Ebook: Capacity Building in the Fight Against Terrorism

NATO has committed to the mission of counterterrorism as a central role of the alliance. However, this is a fight that will require the maximum cooperation of all NATO members and partners. To this and other ends, we need to share expertise among ourselves. The NATO Science for Peace and Security Programme supports the work of the NATO centers of excellence in reaching out to our partner nations in order to further this goal.

This book presents the proceedings of the NATO Centre of Excellence – Defence against Terrorism (COE-DAT) Advanced Training Course entitled “Capacity Building in the Fight against Terrorism,” held in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, from 11-15 June 2012. During these sessions of the course, presentations were by 11 expert speakers – practitioners and academics – from 8 countries to members of the Kyrgyz police and military forces as follows.

The first article, “Terrorism Overview,” is by Yonah Alexander of the Potomac Institute. Here Professor Alexander sets the tone for the course and this book by describing first the history of terrorism. It is not a recent phenomenon but one that has been with us through the ages. He then goes on to talk about the various root causes for terrorism. Last he addresses the definitional problem in counterterrorism that sometimes prevents us from addressing the issue in a clear and consistent manner.

“NATO's Approach to Defense against Terrorism” by Josef Greipl of the COE-DAT staff is the second article. Starting with an outline of NATO policy towards combating terrorism, he then shows how this integrates with other concepts. From there he discusses what this means in terms of measures taken and plans for the future.

Anna-Maria Talihärm of Tartu University wrote the third article on “Terrorism and Human Rights,” where she discusses human rights treaties in the context of counterterrorism. In particular, she highlights two examples to illustrate the challenge and paying the highest possible attention to human rights while battling terrorism. Both cases underline the fact that the enforcement of the sanctions adopted to target the designated individuals and entities must be in accordance with the international human rights law and any derogations from the law must be proportional, non-discriminatory and not contravening other norms of international law.

The fourth article by Ercan Çitlioğlu of Bahçeşehir University is on “Terrorism Prejudice Perception Management.” The central premise of his article is that prejudices can lead to generalizations that can lead to negative behavioral changes. In essence, by maintain prejudices, we can create the root cause of terrorism, so if we want to eradicate terrorism, we should start to eradicate these prejudices.

“Terrorist Use of the Internet” is the title of the fifth article by Francesca Bosco of the U.N. Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI). In this article, she discusses how terrorists use the Internet for a number of purposes: to conduct attacks, to publicize themselves and their activities, to terrorize, to organize and to recruit. The inherent nature of the Internet makes it very suitable for terrorist use and presents a number of problems for counterterrorist forces to prevent that use.

Next Şaban Ali Düzgün of Ankara University's School of Divinity provides us with his thoughts on “Religion and the Question of Violence.” In this comprehensive article, he analyzes the role of scripture as a justification for violence. Conflicts result from interpretive contexts that are geohistorically, geoculturally and geopolitically different from one another. He describes how out-of-context quotations can easily distort the very meaning of the text, thus transforming it into a source of uproar and chaos rather than peace and serenity. Considering this historical experience, this article draws a difference between the scripture and historical phenomena it has created in order to criticize the essentialist approach that identifies the scripture with its members.

The seventh article on “International Cooperation and Counterterrorism” is by Patrick Tyrrell of Vale Atlantic Associates. Here he discusses the way that international organizations, regional organizations (such as NATO), and national organizations can cooperate against the threat of terrorism. After defining a ‘threat’ as consisting of three key elements of motive, plus capability and opportunity, he discusses how these elements can be approached in a cooperative approach to counterterrorism.

“Recruitment of Terrorists” by Noemie Bouhana of University College London is the topic of the eighth article. This summary of the presentation shows how she broke this down into a two-step process of finding the individuals to recruit and then the process of radicalizing them so they are willing to participate in terrorist group activities. In doing so, she explained the four models of recruitment and how they are used; however, how the Internet and ‘lone wolf’ terrorists play into this is still unknown. She admitted how the state of the art in this field is still reactive, not yet predictive.

Vesna Markovic of the University of New Haven has contributed an article on “Financing Terrorism” where she describes the various methods by which terrorist groups obtain financing. Particularly disturbing is her linkage of terrorism financing with organized transnational crime. She concludes that only through cooperative efforts can this link between organized crime and terrorist be broken. Nations must work together to share intelligence and best practices if terrorist financing is to be stopped.

“Crisis Management,” the tenth article, is another from Patrick Tyrrell where he discusses the concept of crisis management within the context of terrorism. He first outlines a five-step for crisis management. From there, he goes on to discuss dealing a crisis where there is known and unknown information. The last part of the article deals with the concept of the OODA loop – how to learn to react within the information cycle.

“Energy Security and Terrorism,” from Mitat Çelikpala of Kadir Has University, addresses the concept of energy security in the face of terrorism. The reliable flow of energy to people is vital to life as well as the economy. Energy facilities present lucrative targets to terrorists who want to have a big impact. In particular, he discusses the attack on Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline as a case study to demonstrate how terrorists could impact worldwide energy supplies.

Azamat Tynybekov, of the International Scientific Center, in the penultimate article on “Environmental Security and Ecoterrorism,” discusses the impact of radiological, chemical and biological pollutants of the Kyrgyz environment and how these can be used by terrorists. In addition to the causes, he also discusses ways to mitigate the impact of the damage caused by these agents.

The last article, and the second from Josef Greipl deals with “Weapons of Mass Destruction Terrorism.” He details the threat stemming from chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons, then discusses possible scenarios where such weapons could be used by terrorists. He finishes the article by detailing the way that NATO has approached handling this problem.

Representing a significant contribution to furthering the science of counterterrorism, this book will be of interest to all whose work involves aspects of counterterrorism. I thank all who have contributed to this book.

Uğur Gürbüz

Colonel, Turkish Army

Course Director

Terrorism is a phenomena as old as man itself. History is replete with examples – Sicariis and Hashashin (assassins) to modern day Palestinian and religious terrorists. Their examples have proven that terrorism can be attractive, effective, and durable even if the tools are rather primitive. It is safe to assume, therefore, that terrorism will continue by the reality that many of the causes that motivate terrorists, such as ideological and national animosities, will remain unresolved, thereby encouraging terrorists to instigate violence to achieve political, social, and economic change. The contemporary historical record indicates that many terrorist movements operate without external state help, but those groups that benefit from such support are much more viable and dangerous. Although there are definitional controversies at the national, regional, and global levels, the fact remains that the challenge requires governments and international organizations to base their strategies on the six Ps: Prevent, Punish, Pursue, Prosecute, Persuade, and Protect.

The article explains the core of NATO's Concept for the Defence against Terrorism (DAT), shows the relation to other NATO concepts, lists the measures taken so far in the name of fighting terrorism and shows the way ahead. The 2001 Concept for DAT and the 2010 Strategic Concept specifically have given NATO military commanders clear guidance has to how to plan for DAT.

Balancing human rights and counterterrorism measures has long been a concern for both states and international organizations such as the United Nations. The latter has adopted a wide number of measures that, together with other instruments of international human rights law, set a priority to ensure that effective counterterrorism activities and the protection of human rights are not conflicting goals, but complementary and mutually reinforcing. The relationship between human rights and counterterrorism must be analyzed from two standpoints. First, how do acts of terrorism impact the human rights of the victims and whole societies and, second, how do counterterrorist activities (mostly carried out by states) impact the human rights of both suspects of acts of terrorism and ordinary citizens. Furthermore, recent court cases underline the need to critically review the implementation of the sanctions targeting the fight against terrorism.

Rigid stereotypes against the members of some ethnic groups, races and some religions reach at first a certain prejudice expressing an emotional negativity against those groups by ignoring the differences among them because it contains a generalization of their members who, in fact, differ from one another, and then to segregation with the transformation of emotivity to behaviorism. When individuals and groups who consider themselves to be the target(s) of discrimination as a result of prejudices, which are emotional, and stereotypes, recognize they are being treated unfairly and make an issue out of it, the discriminators start thinking they were completely right in the face of the problems arising, and settling on common grounds becomes more and more difficult; the doors of opportunity are opened before those who aim to achieve their goals on the basis of those problems and both the transformation of violence into a type of expression and acts of terrorism gain ground.

Terrorists use the Internet for many different reasons; not all are illegal but they do have a terrorist purpose, whether it be for publicity, to commit acts of terror or just for organizational purposes. The inherently transnational nature of this phenomenon poses specific problems to traditional strategies for the prevention, detection and prosecution of terrorist activities online. Countering terrorist use of the Internet demands a collaborative and innovative approach in order to find appropriate security measures while respecting fundamental human rights such as freedom of expression. The potential of the World Wide Web as a weapon in the fight against terrorism must be exploited in a creative and empowering way, attentive to cultural differences and in tune with the concerns, mindsets and worldviews of the specific audiences targeted by terrorist groups.

Unlike Eastern religions, Western ones (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) have a normative nature. Reciting the scripture does not just give its member just spiritual sense but also creates norms for daily life. They emphasize action to perform the will of God. Many ‘dos and don'ts’ of the scriptures are clear enough to see this normative character. These holy texts cannot speak; however, their interpreters must do so on their behalf. And they interpret them within an interpretive context that is geohistorically, geoculturally and geopolitically rather different from one another. This is the reason why there are conflicts, not just among those who believe and don't, but among the members of the same holy text, as well. Through out-of-context quotations, some so-called devout members can easily distort the very meaning of the text, thus transforming it into a source of uproar and chaos rather than peace and serenity. Considering this historical experience, this paper draws a difference between the scripture and historical phenomena it has created in order to criticize the essentialist approach that identifies the scripture with its members.

International cooperation can be very effective in combating terrorism. This can be done through cooperation between national organizations as well as through international organization like the United Nations and International Criminal Court or regional groups such as NATO and the EU. International collaboration at the security and emergency response level is key to spreading good practice amongst all practitioners.

This article looks at the recruitment of terrorists as a two-step process – first finding the individual and then radicalizing him/her to be useful to the organization. There have been a number of theories proposed for both of these steps but none are successful in being predictive; the best we can do know is understand how a terrorist was recruited. For now, until better methods are developed, the focus should be on affected individuals and limiting exposure to radicalizing elements or countering those elements.

Terrorism has changed over the past several decades, from the types of attacks they carry out to the way in which they finance these attacks. On the group level, terrorist organizations have used state sponsorship, diaspora support, charities, independent financiers, front organizations, selling their training and expertise to other groups, and have also used organized crime to finance themselves. At the cell level, carrying out operations does not cost nearly as much money. Petty crimes or even a full-time job can help cover the costs of carrying out a terrorist attack. By uncovering these networks that provide monetary and logistical support, terrorist networks can be disrupted.

Crises are sudden and, almost always unexpected, events that are very difficult to predict as to when they will occur or what their likely effect might be. However, they normally have lasting effects. Crisis management is the term that covers the way in which endeavor to mitigate the damage and deal with the fallout. This article discusses a step phase approach to understating crises and how to manage them. With proper planning, training and exercise, the effects of crises can be mitigated. Much of crisis management is ‘common sense’ – unfortunately it is not that common. Good training and instinctive responses will allow the team to be ready and primed for whatever is thrown at them next.

Energy security has emerged as an issue of great importance. As well as traditional aspects of energy security, a myriad of new aspects has emerged and continues to emerge such as tight oil and gas markets, increasing prices, alternative energy sources and their role, the threat of terrorism, instability in some exporting and importing countries, geopolitical rivalries, and the increasing need for energy to the economic growth. The concept of energy security is vague. Energy security is an umbrella term that covers many concerns linking energy, economic growth and political power.

This article presents information about Kyrgyz Republic in the framework of environmental issues and safety in the Central Asia region. At present, the region of the Central Asia has collided with ecological disasters of huge scales or with threats of their occurrence. Thus the centers of infringement natural ecosystems were close to crisis.

The article gives a short overview over nature and effect of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and shows the opportunities terrorists have to use WMD. In a second step the world's and NATO's response to this threat is outlined. The article closes with an assessment about the likeliness of terrorist use of WMD.