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Steven Emerson,
Executive Director
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August 29, 2016
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Developing
an Effective Counter Radicalization Strategy
by Scott Newark
Special to IPT News
August 29, 2016
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first of your friends to like this.
 Western governments
appear to have finally accepted the reality that a new front on the
Islamist war has opened up and it's in our own backyards. It is all too
easy for al-Qaida, or ISIS, or whatever new Islamist group, to publish
propaganda to incite radicalized or radically prone young Muslims living in
the West, and to hand them chillingly accurate information to
"build bombs in your mother's kitchen."
These young recruits are being recruited to kill soldiers, police and
civilians in their own countries rather than attempting to travel to join
the Islamist slaughter abroad. And while there has been some success in
suppressing the capabilities of international Islamist networks and in
military action against the ISIS "caliphate," domestic terrorist
attacks throughout the West show that the threat has not gone away or even
been diminished. And that means our approach must also evolve.
We must acknowledge that this threat comes from people and groups who
have an unyielding belief that their version of Islam calls for the
submission of the world to its dictates, and that killing those who oppose
or resist this is not only permissible but obligatory..
Equally, while the Islamist ideology may prey on and exploit persons
with mental illness, they are yelling Allahu Ahkbah and not
"Sigmund Freud" when they detonate the suicide bombs or murder
innocent civilians with knives, guns or trucks. The extremist religious
motivation is the key to understanding their actions and in developing a
strategy to help prevent the radicalization that leads to it.
Second, this "religious" motivation must be acknowledged by
our official entities and the larger Muslim community within Western
societies who want nothing to do with it and who reject its goals. For
them, Islam may be a religion of peace that forbids killing of innocent
civilians, but for others, their version of Islam commands it. There are
clearly different conclusions being reached, but the good guys and the bad
guys are reading from the same book, and acknowledging this fact is
essential if we're going to be successful. Candor, however uncomfortable,
is a better long-term strategy than forcing security and law enforcement
agencies to twist themselves into pretzels at each new incident to avoid
offending anyone.
It is also critical to recognize that the domestic terrorist pool is
comprised of people who, through different processes, have been
indoctrinated into the Islamist extremist ideology that includes committing
murderous acts of terrorism. This must be the starting point of the
counter-radicalization strategy. Simply focusing on
"de-radicalizing" extremists does nothing to stop someone from
heading down that path in the first place. Similarly, limiting intervention
to those espousing extremist beliefs and violent intentions assumes
an ability to foretell actions that is simply unrealistic. While not all
Islamic extremists are terrorists, all Islamist terrorists ascribe to the
extremist version of Islam. It only makes sense to start where the
terrorism motivation originates.
We also must acknowledge that the Islamist strategy includes
establishing a "global Caliphate." This vision is not limited to
the overt savagery wrought on Muslims and non-Muslims alike, but also
includes the murky Islamist political efforts of the Muslim Brotherhood and
its spidery network of seemingly benign organizations. Their intent, in their own words, is "destroying the Western
civilization from within and 'sabotaging' its miserable house by their
hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's
religion is made victorious over all other religions." One other quote
worth keeping in mind is the official motto of the Muslim Brotherhood which
says it all:
"God is our goal, Quran is our Constitution, the Prophet is our
leader, struggle [jihad] is our way, and death in the service of God is the
loftiest of our wishes."
Lest there be anyone who still doubts the existence and clear purpose of
this long-term strategy, let me suggest you read the materials in the Holy
Land Foundation terror financing case or the compelling 2011 book, The Grand Jihad by former federal prosecutor
Andrew McCarthy.
It is also important to understand that for the Muslim Brotherhood
network of groups, "war is deception." Lying to the kuffar
(non-believers) is fully authorized by the Quran through the doctrine known
as taqiyya.
Domestic Islamist inspired terrorism incidents in the West (and
elsewhere) are getting worse. What's more, there is clear evidence that
significant numbers of their Western citizens have travelled to the Middle
East to pursue murderous Islamist jihad, and increasing numbers of them are
finding ways to return "home."
While some cases have involved people who received training abroad, most
of these cases involve radicalization that took place in Western societies including Canada and the United States. That's a
chilling reality that must be acknowledged including determining how it
took place and who was involved. That hard truth was summed up by a parent
of one of the young Toronto 18 would-be terrorists when he warned,
"They're stealing our kids." It's time we started focusing on who
"they" are.
While there has been significant work done on analyzing the general
psychological profile of persons vulnerable to such radicalization, very
few concrete measures have been taken to identify and then proactively
target the means by which such radicalization occurs.
What follows, therefore, are specific action item suggestions to
confront and defeat this newest security threat.
Counter-radicalization actions
1/ Ensure there is a clear and official awareness of the threat of
extremist Islamism and domestic radicalization, and an understanding of the
supportive Muslim Brotherhood's long-term goals.
2/ Identify all Muslim Brotherhood links in Islamic groups including
mosques and Islamic learning centers.
3/ Identify all Wahabbi/Saudi/Salafist linked funding of mosques and
learning centers and Islamic organizations with a consideration of
prohibiting it.
This issue has already been the subject of some media reporting and
given the charitable or non-profit status of such organizations, the
required information should be available. What's required is personified by
the mission statement of the Investigative Project on Terrorism:
Investigate, Analyze, Expose.
4/ Improve "community outreach" efforts
Outreach to the Islamic community is a critical component of preventing
radicalization, but it must be conducted on an informed basis so that the
people included are not pursuing a contrary agenda. Authorities engaging in
outreach activities must conduct sufficient background analysis to ensure
that liaisons are established with persons genuinely seeking to prevent
Islamist radicalization rather than with self-appointed "leaders"
of the community whose views (public and private) are not representative of
the communities they claim to represent. The goal is to both detect and
assist people at risk of radicalization (and their families) and to help
rehabilitate people who have been radicalized.
5/ Promote integration and identify segregation efforts
Successful integration into Western multicultural society is likely the
best protection against radicalization, and thus efforts to promote it
should be recognized and supported. Conversely, deliberate efforts by
mosques, learning centers or Islamic organizations to promote segregation
of Muslims away from the larger community should be recognized as cause for
concern.
6/ Use existing legal tools
Use existing hate speech laws, which prohibit promoting hatred against
groups based on religion, gender or other defined factors, for unlawful
conduct that is part of Islamist radicalization. Also, use the full
spectrum of civil regulatory tools to try to prevent publicly regulated facilities
from being used to promote radicalization or activities which are contrary
to defined Western societal values. This strategy of "using all the
tools in the toolbox" will be controversial but will also likely
expose such anti-social practices to the light of day, which is a good
thing.
7/ Amend Immigration and Citizenship Legislation
These statutes could be amended to modernize inadmissibility or acquired
citizenship revocation criteria to people who actively advocate or promote
cultural, religious or racial intolerance, gender inequality or the
elimination of any of secular democracy, individual liberty or the rule of
secular law. It's time we recognize that we do have a "culture"
and it's worth protecting and preserving.
8/ Proactive cyber efforts against recruitment/radicalization sites
Self-radicalization, aided by jihadi websites, is a reality facing
intelligence and law enforcement personnel. While monitoring such sites is
obviously a useful tactic, at some point the harm in allowing the glorification
and recruitment outweighs the benefit of monitoring this activity.
Deploying a proactive offensive cyber attack strategy to melt down the bad
guys' cyber and social media capabilities is worth considering.
9./ Protect children from radicalized parents
Children living in Western societies should receive the full benefit of
our laws that are explicitly designed to protect them from harm, including
anti-social indoctrination or abuse from their parents in the name of
extremist Islam. This could provide refuge for victims of "honor
violence," like the murdered Aqsa Parvez and the Shafia sisters in
Canada. These kids deserved better and we should ensure that such abuse
does not continue because of a politically correct aversion to confronting
the truth.
Western countries face an unprecedented threat to domestic security
through the radicalization of persons to a nihilistic Islamist ideology,
where death is a preferred tactic to discussion. These suggestions will
legitimately generate controversy precisely because they go to the core of
the threat, which is violence predicated on religious beliefs. It is
clearly a difficult challenge, but one that must be undertaken with truth
and candor as our guides.
This article is an update of the author's previous columns for Front
Line Security magazine and the Macdonald Laurier Institute.
Scott Newark is a former Alberta Crown Prosecutor who has also served
as Executive Officer of the Canadian Police Association, Vice Chair of the
Ontario Office for Victims of Crime, Director of Operations to the
Washington D.C.-based Investigative Project on Terrorism and as a Security
Policy Advisor to the Governments of Ontario and Canada.
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