Terrorist Rehabilitation: A New Frontier In Counter-terrorism

A NEW FRONTIER IN COUNTER-TERRORISM

Rohan Gunaratna, Mohamed Bin Ali

• Publisher: ICP
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781783267453
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Science General
• Index: Biological Sciences

With the rise of religiously motivated violence and terrorism, governments around the world need to develop their religious and ideological capabilities in parallel with strengthening their law enforcement, military and intelligence capabilities. Terrorist Rehabilitation: A New Frontier in Counter-terrorism aims to provide an understanding of the importance of the approach and strategy of terrorist rehabilitation in countering this threat.

Comprising of nine chapters, this book provides case study assessments of terrorist rehabilitation practices set against the backdrop of their unique operational and geopolitical milieu in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Indonesia and Sri Lanka. This will help the reader to form a foundational understanding of the concept of terrorist rehabilitation by combining the insights, successes and experience of senior government officials and counter-terrorism experts. In addition, the contributors provide discussions on religious concepts that have been manipulated by violent Islamists as a background to understanding religiously or ideologically motivated terrorism and the avenues open for countering it.

Contents:

• Terrorist Rehabilitation: Genesis, Genealogy and Likely Future (Rohan Gunaratna)
• Saudi Efforts in Counter-Radicalisation and Extremist Rehabilitation (Dr Abdulrahman al-Hadlaq)
• Terrorist Rehabilitation: The Singapore Experience (Rohan Gunaratna and Mohamed Feisal Bin Mohamed Hassan)
• Current State of Indonesia's Deradicalisation and Rehabilitation Programme (Irfan Idris and Muh Taufiqurrohman)
• Sri Lanka's Rehabilitation Programme: The Humanitarian Mission Two (Malkanthi Hettiarachchi)
• Delegitimising the Al-Qaeda of Obligatory Jihad: Interpreting the Islamic Concept of Jihad Based on the Fatwa on Terrorism (Dr Hassan Mohi-ud-Din Qadri)
• Al-Wala' wal Bara' (Loyalty and Disavowal) in Modern Salafism: Analysing the Positions of Purist, Politico and Jihadi Salafis (Dr Mohamed Ali)
• Weighing the Arguments of Takfir and "Islam Under Attack" (Dr Muchlis M Hanafi)
• The Outcome of a Long Process: Tracking Terrorist Rehabilitation and the Beginning of a Longer One — Implementing Best Practices in Regional Contexts (Dr Douglas M Stone)

Readership: Security practitioners interested in new approaches to countering the threat of violent extremism and terrorism from a perspective of terrorist rehabilitation, including counter-terrorism officials, senior police officers and managers involved in counter-terrorism, and non-government organisations and policy-makers with a specific interest in counter-terrorism; graduate students and researchers in the field of security studies and counter-terrorism.
Key Features:

• Discusses successful terrorist rehabilitation in various countries set against the backdrop of their distinct operational and geopolitical milieu
• Provides discussions of some of the religious concepts that have been manipulated and used by violent Islamists
• Helps the reader to form a foundational understanding of the concept of terrorist rehabilitation by combining the insights and experience of senior government officials and counter-terrorism experts on how terrorist rehabilitation strategies have been successfully implemented across the world

PART 1

Chapter 1

Terrorist Rehabilitation: Genesis, Genealogy and Likely Future

Rohan Gunaratna

Introduction

To mitigate the post-Islamic State (IS) global threat landscape, governments and their community partners will have to assess the environment and restrategise. Today, the dominant form of conflict is between state–non-state and non-state–non-state actors. While governments have built institutions for soldier treatment and recuperation, the capacity for insurgent rehabilitation and reintegration is limited to non-existent in most countries. Strategies are needed to mitigate the threat by rehabilitating the infected and immunising vulnerable communities from being radicalised. Breaking the cycle of regeneration through recruitment can only be accomplished by rehabilitation of insurgents and community engagement of their potential and actual supporters.

In the life of an insurgent, the most important opportunity government has is to transform him or her is when in custody. Unless guerrillas and terrorists in custody are transformed, when released, they will harbour the same violent ideas, and propagate and inflect others with their views. They will continue to pose an enduring threat to public safety and security. In addition to posing a direct and an indirect security threat, the released men and women will form a part of the guerrilla and terrorist iconography. They will earn the status of heroes worthy of respect and emulation by the next generation of violent and radical recruits.

Insurgent rehabilitation has assumed a new dimension in the 21st century. The failures of the world’s technologically most advanced armies to restore stability in Afghanistan and Iraq and Syria turning into a global battlefield with 80 nationalities fighting — the world faces an unprecedented threat. Increasingly, rehabilitating insurgents radicalised and militarised in foreign theatres is emerging as a global concern. To prevent recidivism, addressing their ideological, psychological, physical and functional needs is paramount. The estimated pool of 10,000–30,000 foreign fighters worldwide during the last thirty years from 1980–2011,¹ may have doubled during the last three years from 2011–2014.

Compared to an estimated 5,000–20,000 foreign fighters in Afghanistan during a decade of fighting,² over 30,000 Sunni and Shia foreign fighters travelled to Syria within the first three years (2011–2014). With the insurmountable challenge of restoring security in Afghanistan and Pakistan and Syria-Iraq, the global foreign fighter pool is likely to grow. The security implications for both countries of conflict and countries of origin are likely to persist in the immediate, mid and long term.

The international neglect of veterans of the anti-Soviet multinational Afghan mujahidin campaign (1979–1989) and internecine campaign (1989–1992) spawned the current wave of Muslim insurgencies and terrorist campaigns. A new global threat environment driven by the developments in Afghanistan–Pakistan and Syria–Iraq theatres is emerging. The threat is al-Qaeda–Islamic State hybrid centric and is affecting both social harmony and national security. The key to managing the threat is creating capabilities to rehabilitate and reintegrate foreign fighter returnees and launching platforms to prevent the recruitment and travel of foreign fighters.

The context

An assessment of the US-led coalition experience both in Iraq and Afghanistan suggest the grave need for a full spectrum response. Kinetic and lethal operations by governments are the most effective. However, these approaches are not the most efficient. They can buy time for governments to fight operational terrorism but cannot stem the tide of ideological extremism — the fuel for terrorism and guerrilla warfare. While insurgency poses a serious threat, terrorism is an even greater threat to communities. As politically-motivated terrorists seek to deliberately target non-combatants, they present the higher threat.

Terrorism, a vicious by-product of ideological extremism, can be fought efficiently by developing a comprehensive strategy of hard and soft power. Smart power, a combination of both hard and soft power, will engage the willing and deter the recalcitrant. Without winning over the hearts and minds of the population, insurgent campaigns will continue. There is a need to integrate community engagement and rehabilitation into the contemporary counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism strategy.

Rehabilitation is to help someone return to normal life by providing education, training and therapy. Those exposed to and convinced by terrorist and extremist ideologies do not lead normal lives. They adopt the writings and speeches of ideologues that espouse hatred and transform themselves, in contrast to guerrillas who attack combatants, terrorists and their supporters pose a higher threat. Whether they are operational terrorists or extremist supporters, they believe that violence and other extreme measures are acceptable means to bring about political change. Terrorists and their supporters are not mainstream but are extreme. To facilitate their return to the mainstream from the extreme, they must be rehabilitated. Rehabilitation may not be a perfect solution that transforms every single terrorist but it is the best available solution.

To restore life to normalcy, governments and their partners should rehabilitate terrorists. The modes of rehabilitation are: first, religious and spiritual; second, educational; third, vocational and entrepreneurial; fourth, psychological; fifth, familial, social and cultural; sixth, recreational; and seventh, creative arts.³ Most governments neglect and do not rehabilitate terrorists in custody. After they complete their sentences, they are released back to society with no motivation and skills to join mainstream society. Most governments lack the vision and the leadership to build rehabilitation programmes, even low cost programmes. Only a few governments have built comprehensive rehabilitation and reintegration programmes.

Why must governments engage communities in parallel with rehabilitation of terrorists and their supporters in custody? If we do not build community resilience, terrorists released into society will contaminate society and increase the pool of operatives, supporters and sympathisers. No rehabilitation programme will be successful without community engagement. To prevent regeneration, community engagement strategies to build community resilience are paramount. By creating a counter-terrorist and counter-extremist environment, the fight against terrorism and extremism can be won.

Background

A new global threat landscape has emerged with the attraction of thousands of foreign fighters to Iraq and Syria, the withdrawal of US-led coalition forces from Iraq in 2011 and their drawdown from Afghanistan in 2014, and heightened sectarian politics across the Muslim world. New players, namely the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS)⁴ (known as Ad Dawlah al Islamiyya fil Iraq wa ash Sham/Daesh in Arabic) and its splinter Jabhat al Nusra (also known as Al Nusra Front), are competing for supremacy in the global jihadist arena. Old actors such as Al-Qaeda (“The Base”) are struggling to retain their potency. At the heart of the dramatic developments in the Middle East are the establishment of a so-called Islamic caliphate by ISIS and its imposition of a jihadist interpretation of Islamic canon law within it, along with the growing in-fighting for power and legitimacy among the players of the Global Jihad Movement, i.e., Al-Qaeda Core,⁵ groups ideologically and operationally connected to Al-Qaeda (that have received training, weapons and finance from Al-Qaeda), and homegrown cells and individuals ideologically linked to but otherwise operating independently from Al-Qaeda.

Al-Qaeda lost its physical centre of gravity with the United States military intervention into Afghanistan in October 2001 after the 9/11 terrorist attack, which destroyed America’s iconic landmarks and caused the death of more than 3,000 people. The intense focus of the US and its allies to eliminate Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan led the bulk of its leaders and fighters to its immediate neighborhood in November and December 2001. Under the directives of Al-Qaeda’s leader, Osama bin Laden, some Afghan (Taliban) and some Al-Qaeda leaders and fighters relocated to Pakistan, and some Arab and other Al-Qaeda leaders and fighters fled to Iran.⁶ Tribal Pakistan became the new operational base for Al-Qaeda.

There was at the same time, dispersal of Afghan veterans worldwide — across Asia, Africa, the Middle East and the Caucausus, leading Al-Qaeda to establish itself as a true global movement. The leaders and the most experienced fighters (now) in Pakistan and Iran received orders from Osama bin Laden to reorganise and function as directing figures and expert trainers to the fighters and associates elsewhere. At this stage, Al-Qaeda groups carried out unilateral operations in countries in which it had established a presence, while others conducted joint operations with groups from Asia, Africa, the Middle East and the Caucuses, against the US, its allies and friends, and their interests. Much of the inspiration and strength for Al-Qaeda to reorganise and to spawn and sustain new groups came from the jihadist battlefield victories in Afghanistan, and later Iraq. However, as Al-Qaeda’s operational base in tribal Pakistan suffered and its number of leaders depleted significantly due to the intensity of US and Pakistani operations against the Al-Qaeda leadership (particularly from 2002 to 2004), today, the centre of gravity is its ideology. Al-Qaeda ideology remains strong, and continues to drive several groups in Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

The most significant development in the evolution of the terrorist threat after Al-Qaeda attacked the United States on September 11, 2001, is the rise of the Islamic State (IS) in the Middle East. Like Al-Qaeda, the IS is developing a global footprint through the spread of its ideology and expanding operational activities. With the announcement of a US-led international coalition against the IS in September 2014, some existing and emerging jihadist groups and cells worldwide are pledging allegiance to, supporting, or expressing solidarity with the ISIS. Moreover, the contemporary tempo of insurgent successes in occupying and administering large territories by IS in the Middle East and by Al Qaeda-Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan, have galvanised threat groups worldwide. Today, both Al Qaeda and IS are multinational threat groups providing leadership to tens of thousands of fighters and an even bigger pool of supporters and sympathisers worldwide.

Mainstreaming through rehabilitation

Rehabilitation and community engagement to counter the threat of politically motivated violence, especially terrorism, has assumed a new dimension in the early 21st century. To meet the current and emerging security challenges, governments and their partners should develop a three-pronged strategy. First, custodial and community rehabilitation; second, building social resilience through community engagement; and third, online counter-extremism and promoting moderation. The focus of this chapter is rehabilitation, its genesis, genealogy and likely future. The historical and contemporary programmes, both ad hoc and structured, provide some insight in creating new and strengthening existing programmes.

Why must we rehabilitate terrorists and their supporters in custody? If we do not they will pose a security threat. To rehabilitate terrorists, governments and their partners have developed several modes of rehabilitation. To restore and maintain normalcy, the strategy is to engage the incarcerated and the community. Communities should be protected not only from extremist ideologies but also from detained and convicted terrorists released from prisons. In parallel with their work to engaging communities towards reducing the immediate threat stemming from terrorist infrastructure, a concerted strategy should be launched to deradicalise detainees and inmates in prison settings. It will involve diverse partnerships creating a dedicated and a robust rehabilitation programme to deradicalise terrorists and extremists downstream.

The genesis of rehabilitation

The origins of rehabilitation can be traced to Greece, British Malaya and British Kenya in the mid-20th century. During the Greek Civil War (1946–1949), the last major conflict in Europe, communists — mostly left-wing political dissidents — were dispatched to the barren island of Makronisos for indoctrinating and re-educating them into the national dogmas.⁷ The same communists were part of the resistance against Nazis, but after the defeat of Germany, they were regarded as enemies of the...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Acknowledgements
• About the Contributors
• Contents
• Introduction
• Part 1
• Part 2
• Index