Counterterrorism Strategy Research Articles

X-Raying the Environmental Impact of Armed Conflict in Nigeria

The prevailing armed conflicts in Nigeria particularly in the Niger Delta region and North East have caused massive destruction to human lives and the environment at large. The high-level weapons, bombs and other explosives employed by the Niger Delta Militants, the Boko Haram group and the Nigerian military in counter-terrorism strategies have impacted negatively on farmlands, water-bodies, wildlife and natural forests. The paper examines the history and activities of the armed groups together with the effects of such activities on the Nigerian environment. The paper relies on doctrinal method of research utilizing primary and secondary information. The paper clearly finds that the conflict in the Niger-Delta region of Nigeria is attributed to consistent marginalization and undue neglect of the inhabitants by the Government and the oil companies as major stakeholders in the oil and gas industry. The extant legal frameworks on the protection of the environment during armed conflicts were equally examined, including international, regional and domestic instruments pointing out the lacunas inherent in the laws. The paper therefore, recommends that the Nigerian government should engage the armed groups operating in the North Eastern part of the country in more productive negotiations rather than employing armed attacks which have proven to be counter-productive. Keywords: Environment, impact, Armed conflict, legal framework, Protection, Compensation, Negotiation DOI: 10.7176/JLPG/131-01 Publication date: April 30 th 2023

Implications of Drone Strikes on Pakistan during USA War on Terror: An Analysis

USA strategists dwelled strategy of drone strikes to kill terrorists in War on Terror. The effectiveness of drone strikes remained debatable both in defense and academic circles. Some have of the opinion that it paid a lot for USA with minimum collateral damage and it helped US forces in locating and targeting terrorists. While some found this strategy ineffective to achieve any noticeable goals Pakistan was effected with this counterterrorism strategy of USA forces. This work is aimed at digging out that how this strategy of tracing and targeting terrorists with drone attacks resulted in severe short as well as long term implications for Pakistan. Data for this work has been collected from different available sources like research articles, books and reports of government agencies. Qualitative data analysis technique has been used for accumulated data to understand the phenomenon in better way.

Muslim charity in the United Kingdom: Between counter-terror and social integration

Writing ahead of the next ‘Independent Review’ of the United Kingdom’s counter-terror strategy, this article presents two inter-related arguments. First, that the current counter-terror legislation is counter-productive, according to its own logic, in achieving social integration. Second, that Islamic practices and conceptualisations associated with charitable giving hold potentials to offer a more inclusive understanding of social integration than that currently utilised in the United Kingdom. The actions of Muslim charities and practitioners within Britain (exemplified by service provisions during Covid restrictions) serve as an important tool for social integration. Thus, by exploring the potentials of Muslim charitable giving, an alternative solution to social integration in the United Kingdom is presented. Drawing from participant interviews with a range of Muslim charitable practitioners, this article argues that supporting British Muslim charities would assist social integration and the construction of ‘shared values’ assumed by UK counter-terror strategies to be a tool in combating ‘extremist’ narratives.

Why do some terrorist campaigns escalate to civil wars but others do not?

ABSTRACT The recent literature on antecedents of civil wars focuses primarily on the escalation of non-violent movements to civil wars. Still, it remains silent on why some terrorist campaigns manage to turn their violent campaign into a sustained insurgency. By filling this lacuna, we provide empirically supported explanations for this puzzle. Specifically, we explore the effects of three factors on a terror group’s chance to escalate the civil war, which are 1) how the state responds to the group’s terror campaign, 2) how the group responds to the state’s counterterrorism strategies, 3) and the state’s relations with other states. By testing our theory with recently released data on terrorist groups, we find that a terror group’s campaign is more likely to escalate to a civil war when 1) the state uses more repression against the terror group and 2) the group diversifies its attack portfolio. In addition, we also find that a terror group is less likely to escalate its campaign to a civil war if the state engages in an interstate rivalry, and the state responds to the group with higher spending on public goods, specifically social welfare goods. The results provide implications for future studies on terrorism and civil war.

STRATEGY FOR DEFEATING TERRORISM IN NIGERIA AND THE SAHEL

The purpose of this paper is to provide a counter-ideology framework as an alternative strategy to defeat terrorists, as military force has never been proven enough to defeat any terrorist group. The analysis relies on secondary information for systematic examination and descriptive analysis resulting in the use of Counter Terrorism Strategy (CTS) model to evaluate key assumption that acts of terrorist recruits are connected to deep politics and ideology. The paper therefore posits that the use of genuine religious messages to isolate terrorists from communities and ultimately make them short of new recruits should be considered. This finding has critical implications for institutions, governments, intelligence communities, regulators and policymakers, that the military crackdown would not yield the needed result, hence the need for a counter-ideology as a strategy to fight terrorism, particularly in the Sahel region.

The UK counter-terrorism strategy and international justice

This article critically assesses the UK counter-terrorism strategy and determines the extent to which there is international justice within the War on Terror. It investigates why war crimes are investigated and prosecuted differently, as well as how understandings of what terrorism is varied, according to who the perpetrators are. It argues that new legal mechanisms and institutions need to hold all perpetrators of war crimes accountable, both state and non-state actors.

Asymmetry and Power Disparity in East Africa: The Strength behind Interdependence and Cooperation in US-Kenya Counterterrorism

This study examined asymmetry and power disparity in US-Kenya bilateral relation to counterterrorism in East Africa. It employed a qualitative approach using a desktop approach. The study further employed secondary and primary data from incidents of terror attacks in East Africa since 9/11 period. The study is deemed significant because of notable persistent expansion of Al-Shabaab’s terrorist cells in the East African Region. Although this threat remains a concern to US-Kenya interests, the expansion of terror activities in regions such as the Central Africa and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) is alarming and brings relevance to this study. The study employed asymmetry theory as a benchmark to explain how international relations amongst states with visible power disparity can yield normalcy in bilateral and multilateral relations when tackling mutual insecurity threats such as terrorism. The study findings indicate that asymmetric bilateral relations are likely to respond positively to challenges posed by terrorism through counterterror measures pursued by means of interdependence and cooperation as is the case of US-Kenya asymmetric relationship. The counterterror measures employed through joint efforts despite the visible US-Kenya asymmetric power disparity present valuable lessons to the Southern African Region. Hence, the study recommends policy makers in Southern Africa to consider counterterror strategies that are incrementally multidimensional to better address the rising regional insecurities.

The effects of social media on domestic terrorism

ABSTRACT Much qualitative research has drawn an association between social media and domestic terrorism, with the studies reaching different conclusions. However, few empirical studies have evaluated whether the surge in social media participation affects domestic terrorist events. Controlling for common explanations in the literature, we conduct a cross-national, time-series analysis of up to 151 countries from 2000 to 2019 to assess the impact of social media penetration on domestic terrorism. We find that greater social media penetration increases the likelihood of domestic terrorism in countries as it supports extremists’ ability to recruit, mobilize, and train terrorists. Using mediation analysis, we also find that greater social media penetration amplifies online and political polarization, increasing the likelihood of domestic terrorism events. Our work indicates the possible mechanisms linking social media and domestic terrorism and the need to develop and apply appropriate counterterrorism strategies to mitigate terrorist operations.

Asymmetry Theory and Practical Application in US-Kenya Counterterrorism

Asymmetry Theory views asymmetry in a distinct light from the popular view in International Relations. Drawing from Womack’s (2016) perspective on Asymmetry Theory, international relations are interactions based on relational beads rather than independent transactions. The obvious distinction in global capabilities between a larger and a smaller state does not translate into anarchy as Asymmetry Theory concentrates on the interdependence of states. This study provided an analysis of the US-Kenya bilateral relations within a context of an asymmetric relationship and its counterterror influence in East Africa. It assessed the assumptions and impact of the Asymmetry Theory in the engagements of US-Kenya counterterrorism in East Africa. Secondary and primary data was collected through descriptive statistics in selected incidents of terror indicating Kenya’s vulnerability and resilient success in fighting the scourge of terrorism after 9/11. The study is timely for it unpacks the indispensable impact of the theory and its practical application in US-Kenya strategic approach to counterterrorism. Asymmetry Theory brings a new contribution in the study of counterterrorism, expanding the understanding of counterterror strategies. This study refutes contradictory claims that argue that power asymmetry between states is relative to dominance.

Development of anti-terrorist legislation of the USA

The article is devoted to the analysis of the development of modern US anti-terrorist legislation. The goals and tasks implemented by the state in a specific historical period are considered. The laws adopted by the US Congress aimed at combating domestic and international terrorism are analyzed. The article covers the events after September 11, 2001. Author considers the Patriot Act and other laws created to combat terrorism. The main elements of the counter-terrorism strategy and the US national security strategy are highlighted. The main directions of the US state policy in the field of counter-terrorism have been determined.

A Theoretical, Empirical, and Methodologically Based Instrument to Assess the Risk of Violent Jihadist Radicalization in Prisons: The DRAVY-3

ABSTRACT A main goal of the Spanish National Counter-Terrorism Strategy is to improve the detection and control of inmates who may participate or collaborate with terrorist groups after release convicted and detained inmates linked to terrorist acts, as well as of those individuals involved, during their stay in prison, in violent extremist recruitment or indoctrination. This manuscript introduces an instrument for assessing the risk of violent jihadist radicalization in prisons, the Detention of Violent Jihadists Radicalization (DRAVY-3 for its Spanish initials). This instrument was built on tools already existing, a review of the literature, the experience of the prison staff, indicators suggested by researchers from two institutions, a field study conducted with Muslim inmates (jihadists and non-jihadists), and the results of six implementations of two preliminary versions. The DRAVY-3 was tested by evaluating 570 inmates from five groups (related to jihadist terrorism and controls). The analyses showed that the indicators are distributed into three scales: violence in general, violence of jihadist aetiology, and radicalism. Analyses also informed that a combination of indicators confirm an index of prediction of the level of danger. Results demonstrate the internal strength of the instrument and its capacity to detect potential radicalization leading to violence.

A critical evaluation of China's legal responses to cyberterrorism

Cyberterrorism has become an increasing threat to stability and security in China. However, China does not have a special counter-cyberterrorism law, instead relying on existing anti-terrorism laws to deal with cyberterrorism. This approach raises a number of problems insofar as it may lead to legislative uncertainty and unpredictability, as well as impacting on carrying risks of over-criminalisation, a lack of counterbalance and violation of proportionality. In light of these problems, this article aims to offer a critical evaluation of China's legal responses to cyberterrorism, mainly focusing on the broad and vague definition of terrorism, the tendency to criminalise a wide range of terrorism precursor offences, and the country's preventive counterterrorism strategy. This approach also reflects the legal reality of ‘rule by law’ in China, through which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) expands state power by broadening counterterrorism legislation to achieve its political goals, prioritising national security and ensuring social stability.

Extraction and Analysis of High Impact Attacks for Insights in Global Terrorism

Terrorism adversely impacts the investment decisions of multinational enterprises. This research proposes the iterative outlier analysis heuristic capable of utilizing a univariate attribute to extract high impact attacks (HIA) from a comprehensive and actively maintained global terrorism database (GTD). The two different univariate attributes used for HIA extraction were nkill (pure GTD univariate attribute) and global terrorism impact score (GTI-IS) (a derived composite attribute). Calendar year extraction of HIAs returns local point outliers, whereas taking whole dataset at once provides global point outliers. The nkill-based extraction resulted in 5 and 14 times more exclusive HIAs than GTI-IS in local and global point analysis, thereby establishing its superiority. Further, correspondence analysis using extracted HIAs demonstrated the affinity towards explosives in the Middle East & North Africa region, with Military and Business as preferred targets. Also, HIAs facilitated the geospatial visualization of terrorism hotbeds. Eliciting location-specific relationships from HIAs on weapon type and target type can assist in formulating better counterterrorism strategies. This study scrutinized the averaging out evaluation methodology of GTI ranking based on GTI-IS score. By equalizing terrorist attacks of distinct outcomes using an average score can induce bias among business decision-makers interested in a particular nation.

Indonesia’s Hard Approach and Soft Approach Counter-Terrorism Strategy

This research examines the dynamics of counter-terrorism policies in Indonesia from the Old Order (Orde Lama) era to the current period. Terrorist attacks have been a threat to Indonesia's national security since the beginning of the nation's independence. The government is required to counter terrorism through a series of effective policies. This research uses descriptive qualitative method with literature study. The results of the research obtained are that the pattern of countering terrorism in Indonesia is divided into two types of approaches, the hard approach and the soft approach. The hard approach method refers to the use of armed forces against terror organizations. The soft approach method prioritizes integrated and comprehensive actions in dealing with the problem of radicalism starting from the root of the problem. The hard approach was more used in the early era of independence until the New Order. Meanwhile, the soft approach has been massively used since the establishment of the National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT) in 2010 until now. Indonesia's policies in the counter-terrorism strategy are then divided into three, namely strengthening counter- terrorism regulations, making programs to prevent terrorism crimes, and increasing the capacity of anti-terror organizations.

Bridging the Norms of Counter-Terrorism and Responsibility to Protect: Countering the Proliferation and Activities of Armed Groups in Nigeria

Abstract How do we achieve the protection of vulnerable civilians from violent non-state actors in Nigeria? This article argues that despite the seemingly different approaches of Responsibility to Protect (r2p) and the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy, both can align at an intrastate implementation level to protect exposed communities from armed groups. The UN’s adoption of a people-centric approach to counter-terrorism (ct) and the preventive measures against heinous crimes instituted in pillars one and two of r2p creates the space for this cooperation. This article further shows how practitioners can integrate both regimes with local networks to provide a holistic civilian protection strategy. This approach encompasses international, state, and local agency in halting the proliferation and activities of violent non-state groups. I espouse a framework for the protection of vulnerable Nigerian populations based on three factors – community self-protection, economic well-being, and ideological reorientation.

Terrorism as an interactive process: a tool for the assessment of terrorist affiliation degree

ABSTRACT The present paper proposes an instrument to measure the risk of terrorist conflicts through the concept of affiliation to a terrorist organization. The proposed instrument is called the Tool for the Assessment of Terrorist Affiliation Degree (TATAD) and measures how close the respondents are to a complete affiliation, on a scale of four degrees. Based on the Methodology for the Analysis of Computerised Textual Data, each degree is characterized by specific interactive modalities that differ in the ways they contribute to conflict or to community cohesion. Based on the degree of affiliation, it is possible to anticipate acts of conflict that are coherent with the modality of interaction measured by TATAD. By considering the interactive modalities, and not only the contents linked to terrorism, the process of affiliation is the same independently of the type of terrorist society and its beliefs (ideological, religious, etc.). Therefore, TATAD can be used independently of the specific context and motives of terrorism. By detecting critical modalities of interaction, TATAD can be used to support decision making and plan interventions to promote community cohesion in prisons and migration services, and to evaluate the efficiency of counter-terrorism strategies, policies and projects aimed at promoting social cohesion.

Counter-Terrorism Strategy of Pakistan: A Case Study of Military Operations

Counter-Terrorism Strategy of Pakistan: A Case Study of Military Operations

The de-radicalization, rehabilitation and reintegration project in Nigeria’s counter-terrorism strategy: Operation Safe Corridor in context

ABSTRACT In the years since the emergence of Boko Haram, the terror threat posed by the sect’s violent extremism has remained a challenge for the Nigerian government. The failure to contain it has been attributed to the government’s over-reliance on military strategies. While conventional approaches are useful in weakening the operational capacity of domestic terrorism, they do not provide a long-term solution. The use of military strategies to quell ideological and religious-driven terrorism has proven counterproductive. As a result, scholars and security practitioners have recommended a combination of military and non-military strategies to address insurgency. Non-military strategies include de-radicalization, disarmament, amnesty, indigenous conflict resolution mechanisms, and other soft power measures. In line with this, the Nigerian government adopted ‘Operation Safe Corridor’ in a bid to de-radicalize, rehabilitate and reintegrate former Boko Haram combatants who voluntarily surrender to the government. This article assesses Operation Safe Corridor’s institutional mechanisms as a counter-terrorism strategy in Nigeria. It argues that the lack of a legal framework, issues of public perception and trust and host communities’ reluctance to accept former Boko Haram combatants have undermined successful implementation of the program. It is imperative for the government to address these challenges in order to achieve Operation Safe Corridor’s objectives and ensure successful deradicalization and reintegration of former combatants.

The un role in combating international terrorism: achievements and challenges

Terrorism continues to be an urgent international problem, despite a slight decrease in terrorist activity after the military defeat of ISIS * in Syria and Iraq. This article attempts to examine the main areas of the UN counter-terrorist activities in the 2000s. The authors have revealed the importance of the Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy for intensifying the combat against global terrorism. The content of the institutional reform of the system of UN organizations that counter terrorism is described in detail. A special focus is on the tasks and functions of the Counter-Terrorism Committee, the Counter-Terrorism Center, and the UN Counter-Terrorism Office. Special attention is paid to the analysis of some unresolved problems in the activities of the UN as the center of the combat against terrorism in the world.

Optimal control methodology for the Counter-Terrorism strategies: The relaxation based approach

This paper deals with a novel application of the advanced optimal control techniques to a Counter-Terrorism optimal decision-making problem. The recently developed model of the Counter-Terrorism security policies (see [1]) naturally incorporates a competing interest group dynamics. The optimal dynamics can be found in this case by considering a specific Optimal Control Problem. In our work we propose an essential formal improvement of the above applied Optimal Control Problem and its numerical treatment. We formulate a suitable phase-constrained Optimal Control Problem for the initial Counter-Terrorism model and study a specific relaxation of this model. The proposed β-relaxation approach makes it possible to eliminate some model inconsistences and to design an optimal Counter-Terrorism strategy. We develop a new numeric algorithm for the improved dynamic optimization problem. We next study some analytic properties of this algorithm. The resulting computational technique involves a gradient based method in combination with the proposed relaxation scheme (see [2]). The obtained numerical approach is finally applied to an illustrative example.