International terrorisme og kontraterrorisme

Jeg har tidligere prøvet mig med kurser of forelæsningrækker på Folkeuniversitetet. Nu bliver det til noget med et kursus om International terrorism og kontraterrorisme. Det bliver sjovt!:

International terrorisme og kontraterrorisme(forelæsningsrække)

Ved forskningskoordinator, ph.d. Flemming Splidsboel Hansen og cand.mag., MA Nis Leerskov Mathiesen.

Forelæsningsrækken har to formål. Det første er at bibringe deltagerne en
forståelse af den internationale terrorismes baggrund, udvikling og nuværende
væsen. Terrorismen har været blandt os i et par tusinde år, og den vil
naturligvis ikke forsvinde igen. Tværtimod synes den inden for de seneste par
årtier at have udviklet sig i en meget voldsom retning. Blandt årsagerne er
ændringer i teknologi og kommunikation, men der har muligvis også været en
idemæssig radikalisering, som gør, at de moderne "superterrorister" forsøger
at gøre så megen skade som muligt.
Det andet formål er at drøfte de værktøjer, som er nødvendige for at kunne
tage stilling til forskellige former for kontraterrorisme. Hvis vi i dag står
over for "superterrorister", er det måske på tide, at vi tager nye og
skrappere metoder i brug for at forsvare os selv. Ønsket om sikkerhed har
fået de fleste stater til at begrænse den enkelte borgers frihed. Men hvor
langt skal vi egentligt gå?
1. Hvad er terrorisme? (FSH)
2. Terroristernes mål og midler (NLM).
3. Kontraterrorisme (FSH).
4. Terrorindustrien (NLM).
5. Et kig ind i fremtiden (NLM/FSH).

Let the students pull the cart

During my time as a graduate student at both King's College London and the University of Copenhagen, I always was a bit puzzled why established academians wouldn't utilise the vast resource of student brainpower and work-eagerness that was tappable, right at their feet.

Usually, when you are a student, you choose courses on what you think is either a)interesting or b) can be beneficial to your future. This in turn means that in institutions with a high number of focused and bright students (KCL fitting the description best of the institutions I frequented), you will have a mass of devoted brains gathering around a subject that the professor is often himself deeply interested in.

Why not, more often, solicit papers to some or all of the students, to further your own research? Why not put a class of eager students in front of your own cart and let them pull you a bit, while showing them that their work is used for something other than just grading, and then - degrading in your basement till you have to move house at some point.

The Strauss Center at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs has done just that. Putting a number of MA students in a class and letting them research for an excellent report on the Hormuz Strait and it's strategic implications for oil flows out of the Gulf.

As a general introduction, with spats of in-depth analysis - it is a perfect example of open source collaboration. If I ever get a fat university position, I'd like to work with students in this way.

The fear of a Terror Gang Planet

The Small Wars Journal presents an article by Robert Killebrew on the merging of gang warfare and terrorism. He points out that this is a latent risk, which is not publicly acknowledged at the moment, but poses a great danger to national security.

I have had the same musings regarding the illegal firework networks in Copenhagen. But the concern that Copenhagen's criminals might aid terrorists is so much more underscored by the recent wave of shootings taking place between immigrant gangs and bikers. I, for one, just need to turn the corner and look at the bullet holes in the nearby net café that was sprayed the other day.

It is remarkable that we fear terroristic attacks on Danish soil every day and only have had a few aborted plots to show for it - but that with a few days of provocations, suddenly the streets are awash with weapons and shots are being fired at random.

Imagine if you were able to energise this criminal activity in way of terrorist activity. That would be a nice solution for someone wishing to conduct a low cost, low signature terrorist attack. The glaring unprofessionalism of the Danish immigrant gangs is probably both an advantage and a disadvantage in this case. Stupid people make stupid decisions.

However, it isn't so likely. Criminals and terrorists are two different species. One is fueled by economic incentives, the other by a more intangible altruistic/ideological drive. Thus the real danger is not a convergence of the two categories, but of the practical utility. If criminals are to gain from terrorists or their sponsoring networks, why not use some of that energy on something else rather than the bikers?

Buzz on the blogs: How to poison the Danish water supply

According to Jamestown Foundation, a discussion thread on a jihadist forum has dealt with how to poison European, especially Danish, watersupplies.

This is a returning idea/fear with jihadist/publics that pops up with regular intervals. Two years ago, some Danish kids pryed open a water main and poured in some rat poison they had found in an abandoned house. This example shows two important aspects of this discussion:

* First off: It is a relative vulnerable piece of infrastructure, hard to fully protect.
* It takes enormous amounts of poison to do any kind of damage in a large, public water distribution system.

However, with issues like these, our perception of risk makes plots where there is an element of "unseen" danger a favorite with terrorists. With a relative low impact in terms of actual damage, plots that inflict a sort of low level influence to a large number of people can still cause great panic. These low impact-great probability risks are the stable of intelligent terrorist planning and a public relations nightmare.

UPDATE 15-09 08:02
The Danish media have picked up the story now as a short piece from Ritzau where someone have done some late night browsing. There isn't really a critica a critical qualifier, though. It might be added if it turns out to be a slow news-day.

A mujahedeen greeting to Denmark

I really wonder where the Danish journalists have done their research, when they have covered the recent As Sahab video detailing the attack on the Danish embassy in Pakistan. It still seems to me than none have made the effort to obtain a copy of the movie, only regurgitating intelligence services and companies like SITE. (Politiken, Berlingske, Jyllandsposten, TV2)

If they had looked for it out where you can find it, they would probably have had a field day with a lot of the interesting details:

* The high-quality footage of the Danish PM's New Year speech praising the US
* The details on Kurt Westergaard
* and not least, the suicide bombers parting message to Danes:

Leaning on a white little compact car (that he later blew up), like an advertisement for a used-car dealership, he delivers this message:

"As for my final message to the worshippers of the cross in Denmark: I tell them: Allah permitting, this isn't the first nor the last retaliation and Allah permitting, Shaykh Usama Bin Laden won't abandon you nor will the Mujahideen abandon you. Allah permitting, we will wipe you from the face of the earth. And we warn everyone whose soul entices him to curse the Prophet (on whom be peace) that these car bombs will be their faith, Allah willing. Finally I dedicate this song to my precious mother, who will - Allah willing - be the first I interceed for on the Day of Resurrection, if Allah accepts me as a martyr.

With the blinkers going, he then proceeds to sing a nasheed to his mother.
rhe
I won't link to the video here, but with a bit of research you can find it two steps down the usual As Sahab distribution-link. It's really worth the effort if you want a deeper understanding and an explanation from these "sad-eyed", eloquent militants.

As Sahab video explaining the attack on the Danish Embassy

As Sahab, the professional AQ media outlet has released a video, detailing the attack on the Danish embassy in Karachi. They advertise for it using this nifty banner:



The video itself (as always hard to come by if you're late) shows various clips, including ones with the illustrator Kurt Vestergaard, the suicide bomber involved in the plot and Mustafa Abu al-Yazid (who were alledgedly killed earlier this year - and was behind the attack).

You can see the thumbs from the video here:

Coercing to persuade

The ever-well-read Wired "Danger Room" blog writes a little post on how artillery has been used to pave the way for talks with local sheiks in the Diyala province of Iraq. This is an aspect of persuasion that has always interested me. At times you need to use violence (a definite no-no in all rhetorical thinking, ancient and modern) as a pretext for being able to persuade and having a constructive debate.

I'm not studied enough on Clausewitz but this aspect of warfare is either an affirmation or a qualification of his famous (and over-used) dictum: War is the continuation of politics.

In the modernist interpretation (where I think we should place C. himself), this meant that war took over when politics had exhausted it's role. In the post-modern interpretation, it means that war is just politics by other means. And this last interpretation is very much in tune with the thoughts about warfare in the fourth generation warfare, new wars, etc. As the classical concept of states warring each other for power crumbles to something much more messy and sub-statey, this mixture of warfare and persuasion will take on prominence. Not that it is a new genre. In a way you could see the proxy wars of the Cold War era as an aspect of same persuasion: "Look how much destruction we can rain down on you, when you attack me. Care to have a chat about our mutual future?"