Archive for the ‘Islamist’ Category
The First Violent Crisis of Globalization has Ended – the Next One is Emerging
The first crisis of globalization
Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has referred to the financial crisis of 2008 as the ‘first crisis of globalization’. This is a great descriptive applied to the wrong problem. Al-Qaeda was the first crisis of modern globalization. Financial crashes have previously infected inter-connected markets, but never before has a non-state group been able to set the global security agenda. Al-Qaeda and Bin Laden were able to do this by applying a mixture of medieval religious ideology and guerilla warfare to the dominant tools of globalization. Al-Qaeda seemingly understood the strengths, weakness and opportunities of globalization and exploited them for increasingly empty violent aims. The use of adaptive financial tools in the form of hawala banking, co-opting the apparatus of failed states and most spectacularly both weaponizing and de-stabilizing one of the primary drivers of globalization, in the form of civil aviation, allowed al-Qaeda to strike internationally. Al-Qaeda also virtualized itself and quickly moved into the new media space opened up by the explosion of the Internet but this also exposed its weakness as the Arab Spring has bloomed. Information wants to be free and al-Qaeda is poisoned by freedom. Al-Qaeda has been described as innovative and it certainly was the first movement out of the gate to exploit the conditions the world moved toward following the end of the Cold War. However, this particular crisis should now be regarded as closed. The United States and its western allies have formed effective tools to respond to threats such as al-Qaeda. Building new military systems and emphasizing technology, information use, surveillance systems and Special Forces have proven to be an effective doctrinal response — and are also appropriately what finally put an end to al-Qaeda’s leader. Read the rest of this entry »
ISC report into 7/7 and Information Clouds
The Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) in the UK was established by Parliament as part of the 1994 Intelligence Services Act to examine the work of the intelligence and security agencies in the UK.
The ISC was asked to review information, which emerged following the CREVICE trial in April 2007 that Mohammed Siddique KHAN and Shazad TANWEER (two of the four 7/7 bombers) had come to the attention of MI5 during the CREVICE operation. The question bluntly asked was, “If MI5 had come across Mohammed Siddique KHAN and Shazad TANWEER before, why didn’t they prevent this outrage?” Read the rest of this entry »
Mumbai, Technology and Information War
Terrorist attackers against Mumbai are reported to have used GPS, Blackberries and Google Earth during various phases of their operation. The fact that this does not seem remarkable is a comment on how rapid technological change as become. On the flip side this incident also saw an explosion of user-created content covering the attacks including:
- Twitter – the real-time element of this service gives it a significant advantage in covering ongoing incidents. Link
- Flickr – photographs of the incident by Vinukumar Ranganathan have attracted hundreds of visitors. Link
- Google Docs- User created spreadsheet of casualties. Link
- Google Maps – User created incident map. Link
- Wikipedia – Quickly had a 4,000 word description of the attack that was constantly being corrected and revised. Link
- Human search engine Mahalo.com – Extensive user generated content on the attacks. Link
- Citizen Media aggregator Now Public – also has an extensive amount of coverage. Link
It isn’t possible to look at the explosion of content relating to the attacks without concluding that the proliferation of information and the tools to produce it in a variety of ways, almost certainly aid terrorists and amplify the effect of their attacks.
On a tactical note the same tools that allow someone thousands of miles away to monitor the situation on the ground also allow the attackers to get a clearer picture of what government forces may be planning. Initial reports have claimed the terrorists in the Taj hotel did use their blackberries for this purpose. Along those lines the BBC carried a report regarding Indian government attempts to switch-off Twitter – this remains unconfirmed.
Finally, it also leads to the conclusion that next-gen attacks will seek to control the information or dis-information flow as part of the attack process. The central lesson here seems to be don’t believe everything you read online!
Europe’s most dangerous terrorist released to house arrest
It isn’t every morning that you wake up and read in the newspaper that one of the worlds most dangerous terrorists has been released on bail but that is exactly what happened today when the New York Times reported on the release of Abu Doha (aka Amar Makhlouf, aka the Doctor, aka Rachid) from custody in the UK. For those that aren’t familiar with Abu Doha it is worth re-stating the threat he posed to American and western interests during the late 1990s and period prior to 9/11. He is widely known to have been a senior leader within the GSPC and a founder member of one of al-Qaeda’s training camps in Afghanistan subsequently becoming one, if not the most senior member of al-Qaeda operating in Europe. Prior to his arrest in February 2001 by a Special Branch officer, while he was attempting to flee to Saudi Arabia during operation ODIN he was responsible for: plotting an attempted attack on Los Angeles airport, a plot to bomb the US embassy in Rome, an attempt to bomb unspecified targets in Strasbourg as well as having a hand in organizing al-Qaeda cells for operations against United States targets within Germany. This is on top of the large number of recruits he managed to bring into the movement.
One of the more bizarre parts of this case is the fact that the British press is constrained from reporting who exactly this man is and have to refer to him as ‘U’ – no such restrictions applied to the New York Times – although the UK’s Ministry of Justice did feel able to provide the exact address of his house arrest to British journalists! (See report in the UK Guardian).
The legal problems which, have led to his release to the south-east of England stem from the collapse of the extradition case the United States was pursuing against him based on evidence provided by Ahmed Rassem (the LAX plotter). Rassem had provided full details on Doha’s involvement in pulling him from a camp in Afghanistan and sending him to Canada in order to attack LAX. However, sometime in 2003 Rassem stopped co-operating with US authorities and by the time of his trial in 2005 had ‘forgotten’ all the details he had previously supplied regarding Doha’s involvement. By then the plots Doha had been linked to in Germany and France had been through judicial procedure and these countries could no longer extradite him for involvement in those crimes. This has left the UK trying to pursue its own case against him. And herein lies the problem. For all the misplaced grandstanding of the current British government regarding 42-day pre-detention times the UK has not developed a robust counter-terrorist legal response. The latest changes in legislation do allow for the use of surveillance and wiretap evidence under some circumstances but these are so constrained as to make them practically unworkable (review of changes provided here by BBC). This makes the UK one of the weaker legal jurisdictions with regard to counter-terrorism at the same time that it faces possibly the greatest threat – it is not an accident that Abu Doha decided to base himself in the UK.
The UK is now only left with the option of continuing to attempt to extradite Abu Doha to Algeria. This doesn’t too look hopeful given the UK and EU legal requirements that individuals cannot be extradited to countries where they may face torture. There does therefore, exist the very real possibility that one of the most accomplished and dangerous terrorists to emerge from the original al-Qaeda organization may walk free. It is a testament to Doha’s quality as a terrorist that his true identity remains unknown and he is on the verge of walking away from captivity.
The ability to use accepted legal means to detain terrorists of the caliber of Abu Doha is a significant measure of a countries counter-terrorist capability — in this the UK continues to be found wanting. The contrast with the United States policy couldn’t be starker, with al-Qaeda leaders around the world finding 500lb bombs dropped on their heads rather than house arrest that includes, ‘time in the garden only between 9am and 8pm’. Neither, of these courses is sustainable. Real legal and administrative innovation is still needed on both sides of the Atlantic which, recognizes the need for a legitimate legal process as a key element of a counter-terror policy as well as providing an effective tool for detaining the world’s most dangerous individuals.
(There are numerous articles regarding Abu Doha available across the Internet, which makes the UK’s ruling that the press can only refer to him as ‘U’ seem misguided. Previous rulings regarding Abu Doha from the Special Immigration Appeals Commission can be found here).
