Counterterrorism Blog

A few days ago the BBC aired a very interesting short documentary titled Muslims First, British Second. While covering issues of radicalization among segments of the British Muslim community, the documentary also suggests a major shift taking place within the British government’s counterterrorism strategy (known as Contest). A key part of Contest is Prevent, which has traditionally been defined as “stop[ing] people from becoming or supporting terrorists or violent extremists.” Since the focus has always been on “violent extremism,” British authorities have tolerated and, in many cases, supported organizations that, while considered “extremist” by many officials and policymakers, oppose violence inside the UK. As the documentary shows, organizations and individuals that preached that democracy is incompatible with Islam or expressed views on homosexuals, women and non-Muslims that clearly stand against what the vast majority of British citizens would deem acceptable and arguably undermine social cohesion, were often engaged as partners and received public money. Since they did not preach violence inside the United Kingdom many British policymakers believed that they could help the government in its Prevent strategy, swaying British Muslims away from “violent extremism.”

This strategy has been criticized by many over the last few years. Now it seems that the Home Office itself is changing direction. Going against what it had consistently stated over the last few years, last week it released a statement saying: "Our strategy to prevent people becoming terrorists is not simply about tackling violent extremism. It is also about tackling those who espouse extremist views that are inconsistent with our shared values. Decisions on which organisations to fund are taken very carefully and are subject to robust scrutiny. We are clear that we will not continue to fund groups where we have evidence of them encouraging discrimination, undermining democracy and being ambiguous towards terrorism." It is premature to say whether this will result in a permanent shift, but the debate is quite interesting, as most Western countries struggle with similar issues.

Also of interest re: Europe are a few publications that have recently come out. JTA published an interesting series on Muslims in Europe which includes a good article on British counter-radicalization programs. The European Commission also released two very good studies on radicalization in Europe. The first, authored by Peter Neumann and Brooke Rogers from King’s College, is an excellent report entitled Recruitment and Mobilisation for the Islamist Militant Movement in Europe. The second, released only in French by the Compagnie Européenne d'Intelligence Stratégique, analyses trends in radicalization and recruitment.

Finally, German publishing house Nomos has published an excellent book edited by Franz Eder and Martin Senn by the title Europe and Transnational Terrorism: Assessing Threats and Countermeasures. The book’s chapters, written by top European experts such as Paul Wilkinson and Victor Mauer, cover the threat of al-Qaeda, the risk of terrorist attacks with weapons of mass destruction, the counter-terrorist policies of Great Britain and Germany, transatlantic co-operation in homeland security, the Union’s efforts to combat terrorist financing, and the possibility of deterring terrorist acts. I contributed a chapter on the origins and characteristics of homegrown jihadist networks in Europe.