High Value Target HVT / Political Assassination

[davidbfpo]

Mike,

You asked:

What is the UK view of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ) ?

I have looked at the website before and to a non-media person it appears to be well funded, with a private trust's donation, based at a London university, with a mix of student and professional journalists - the later from mainstream outlets. Their aim appears to be to provide stories to the media. The subject matter varies and rarely - thankfully - appears to be PR-led.

London is awash with establishments where journalists and others mix, just like Washington DC.

[davidbfpo]

Anne Speckhard is a psychiatrist who has looked at women suicide bombers in the past and has written this short commentary for RUSI. From a comment on Amazon.com of her book, a very swift bio:

She has interviewed over 350 terrorists, extremists, their supporters, hostages, family members and their close associates in Lebanon, Palestine, Israel, Iraq, Russia, Belarus, North Ossetia, Morocco, Belgium, UK, the Netherlands and France. She was responsible for the design of the psychological and Islamic challenge portions of the US Department of Defense Detainee Rehabilitation Program in 2006-7 for use with the 20,000+ security detainees held by US forces in Iraq.

She opens with:

In the last two-years, international counter-terrorism strategies have focused on decapitating terrorist leaderships. But the threat and the ideology remains. In the coming year it is important to address the psychological motivations for conducting terrorist acts.

Link:http://www.rusi.org/analysis/comment.../#.UQu8MR26eSo

There is a link to her book 'Talking to Terrorists: Understanding the Psycho-Social Motivations of Militant Jihadi Terrorists, Mass Hostage Takers, Suicide Bombers & Martyrs' too:http://www.amazon.com/product-review...owViewpoints=1

Another time a full, proper read; so straight to her conclusion:

Continued vigilance is called for and well thought out and well-informed policies that keep in mind all four levels of the terrorist cocktail - decreasing the political grievances that fuel the existence of groups as well as shutting them down, fighting the ideology of terrorism and social support for it and addressing individual vulnerabilities are going to be ever more important to keep us safe in the coming year. Simply decapitating the leadership is not likely to be enough.