UK Counter-Terrorism (merged thread)

[davidbfpo]

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.

[davidbfpo]

Two weeks ago, on the 5th June 2017, Professor Bruce Hoffman wrote this two page article 'Can Britain Stop Terrorists While Defending Civil Liberties?' and it is worth a read.
Link:http://nationalinterest.org/feature/...berties-21012?

His views are undoubtedly influenced by the Westminster Bridge attack (March 22nd: using a van & knives), the Manchester Arena bombing (May 22nd) and the London Bridge attack (using a van & knives).

Now we have seen the Finsbury Park attack (North London) by a white man in a van who sought to kill Muslims and killed one.

A couple of key points:

ISIS has thus proven remarkably adept at harnessing the full potential of contemporary communications to motivate, inspire and ultimately animate its minions to action.

(As) a Wall Street Journal editorial warned today, “Do more to contain this internal Islamist insurgency now, or risk a political backlash that will result in even more draconian limits on civil liberties.”

Until recently the official figure for aspiring, suspected who posed a threat was three thousand (a remarkably stable figure for years) and now there twenty thousand others who are of "interest".

For those who wish to delve deeper into how many expressed support for terrorism in opinion polling, in 2015, there are two opinion polls. One for a C4 documentary:http://www.channel4.com/info/press/n...s-really-think

The second, with a bigger sample, was by Policy Exchange. Note it found more non-Muslims supported violence than Muslims:https://policyexchange.org.uk/wp-con...ties_FINAL.pdf

It is too early to comment on the Finsbury Park attacker, whose identity remains private and a criminal trial restrains the UK media. Was the van driver a "loner".

It is puzzling to me that the "call to arms" from ISIS resonates far more effectively than the repeated calls to action by AQ. A Londoner friend familiar with the North London scene a few years ago argues that the big change is that low-level criminals are drifting into terrorism.



As ISIS appears to be defeated in terms of territory and governance, with very few going to few going there now; are those left behind the frustrated "wannabe" fighters?

What has recently happened has exposed far more than scale and resources. What do we as a nation, let alone the CT agencies and police, do with those who may pose a threat, but there is either no evidence or a lack of intelligence that would justify targeting and investigation?


The standard Home Office approach of tackling encryption etc has no relevance IMHO to what we face today from the angry becoming a threat rapidly.


Resilience is familiar to US LE, but I do ask is policing in London and several other English cities going to become 'security' dominated, whether from guarding or active investigations?

[davidbfpo]

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:

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

[Azor]

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.

[davidbfpo]

Today the UK government has announced a review of CT strategy and part of its messaging has been a Tweet, this says:

Counter-terrorism strategy will be reviewed and a new commission will work to stamp out extremist ideology in all its forms

Accompanied by this image:

There has been criticism:https://www.theguardian.com/politics...sm-commission?

Armed policing has a very small part in the UK CT response; what happened to 'British values' and countering the arrative of our enemies - who want to portray our response like this?

[davidbfpo]

After recent attacks several voices have suggested the use of internment (detention with trial); in part citing the volume of suspects (3-23k), the lack of resources and evidence for criminal proceedings.

This article 'Scrapping human rights is as great a threat to democracy as terrorism' reviews the history - mainly its use in Northern Ireland (1971-1975, it had been used in an earlier campaign by the Irish Republic) - and wider political implications.
Link:https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/jul...ism-democracy?

I am a pessimist that politicians will use internment, probably under a supposedly more subtle title, if there is a series of successful attacks with high casualties - to be "seen to do something" and avoid a public backlash.

[davidbfpo]

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:

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/?