International Crisis Group

Countering terrorism must go beyond international law enforcement | COMFORT ERO

The UN Security Council’s resolution on combating foreign terrorist fighters devotes just 31 of its 330 lines to addressing the roots of the problem. The rest is law enforcement. But a narrowly military and police focus alone cannot work. We also must face up to the difficult work of balancing international and regional diplomatic rivalries, thereby reducing the conflicts and tensions that lead to radicalization. Terrorism is usually a symptom of social breakdown rather than its cause, and states that have taken a narrowly military rather than more comprehensive approach often have little to show for it.

In Nigeria, for instance, the government has never addressed the governance, underdevelopment and rampant corruption driving radicalization, choosing instead to “do something” through military surges that drive more people into the hands of jihadi extremists. Yet, just as the expensively built new Iraqi army was pushed out of Mosul by a few thousand fighters, Nigeria’s military is now threatened in Borno state.

FULL ARTICLE (Today’s Zaman)

Photo: UN Photo/Stuart Price/flickr

The Evolving Risks of Fragile States and International Terrorism | Brookings

Even as today’s headlines focus on Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS or ISIL) and violent extremism in the Middle East, terrorist activities by Boko Haram in Nigeria, al Shabaab in Somalia, the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan and competing militias in Libya show the danger of allowing violent extremism to flourish in fragile states. Continued threats emerging from ungoverned spaces underline the need to address the relationship between weak states and international terrorism – a need that has grown significantly in the past three years. Of particular urgency is the need to focus on comprehensive responses including the most effective preventive measures to address extremism and instability before they lead to international terrorism.

On September 29, the Project on International Order and Strategy (IOS) hosted the first public remarks in Washington by Jean-Marie Guéhenno, the new president of the International Crisis Group and former undersecretary-general of the United Nations for peacekeeping. Guéhenno discussed the conditions in fragile states that provide fertile ground for conflict and for risks of international terrorism.

A discussion followed with World Bank Special Adviser Sarah Cliffe, a former assistant secretary-general of the U.N. and an expert on fragile states and conflict zones. Bruce Jones, deputy director of Foreign Policy at Brookings and director of the IOS project, moderated.

FULL DISCUSSION (Brookings)

Photo by International Crisis Group

West widens contacts with Syria’s Kurds but suspicion remains | TOM PERRY

(Reuters) - The fight against Islamic State could at last win Syria’s Kurds the Western help they have sought, but they must first clarify their relationship to President Bashar al-Assad and reassure Turkey that they won’t cause trouble on its border.

The United States has entered the war against Islamic State fighters in Iraq with air strikes, but is still trying to decide a strategy for fighting the group on the other side of the frontier in Syria.

In Iraq, Kurds are one of the main Western allies against Islamic State. But in Syria, where Kurdish militia have carved out a swathe of northern territory and repeatedly battled against Islamic State during a three-and-a-half year civil war, Kurds have yet to win the West’s acceptance as partners.

FULL ARTICLE (Reuters)

Photo: Chris De Bruyn/flickr

Pentagon confronts militant dilemma in Africa | William Wallis in Washington and Katrina Manson in Nairobi

The hum of US drones is becoming more familiar over African skies.

From Nigeria to Somalia, US military presence on the continent is a creeping reality. US troops may be thin on the ground, with the Pentagon preferring to rely on training and financial support to allied forces, but special forces are now operating at any given moment.

The trend has its most recent roots in the aftermath of the September 2001 attacks on the US, when US officials scoured the globe for “ungoverned spaces” with the potential, like Afghanistan, to foster anti-American extremists. Several African countries cropped up on the radar, notably Somalia. In the semi-desert underbelly of the Sahara, Mali was identified among other weak states vulnerable to jihadi influence spreading south from the Maghreb. Nigeria, too, soon featured in assessments of threats.

These were either prescient musings by US spies or a self-fulfilling prophecy coaxed partly into reality by US meddling – there are subscribers to both camps. Either way, Islamist extremism in Africa has metastasised just as the Pentagon and the CIA assessments predicted.

FULL ARTICLE (Financial Times)

Photo: United States Marine Corps/flickr