Countering Terrorism/Extremism: Some Lessons Learned. Sidney Jones Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC)

Transcription

1 Countering Terrorism/Extremism: Some Lessons Learned Sidney Jones Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC) Quad-Plus Dialogue Jaipur, India February 14 16, 2016 Introduction Programs to counter terrorism (CT) or violent extremism generally involve a broad range of programs tailored to the specific needs and contexts of individual countries. There is no one size fits all what works for Denmark may not work for India; what works for Singapore may not work for Indonesia. The response to terrorism may differ according to the likelihood of future political negotiations with the group in question. In countries facing a threat from the Islamic State or ISIS, the range of responses may differ according to whether Muslims are a majority or minority in the population. The U.K. government usefully uses four categories to describe its CT program: pursue (stopping attacks); prevent (stopping recruitment and support for extremist groups); protect (strengthening defenses to guard against possible attacks); and prepare (mitigating the impact of attacks, for example, by ensuring crisis response teams in hospitals). 1 In this paper I will focus on elements of prevention, because it is both the most difficult and the aspect that could most benefit from creative thinking. It is also an aspect of CT in which governments, non-government organizations, and the private sector can all usefully participate. 1 Government of the United Kingdom, 2010 to 2015 Government Policy: Counter-Terrorism, updated May 8, 2015, (accessed July 25, 2016). 1

2 Prevention in turn can be divided into two main categories, deradicalisation/disengagement and counter-radicalisation. The first targets individuals who have already joined extremist organisations and aims to pull them out. Deradicalisation refers to efforts to change ideologies; the perceived solutions include but are not limited to religious counseling; preparation of alternative interpretations of religious texts; and encouraging debates with respected scholars. Disengagement, a term brought into the debate by political psychologist John Horgan, shifts the focus to a change in behavior. According to disengagement theorists, it does not matter whether extremists change their ideology as long as they move away from violence. Most deradicalisation/disengagement initiatives are focused on detained or newly released terrorists and their families. Counter-radicalisation casts the net much further, aiming not at pulling people out of extremist groups but at preventing individuals and communities from being radicalized in the first place. There is no silver bullet for either, although some useful lessons have been learned and shared across countries. A critical element of any CT program is good research to understand why, where, and how radicalisation occurs. In some cases, programs have been based on assumptions that could have easily been shown to be mistaken. One vocational training program for exprisoners, for example, assumed that the men concerned were unemployed, when in fact many had jobs, and then trained them in skills for which there was no local demand. Others are based on information that may have been accurate when the program began but became outdated as the problem evolved: a community radio program aimed at students in one country s Islamic boarding schools became less relevant after extremists focused their recruiting on state schools. A frequent premise is that poverty is a driver of radicalisation. It may be true in some areas at some times (e.g., the shanty towns of Algeria in the 1990s), but untrue in many others (Indonesia and Malaysia at present). These assumptions can be tested before they are made the basis for a program. Any evaluation of CT programs also needs to start with some idea of the criteria for success. For deradicalisation/disengagement programs aimed at terrorism offenders, success is generally seen as convincing them to abandon violence, but the causal factors are often difficult to determine. If a prisoner who received intensive religious counselling in prison does not go back to violence within five years of his or her release, does it mean the counselling worked, or that he was watched so closely that he had no opportunity, or that he decided on his own that the personal costs were too high? If university students try to develop a crowd-sourced anti-isis messaging program on social media, is success measured by the number of people who join or by a decline in hits on extremist sites in particular target areas? Many programs could benefit from independent, impartial evaluations, but because CT is such a sensitive area, many escape serious scrutiny. It is important to realise that many people move away from terrorism of their own accord because the costs outweigh the benefits or because they have fallen out with leaders or because 2

3 the local context has changed. 2 The Egyptian group Gemaah Islamiyah moved away from terror on its own after the massacre of tourists in Luxor in 1997 because of outrage on the part of people it was allegedly fighting for. When a local conflict in eastern Indonesia was resolved through a peace process, the main reason for joining extremist groups was gone. It is difficult to determine which interventions, if any, have an impact, but one that has frequently been cited by terrorist inmates is perhaps the simplest: sustained attention from a single caring official during and after detention. Particularly for those who joined extremist groups to find almost a substitute for family bonds, such attention can be critical. With these factors in mind, then, we can look at various kinds of programs to see why some seem to have worked while others have not. Prison-Based Programs Prison programs are important because the target group consists of known members of extremist organizations and their numbers are generally manageable: If they can be rehabilitated while detained, they may be able to play a role in discouraging recruitment once freed. At the very least, they will not be taking part in terrorist activities themselves, thinning the ranks of potential leaders. While in many prisons, including Guantanamo, suspects have been wrongfully detained, the best CT programs are implemented in countries where individuals have been convicted in open trials or a reasonably strong and impartial justice system prevails, and there is little question of their involvement. In all countries with active extremist organisations, however, prison management can be critical. Inhumane conditions and abusive treatment can turn prisons into virtual factories for producing terrorists, especially from political detainees the transformation of some Muslim Brotherhood prisoners in Egypt to Islamic Jihad founders is one example. It is hard to see religious counselling having any chance of success when torture and ill-treatment are rife. On the other hand, terrorists can also exploit lax supervision and corruption to build networks inside prison and communication with the outside; Indonesia s terrorism thrives on poor control. Programs aimed at changing prisoners views or behavior will have a limited chance of success if the prison environment is not carefully managed. Segregation or Integration. An issue every government has to face is whether to isolate convicted terrorists from other prisoners or allow them to mix with other prisoners. Britain s experience with the Irish Republican Army suggests that keeping everyone together helps to preserve the organizational hierarchy and reinforce radicalism, not just among the prisoners but their families as well. According to Ian Cuthbertson, 2 Audrey Kurth Cronin, How Terrorism Ends (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009). 3

4 It was only when the authorities decided that terrorists were to be treated according to the criminal acts they committed, rather than according to the ideological beliefs that had inspired them, that the use of prisons as terrorist universities began to be curtailed. 3 Indonesia has gone to the other extreme, dispersing some 220 convicted terrorists among 46 different prisons, but without the ability to effectively monitor visitors, control the use of smartphones and communications with the outside, or monitor the many small religious discussion groups conducted by inmates themselves. While they have tried to keep the hard-core ideologues in separate blocs in a handful of maximum security prisons, there is still enough interaction to make recruitment of ordinary criminals an ongoing concern. The ideal is probably a mix of isolating known leaders or those involved in deadly violence, while allowing those responsible for less serious crimes (providing refuge, withholding information) to mix with other criminals. The problem is that the gravity of the crime is not necessarily a guide to behavior in prison. Some of those responsible for the greatest loss of lives end up showing remorse and being useful citizens; some of the followers that no one paid attention to find radical mentors in prison and end up as hard core. Only a highly trained prison staff can monitor changing alliances and behavioral patterns among inmates to try and prevent new extremist constellations emerging and most are not paid well enough to bother. Religious Counselling Programs. Many countries dealing with violent extremists who follow the ideology known as salafi jihadism have opted for intensive religious counselling programs, to try and persuade suspected terrorists that the fundamental tenets of their belief system are misguided. Such counselling works best when the target inmate does not have a particularly deep grasp of religion. Singapore s Religious Rehabilitation Group (RRG) has won plaudits for its work, taking many of the fundamental salafi jihadi concepts and then getting experienced religious scholars who are also trained in counselling to inculcate alternative interpretations. Many of the most glowing accounts of the program come from people who have been deeply involved in its development, and it would be useful to have an independent evaluation. The program has unquestionably been well thought through and honed and adjusted over time. But the causal question arises again: have the RRG s alumni eschewed radical activities because of the counselling or because they are so closely watched that they would have no opportunity to resume old ties or because their old networks have been smashed by the state? 4 The prisons are also so carefully controlled that the chances of major counter-influences to the governmentapproved ulama are low. 3 Ian M. Cuthbertson, Prisons and the Education of Terrorists, World Policy Journal (Fall 2004), p For an uncritical view of the program, see Rohan Gunaratna and M. F. B. Mohamed Hassan, Terrorist Rehabilitation: Singapore, in Tore Bjorgo and John Horgan, eds, Leaving Terrorism Behind (New York: Routledge, 2009). 4

5 In many other countries, government has tried to bring in counsellors who are believed to have legitimacy with hard-line groups. Indonesia has tried bringing in scholar-clerics from the Middle East who were once firmly committed jihadists but then changed their views. They are taken to prisons where some of the hard core are detained and then encouraged to draw the inmates into a debate. The general assessment from prison officials has been that while the prisoners enjoy the opportunity to argue, there is no evidence of any change in views. Many other governments, such as Saudi Arabia, incorporate religious counselling as part of broader programs, involving economic incentives and even match-making; the amount of resources the Saudi government devotes to the program makes it beyond the reach of most other countries to seriously adopt as a model. Family Assistance. Virtually all prison-based programs come to the conclusion that families matter, and that spouses and parents can be important buffers against individuals turning back to terrorism. Singapore, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, and many other governments offer economic assistance to families, with particular attention to school fees for children. In Indonesia the attention has been more ad hoc but in some cases useful. Showing kindness to families in itself can be important, but it works only under particular circumstances: where there is no competition from extremist charities; where the families have not been particularly radicalized; and where provision of assistance does not engender local resentment from others that involvement in violence results in government largesse. One inmate in Indonesia said that before assigning a newly convicted individual to a particular prison, authorities should assess the degree of the family s radicalisation. If the family supported the prisoner s activities, he should be detained as far as way as possible from them so they did not reinforce his stance. If they did not support extremism, then the prisoner should be detained as close as possible so they could exert a benign influence. In Indonesia and elsewhere, some assumptions about the positive influence of families have been turned on their head by the ISIS phenomenon, where wives have been the main driver of attempts to leave for Syria to join the new caliphate. Post-Release Monitoring and Assistance. The recidivism rate among released terrorism offenders is about 10 percent across the globe Malaysia claims only 5 percent some countries are higher. Post-release monitoring and assistance can be effective, but it also requires resources that many countries simply do not have. A senior member of Belgium s counter-terror police explained it this way: I think there s been a lot of unfair criticism of French security services with regard to the Paris attacks [referring to the Charlie Hebdo attacks of 7 January 2015]. Even though the attackers were on the radar screen you cannot put more than a very limited number of people under 24/7 surveillance. To tail just a few suspects you need agents in several cars. And you re talking about three different shifts through the day. You also need teams 5

6 back in the operational center to coordinate wiretaps and file paperwork. All this amounts to hundreds of people being assigned to just one operation. Very quickly the expense becomes prohibitive. 5 How long can monitoring be kept up and at what point does one declare a former prisoner completely reintegrated? In Indonesia there are cases where former prisoners have lived quietly for years, only to be reactivated five or even almost ten years after their release. One individual arrested in December 2015 had been imprisoned from 2003 to By all accounts he was a model citizen after his release. But when his former teacher and commander decided to form a new pro-isis group and asked him to join, he could not refuse. Many donor-funded prison programs have failed because they have involved efforts to impose a model of prison reform or management of terrorist prisoners developed in different countries for different contexts. Without local ownership, the programs can quickly become resented or ignored. Counter-Radicalisation Counter-radicalisation involves immunizing vulnerable communities against recruitment or outreach efforts by extremist groups. It can be targeted at schools, youth groups, or specific communities, but it often involves trying to counter the influence of specific clerics and social media. It is a much harder proposition than deradicalisation because it involves trying to identify the vectors through which extremism is transmitted without knowing exactly who the consumers are. It is also an area where local civil society organizations may be more effective than government. Social Media. Finding an effective response to extremist propaganda disseminated over social media has become the holy grail of counter-radicalisation efforts, and while some interesting projects are underway, no one has found a real solution. ISIS in particular has used social media very strategically, turning every supporter with a Twitter or Facebook account into a potential propagandist. 6 Google and Facebook are now trying to help stem the tide by closing down accounts that promote violence, but many ISIS supporters turn this into a game, opening suspended accounts under slightly different names, with newly re-established accounts sending out the message I m back! and requests that readers shout out the new name. Some accounts have been reestablished dozens of times with a single different digit or letter in each new name. The 5 Paul Cruickshank, A View from the CT Foxhole: An Interview with Alain Grignard, Brussels Federal Police, CTC Sentinel, August 21, This phenomenon is well-documented in Charlie Winter, The Virtual Caliphate : Understanding Islamic State s Propaganda Strategy, Quilliam Foundation, 2015, and YannickVeilleux-Lepage, Paradigmatic Shifts in Jihadism in Cyberspace: The Emerging Role of Unaffiliated Sympathizers in the Islamic State s Social Media Strategy, draft paper for the European Consortium for Political Research General Conference, August 26 29, 2015, (accessed July 25, 2016). 6

7 challenge is not so much to close down radical sites although systematic monitoring of them is crucial as to counter their appeal. 7 There are two parts to social media programs: getting the content right and ensuring massive dissemination to the same consumers attracted by ISIS outreach. Refuting extremist arguments online for example, challenging the basis of the caliphate or the concept of takfir (a kind of excommunication from Islam) may have limited impact unless the author is someone with wide credibility in extremist circles. Some forms of mockery may have a wider chance of being retweeted, and that, of course, is the aim to start a process that will go viral and continue on its own. But the people best able to come up with ideas may be those from the same age group most vulnerable to extremist propaganda the 15- to 25-year-olds who live and breathe texting and tweeting. Facebook has been holding workshops in different countries to encourage ideas and provide technical input as needed. The U.S. has started a promising program called Peer2Peer, essentially a competition among university computer teams to come up with creative ideas to counter ISIS messaging with a $5,000 prize awaiting the winner. Similar kinds of competitions could be tried in universities, including state Islamic institutes, in Muslim-majority countries. One of the most effective non-government initiatives has been undertaken by the independent hacking group, Anonymous. Anyone who sees an extremist website can report it to Anonymous and if its staff decide the complaint has merit, they hack it and sometimes hack the accounts of visitors at the same time (as I learned the hard way). Private commercial companies are also experimenting with developing new mobile phone apps that will appeal to young texters but provide alternative messaging at the same time. These seem to be more constructive than a recent Indonesian police initiative to develop a video game that encourages the gamers to shoot terrorists dead. 8 Encouraging more violence may not be the best way to go. High Schools. Many government CT programs have targeted high school students for programs and lectures, again because of the vulnerability of the age groups. Many of these are dry, uninspiring lectures by community religious leaders or reformed terrorists. More compelling are the voices of victims, people whose lives have been destroyed by indiscriminate bombings or shootings. For trying to counter jihadi extremism, the voices of Muslim victims are particularly important. Parents of young terrorists, shocked and shamed by their children s activities, can also 7 The United Kingdom 2013 annual report on CT notes: We have also continued to fund a specialist police unit that assesses internet content against the criteria set out in our terrorism legislation and collaborates with industry to remove illegal content from the internet if it is hosted in this country. Over 4,000 URLs which breach UK terrorism legislation have been taken down by the unit since it was established in See CONTEST: The United Kingdom s Strategy for Countering Terrorism, March Jakarta Attacks Smartphone Game Tumpas Teroris Lets Children Show They Are Not Afraid of Terrorists, ABC News (Australia), January 30, 2016, (accessed July 25, 2016). 7

8 be compelling, especially in societies where respect for elders is ingrained in the culture. Professionally-produced videos or multi-media presentations in some cases may work better than lectures alone, although it is useful for students to have a chance to interact directly with victims and in some cases, reformed terrorists. The latter are a tricky group to manage, however, because the message they deliver may sometimes be that violence may be counterproductive for the moment, but not illegitimate, and they may inadvertently impart the sense of adventure that led them to get involved in the first place. Where particular schools become the locus of recruitment, school heads need to have tools at their disposal for trying to reduce extremist influence. One community leader in Indonesia, who had studied recruitment in high school Islamic study clubs, suggested that the schools agree to change the faculty adviser every three months, just to ensure that no individual had prolonged influence over the students. It was a simple intervention that involved no blame or suspicion, but after initial enthusiasm, the project seems to have died for lack of follow-up. Call Centers, Family Support Groups, and Embassy Hotlines. The French government has been experimenting for several months with a hotline for reporting any unusual changes in behavior or activity that might be reasonably suspected to be linked to terrorism. The idea is a good one but the costs of checking each potential lead are enormous. There is also the danger of encouraging the equivalent of neighborhood watch committees. But citizens do need to know where to go and who to call to report concerns. It is essential part of any public information campaign. Students studying overseas also need to be encouraged to report, anonymously if necessary, recruitment efforts or friends who may be considering leaving to join extremist organizations. The latter should not be treated like potential criminals but rather as young people in need of guidance. Students need to be informed, regularly and repeatedly, of whom to contact. At al- Azhar University in Egypt, where some 5,000 Indonesians are studying at any one time, a popular education attaché seemed to be known to most of the students, but in Turkey, a much smaller group of students had no idea what to do when two of their number made preparations to leave for Syria. One has since been killed there. Support groups of families whose relatives, especially children, have left to join ISIS can be an effective partner of government, even if sometimes the initial relationship is antagonistic because they believe their initial concerns were not properly addressed. Such groups exist in the U.K. and Canada; the U.K. group is actively encouraged by the government s counter-terrorism program. By contrast, when the 16-year-old son of a woman we know in Jakarta left without warning, she had no idea how to get in touch with parents of others who had experienced the same shock and anxiety and were also desperate for information. The Canadian mother who lost her son has become a global campaigner against ISIS and has helped other parents understand what danger signs to look for. 8

9 Understanding the Role of Women. While governments have long understood the importance of families in helping terrorism offenders disengage from their old networks, there is still little attention to the role of women as targets of extremist propaganda and as motivator of families to join extremist groups particularly to leave for Syria to join ISIS. The media, from Australia to France, have carried stories of young women being attracted to leave, either to marry mujahidin or to play any role they can in the struggle: as teachers, propagandists, and even shari a police. Thus far we have not seen ISIS women in combat roles or as suicide bombers, but that could come. A small extremist cell has even emerged among Indonesian domestic workers in Hong Kong, where one gathering of devout maids turned into an ISIS support group and it could happen elsewhere. They have offered logistic services and transit accommodations to would-be mujahidin trying to get to Syria, and have funded jihadi operations at home. They communicate with one another over Telegram, the encrypted messaging app, and have sometimes married men already fighting in Syria via smartphone. This means that in preparing CT programs, governments need to involve women and think of women not just as passive supporters of their husbands but as active recruiters and recruits. Reaching Into Minority Communities. Countries trying to cope with recruitment in minority communities face particular problems, and as Australia and the U.K. have found in trying to reach out to Muslim communities, building trust with community leaders is essential if there is to be any exchange of information about potential problems. Minority communities have to be aware of and have some ownership of CT strategy; it also helps if minorities are well-represented in the police. Preparing for the Return of Foreign Fighters. Governments around the world are coming to grips with the fact that many of their nationals now fighting in Syria and Iraq will return when the political dynamics eventually change; the conflict will not go on forever. They need to know who those returnees are and be able to distinguish between the potential problems and those who will just be glad to be home. A high percentage will be women and children, and particular attention will need to be paid to the children who may have been mobilized into youth groups or actually taken part in violence. Again, research will be key to understand who the individuals are, what they did with ISIS, and what their networks are at home. Only then can appropriate reintegration strategies be developed, probably in conjunction with local civil society groups. Some countries are facing a preview of this problem with deportees families who left to join ISIS but were turned back at the Turkish border without ever having set foot in Syria. The numbers are relatively small, but if effective reintegration programs can be developed for them, there might be a model for the foreign fighters later. Conclusion 9

10 The biggest weakness of most deradicalisation and counter-radicalisation programs is that they have not emerged from a thorough study of where and how radicalisation takes place. Research is not a guarantee that a program will be successful, but programs that are not based on concrete data are almost guaranteed to fail. There is no substitute for interviews and analysis of biographical data of known members of terrorist organisations, and that usually involves prisoners. Prevention programs are only part of a wider strategy to deal with homegrown and imported extremism that involve a strong legal framework and the ability of security forces to deal with immediate threats. Generally however, the use of hard power in countering active violence is easier than trying to prevent an unpredictable, amorphous, and evolving threat through soft power tactics. Every country has learned to its cost, however, that hard power is not enough. 10