the UK his focus and examples are British:

A rather sharp passage:

We have to be realistic about how effective it is going to be. There has never been an equivalent programme, for example, for the IRA or other paramilitary groups. And part of the reason is people don’t think it will work for the IRA. But they think it may work on Jihadis because there has been some success in countries like Saudi Arabia.

This week both David Cameron and Ed Miliband have referred to extending counter-radicalisation schemes - with mandatory participation = so this comment is noteworthy:

But one of the key issues of these programmes is they are voluntary. You can’t force people to do it and one third of prisoners referred to the Healthy Identities Programme have refused to take part

[davidbfpo]

I missed this report's publication in July 2014 by an unconventional advocacy group, once known as Caged Prisoners,, now simply Cage:http://cageuk.org/publication/blowba...reat-they-pose

It is a measure of how this group has moved that a press release this week stated:

Returning fighters from Syria should be allowed to return to the UK and be granted an amnesty. However, where police have found clear evidence of war crimes, then those crimes should be prosecuted accordingly.

Link:http://cageuk.org/article/british-fo...rs-way-forward

[davidbfpo]

A twelve minute long Sky News Special which has some new material, notably an ex-jihadist's explanation of what is involved and the role of gangs, social media and the need to do something:http://news.sky.com/story/1336298/br...s-uk-extremism

[davidbfpo]

James Brandon, a British observer of the CT scene has this long column on WoTR, which is rather surprising given his past affiliations to UK "think tanks" who sought a change in the direction of 'Prevent', not that is was a failed strategy:http://warontherocks.com/2014/09/uk-...iled-what-now/

Significantly, the causes of Prevent’s failure share much in common with other Western attempts to strengthen liberal and democratic Muslim forces in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and elsewhere over the past decade. These include: Choosing the wrong partners, Islamist subversion of new organizations and highly effective Islamist counter-campaigning.