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Interview – Sir David Omand on Iraq, the terrorist threat, and surveillance

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Interview by Lee Watkins:

Professor Sir David Omand GCB, talking at Chatham House in September 2013. Photo: Chatham House (CC)
Professor Sir David Omand GCB, talking at Chatham House in September 2013. Photo: Chatham House (CC)

Sir David Omand, former Director of GCHQ, on the current security climate and the recent IPT rulings on GCHQ’s information gathering.

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Besides your role as Director of GCHQ from 1996-1997, what are other highlights from your career?

I was Principal Private Secretary to the Defence Secretary during the Falklands War. That was a very intense experience, seeing things at close quarters. The other defining experience was the Bosnian War. I was Deputy Undersecretary of State Policy and in charge of the MoD’s policy, which eventually led to the NATO intervention and brought the conflict to a close. That was both extremely hard but also rewarding. A lot of people lost their lives.

I supported NATO’s intervention. This was a period of extreme tension between the US Congress and most of the parliaments in Europe. And so getting something everyone could agree on – that’s the kind of policy work that’s really rewarding. The UN, when it works well, is extremely good. But if you haven’t got full consensus from the Security Council, then it’s very difficult. Getting it under control by reconciling Europe and the United States and then getting NATO to take the lead transformed the situation.

Additionally, you contributed to the 2010 Chilcott Inquiry into the UK’s role in the Iraq War. What was your role during that war?

I wasn’t involved in the Iraq decisions myself, but I was a member of the Joint Intelligence Committee at the time of the Iraq War. I was security and intelligence coordinator in the Cabinet Office. At the time I was deeply involved in constructing the UK’s domestic counterterrorism strategy.

How would you respond to criticism that the Iraq War may have been counterproductive by creating more militant jihadists than it has deterred?

Islamic extremism predated the invasion of Iraq and the War on Terror; for instance the 1998 US Embassy bombings in East Africa carried out by Al-Qaeda or the attack on the USS Cole. You can’t draw a cause and effect conclusion, nor can you say that there’s a direct relationship. Denmark was just attacked just over a month ago and no one would accuse Danish foreign policy of being aggressive.

But there is no doubt that passions were aroused by the invasion of Iraq and I expressed that at the Chilcott Inquiry. The British intelligence committee’s assessment was that as a result of our actions in Iraq the threat level would go up. This didn’t necessarily mean they should not go ahead, but they had an awareness of this assessment. They judged that that was manageable.

What about statements by Al-Qaeda and other groups that their attacks are in response to Western foreign policy, for instance that 9/11 was retaliation for US troops stationed in Saudi Arabia?

They’re going to say that anyway. I think that the Far Enemy thesis applies. If someone like Zawahiri [the current leader of al-Qaeda] believes that the West will prevent the creation of an Islamic state in Egypt or Algeria, then they will try to strike back at the power of the United States. They see the United States, the West, Israel, as implacably hostile to the creation of a Caliphate, of an Islamic State – which we are, because we are so diametrically opposed. It is a clash of values. Which is not to say that these values are intrinsic to Islam – very few Muslim communities in the US or the UK would see eye-to-eye with them.

Public anxiety has been mounting for several years, not only about terrorist attacks but also about government surveillance. Are these fears well-founded?

Some of this is inevitable because the more you know about the threat, the more anxious you are liable to be. If you’re in a happy state of ignorance, your anxiety is less – until something happens. The UK’s terrorist threat level [recently raised to “Severe”] is a way to condition the public to the existing level of risk. That way you don’t have a gross overreaction – shouts of “This must never be allowed to happen again!” and legislating away our human liberties. We make it clear that it’s not possible to stop all attacks, and that isn’t the objective.

The intelligence community’s objective isn’t to stop all attacks?

The formal objective of the UK counterterrorism strategy is to reduce risk so that people can freely go about their normal lives with confidence. You want to stop every goal from being scored by the opposing team – but you know that that’s actually impossible. No team ever succeeds in keeping out all the goals, but at any one moment you’re desperately trying to stop them from scoring. In no way does that imply that you’re taking a relaxed or casual approach. It is the reality that actually, your team is not going to win every game. If you try to give an absolute guarantee, you get driven into actions that are counterproductive.

What is your response to the recent Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) court ruling that the intelligence-sharing relationship between the NSA and GCHQ was illegal?

The IPT’s first ruling determined that British intelligence was in conformity with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the British Human Rights Act. The second again upheld the way the intelligence mission was being conducted. They determined that this was not mass surveillance, but targeted surveillance. However, under ECHR, the UK has the obligation to keep the public informed of how the law applies to them [the intelligence-gathering authorities].

Specifically there were two GCHQ guidelines not in the public domain. These safeguards applied to information collection by the US about people in the UK. In essence, an analyst was required to have the same level of authority [the Secretary of State’s authority] to access this information as if it had been the UK who collected it. But the difficulty came in where the UK was physically not in a position to get the access but the US was. The safeguard meant that the legal equivalent of a warrant, a secretary of state’s authorization, enabled the analyst to go to the US and say, “Have you got anything on this guy?” So it’s essentially a safeguard.

The court determined that two paragraphs in the government’s evidence should be public. They are now public. One of them is entirely theoretical. Technically the government had been in breach of its obligations for the preceding seven years because it hadn’t made these conditions clear. It has now made them clear, so it is now in the right. They should have done this when they first had access to the US material. So I think that’s a good decision, because it reminds the government of their obligation to explain to the public how it all works, and it’s also an excellent decision from the government’s point of view because it reaffirms that the court believes that what is currently going on is lawful, and is consistent with ECHR and it’s not mass surveillance.

I’m slightly confused by your positive response to the ruling because my impression was that GCHQ’s protocol was deemed a human rights violation.

Interception law, which requires warrants and authorities – all of that was being complied with. You’ve got various safeguards for external communication, but because of the way packages switch networks you pick up a domestic communication instead. GCHQ explained that in those circumstances you still require the same level of authority to access the material. But what they hadn’t done was make themselves understandable to the public, under ECHR regulation. And if you look at the 2008 statement, it doesn’t cover this at all. A lawyer would say it does, but if you were a layperson and you read the act, would you understand it? And the answer is no, you wouldn’t.

The government should have done more to explain. And what they’re not explaining is safeguards, which is slightly paradoxical. But the public has a right to know what those safeguards are. Immediately when the judgment came out, all the civil liberties groups jumped on it – but simultaneously GCHQ said they were delighted with the judgment, that what they were doing was legal.

Yes, in part my surprise at your reaction comes from statements by groups like Privacy International, which has launched a campaign titled “Did GCHQ spy on you?” that has gathered 6,000 signatures. Is it not your impression that people feel their privacy is being invaded?

This is simply mischief-making. This is what lobby groups do – try to create this impression. Their privacy was not being invaded, but their right to have the law explained to them was not being upheld. Would they be entitled to any compensation? I hope not.

Do you feel that there has been an escalation of public fear of being spied on? A case of increasing paranoia, if you like.

Yet the polls show that two-thirds of the British public think that more powers should be given to intelligence agencies because of the threat of terrorism. This is a very vocal campaign run on behalf of a minority. Now, they need to be taken seriously – they should be taken seriously – but I don’t think you should run away with the idea that there is huge British public unease. On the contrary, the majority of the British public want the agencies to go on trying to stop attacks.

So you feel that the fears of a terrorist attack are higher than the fears of privacy intrusion? Both of these public concerns put pressure on the intelligence community.

A lot of unease is down to a simple conceptual error in confusing mass surveillance with bulk access. This problem has bedevilled the whole argument. The IPT judgment discusses bulk access. GCHQ has the ability to capture quite a lot of external communication – it’s still a tiny part of the internet – and then a filtering is applied by computers, looking for the specific indicators of the targets they’re allowed to access. What is allowed to be seen by an analyst is tiny. If analysts are seeking, say, Syrian jihadists, then they are only allowed to view what is permitted to them on the relevant certificate. That’s why the IPT concluded that this was highly targeted and not mass surveillance. But it does involve computers looking at the major bearers of information in order to find useful material.

When you think about it, there’d be no other way to find the IP address of a computer being used by a terrorist. How would you find the communication? There are arguments over whether you should feel that your privacy has been intruded upon, even if it’s just the computer whizzing through and throwing your stuff away, because it’s not what they’re looking for. And that argument will go on, but it wasn’t accepted by the IPT.

The key for me is, it’s not about the tools being used by the agency. They are essential. They’re needed to catch paedophiles and criminals and terrorists. Law enforcement is all about digital intelligence these days. Worry about the oversight. Who gets to sign the authority? Who checks they’re actually complying with the regulations?

So you feel it’s a question of human integrity rather than technology?

Yes. This is where the IPT comes in. The report by Rt. Hon Sir Anthony May, Interception of Communications Commissioner, again concluded there’s no mass surveillance going on. He has free access to all the analysts’ stuff at GCHQ and he was previously an appeal court judge, so he’s quite a formidable character.

In the UK, I personally think that we have the model for the rest of Europe to follow. We’ve got parliamentary oversight, judicial oversight, got a specialist court for all of this. The bit that hasn’t been right has been the transparency vis-a-vis the public. The more transparent the government is, the more the public supports it. What Snowden has done is unleash a kind of worry – “What are they doing? How can I trust them?” – and in fact the more that comes out, for example through the IPT, the more people should be reassured that it’s a very organised system, it’s got checks and balances.

We’ve discussed concerns over too much information – what about worries over too little? In many cases, including the recent Charlie Hebdo attack, preceding a terrorist attack there is a trail of tweets, of blog posts, of other online clues that an attack will occur. Is there perhaps not enough access to information?

If you can get private correspondence, rather than public blogging, that will give you a better clue as to where they are – and do they have something big in mind? They may tip someone else off and say, “We’re going to do it on Saturday.” You can’t conclude one way or another about the Charlie Hebdo attack. It’s very important that people understand: intelligence work is a jigsaw puzzle. It’s putting together several jigsaw puzzles simultaneously. The pieces are all muddled up and you haven’t got the lid of the box. You can’t pick up one piece and say, “Without this, the attack wouldn’t have happened.”

It’s kind of a crazy question: “How many terrorist attacks has digital intelligence stopped?” Well, how long is a piece of string? If you’ve got reasonably good coverage of the people who mean you harm, you will stop most of them. The director of the security service indicated recently that the last dozen attempts in the UK have been stopped. Will the next one be stopped? Who knows. At least the score rate is good. And one would not want it the other way around.

Thank you.

Sir David Omand GCB is a visiting Professor in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London. He was the first UK Security and Intelligence Coordinator, responsible to the Prime Minister for the professional health of the intelligence community, national counter-terrorism strategy and “homeland security”. For seven years he served on the Joint Intelligence Committee. He was Permanent Secretary of the Home Office from 1997 to 2000, and before that Director of GCHQ. During the Falklands conflict he was Principal Private Secretary to the Defence Secretary, and he served for three years in NATO Brussels as the UK Defence Counsellor. He has previously written on some of these issues for Strife. You can find his article here. 
Lee Watkins is an MA student in the Terrorism, Security and Society programme in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London.
 
 

Charlie Hebdo: defending more than one narrative

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By Fernanda A. Marín:

Heads of State marching through Paris after the Charlie Bebdo attacks. Photo: European External Action (creative commons)
Heads of State marching through Paris after the Charlie Hebdo attacks. Photo: European External Action (creative commons)

I wasn’t lucky enough to be present at the latest demonstration in support of the “Je suis Charlie” movement, in solidarity with the victims of the terrorist attack in Paris that happened just under a month ago. I saw how all my friends living in Paris took out their pens and marched across the streets of their city to claim that freedom of speech would not be taken away from them with bullets and fear. I wanted to be there with them, marching by their side; but for different reasons.

Before I continue, I would like to be clear on two things: first, of course I believe in freedom of expression; and second, I am more than upset for the lives lost during the attack. Nonetheless, seeing this event simply as an attack on freedom of expression and French solidarity and unity would be too simplistic. This attack goes beyond the right to mock whoever we want, and it goes beyond the religion each of us is free to practice.

I refuse to believe in a simplistic narrative that portrays the shooting as an attack on French freedom of expression due to rising Islamic fundamentalism. The event is far more complex than mainstream media has led us to believe. The causes include a complex history of racial and religious tension and deep problems of integration that date back to the independence of Algeria, a former French colony.

Areas of Paris are stigmatized for their large migrant populations. This has led to the marginalisation of a Muslim population of 6 million. Almost 70% of French citizens say Muslims have failed to integrate into society, but the truth is that the country makes no effort to welcome them in, and the worst part is that we were all well aware of it. It was a ticking bomb waiting to explode. So the problem French society is now facing did not start the day of the shootings; it has evolved over many decades. This situation is getting worse, and it is something that we should all care about. This is why…

The question of censorship: should we have the right to mock religion?

Many have pointed out the parallels between Charlie Hebdo’s content and the anti-Semitic cartoons of 1930’s Germany. Those who defend the magazine claim that foreigners don’t understand the humour, and that freedom of expression is a fundamental right of any democracy. So having the right to mock whoever we want should never be censored. Nonetheless, an article by Jason Stanley in the New York Times made an interesting point about satire within societies where a minority feels oppressed. He claims that mocking the Pope is not the same as mocking Muhammad because Catholics (or at least Christians) are the overwhelming majority in France. The underlying tensions go beyond simple cartoons, but the cartoons serve to crystalize the feeling of many Muslims that they are an object of ridicule in French society.

So, going back to the original question, should there be a restriction of freedom of expression? No, absolutely not, but if we are to understand why those drawings had the power to create so much anger, we should not focus on the cartoons per se, but the society in which they are published. In other words, we should not blame the cartoonists, but try to understand the readers.

From the march to the paradox

When over 50 heads of state came to Paris to march next to François Hollande to make a stand for unity and freedom of expression, it’s more than European solidarity that made them take the journey. France, the country with the largest Muslim population in the EU, has just become the European guinea-pig for tackling these sorts of problems. If it succumbs to inter-communal tensions and political extremism, the rest of Europe will fear the experiment has failed.

The ‘threat of radical Islam’, increasing islamophobia and the rising popularity of extreme-right parties with openly xenophobic rhetoric is old news. However, the most painful irony of the killings in Paris is that it has helped radicalize fragile societies across Europe, creating further tension and violence. Furthermore it has given far-right parties ‘excuses’ to legitimize their racist and xenophobic policies.

Sadly, this movement to ‘defend freedom of speech’ has once again become a political tool. It has just fanned the flames of the so-called ‘war on terror’. Several countries are using this to increase security measures and reduce privacy. The UK and Australia are the clearest examples. David Cameron has called for additional powers in response to the attacks in Paris, despite the fact that the authorities already had the attackers on their books under the current regulations. In a speech given three weeks ago, he claimed that there should be no means of communication that authorities cannot access. This explicitly referred to encrypted messaging services such as WhatsApp and Snapchat no longer functioning with their current privacy terms and conditions.

This has all backfired on us. And we are allowing it. This freedom of speech and tolerance discourse is actually leading us towards the loss of our privacy rights and the rise of xenophobic parties. Quite the irony, isn’t it?

Fernanda A. Marín is a Master’s student in International Security at Sciences Po, Paris. 

Financing Terror, Part IV: Charities and terrorism in the Middle East

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By Drew Alyeshmerni:

Rockets fired from gaza by the military wing of Hamas. Photo: Zoriah (creative commons)
Rockets fired from the Gaza Strip by the military wing of Hamas. Photo: Zoriah (creative commons)

In Judaism, it’s tzedakah. In Islam, it’s zakat. In Christianity, it’s tithing. Each major religion sees the importance of giving charity, whether for the sake of doing good or as a religious obligation. Other influences on an individual’s propensity for charitable donations include political affiliation, religion, race, sexual orientation, country of origin, interests or concerns.

Charities provide local or international assistance and are often regulated by government entities such as the Internal Revenue Service in the United States and the Charity Commission1 in the United Kingdom. These organisations try to make sure that charities operating in conflict zones do not have ties to terrorism. Charities diverting money towards terrorist groups has happened in the Syrian Civil War and in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Due to the large number of local and international organizations raising funds for Syrian relief efforts, the Charity Commission issued an alert in April 2013 titled ‘Safer Giving Advice for Syria’. Their concerns have proved prescient. In February 2014, British citizen Abdul Waheed Majid joined an aid convoy heading to Aleppo with the Birmingham-based ‘Children in Deen’ organization. While in Syria, he abandoned his convoy, joined the Al Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front, and drove a truck full of explosives into a prison wall. His suicide mission – partially funded by unsuspecting individuals’ charitable contributions – caused dozens of civilian deaths and allowed hundreds of dangerous prisoners to escape.2

Events such as Majid’s suicide mission have sparked great concern over the destination of funds raised by charities who claim to be doing humanitarian work but are actually directly or indirectly supporting terrorist groups. Since February 2014, the Charity Commission has opened an investigation into 86 aid groups suspected of supporting extremists, including 37 charities involved in providing aid to war-torn Syria.3 In addition to Children in Deen, these charities include Aid Convoy, Syria Aid, and Al-Fatiha Global. The investigations are still underway and dozens of other charities are being monitored for their fundraising activities in the UK.4

This phenomenon – the use of charities as funding fronts for terrorist activities – is not new. After the September 11, 2001, attacks the United States government initiated the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program (TFTP) in order to identify, track and pursue terrorist groups’ sources of funding.5 Through the TFTP, the US government has uncovered and shut down over 40 designated charities used as Potential Fundraising Front Organizations, or PFFOs.6 In August 2010 the US entered a TFTP agreement with the European Union.7 This agreement enables the sharing of intelligence between the US and the EU, although there are limits to the efficiency of the US in preventing the flow of funds to terrorist organizations. Prime examples of these limits are the attitudes and actions by other countries against organizations such as Hamas, a US-designated terrorist organization that operates throughout the Levant, Israel, and the Palestinian territories.

Charitable organizations identified as PFFOs for Hamas in the US are not designated as such in the EU and UK. One such organization is Interpal, the Palestinian Relief and Development Fund. Interpal, a UK-based charity, is allegedly designed to hide the flow of money to Hamas.8 According to the US Treasury, Hamas raises tens of millions of dollars per year throughout the world by using charitable fundraising as a cover.9

While Hamas supports a wide array of humanitarian projects in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, their work is also a primary recruiting tool for the organization’s military wing,10 which is responsible for carrying out acts of terrorism against Israel. These include the June 2014 kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens, the firing of 11,000 rockets since 2005 upon southern Israel’s civilians, and the use of cross-border tunnels to carry out attacks within Israel. In stark contrast to the findings of ongoing investigations into organizations feared to be funding terrorist operations in Syria, the UK’s Charity Commission claims that Interpal does not support terrorism.11 Additionally, the EU has actually removed Hamas from its list of designated terrorist organizations.12

What is the effectiveness then of the Charity Commission’s policy aimed at eradicating the abuse of charitable organizations by Syrian-based terror groups when potential fundraising front organizations for other groups such as Hamas, still considered a terrorist organisation in countries such as Egypt and the United States, are allowed to freely operate on British and European soil?

In the case of Hamas and Interpal, the joint EU-US TFTP agreement and system of checks erected in the UK’s Charity Act of 2006 to audit charities suspected of abuse are proving to be tools influenced by public opinion surrounding the political climate on any given day. In the case of the few dozen Syrian-linked charities in the UK being investigated by the Charity Commission, one has to wonder if the only reason they are being investigated is because of the intense publicity surrounding events that relate Syria to Britain, like Majid’s suicide mission, the beheading of a British aid worker, and the migration of 500 British jihadists to the Islamic State. Would those charities have even been flagged for review if not for these events? And if not for these events, would the Islamic State or the al-Nusra Front have been considered terrorist organizations, or would they have been considered nationalist liberation organizations for the Sunnis of the Middle East, much like Hamas for the Palestinians? The point is that public opinion seems to determine the policy of those organisations charged with investigating charities suspected of funding terrorist groups.

After exploring these two different cases in Syria and Palestine, we must ask ourselves the following questions: Are the policies used to oversee and investigate charities indeed founded on justice, or are they simply based on political interest and public opinion? Is it important for individual donors to do their due diligence when determining where to make their international charitable contributions, or must donors simply put their trust in governmental bodies that may potentially be influenced by politics and public opinion?

In order to ensure that your charitable contributions go directly to supporting the cause you care about, dig a little deeper with your research. Look at other countries’ information on charities to which you are considering making a contribution, and consider whether there is a correlation between the activities of such charities and the operations of terrorist organizations. Your generosity is surely heartfelt, but unless you do the necessary research, you may unwittingly be supporting a cause other than the one you intended.

Drew Alyeshmerni has an MA in Public Policy from Tel Aviv University and certification in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Arizona. While in Israel she coordinated international humanitarian aid projects for the Palestinian population of the West Bank under the Civil Administration and worked in a variety of Human Rights groups, including the Hotline for Refugees and Migrants, Hiddush: Freedom of Religion for Israel, and the Center for Jewish Arab Economic Development. Drew currently lives in Los Angeles, California, where she focuses on reconciliation between Arabs and Jews on college campuses. Find her on LinkedIn. 

This article was the final part of a Strife series on terrorist financing. Over the last four weeks authors have examined different methods of terrorist financing, using modern and varied case studies, offering a new look at who and what is funding today’s terror activities. In Part I Arne Holverscheid discussed the role of private Kuwaiti donors in financing rebel groups in Syria affiliated with terror organisations and blurring the lines between good and bad, friend and foe. In Part II Claire Mennessier examined the involvement of Pakistan in financing terror groups, and the motivations and challenges presented by this involvement. Last week, in Part III, Samuel Smith addressed the frightening trend of kidnapping for ransom as a source of finance for terror groups through a case study of the Abu Sayyaf Group in the Philippines and Southeast Asia.

NOTES

1 The Charity Commission is responsible for registering eligible charitable organisations in the United Kingdom and investigating cases of malpractice or misconduct by charitable organisations. See the following page for further information: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/charity-commission/about

2 Sophie Jane Evans, “Investigation Launched into Birmingham Charity Used by ‘British Suicide Bomber’ to Travel to Syria and Carry out Attack,” Mail Online, March 3, 2014, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2571460/Children-Deen-used-British-suicide-bomber-travel-Syria-carry-attack.html.

3 Tim Ross et al., “Charity Commission: British Charities Investigated for Terror Risk,” The Telegraph, November 1, 2013, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/islamic-state/11203569/Charity-Commission-British-charities-investigated-for-terror-links.html

4 Ibid

5 “Terrorist Finance Tracking Program (TFTP),” U.S. Department of Treasury, May 5, 2014, http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/terrorist-illicit-finance/Terrorist-Finance-Tracking/Pages/tftp.aspx.

6 “Protecting Charitable Organizations – E ,” U.S. Department of Treasury, August 21, 2007, http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/terrorist-illicit-finance/Pages/protecting-charities_execorder_13224-e.aspx .

7 “Terrorist Finance Tracking Programme,” European Commission, December 12, 2014, http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/crisis-and-terrorism/tftp/index_en.htm.

8 “Protecting Charitable Organizations – E” – Listed under Interpal

9 ibid- listed under H- Hamas Fundraising

10 ibid -Listed under H- Hamas Fundraising

11“UK Charity Commission: Interpal Not Supporting Terror Groups,” Charity and Security Network, April 9, 2009, http://www.charityandsecurity.org/news/UK_Charity_Commission_Interpal_Not%20Supporting_Terror.

12“EU court takes Hamas off terrorist organisations list,” BBC, December 17, 2014, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-30511569

Financing Terror, Part II: Pakistan as a state sponsor of terrorism

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By Claire Mennessier:

Taliban fighters demobilising in Afghanistan. Photo: Source of image: Isafmedia (some rights reserved)
Taliban fighters demobilising in Afghanistan. Photo: Isafmedia (some rights reserved)

For the last 25 years Pakistan has been involved in the sponsoring of terrorism on a national and international scale. As a result of its role in the development of terrorism in Afghanistan and Indian Kashmir, Pakistan is a good example of a country which is both a supporter and a victim of terrorism.

The early 1980s saw a rise in state sponsorship of terrorism.[i] State sponsoring, where a government lets a terrorist group act with relative impunity, is beneficial to both the sponsor state and the terrorist group. On the one hand, it allows states to carry out a limited risk and low-budget foreign policy while denying any association with the terrorist group by claiming ignorance or incapacity.[ii] On the other hand, terrorist groups that enjoy state support have been found to be more destructive than those without state support, as they are ‘more able and willing to kill large numbers’.[iii] Indeed, sponsor-states provide them with, inter alia, safe havens, funding, arms, training and intelligence. Perpetrators of terrorist acts also enjoy more freedom as the sponsor-state can protect them from direct coercion and legal claims.[iv]

Ironically, state sponsoring of terrorism is less widely denounced than individual acts of terrorism. One reason is that outside governments fear state-sponsored retaliation.[v] Another is that it is a widely misunderstood phenomenon, which stems from the difficulty of reaching a definitional consensus on state sponsoring.[vi] However, under international law, states have to take all reasonable measures to prevent terrorist acts. Lack of due diligence and the state toleration of such acts both create liability. And if the existence of state-sponsored terrorism can be established, then the sponsoring state may be violating Article 2(4) of the UN Charter.[vii]

The United States Department of State routinely lists a number of states which it claims sponsor terrorism.[viii] Its current formal list includes Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan and Syria. This list represents a good example of flawed policy response, as much of the enigma caused by state sponsorship today includes countries that are not even on the list, Pakistan being one of the important potential omissions. These ‘new’ state sponsors present an additional threat as they are often linked to Sunni jihadist groups such as Al Qaeda.[ix]

Political scientists have classified Pakistan as an ‘active’ state sponsor of terrorism, as it seems to deliberately provide critical support to terrorist groups, in the form of money, weapons, training and intelligence.[x] Over the last 25 years, Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI), the intelligence service of Pakistan and the Pakistani Army, both backed by the Pakistani government, have developed an elaborated nexus of terrorist apparatus and have assisted in their growth.[xi] Both the Taliban and Pakistani terrorist group LeT provide good examples of such terrorist apparatus, as they have arguably worked and flourish under the sponsorship and protection of Pakistan. Nonetheless, Pakistan’s role in the sponsoring of international terrorism needs to be presented in a balanced way, as explained below.

Aided by the United States, Pakistan played an instrumental role in the creation and development of the Taliban on the political scene of Afghanistan in the 1990s.[xii] At the height of the Cold War and the struggle for control of the Middle East and Central Asia, the United States and Pakistan recruited the mujahideen from, inter alia, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. The United States also supplied training and weaponry in order to fight the Soviets that had invaded Afghanistan.[xiii] This is how the Taliban became the main laboratory to prepare future Islamic mujahideen and how LeT was created.[xiv]

It has been argued that Pakistan and the ISI had a long strategic and mutually beneficial relationship with Osama bin Laden and his terrorist affiliates.[xv] On the one hand, it would have proven difficult for bin Laden to operate freely within the Pakistani borders and to use Pakistan as a base to conduct international terrorist operations without the ISI. On the other, bin Laden’s relationship with ISI went beyond the Afghan movement, as he provided funding for the Pakistani-sponsored attacks within Kashmir and ultimately in India’s large cities, such as Mumbai in 2008. While former Pakistani President, Pervez Musharaff, promised Pakistan would break its links to the Taliban after 9/11, it is unclear today whether ISI and the Pakistani Army continue to back the Taliban.[xvi]

Additionally, Pakistan’s sponsoring of terrorism in the Punjab and Kashmir has been part of the country’s long-term foreign policy of securing the independence of Kashmir from India. During the period of British colonial rule, Kashmir had developed its own mode of regional nationalism, which didn’t easily fit into the national vision of India or Pakistan. At the time of India’s independence from Britain in 1947, the Maharaja of Kashmir’s decision to accede to India, which came with the promise for a plebiscite that never occurred, led to the movement for azaadi, or the movement for independence from the Indian State.[xvii] Consequently, the Indian state started pursuing a ‘catch and kill campaign’, through which Kashmiris were governed through force, not law, and were rejected as potential militants. The Indian state response to this complex social and political problem was, and still is, one of violence and repression, creating a culture of impunity.[xviii]

As a result of India’s repressive policies toward the Kashmiris and Pakistan’s aspirations for accession of Kashmir, what began as a national, indigenous, secular movement for independence soon became a Pakistani-sponsored radical Islamist crusade to control Kashmir.[xix] ISI, through its proxy networks such as LeT, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM) and Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI), provided money, carried out training and propaganda, and educated and indoctrinated Kashmiri militant groups within Pakistan and Afghanistan. By training operatives in the latter, ISI could easily deny the Indian charges that Pakistan was sponsoring terrorist attacks.

It has been postulated that ISI is the main body channelling financial and material resources across the borders to jihadist-linked groups, protecting them from government counterterrorism measures and looking the other way as they recruit and raise money.[xx] If this is the case, it would mean that ISI aims to fully control the jihad. As stated by a former HUM militant, ‘the moment the ISI feels that the Jihad body is becoming powerful, it incites trouble in that party or tries to split it. Breaching the bigger groups by throwing money, arms and vehicles by putting new leaders in the driving seats is their style’.[xxi] This sentiment is clearly reminiscent of Pakistan’s political agenda to maintain power against India in the Kashmir Valley.

A potential long-term concern is the increasing number of Islamic religious schools, madrassas, which provide free education, food, housing and clothing.[xxii] When the United States and Saudi Arabia funnelled millions of dollars and weapons into Afghanistan in the fight against Soviet occupiers, the United States and Pakistani dictator Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq promoted madrassas as a way to recruit troops for the anti-Soviet war.[xxiii] Following the withdrawal of the Soviets from Afghanistan in 1989 and the cessation of US aid to the Mujahideen fighters, huge caches of arms remained with the Afghan Northern Alliance and the ISI, which were subsequently used to arm the jihad. With the madrassas considered an important supply line for the jihad, it is understandable how madrassas are seen as a catalyst to the jihadi expansion.[xxiv] Despite promises by Pakistan to control madrassas, their number has grown since 9/11 and few have registered with the government: in 2000, only 4350 of the estimated 40,000 to 50,000 madrassas in Pakistan had registered with the government.[xxv] With many schools now being financed by wealthy Pakistani industrialists and countries such as Saudi Arabia and Iran, the Pakistani state has lost its control on the madrassa institution, rendering it even less controllable. With less state supervision, madrassas are now more prone to the preaching of violent versions of Islam.[xxvi]

Involvement in the financing of terrorism doesn’t come without a cost. One of the costs of ‘outsourcing’ terrorism to militant groups for Pakistan is that it now faces a typical principal-agent problem: the agenda and interests of Pakistan (the principal) and those of the non-state actors (the agent) are not fully aligned anymore. Some terrorist groups have ties to a wide range of jihadists who, in addition to serving Pakistan’s interests in Kashmir, are also engaged in other struggles, some of which are directed against the government of Pakistan. [xxvii] A recent example of this backlash is the Pakistani Taliban attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar, Pakistan, which claimed 140 lives, 132 of them children. This attack showed the Pakistani government’s shortcomings in its fight against terrorism. This was an attack by a group that it inadvertently helped create and underscores the urgent need for a new anti-terror strategy.[xxviii] Pakistan’s leadership has since agreed on a comprehensive anti-terrorism action plan, which includes the establishment of special courts to expedite the trials of terror suspects and a 5000 strong counter-terrorism force.[xxix]

Is Pakistan’s new counter-terrorism strategy too little, too late? Caught between the need to protect itself against an internal enemy and having to partner with militant forces to fight external threats, positive results in the fight against terrorism may be limited – Pakistan’s anti-terror strategy is rife with contradictions.

Claire Mennessier holds an MA in International Studies & Diplomacy from SOAS and an MA in International Relations from Griffith University (Australia). Her research interests include terrorism and counterterrorism, and more specifically the strategic dimension of terrorism and state approaches to terrorism and political violence.

This article is part of a Strife series on financing terror. Over the next couple of weeks Strife will feature other articles that focus on different ways of financing terrorism. Next, Samuel Smith will address the frightening trend of kidnapping for ransom as a source of finance for terror groups through a case study of the Abu Sayyaf Group in the Philippines and Southeast Asia.

NOTES

[i] Daniel L. Byman and Sarah E. Kreps, “Agents of destruction? Applying principal-agent analysis to state-sponsored terrorism,” International Studies Perspectives 11 (2010): 1-18.

[ii] Lieutenant Colonel J. P. Terry, “Countering State-Sponsored Terrorism: A Law-Policy Analysis,” Naval Law Review 159 (1986).

[iii] Daniel L. Byman, Deadly Connections: States that Sponsor Terrorism (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University press, 2005).

[iv] Terry, n. 2.

[v] Scott S. Evans, “The Lockerbie Incident Cases: Libyan-Sponsored Terrorism, Judicial Review and the Political Question Doctrine”, Maryland Journal of International Law 18(1): 21-76.

[vi] Kerry A. Gurovitsch, “Legal Obstacles to Combating International State-Sponsored Terrorism”, Houston Journal of International Law 10 (1987): 159-180.

[vii] John A. Cohan, “Formulation of a State’s Response to Terrorism and State-Sponsored Terrorism”, Pace International Review 14 (2002): 77-119.

[viii] Daniel L. Byman, “The Changing Nature of State Sponsorship of Terrorism”, Saban Center Analysis Paper (2008).

[ix] Byman, n.8.

[x] Arjun Subramaniam, “Challenges of Protecting India from Terrorism”, Terrorism and Political Violence 24(2012): 396-414.

[xi] Byman, n.8.

[xii] Larry P. Goodson, Afghanistan’s Endless War: State Failure, Regional Politics, and the Rise of the Taliban (Settle: University of Washington Press, 2001), 111-118.

[xiii] Washingtonsblog, December 30, 2014, “Sleeping With the Devil: How U.S. and Saudi Backing of Al Qaeda Led to 9/11”, September 5, 2012, http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/09/sleeping-with-the-devil-how-u-s-and-saudi-backing-of-al-qaeda-led-to-911.html

[xiv] Poonam Mann, “Fighting Terrorism: India and Central Asia”, Strategic Analysis 24(11) (2008).

[xv] Bruce Riedel, “Pakistan and Terror: The Eye of the Storm”, The Annals of American Academy 618 (2008): 32-45.

[xvi] Riedel, n.15.

[xvii] Helen Duschinski, “Reproducing Regimes of Impunity”, Cultural Studies 24(1) (2010), 110-132.

[xviii] Haley Duschinski and Bruce Hoffman, “Everyday violence, institutional denial and struggles for justice in Kashmir”, Institute of Race Relations 52(4) (2011), 44-70.

[xix] Jessica Stern, “Pakistan’s Jihad Culture”, Foreign Affairs 79(6) (2000): 115-126.

[xx] Mann, n.14.

[xxi] Ghulam Hasnain, “Ready for Jehad”, Outlook 40(37) (2000): 34.

[xxii] Stern, n.19.

[xxiii] Anita Demkiv, “Pakistan’s Fata, Transnational Terrorism and the Global Development Model”, Journal of Global Change and Governance 2(1) (2009).

[xxiv] Stern, n.19.

[xxv] Stern, n.19.

[xxvi] Ashok K. Behuria, “Fighting the Taliban: Pakistan at war with itself”, Australian Journal of International Affairs 61(4) (2007), 529-543.

[xxvii] Byman and Kreps, n.1.

[xxviii] Zachary Laub, ‘Behind Pakistan’s Taliban War”, Council on Foreign Relations, December 17, 2014.

[xxix] RT, “Pakistan agrees on new terrorism plan, pledges to ‘eradicate Taliban’”, December 25, 2014.

 

 

The Paris Attacks: a threat to French unity

by

By Deborah Asseraf:

Photo: Olivier Ortelpa (creative commons)
The demonstration in the Place de la Republique, Paris, on 11 January. Photo: Olivier Ortelpa (creative commons)

As France mourns 17 of its citizens following the recent Paris attacks, hard times are also synonymous with national union. On 11 January 56 world leaders marched in Paris along with 3.7 million people to show their commitment to universal values such as freedom of speech and human dignity. Unanimous condemnation of the terror acts that occurred between 7-9 January transcends political divisions and ideologies. However the commemorations are likely to be subject to political appropriation by a range of actors and parties. Furthermore, there is no guarantee that the spontaneous reaction animating civil society will result in any coherent long-term agenda.

A new form of terror

On 7 January, two masked gunmen stormed the offices of satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo during an editorial meeting (11:30 am), killing 12 people. The paper is well known for its publication of the prophet Muhammad caricatures. In just a few minutes the assailants shot a maintenance worker, a police officer assigned as a bodyguard for the paper’s editor, seven journalists and caricaturists, a guest at the editorial meeting and a national police officer. Armed with AK-47 assault rifles, a shotgun and an RPG launcher, the gunmen managed to escape by car and killed a wounded police officer lying on the pavement. The Kouachi brothers, who carried out the attack, escaped towards the Val de Marne, in the North-East of Paris. Taking a printing house, they resisted a siege by the police for hours in the afternoon of 9 January.

On 8 January, Amedy Coulibaly shot and killed a municipal police officer in Montrouge, south of Paris. The next day Coulibaly seized a kosher grocery store in Porte de Vincennes, a very quiet area in North Paris. Two people were shot as the gunman entered the store and two others during the three-hour hostage crisis. The police launched an assault against the assailant at the end of the afternoon at approximately the same time as the assault carried out against the Kouachi brothers.

The attacks have not been officially claimed by any terror organisation, suggesting the emergence a new form of terrorism that opens opportunities to individuals who are willing to die for a cause with no need to officially belong to a local or global movement. This operating mode is reminiscent of the 15 December Sydney hostage crisis, which involved a single individual who claimed he had links with the Islamic State. As Australian authorities fear copycat attacks, it seems legitimate for France to worry as well in a context where the range of possible threats is widening.

Blurry motives and difficult responses

What happened last week has been described as France’s 9/11, suggesting that the country has reached a critical turning point that will usher in a new era of war against its evil enemy. Nonetheless, the so-called ‘enemy’ seems hardly definable or reachable. Indeed, shedding light on the motives of the attack is difficult if not impossible. Recordings of conversations between Coulibaly and his Jewish hostages emerged in the media after the store’s telephone was left off the hook. They show a confused assailant who justifies his action by referring to France’s foreign policy, highlighting the fact that Muslims are being killed all around the world. He gives the examples of Mali and Syria, where France is part of the coalition against the Islamic State. In a video that emerged on 11 January, two days after his death, Coulibaly is seen pledging allegiance to Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, self-proclaimed chief of the caliphate, in very poor Arabic.

As the motives of the attacks are blurry, finding long-term coherent responses is extremely difficult. Implementing surveillance policies is one thing but it does not help with tackling the other issue of radicalisation. In this regard, French statutory law has recently been adapted to the jihadist threat with an anti-terrorist bill passed in November 2014. On the one hand it allows authorities to confiscate passports and IDs of volunteers for jihad willing to leave for Syria and Iraq. On the other, it also creates a new kind of criminal offence: ‘individual terrorist enterprise’, which targets self-radicalized terrorists-to-be.

The Paris killings will also feed in to political discourses that are likely to gradually undermine national unity. On 11 January, about 4 million people marched through the streets of Paris and other French cities under the banner of democracy and freedom against terror and ‘barbarity’. Rather than presaging a new political path, the support showed in unity rallies throughout France will only be transient. It goes without saying that ‘islamophobia’ is on the rise as mosques are now being targeted all across France. An aggravated context of discrimination won’t solve the problem but rather anchor some of its causes. Nevertheless, the security question and the fight against an internal enemy may shape French politics for a long time to come.

Jewish emigration to Israel

The reasons that brought the terrorists to Charlie Hebdo are clear: killing journalists and their subversive ideas. They also shot police officers for what they epitomise: the idea of order and law enforcement. By contrast, the last main assault at the Hypercacher of Porte de Vincennes was aimed at killing Jews. Indeed, the Jewish community appears as a constant in the terrorist equation. Only two years after the Toulouse killings at the Jewish school Ozar Hatorah by a French Muslim extremist, Jews feel abandoned by authorities.

In Paris Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu paid his respects to the victims of the kosher store at the Synagogue de la Victoire but also encouraged French Jews to make ‘aliyah’: which means ascend in Hebrew. According to Israeli leaders, French Jews are meant to emigrate to Israel as hostile Europe is not their home anymore. As a matter of fact, Jewish emigration has skyrocketed these past few years, reaching the peak of 6000 French Jews last year. As controversial as it sounds, the message got through. Because anti-semitism is on the rise, interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve announced the deployment of the army to support 4700 police agents to protect Jewish places of worship and schools. The government’s stance is aimed at reassuring French Jews, as shown in prime minister Manuel Valls’ speech at the Assemblée nationale.

France’s social fabric is loosening and its political context is deeply affected by recent events. Even though the union nationale is still being proclaimed, no solutions to the heightened tensions have yet been found. Not only do the French fear an internal enemy, but in the secular country of laïcité, religious communities are being set against each other. The prospect of appeasement seems distant.

Deborah Asseraf is a postgraduate student at Sciences Po, Paris, specializing in the field of public policy, and president of Sciences Po Public Affairs Master’s society. She is interested in international relations and politics.