tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/brussels-attacks-26004/articlesBrussels attacks – The Conversation2017-08-27T23:27:22Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/828662017-08-27T23:27:22Z2017-08-27T23:27:22ZHow the European Union is making major strides fighting terrorism<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/183456/original/file-20170825-28538-1tobx4f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">At a memorial honouring the victims of the recent Spanish terrorist attacks, a family embraces a Barcelona policeman who helped them during the mayhem. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Santi Palacios, File)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Barcelona terrorist attacks have resulted in a range of commentary on the larger security role that Europe can and should play. </p>
<p>Yet many of the proposed solutions don’t take into account the reality of improving counter-terrorism efforts, while others are simply obsolete given recent advances in those efforts.</p>
<p>The fight against terrorism in Europe has traditionally been the responsibility of individual EU member states, with security understood as a strictly national prerogative. But the European Union as a whole is now a genuine actor in the field of transnational threats management.</p>
<p>Terrorism is a longstanding problem in Europe and thus a source of concern in all member states. Since 2001, more than <a href="http://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/visuel/2016/03/24/les-attaques-terroristes-en-europe-ont-fait-plus-de-1-800-morts-depuis-2001_4889670_4355770.html">2,400 people</a> have died in terrorist attacks in Europe, and a 2016 Europol report indicates that the number of people arrested for terrorism more than quintupled between 2011 and 2015. </p>
<p>Although the <a href="https://www.europol.europa.eu/tesat/2017/">2017 report</a> shows a decrease in the number of attacks (226 in 2014, 211 in 2015, 142 in 2016), terrorism remains deadly, with <a href="https://www.europol.europa.eu/newsroom/news/2017-eu-terrorism-report-142-failed-foiled-and-completed-attacks-1002-arrests-and-142-victims-died">142 deaths last year</a>.</p>
<p>This year has already has been another deadly one with the August attacks perpetrated in Spain — <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2017/aug/17/barcelona-attack-van-driven-into-crowd-in-las-ramblas-district">16 people died and more than were 100 injured</a>.</p>
<h2>European efforts hardly visible but real</h2>
<p>The role of the European Union in the fight against terrorism has increased over 15 years as attack after attack has taken place (New York in 2001, Madrid in 2004, London in 2005). Since the 2015 attacks in Paris, France’s role has also increased significantly. </p>
<p>The series of recent attacks — including Nice and Berlin in 2016, and Stockholm, London and now Spain in 2017 — have raised concerns among EU leaders on the importance of keeping security at the top of the EU’s agenda. But the efforts and advances that have been made, while often invisible to ordinary citizens, are notable.</p>
<p>In early 2016, the European agency specialized in police co-operation, Europol <a href="https://www.europol.europa.eu/">Europol</a> inaugurated the <a href="https://www.europol.europa.eu/about-europol/european-counter-terrorism-centre-ectc">European Counter Terrorism Center</a>, which facilitates the exchange of intelligence and helps manage the <a href="http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-15-6219_en.htm">European Bomb Data System</a> (EBDS). That platform, which transmits information on incidents involving the use of explosives, has proven its relevancy with recent events.</p>
<p>In a sense, Europol is akin to a Swiss Army knife, providing a range of services. </p>
<p>In the event of an attack, its emergency response team (EMRT) becomes available to member states. Europol experts were deployed following the November 2015 Paris attacks and contributed to the investigation. Some were deployed directly on the ground, with the aim of providing rapid assistance.</p>
<h2>From dearth of data to wealth of information</h2>
<p>After Europol was created in 1995, it often suffered from a chronic lack of data. EU member states were reluctant to share sensitive information and would do so only bilaterally, bypassing Europol. </p>
<p>The situation began to improve in the late 2000s, and the 2015 Paris attacks led to a qualitative and quantitative leap. Europol’s 2016 progress report revealed that the agency now has the opposite problem — <a href="https://www.europol.europa.eu/activities-services/main-reports/europol-review-2015">a wealth of data</a>. </p>
<p>The report indicates a 20 per cent increase in the number of operational messages exchanged by 2014 and an increase of more than 60 per cent in the <a href="https://www.europol.europa.eu/activities-services/services-support/information-exchange/europol-information-system">Europol Information System</a> (EIS) database. The number of persons known to have been foreign combatants and registered in Europol’s database increased sixfold between 2015 and 2016.</p>
<p>The challenge is therefore to manage a massive amount of European information, widely fed and extensively consulted. </p>
<p>For example, a December 2016 <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/sites/homeaffairs/files/what-we-do/policies/european-agenda-security/legislative-documents/docs/20161221/commission_staff_working_document_evaluation_of_second_generation_sis2_en.pdf">European Commission report</a> indicates that in 2015 the <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/borders-and-visas/schengen-information-system_en">Schengen Information System</a> was consulted 2.9 billion times by field services — a billion times more than in 2014. </p>
<p>The compartmentalization of this information is now the main issue, due to the existence of EU databases operating in silos.</p>
<h2>Boosting coordination while protecting privacy</h2>
<p>The renewed internal security strategy for the period of 2015-2020, endorsed in June 2015 by the 28 EU interior ministers, highlighted the importance of strengthening information sharing and accessibility through inter-operability of databases. A spring 2016 <a href="http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:52016DC0205&from=FR">European Commission report</a> identified current gaps and shortcomings. Since then, the EU has made great strides, and the 28 ministers of the interior recently agreed on two key projects:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>The development of a European portal for simultaneous research in all national security systems;</p></li>
<li><p>The establishment of a common repository for identity data.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>The goal is to create bridges between existing databases rather than interconnecting them directly. The latter would be not only a burdensome and expensive task, but also a delicate one from the point of view of data protection.</p>
<p>It’s not insignificant that in July, the European Court of Justice delivered its opinion on the EU-Canada PNR (Passenger Name Record) agreement, <a href="http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=193216&pageIndex=0&doclang=EN&mode=lst&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=964955">criticizing its lack of respect for individual privacy</a>. </p>
<p>There is little doubt that the database inter-operability project move forward under the scrutiny of a judge to <a href="http://eulawanalysis.blogspot.fr/2017/08/transferring-personal-data-outside-eu.html">address privacy concerns</a> and prevent the emergence of a European Big Brother in the field of anti-terrorism.</p>
<p>The inter-operability of EU member-state databases is the flagship effort in increasing EU security. The EU’s Schengen zone is an area where travellers can freely circulate and is often associated with insecurity. Yet it is the fragmentation and inaccessibility of security data that can actually <a href="http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/FR/TXT/?qid=1485686799189&uri=CELEX:52017DC0041">paralyze the fight against terrorism</a>.</p>
<p>The reform of the Schengen Information System was undertaken in this context. Among the measures envisaged is the introduction of a specific category of alerts, requiring systematic checks at the external borders for registered individuals. This draws on lessons from the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/18/four-month-hunt-shootout-capture-paris-terror-suspect-salah-abdeslam-brussels">mistakes made during police checks</a> during the escape of terrorist Salah Abdeslam from France to Belgium after the November 2015 Paris attacks.</p>
<h2>Working with national sensitivities</h2>
<p>So what should we think of European counter-terrorism efforts? The EU’s <a href="http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:52017DC0407&rid=1">July 2017 monthly report</a> on the progress made towards a “security union” is interesting in several respects.</p>
<p>It positively assesses the recent efforts in the strengthening of internal security tools —such as the joint-investigation team (JITs) and European arrest warrant (EAW) — aimed at providing real added value to criminal investigators in transnational cases. It also highlights the importance of flexibility when responding to rapidly changing threats.</p>
<p>The EU prefers to adopt a “networked” approach, linking existing national bodies rather than multiplying rigid bureaucracies. While there’s debate about the possible creation of a European intelligence super-agency, the EU’s approach remains pragmatic: to conserve sovereignties and make the existing system work optimally.</p>
<p>European governance in the field of the fight against radicalization is an example. It brings together national officials responsible for the prevention of terrorism. The updated version of the <a href="http://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-9646-2017-INIT/en/pdf">anti-radicalization guidelines</a> approved in June provides for a more frequent meeting of the network of national policy-makers.</p>
<p>This network complements the <a href="https://www.eifonline.org/">EU Internet Forum</a>, designed to facilitate dialogue between the public and private sectors on the issue of online radicalization, or the <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/what-we-do/networks/radicalisation_awareness_network_en">Radicalisation Awareness Network</a> (RAN). This “network of national experts networks” published a <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/sites/homeaffairs/files/ran_br_a4_m10_en.pdf">detailed study</a> in July on the return of foreign fighters from the Middle East.</p>
<p>The network of member-state experts specializing in protecting vulnerable targets —transport, sport events, shopping centers, schools, etc. — is a further illustration of the EU’s pragmatic approach to counterterrorism. Those efforts resulted from a February workshop organized in the wake of the 2015 Thalys attack and the 2016 Brussels bombing. The EU’s work in an area that’s sensitive for the member states — the maintenance of public order in the fight against terrorism — have proven to be relevant, particularly after the attacks in Nice last year and in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/18/barcelona-terror-attack-catalan-independence">Spain this year</a>.</p>
<h2>State responsibility?</h2>
<p>It should be pointed out that the difficulties encountered in the fight against terrorism in Europe are primarily the result of the attitudes of the EU member states themselves. </p>
<p><a href="http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:52017DC0407&rid=1">The report</a> on progress towards a “Security Union” highlights the obstacles encountered by the EU for many years. Certain EU measures haven’t been completely put in place by member states, reducing their effectiveness — for example, EU legislation intended to better control explosives. Even though the European Commission has made funds available to cover delays attributed to the costs of implementing EU legislation, the money available is not always fully used by them. </p>
<p>Another example is the <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/police-cooperation/information-exchange/eixm_en">“Prüm project”</a>, intended to facilitate the exchange of vehicle registration, fingerprint and DNA data.</p>
<p>But as long as EU member states remain deeply involved, the fight against terrorism is gaining effectiveness. Even now, Europe’s security situation is worlds beyond what it was just two years ago.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82866/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Pierre Berthelet ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>Despite the recent terrorist attacks in Spain, the European Union has dramatically improved its counterterrorism efforts. Here’s how.Pierre Berthelet, Docteur en droit (UE) & chercheur postdoctoral en sécurité intérieure / PhD (EU law) & post-doctoral researcher (internal security field), Université LavalLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/750922017-03-23T19:23:01Z2017-03-23T19:23:01ZLondon attack: Terrorism expert explains three threats of jihadism in the West<p>Details about the man who attacked the British Parliament on March 22, <a href="https://gu.com/p/66byc/sbl">identified</a> by London police as British national Khalid Masood, are still emerging. With four victims confirmed dead, the attack is the worst in London since the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-33253598">July 7, 2005 bombings</a> on the London transport system.</p>
<p>A day after the attack, the Islamic State media organization Amaq released a statement <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/isis-london-attack-westminster-terror-responsibility-latest-islamic-state-daesh-a7645696.html">claiming responsibility</a>. The statement read: “The attacker yesterday in front of the British Parliament was a soldier of the Islamic state.”</p>
<p>The language of the statement can help us understand the nature of not just this attack, but the nature of jihadist attacks in the West. Based on 10 years of research on the topic, I have identified three categories into which this attack is likely to fall.</p>
<h2>Directed attack</h2>
<p>The first and least probable scenario is that the attack in London was planned and directed by individuals within the IS hierarchy. In such a situation, the attacker would be part of a wider IS network.</p>
<p>Those types of attacks, such as the ones conducted by IS in <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34818994">Paris</a> and <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35869985">Brussels</a> (the anniversary of which was also on the same day as the London attack) in 2015 and 2016, respectively, are usually deadlier and more sophisticated than what we saw in London. The crude nature of the killings, in which Masood <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/mar/22/attack-houses-parliament-london-what-we-know-so-far">used a car</a> as a battering ram before rushing police officers with knife, suggests that this act falls into one of the two following categories.</p>
<h2>Inspired attack</h2>
<p>This may have been a so-called “inspired” attack. This refers to a terrorist act undertaken by someone with no known ties to IS or other jihadist groups. These individuals <a href="http://www.strategicdialogue.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Literature_Review.pdf">see themselves</a> as part of the wider global jihad movement after consuming jihadist propaganda and interacting with like-minded individuals online. They plan the attack alone, with no input from a terrorist organization. </p>
<p>The last such “inspired” incident in London was the <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/19/world/europe/uk-soldier-killing-trial/">killing</a> of British Army soldier Lee Rigby in May 2013. The attackers, Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale, were inspired by al-Qaida and used a similar tactic to that seen in the Parliament attack, ramming their target with a car before stabbing him repeatedly. </p>
<p>Amaq’s announcement is instructive when it states that the attacker was acting “in response to calls to target citizens of coalition nations.” This is likely a reference to the <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-official-calls-for-lone-wolf-attacks-in-us-and-europe-during-ramadan-a7042296.html">repeated announcements</a> by IS members, most notably the group’s now deceased former spokesperson Abu Mohammad al-Adnani, for Western IS sympathizers to use any means at their disposal to conduct terror operation in their home nations. In addition, IS usually refers to such individuals as its “soldiers” only when the group had no direct role in the attack. </p>
<p>These inspired acts are often referred to as lone-wolf attacks. While the term is widely used, recent research shows that few attacks in Europe are genuinely conducted by lone actors. For example, one study <a href="http://www.terrorismanalysts.com/pt/index.php/pot/article/view/553/html">found</a> that out of 38 IS-linked plots in Europe between 2014 and 2016, only six “were based on inspiration only.” However, even then the authors of the study concede that the plotters “usually had contacts in extremist circles, albeit not IS-related.” Such findings suggest that true lone-wolf attacks are in fact much rarer than many assume.</p>
<h2>Remote-controlled attack</h2>
<p>The final possible category of attack the London incident falls into is “remote-controlled.” This represents something of a hybrid of the two other forms of jihadist terrorism in the West. This occurs when a radicalized Westerner receives encouragement, and often direct instruction, from an IS member over the internet. These individuals, who my colleague Seamus Hughes and I refer to as “virtual entrepreneurs,” in a recent <a href="https://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/the-threat-to-the-united-states-from-the-islamic-states-virtual-entrepreneurs">report</a> are often based in IS-held territory and have built up respected reputations within the IS online milieus.</p>
<p>As IS has spread its influence over social media, and its virtual entrepreneurs have made use of a wide range of encrypted messaging apps such as Telegram, Surespot and WhatsApp, this has become one of the main ways the group plans attacks in the West. In the same study cited above, researchers found that 50 percent of the 38 IS-linked plots in Europe between 2014 and 2016 were found to have involved “online instruction from members of IS’ networks.” </p>
<p>This phenomenon is also apparent in the United States. </p>
<p>My colleague and I discovered that out of 38 IS-inspired plots and attacks in the United States between March 1, 2014, and March 1, 2017, eight involved digital communication with virtual entrepreneurs. This includes the <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/05/us/texas-shooting-gunmen/">attempted shooting</a> in Garland, Texas in May 2015. One of the attackers, Elton Simpson, was receiving encouragement and direction via encrypted chats with Junaid Hussain, a British IS member based in Syria. Virtual entrepreneurs have also been involved in at least six other terrorism-related cases, including helping Americans intending to travel to join the Islamic State. This brings the total number of U.S. terrorism cases linked to IS virtual entrepreneurs to 14.</p>
<p>Based on what we know so far, and after analyzing recent trends and the latest research, it is likely that the man who killed three people in London was acting either in the name of IS without any direct links, or was in possible contact with a virtual entrepreneur.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the only certainty is that this will not be the last such attack in the West. As IS loses ground in Iraq and Syria, it will do all it can to retain an ability to strike in the West. While their key aim is to inspire attacks like those in Paris and Brussels, they will be increasingly difficult to conduct. This is due both to its dwindling resources and the increasing readiness of European security agencies who will be learning from recent attacks.</p>
<p>Lone actors, while rare, will continue offer IS a cost-free method of attack. Meanwhile, virtual entrepreneurs will be doing all they can to help their Western contacts plot and execute mass killings from afar.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/75092/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens is affiliated with the Program on Extremism at George Washington University.</span></em></p>Was the London attacker acting alone? Was he really a soldier of the Islamic State? Research on the nature of jihadism in the West reveals possible answers.Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens, Research Director of the Program on Extremism, George Washington UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/554312016-04-07T09:50:36Z2016-04-07T09:50:36ZFour questions Belgians should ask about the Patriot Act<p>In March, three <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/brussels-attacks">bombings in Brussels</a> claimed 32 lives and injured more than 300. The Islamic State, or ISIS, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/23/world/europe/brussels-airport-explosions.html">claimed responsibility</a> for the attacks. </p>
<p>These events are disturbingly similar to the November 2015 <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/europe-terror/">terror attacks</a> in Paris that claimed 130 lives – and for which ISIS also claimed responsibility. </p>
<p>The attacks added a sense of urgency to <a href="http://deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws/politiek/1.2514280">calls for</a> Belgium to enact its own counterterrorism bill. </p>
<p>It is a call the French government has already answered. After the attacks against Charlie Hebdo last <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/paris-magazine-attack/paris-massacre-suspects-killed-dramatic-hostage-raids-n282766">January</a>, France passed a <a href="http://motherboard.vice.com/read/a-look-at-frances-new-surveillance-laws-in-the-wake-of-the-paris-attacks">surveillance law</a> giving the government greater authority in counterterrorism investigations. Valérie Pécresse, a minister under former president Nicolas Sarkozy, described the pending legislation as a <a href="https://news.vice.com/article/is-france-about-to-get-its-own-patriot-act">“French Patriot Act</a>,” suggesting that France looked to the U.S. law, which was passed just 45 days after September 11, 2001, as a model. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112999/original/image-20160226-18076-9ei7cw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112999/original/image-20160226-18076-9ei7cw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112999/original/image-20160226-18076-9ei7cw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112999/original/image-20160226-18076-9ei7cw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112999/original/image-20160226-18076-9ei7cw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112999/original/image-20160226-18076-9ei7cw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112999/original/image-20160226-18076-9ei7cw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112999/original/image-20160226-18076-9ei7cw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">New Yorkers protest the Patriot Act in 2006.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/crazbabe21/2303197115">https://www.flickr.com/photos/crazbabe21/2303197115</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Increased use of surveillance is a worldwide trend. According to a <a href="http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/10/03/governments-worldwide-increase-online-surveillance-report-shows">2013 study</a>, 35 of 60 countries examined have increased regulation and monitoring of online activity. Several human rights groups, including <a href="http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/issues/security-and-human-rights/mass-surveillance">Amnesty International</a>, have criticized these measures as a violation of privacy and free expression. </p>
<p>I have been studying how the U.S. media is covering the French surveillance law, and how this derivative law compares to the U.S. Patriot Act.</p>
<p>If Belgium decides to pass similar legislation, what questions should Belgians ask about these existing laws?</p>
<h2>1. What powers do the laws grant?</h2>
<p>Under the French <a href="http://www.conseil-constitutionnel.fr/conseil-constitutionnel/english/homepage.14.html">surveillance law</a>, investigators can now monitor phone calls and emails of suspected terrorists without a court order. Officials only have to obtain permission from an administrative committee, the National Commission for the Control of Intelligence Techniques. This <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/24/france-big-brother-surveillance-powers">committee</a> is managed by French Prime Minister Manuel Valls and consists of magistrates, members of parliament and senators. </p>
<p>In the U.S., it is the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, or <a href="http://www.fjc.gov/history/home.nsf/page/courts_special_fisc.html">FISA court</a>, that serves this purpose. </p>
<p>Unlike a traditional courtroom, the FISA court is closed to the public. Hearings include only the judge, attorneys licensed to practice in front of the U.S. government and other government officials. The secrecy is designed to prevent the exposure of classified information. For this reason, the FISA courts have sometimes been <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/01/us/politics/fisa-surveillance-court-rules-nsa-can-resume-bulk-data-collection.html">criticized</a> as a “rubber stamp” for the National Security Administration.</p>
<p>In the U.S., the final decision on whether to grant a surveillance warrant is in the hands of a federal judge. In France, by contrast, only a few of the surveillance committee members are judges. The rest are politicians. In theory, this means that the French surveillance committee may be more vulnerable to political manipulation. Given recent <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/01/us/politics/fisa-surveillance-court-rules-nsa-can-resume-bulk-data-collection.html">criticisms</a> of the FISA court, however, this may not be the case in practice. According to one <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/15/fisa-court_n_4102599.html">source</a>, the court accepts at least 75 percent of government requested warrants without modification. </p>
<p>There are cases in which the U.S. Patriot Act authorizes warrantless searches, but these can be used only to <a href="https://fas.org/sgp/crs/intel/RL33332.pdf">obtain records</a> of phone numbers dialed, materials accessed and so on, not the content of phone calls or communications.</p>
<h2>2. Online activities watched, too</h2>
<p>Another major element of the French surveillance law is the requirement that Internet service providers permit the French government to <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/05/france-passes-new-surveillance-law-in-wake-of-charlie-hebdo-attack">routinely monitor</a> suspicious online behavior. </p>
<p>French intelligence services have the right to place recording devices, cameras and keylogger technology that keep track of all keystrokes in real time. The recordings can be stored for a month. </p>
<p>Metadata can be kept for five years. Metadata is information about a consumer’s phone or Internet use. Phone metadata can include all the information surrounding a phone call, such as the caller’s number and the receiver’s number, time and location of the call, and how long the call lasts. However, metadata does not include the content of the phone call itself. Internet metadata can include information such as websites visited, TV shows streamed or emails sent.</p>
<p>The Patriot Act also allows for the NSA to collect <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/22/politics/patriot-act-debate-explainer-nsa">metadata</a>. If the government feels there is threat, a petition can be made to the FISA court for a warrant. This warrant allows the government to force phone companies to hand over private information on certain customers. In June 2013, Edward Snowden, a government contractor, revealed the NSA had a program called <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/06/12/heres-everything-we-know-about-prism-to-date/">PRISM</a>. The program uses extensive data mining efforts to collect Internet communication data and analyze it for patterns of terrorist or other potential criminal activity. </p>
<p>After the Snowden leaks, legislators pushed for Patriot Act reform, largely to end bulk data collection. In 2015, the U.S. passed the <a href="http://lifehacker.com/the-patriot-act-is-changing-heres-what-that-means-for-1708418382">Freedom Act</a>, which now requires a public advocate at FISA court hearings to argue for protection of private data. The Freedom Act also prevents the U.S. government from collecting phone record data. Instead, companies like Verizon are required to collect this information and maintain records that the government can search on request. </p>
<h2>3. How has the public reacted?</h2>
<p>An opinion <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/poll-majority-americans-want-patriot-act-reformed-332991">poll</a> conducted in May 2015 found that 60 percent of Americans believe the Patriot Act should be reformed. Just 34 percent said the government should keep the act in its current form. </p>
<p>In contrast, an opinion <a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/5703/france-surveillance-law">poll</a> conducted in April 2015 found that about two-thirds of French citizens were in favor of restricting civil liberties to support counterterrorism. Just after the November 2015 terror attacks, <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2015/11/20/9768274/paris-attacks-surveillance-state-of-emergency">this number jumped</a> to more than 80 percent. </p>
<p>While public support for measures like these is usually high after a terrorist attack, these poll results indicate that support decreases as attention to a terrorist attack fades, and as challenges with implementation, controversial cases and related issues surface in the mass media. </p>
<h2>4. Are these laws effective?</h2>
<p>Of course, the French surveillance law didn’t stop the attacks in November 2015. Understanding why may help Belgium lawmakers craft a more potent law.</p>
<p>One identifiable shortcoming is limited <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/19/how-french-intelligence-agencies-failed-before-the-paris-attacks">resources</a>. According to the Guardian, the French intelligence agencies have roughly 500 to 600 employees, while there are about 11,000 people on their watch lists, including more than <a href="http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/france-mass-surveillance-law-news/">1,000 citizens</a> who have recently traveled to <a href="http://www.globalresearch.ca/frances-surveillance-law-amid-terror-created-by-the-french-republic/5449522">Iraq or Syria</a>. </p>
<p>Another problem: The French intelligence agencies are reluctant to share communications between each other due to the fear of leaked information. </p>
<p>When the agencies do communicate, the process is slow. This creates even more strain. </p>
<p>The Patriot Act has also not been as effective as some had hoped. </p>
<p>In 2015, Inspector General Michael E. <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/may/21/fbi-admits-patriot-act-snooping-powers-didnt-crack/?page=all">Horowitz stated</a> that bulk data collection had not resulted in any major case developments. This was partially due to the amount of information collected about ordinary citizens. It took several years for U.S. officials to find ways to improve data collection. </p>
<p>The Heritage Organization claims that about 30 terrorist attacks were <a href="http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2010/04/30-terrorist-plots-foiled-how-the-system-worked">prevented</a> between 2001 and 2010 through measures provided by the Patriot Act. However, 30 states and Washington, D.C. have experienced terrorist attacks <a href="http://www.start.umd.edu/sites/default/files/files/announcements/BackgroundReport_10YearsSince9_11.pdf">since 2001</a>. </p>
<p>There is no guarantee that even with the most sophisticated surveillance technology out there today, passing a bill or law to collect private information on citizens will protect us from terrorist threats and violence. </p>
<p>Even more vexing: the nature of intelligence gathering means we may never know how exactly how many attacks have been prevented by the Patriot Act, the French surveillance law – or a similar law that Belgium may soon pass. </p>
<p><em>Ashley Boyer, a masters student of public administration at Pennsylvania State University, contributed to this article.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/55431/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lacey Wallace does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The U.S. and France responded to terrorist acts by passing surveillance laws. What could Belgium learn from their example?Lacey Wallace, Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice, Penn StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/570872016-04-04T12:59:40Z2016-04-04T12:59:40ZComing to terms with digital grief: hashtags and emojis are here to stay<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/117118/original/image-20160401-6816-nvpq7g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>I was on a train when the news broke from <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/brussels-attacks">Brussels</a> of a deadly terrorist attack. It was a fast developing story and, as is so often the case with today’s breaking news, social media was keeping pace with it far more efficiently than the “official” news outlets.</p>
<p>But it’s not just in breaking news that social media dominates. Sites such as Twitter and Facebook have also come to be used for articulating emotion and grief after the event. And with the apparent abysmal increase in these kinds of attacks, social media now appears to have developed specific channels and formats for these expressions. It has come to provide a uniformity and familiarity to the post-traumatic impact of senseless mass murder. </p>
<p>These emerging techno-rituals present an interesting question though. Is social media providing us with a universal common language of outrage, or an emotionally impotent grief 2.0?</p>
<p>One of the first things users of <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/change-facebook-photo-belgian-flag-for-brussels-attacks-2016-3-2016-3">Facebook</a> were invited to do following both the Paris and Brussels attacks was to create a temporary profile picture depicting the flag of the country involved.</p>
<p>Users could even set the picture automatically to revert back to their normal, smiley, happy, un-traumatised profile picture after a prescribed period of hours or days. This gives users the ability to limit their public depiction of personal outrage to a finite amount of time. A very unofficial observation of my own Facebook community seems to suggest that this period is around three days.</p>
<p>Such emerging conventions are not dissimilar to those attached to mourning clothes in the <a href="http://www.victoriana.com/VictorianPeriod/mourning.htm">Victorian era</a>. These were a message to the outside world that the wearer was impacted by death but they were also usually worn only for a finite period, after which regular attire would be resumed. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"712672509343105024"}"></div></p>
<p>Twitter, due to its format, is more linguistic than visual in its version of these rituals. A <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23JeSuisBruxelles&src=tyah">common hashtag</a> is quickly established and used in thousands of ensuing expressions of outrage. Hashtagging one’s 140 characters denotes membership of the international community of the horrified. People are unified through commonly experienced despair.</p>
<p>However, like the temporary profile pictures on Facebook, hashtags are, by their very nature, a fluid function. No matter what the subject matter, social media is built on fluidity, so each hashtag will quickly flow away, too.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"712669016028872705"}"></div></p>
<p>Growing organically out of the capabilities of these sites, it may well be the case that these functions represent a new ritualised response to grief in our networked society. We increasingly narrate our daily experiences and emotions, good and bad, to strangers and friends alike online. Consequently, responding to moments of unexpected violence through the same networks seems ever more befitting. </p>
<p>And in a new twist, Facebook has rolled out a broader range of status responses so users can now choose to use an emoji expressing love, laughter, anger or sadness in response to a post rather than just liking it. The use of the sadness emoji was prolific in the comments fields of posted articles and statuses around the Brussels attacks.</p>
<p>People were reading bloody and explicit accounts of these explosions and registering their outrage with a sad yellow face. To confine all reactions to one of five possibilities suggests a move towards a rather empty form of grief 2.0. There is a sense that we are using picture cards to respond to the most horrifying of spectacles. </p>
<p>But this apparent emotional impotency and its widespread uptake by users is perhaps also an expression of the need to take control as we look upon one horror after another.</p>
<p>To choose the same emoji to express our sadness at the end of our favourite television series and articulate our response to a bomb exploding in a packed airport may seem inappropriate and in poor taste. But perhaps when we turn to social media in the aftermath of these events we are looking to exhaust their impact, and empty them of fear and evil.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"713069883387486208"}"></div></p>
<p>Finding ever more “efficient” ways to do this, through emojis or hashtags, might be the very best response we can have. The kind of terrorism seen in Brussels is being described as the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cas-mudde/the-brussels-attacks-and_b_9521360.html">new normal</a>. But to accept this is to live a life defined by it, and also to be distracted from its root causes.</p>
<p>These emerging techno-rituals exist on a continuum that first unifies and then nullifies our experience. The temporary Facebook profile reverts back to the original one, a different hashtag starts to trend. And so the cycle begins again.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/57087/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Natalie Pitimson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>How long should you keep a Belgian flag Facebook profile pic after a terrorist attack?Natalie Pitimson, Senior Lecturer in Sociology , University of BrightonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/569962016-04-01T02:46:08Z2016-04-01T02:46:08ZThe new breed of terrorists: criminals first, Islamists second<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116852/original/image-20160331-28459-1rygp2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Brussels Airport bombers Brahim and Khalid el-Bakraoui had previously spent time in prison.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Interpol</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Media outlets were quick to note the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/new-isis-recruits-have-deep-criminal-roots/2016/03/23/89b2e590-f12e-11e5-a61f-e9c95c06edca_story.html">criminal backgrounds</a> of the perpetrators of last week’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/brussels-attacks">Brussels terror attacks</a>. Drawing comparisons with those who undertook the November 2015 <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/paris-attacks-2015">Paris attacks</a>, this analysis suggested the rise of a new generation of terrorist recruits who are not “radical Islamists” but “Islamised radicals”.</p>
<p>A closer analysis of the perpetrators of recent attacks suggests that Islamic State (IS) has a different kind of appeal to that of its predecesor, al-Qaeda in Iraq. Apart from having little or no knowledge of religion, the new crop of IS recruits come primed for violence with a different set of skills, honed through criminal activity.</p>
<p>Evidence collected by the Countering Violent Extremism research program from more than 100 case studies of lone-wolf actors who have perpetrated foreign or domestic terrorism confirms this trend. It points to an important distinction between terrorist attackers who are driven by ideology and religion, and those for whom violence is less about ideology.</p>
<h2>Early understanding</h2>
<p>Terrorist and violent extremist groups have traditionally appealed to the elite and educated. Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, for example, drew its membership primarily from among university students.</p>
<p>Early profiles of terrorists tended to describe them as middle-to-upper-class university graduates. A <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10576107708435394">1977 analysis</a> of 350 terrorists found that not only were they university graduates but that universities also served as major recruiting grounds for terrorist organisations.</p>
<p>Our understanding of religious terrorists has <a href="https://counterideology2.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/lone-wolf-terrorism-from-radical-opinion-to-action.pdf">followed the logic</a> that they are driven by religious conviction and radicalised to commit acts of violence through religion. The conventional wisdom has been that some individuals who are religiously radical will find the means and opportunity for violence.</p>
<p>According to this understanding, there is a difference between radicalisation in opinion and radicalisation in action. When an individual becomes radicalised in their opinion – once they accept the extreme interpretation of Islamic text that justifies murder, terror and violence – they then seek out ways to carry out murder, terror and violence.</p>
<h2>The role of criminality</h2>
<p>Brothers Brahim and Khalid el-Bakraoui, who carried out suicide attacks at Brussels Airport, had previously been in jail for violent offences. </p>
<p>Abdel Hamid Abaaoud, the alleged leader of the Paris attacks and connected to the Brussels cell, was a <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11996120/Paris-attack-what-we-know-about-the-suspects.html">career criminal</a> convicted of violent crimes including assault. Another of the Paris attackers, known radical Omar Ismail Mostefai, was arrested for a string of offences in his youth.</p>
<p>Violence and aggression as a personal factor in lone-actor attacks has not received much attention in analyses of radicalisation to violent jihadism. But studies of other forms of terrorism and violence have looked specifically at criminality. </p>
<p>One <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09546559508427288">study of xenophobic violence</a> in Germany found up to 10% of violent extremists had prior records for politically motivated crimes. Up to 35% had prior records for other crimes.</p>
<p>This study identified four types of extremists:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>right-wing activists; </p></li>
<li><p>ethnocentric youth; </p></li>
<li><p>criminal youth; and </p></li>
<li><p>fellow travellers. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>Three of these types had some history of criminal activity. Right-wing activists typically had prior records for multiple political crimes. Ethnocentric youth typically had prior records for juvenile crime. Criminal youth typically had multiple prior records of criminal activity. </p>
<p>Criminal youth with a history of violence do not appear to have marked right-wing ideological leanings or political interests. For them, violence is seen not as a means of achieving political or ideological goals. Instead, it is a normal part of their everyday lives. Criminal youth also tend to come from unstable family backgrounds and have lower education attainment levels.</p>
<h2>Clues for the future</h2>
<p>Using the case studies, we have distinguished between three different kinds of violent jihadist terrorists.</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Type 1 were highly religiously motivated and tended to become violent as a result.</p></li>
<li><p>Type 2 had criminal or violent pasts or long-term signs of aggression and were not highly religiously motivated, though they still used religion to justify their actions.</p></li>
<li><p>Type 3 were extremely violent and were likely to declare their group or ideology affiliation during or after the attack.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Of all the case studies, 30% had a criminal record. A further 20% had violent or aggressive histories, according to reports and interviews. And 37% met all the criteria for being ideologically radicalised. </p>
<p>The smallest type were Type 3s. Only three cases met all the criteria.</p>
<p>The case studies also confirm that IS is attracting younger recruits more likely to have criminal or violent pasts. Compared to attackers and foreign fighters before IS’s rise, those recruited after 2014 were more likely to have been involved in criminal activity.</p>
<p>The findings provide some useful clues to radicalisation and how we deal with it. Criminality and gang culture have replaced extreme interpretations of religion as the binding group identity that characterised earlier waves of violent jihadist recruits. The criminal element among this new wave means they are likely to be already known to law enforcement – though not necessarily for violence or extremism. </p>
<p>If the recruitment trends continue, police will have a greater role to play in countering terrorism and violent extremism. It also means that prisons – often considered <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/paris-killers-radicalized-in-prison-now-leaders-want-to-fix-that-problem/2015/01/28/52271e28-a307-11e4-91fc-7dff95a14458_story.html">breeding grounds</a> for radicalisation – are possibly more prominent as incubators for networks of violent jihadists.</p>
<p>The shift in terrorist recruitment could prove helpful for law enforcement. Being able to identify criminality and violence as a key feature of new recruits means law enforcement agencies can know what to look for and take early action. </p>
<p>While terrorist attackers will try to avoid drawing attention before they act, their violent and criminal pasts could give them away.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56996/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anne Aly receives funding from the Australian Research Council. She is the Founding Chair of People against Violent Extremism that has received funding from the Australian Government. </span></em></p>Apart from having little or no knowledge of religion, the new crop of Islamic State recruits come primed for violence with a different set of skills, honed through criminal activity.Anne Aly, Professorial Fellow, School of Arts and Humanities, Edith Cowan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/567812016-03-31T10:25:31Z2016-03-31T10:25:31ZISIS has changed international law<p>Two years ago, virtually no one had heard of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). In a January 2014 <em><a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/01/27/going-the-distance-david-remnick">New Yorker</a></em> interview, President Obama dismissed the group as <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2014/sep/07/barack-obama/what-obama-said-about-islamic-state-jv-team/">“Junior Varsity.”</a> </p>
<p>Since then, ISIS has emerged as one of the most wealthy, powerful and dangerous <a href="http://static.visionofhumanity.org/sites/default/files/2015%20Global%20Terrorism%20Index%20Report.pdf">terrorist organizations</a> that ever existed. </p>
<p>ISIS now possesses more than <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2015/12/06/news/isis-funding/">US$2 billion</a> in stolen cash, thousands of captured tanks and bombs, as well as lucrative oil wells and refineries in the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-27838034">large parts of Syria and Iraq</a> that it has taken over. </p>
<p>In these areas, the U.S. <a href="http://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2016/03/254782.htm">has determined,</a> ISIS is committing genocide against Christians, Shia Muslims and <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-who-are-the-yazidis-30280">Yazidis.</a> Beheadings, burning people alive, mass rape – these are the methods of ISIS terror.</p>
<p>But the ISIS threat is not confined to the Middle East.</p>
<p>In October they bombed a Russian airliner, in November they attacked Paris and, most recently, on March 22, ISIS terrorists bombed the Brussels airport and a key train station. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/26/world/middleeast/abd-al-rahman-mustafa-al-qaduli-isis-reported-killed-in-syria.html?_r=0">These attacks have left 650 Westerners dead and over a thousand injured</a>. Any city in the world could be the target of the next ISIS attack.</p>
<p>As former counsel to the <a href="http://www.state.gov/j/ct/">Counter Terrorism Bureau</a> and attorney adviser for United Nations affairs at the U.S. Department of State, I have been lecturing and writing about the international rules governing use of force for decades. </p>
<p>In my 2013 book, <em><a href="http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/law/public-international-law/customary-international-law-times-fundamental-change-recognizing-grotian-moments">Customary International Law in Times of Fundamental Change</a>,</em> I speculated that events unfolding in Syria might bring about a radical change in international law.</p>
<p>It turns out that they have.</p>
<p>In <a href="http://ssrn.com/abstract=2741256">newly published research</a>, I reveal how the urgent need to respond with force to ISIS has redefined the use of “self-defense” in international law to include attacking a nonstate threat in another country. </p>
<h2>The scenario</h2>
<p>Since August 2014, the United States has carried out <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/04/politics/air-force-20000-bombs-missiles-isis/">20,000 bombing and cruise missile attacks</a> against ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria. </p>
<p>Iraq consented to the air strikes in its territory, but Syria didn’t. And Russia blocked the United Nations Security Council from authorizing force against ISIS in Syria.</p>
<p>For two years, the United States was virtually alone in its efforts. Russia, China and even the United States’ staunchest ally, the United Kingdom, felt that the United States could not justify its bombings under existing international law.</p>
<p>The United States government initially invoked several different legal arguments in arenas such as the U.N. and U.S. Congress to justify airstrikes against ISIS in Syria. </p>
<p>These included the right of humanitarian intervention (<a href="http://www.cfr.org/humanitarian-intervention/dilemma-humanitarian-intervention/p16524">controversial</a> without a UN Security Council resolution), the right to use force in a failed state (equally <a href="http://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1051&context=californialawreview">controversial</a>) and the right of “hot pursuit” (usually used to justify pursuing ships in <a href="http://www.law.washington.edu/Directory/docs/Allen/Publications/Article_1989_DoctrineOfHotPursuitpp309-341.PDF">international waters)</a>. None of these had a solid grounding in international law that would have justified violation of another country’s sovereign territory.</p>
<p>Finally, the U.S. officials settled on a novel argument under the rubric of self-defense. </p>
<p>Even in the aftermath of the al-Qaida attacks in the United States on 9/11, the use of force in self-defense against terrorists within another sovereign nation had not been viewed as lawful unless the terrorist organization was under the effective control of that nation. This is a position that had been <a href="http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/index.php?p1=3&p2=3&case=116&p3=4">repeatedly reaffirmed </a> by the International Court of Justice. </p>
<p>But the United States argued that such force can be legally justified where a governing authority is unable or unwilling to suppress the threat operating within its borders.</p>
<h2>The shift</h2>
<p>That view was not initially accepted by Russia, China or even the United Kingdom.</p>
<p>However, their position changed in the aftermath of the ISIS attacks on the Russian jetliner and on the Paris stadium and theater. This, in turn, led to the unanimous adoption of a U.N. Security Council resolution calling on nations to use “all necessary measures” to fight ISIS in Syria.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/s_res_2249.pdf">U.N. Security Council Resolution 2249</a>, adopted in November 2015, does not clearly endorse a particular legal justification. </p>
<p>But despite its ambiguity, it will likely be viewed as confirming that use of force in self-defense is now permissible against “nonstate actors” such as terrorists when the territorial state is unable to suppress the threat that they pose. </p>
<p>In the aftermath of the adoption of the U.N. Resolution, Russia and the United Kingdom joined the United States in bombing ISIS targets in Syria.</p>
<p>Today, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/26/world/middleeast/abd-al-rahman-mustafa-al-qaduli-isis-reported-killed-in-syria.html?_r=0">66 nations</a>, according to Secretary of State John Kerry, are united to fight ISIS. </p>
<h2>Implications for the future</h2>
<p>The implication of this newly accepted change in the international law of self-defense is that any nation can now lawfully use force against deadly nonstate actors in another country if the government of that country is unable or unwilling to suppress the threat within its borders.</p>
<p>However, use of force under this new approach is still subject to limits imposed by what is known as <a href="http://www.nyulawglobal.org/globalex/Customary_International_Law.html#_edn1">customary international law</a>, or the practices that the international community of states customarily follow from a sense of legal obligation. More specifically: </p>
<ul>
<li>Only an armed attack can trigger the right to use force in self-defense. Mass terrorist attacks that result in hundreds of deaths meet that threshold. Smaller-scale incidents would not.</li>
<li>The use of force must be targeted against a terrorist organization and not against the nation where the terrorist group exists, or that nation’s military, unless the nation is shown to be effectively in control of the offending group.</li>
<li>Military action must still meet the <a href="http://go.usa.gov/3pah5">international law principles</a> of necessity, proportionality and discrimination.</li>
</ul>
<p>While this new authority will certainly prove useful against ISIS, there is a likelihood that it will ultimately be used against a much broader group of threats. Such threats could include a variety of terrorist groups, as well as rebels, pirates or drug cartels. </p>
<p>The number of candidates for such self-defense action is quite large. The U.S. Department of State, for example, maintains <a href="http://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/other/des/123085.htm">a list of terrorist organizations</a> that pose a significant threat to the United States and its allies around the world. This list includes 58 terrorist groups headquartered in 35 different countries (in addition to ISIS in Syria/Iraq).</p>
<p>With so many potential targets in so many countries, one must ask whether the possibility of abuse will ultimately outweigh the benefits of weakening ISIS.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56781/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Scharf does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The urgent need to respond to ISIS has redefined the use of “self-defense” to include attacking a nonstate threat in another country. But what are the implications of this? change?Michael Scharf, Dean and Director of the Frederick K. Cox International Law Center, Joseph C. Hostetler - Baker Hostetler Professor of Law, Case Western Reserve UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/569452016-03-30T10:28:35Z2016-03-30T10:28:35ZIs Belgium’s nuclear security up to scratch?<p>Belgium’s counter-terrorism efforts are once again being called into question following the recent tragedies in Brussels. The attacks were carried out against soft targets – the public check-in area of Brussels Airport and Maelbeek metro station – but a series of unusual and suspicious occurrences were also reported at nuclear facilities in the country.</p>
<p>Occurring a week before a <a href="http://www.nss2016.org/">major international summit on nuclear security</a>, these events highlight the very real threat to nuclear facilities. For Belgium, this recent episode is one item on a long list of security concerns. </p>
<p>The US repeatedly has voiced concerns about Belgium’s nuclear security arrangements since 2003. That year, <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/washingtondc/press-releases/2013/alleged-al-qaeda-member-extradited-to-u.s.-to-face-charges-in-terrorism-conspiracy">Nizar Trabelsi</a>, a Tunisian national and former professional footballer, planned to bomb the Belgian Kleine-Brogel airbase under the aegis of Al-Qaeda.</p>
<p>The airbase, which holds US nuclear weapons, has seen <a href="http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/202614/activists-breach-security-at-kleine-brogel/">multiple incursions by anti-nuclear activists</a> who have gained access to the site’s “protected area”, which surrounds hardened weapons storage bunkers.</p>
<p>Yet, Belgium only started using <a href="https://www.publicintegrity.org/2016/03/11/19417/belgium-orders-immediate-security-upgrade-its-nuclear-sites">armed guards at its nuclear facilities</a> weeks before the March 2016 attacks.</p>
<p>Beyond incursions, so-called “insider threats” have also cost Belgium dearly. The nation’s nuclear industry comprises two ageing power stations first commissioned in the 1970s (Doel and Tihange), and two research facilities, a research reactor facility in Mol, and a radioisotope production facility in Fleurus.</p>
<p>In 2014, <a href="http://chameleonassociates.com/homeland-security/security-screening/">an unidentified worker sabotaged a turbine</a> at the Doel nuclear power station by draining its coolant. The plant had to be partially shut down, at a loss of €40 million per month.</p>
<p>Based on this history, the Belgian authorities should be primed to take nuclear security especially seriously. But there are serious <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/02/29/the-islamic-states-plot-to-build-a-radioactive-dirty-bomb/?wp_login_redirect=0">questions</a> about whether they are. </p>
<h2>Islamic State is watching you</h2>
<p>Islamic State is believed to have taken possession of radiological materials, including <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-28240140">40kg of uranium compounds</a> in Iraq. This suggests a possible interest in fabricating a radiological dispersal device – or “dirty bomb” – that would spread dangerous radioactive materials over a wide area.</p>
<p>It had been assumed that IS was concentrating this activity in the Middle East. But that all changed in late 2015. A senior nuclear worker at the Mol research facility was found to have been placed under <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/02/29/the-islamic-states-plot-to-build-a-radioactive-dirty-bomb/?wp_login_redirect=0">“hostile surveillance”</a> by individuals linked to the Islamic State-sanctioned attacks in Paris. Reports suggested that the terrorist cell may have planned to blackmail or co-opt the worker to gain access to either the facility or radiological materials.</p>
<p>Alongside the 2014 Doel sabotage incident, this raises the spectre of an “insider threat”. A worker could use their access, authority and knowledge to sabotage a nuclear plant or remove material for malicious purposes.</p>
<p>This concern is furthered by reports of <a href="http://chameleonassociates.com/homeland-security/security-screening/">a worker at the Doel plant</a>, who was associated with the radical Salafist organisation Sharia4Belgium, joining Al-Qaeda-inspired militants in Syria in late 2012. Following his death in Syria, the Belgian nuclear regulator reported that “several people have … been refused access to a nuclear facility or removed from nuclear sites because they showed signs of extremism”. </p>
<p>And in the wake of the Brussels attacks, the authorities have temporarily revoked the security clearances of <a href="http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/fears-brussels-cell-plotting-radioactive-attack-after-11-nuclear-workers-have-access-passes-revoked-1551536">11 nuclear workers</a> at Tihange nuclear plant. </p>
<h2>Tightening security worldwide</h2>
<p>Meanwhile, the fourth and final meeting in a series of international nuclear security summits is taking place in Washington. This brings together high-level decision makers, including heads of state, to try to improve the international nuclear security regime (which has been described as <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-2346.2012.01075.x/epdf">“a rather messy and complicated affair”</a>).</p>
<p>While strict processes are in place to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons, there are far fewer shared rules on securing nuclear facilities and materials. This summit has aimed to address this imbalance. The first summit was held in 2010, after US president Barack Obama <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-barack-obama-prague-delivered">described</a> nuclear terrorism as the “most immediate and extreme threat” to global security.</p>
<p>So far, the summits have seen significant <a href="http://www.nss2016.org/about-nss/frequently-asked-questions/">successes</a>. They have led to the removal of highly enriched uranium from 14 jurisdictions and upgrades to security at 32 material storage facilities. Equipment to detect nuclear materials has also been installed at 328 international borders. </p>
<p>But no further summits are planned after the 2016 meeting and no mechanism has been identified to replace the summit process. That means the future progress of nuclear security is uncertain. And as can be seen in Belgium, the threat remains as real as ever.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56945/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert J Downes receives funding from the MacArthur Foundation and the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change. The views expressed here are his own.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel Salisbury receives funding from the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change. The views expressed here are his own. </span></em></p>Evidence suggests that the threat is not being taken seriously enough.Robert J Downes, MacArthur Fellow in Nuclear Security, King's College LondonDaniel Salisbury, Research Associate, King's College LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/568322016-03-29T10:17:51Z2016-03-29T10:17:51ZBrussels attacks show Britain absolutely must remain in (or leave) the EU<p>Within minutes of the first reports of terrorist attacks in Brussels, a number of <a href="https://theconversation.com/brussels-attacks-callous-brexit-tweeters-will-lose-the-battle-for-hearts-and-minds-56710">Brexit supporters</a> and campaigners were linking the incident with the need for the UK to leave the European Union.</p>
<p>British tabloids, <a href="http://www.politico.eu/blogs/spence-on-media/2016/03/britains-euroskeptic-press-plays-up-security-fears-after-brussels/">such as The Sun and the Daily Mail</a>, used a similar rhetoric, claiming the attacks proved the UK would be safer outside of the EU. Other <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2dbe9b8c-f019-11e5-aff5-19b4e253664a.html#axzz43oUfxk9r">reports</a> suggested the dynamics of the UK-EU referendum are likely to shift following the attacks.</p>
<p>But will the Brussels incidents really change the dynamics of the debate about Britain and the EU? They might constitute an opportunity to shape the campaign in the short run but their impact on the referendum should not be overestimated.</p>
<p>The referendum is, after all, still three months away. That might seem like a short period of time, but it is an eternity in politics. The official campaign has not started yet – nor have the official leave campaigners been selected. They won’t be announced until <a href="http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/197773/EU-Campaigner-Update-6-February-2016.pdf">April 14</a>.</p>
<p>On social media, the two favourites to become lead campaigners, <a href="http://www.strongerin.co.uk/">Stronger In</a> and <a href="http://www.voteleavetakecontrol.org/">Vote Leave</a>, did not mention security or migration concerns following the Brussels attacks. The loudest noises seemed to be coming from <a href="https://twitter.com/LeaveEUOfficial/status/712730788027039744">Leave.EU</a> – a group unlikely to be selected for an official role in the campaign.</p>
<p>It’s important to remember that security is far from being the only theme that will shape the results of the EU referendum. While immigration remains predominant and can arguably be linked to security concerns, the economic argument is likely to play a decisive role in convincing undecided voters. Preliminary findings from our <a href="http://welfsoc.eu">Welfare State Futures</a> project show voters (including some undecided ones) would like to know more about the financial aspect of EU membership, in particular.</p>
<p>These attacks can be deployed to serve either side of the campaign. For those wanting the UK to remain, they show how more co-operation between European states is the only way to fight terrorism. The pro-European side can argue that co-operation taking place at the EU level is the most efficient way to tackle this issue.</p>
<p>For the leave campaign, the fight against terrorism is better served outside of the European Union. Only then can borders be sufficiently strengthened to protect the country against potentially killers.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"712236185482092544"}"></div></p>
<p>In contrast to what was written the day after the terror, it seems unlikely that the Brussels attacks will have a lasting impact on the referendum. And it should not be the main focus of the campaign.</p>
<p>Many undecided voters want remain and leave campaigners to bring them key facts about the European Union as a whole, and what staying in or leaving would mean for voters and more generally the British population.</p>
<p>Security is only one aspect of the debate, but other major elements, such as budgetary issues, <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-would-post-brexit-trade-deals-actually-work-55168">trade</a>, transparency and democracy need to be addressed further by campaigners in order to provide British voters with answers to some of the most important questions.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56832/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Benjamin Leruth does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Undecided voters want facts, not scaremongering.Benjamin Leruth, Research Associate in Politics and Social Policy, University of KentLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/568732016-03-29T10:09:46Z2016-03-29T10:09:46ZShould security forces have stopped the terrorist attacks in Belgium?<p>Two attacks in Brussels last week left 31 dead and many others wounded. They also produced a barrage of criticism about the apparent laxity of Belgium’s intelligence and security services. </p>
<p>It is easy to criticize the many lapses that allowed this tragedy to unfold. Observers may wonder why Belgium security forces failed to heed an explicit warning from the European Union about the need to increase vigilance at its airports. And clearly Belgian authorities can be faulted for not acting on a warning from their Turkish counterparts that a known jihadi fighter, Ibrahim El Bakraoui, had been<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/25/world/europe/expanding-portraits-of-brussels-bombers-ibrahim-and-khalid-el-bakraoui.html"> deported</a> from Turkey to Belgium.</p>
<p>However, such criticism may be a bit misplaced. In my judgment, as <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=xn_QVYLy6ocC&oi=fnd&pg=PP13&dq=Sumit+Ganguly&ots=Uu3FhdcWZC&sig=K7xr9CakuV5dAJTmrvY4WqrKtPU#v=onepage&q=Sumit%20Ganguly&f=false">a scholar</a> who has worked in the field of national security studies for 30 years, there are compelling reasons that ensuring complete security against terrorist attacks, especially against vulnerable targets in Europe, is all but impossible. </p>
<h2>Geography plays a role</h2>
<p>At the outset, the continent’s geographic location places it at a significant disadvantage. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116537/original/image-20160328-17817-13oz5fa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116537/original/image-20160328-17817-13oz5fa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116537/original/image-20160328-17817-13oz5fa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=642&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116537/original/image-20160328-17817-13oz5fa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=642&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116537/original/image-20160328-17817-13oz5fa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=642&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116537/original/image-20160328-17817-13oz5fa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=807&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116537/original/image-20160328-17817-13oz5fa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=807&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116537/original/image-20160328-17817-13oz5fa.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=807&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Belgium.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Belgium can easily be accessed from various parts of North Africa by land and sea. The terrorists from North Africa and the Middle East have deftly exploited these vulnerabilities to attack both Brussels and <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/paris-attacks-2015">Paris</a>. </p>
<p>In marked contrast to Europe, the United States enjoys mostly accommodating neighbors to its north and south and is surrounded by large bodies of water in the west and the east. These geographic features, while not rendering it impregnable, give it a much greater margin of safety and security. </p>
<h2>Lack of coordination, cooperation</h2>
<p>Other structural factors have also hobbled Belgium’s national counterterrorism strategy. This is a country that is highly federalized with local authorities jealously guarding their respective administrative jurisdictions. The existence of these regional divisions makes the task of sharing information and coordinating strategies more difficult. </p>
<p>These attacks may serve as a compelling wake-up call, altering how European security agencies work together. The U.S., it may be noted, was shaken out of any complacency in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. In the wake of that attack, many of the problems of intelligence sharing across disparate organizations <a href="https://fas.org/irp/congress/2011_hr/101211smith.pdf">were addressed</a> – if imperfectly. Most importantly, the U.S. created a separate organization, the Department of Homeland Security, designed to ensure the security of major ports of entry and exit into the United States.</p>
<h2>A notable success</h2>
<p>These hurdles notwithstanding, Belgian counterterrorist forces carried out a highly successful preemptive raid against some Syria-returned jihadis in the town of <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30840160">Verviers</a> near the Belgian-German border in January of last year. According to Belgian authorities, the two men who were killed in the attack were planning a major terrorist event involving a strike against a police station in eastern Belgium. Ironically, in the view of some <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/belgium/11349110/Casualties-in-Belgium-police-anti-terror-raid-in-Verviers.html">commentators</a>, the success of this operation may have induced a degree of complacency among its security forces. It is now more than evident that there were organic <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35879401">links</a> between the Brussels and Paris attackers. Najim Laacharoiu, the second suicide bomber, is believed to have been responsible for having helped design the bombs that were used both in Brussels and Paris.</p>
<p>Much has also been made of Belgium’s intelligence agencies failure to act on possible evidence of an oncoming attack. I believe these criticisms are a bit heavy-handed. All intelligence bodies across the world are faced with what communication theorists refer to a “signal to noise” ratio. </p>
<p>For example, in her classic study of U.S. intelligence failure on the eve of Pearl Harbor, <a href="http://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=3226">Warning and Decision</a>, Roberta Wohlstetter had noted that U.S. military officials were flooded with the “noise” of irrelevant information. This drowned out the “signal” of an impending attack. Intelligence analysts routinely pore over vast bodies of raw data that they receive based upon both electronic intercepts and from field operatives. Sifting through these massive quantities of information to find “actionable intelligence” is far from easy. In the absence of specific information that can be passed on to law enforcement organizations, intelligence agencies can do little with what they have on hand. In this regard, the Belgian slip-up was hardly exceptional. </p>
<h2>Human error</h2>
<p>Beyond this general problem that plagues most intelligence agencies, the possibilities of human error and oversight at local levels always lurk. This seems to have been the case in Schaerbeek, the ethnically mixed neighborhood where the two brothers, Ibrahim and Khalid el-Bakraoui, concocted their toxic brew. Evidence has now emerged the <a href="http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2016/03/27/the-bomb-maker-the-landlord-the-cipher-who-lives-dies-in-attacks-gives-clues-about-terror-cells.html">landlord</a> who had rented an apartment to them had encountered malodorous fumes wafting from it. However, he chose not to inform the police. A resident of the building did go to the local police to alert them to the seemingly odd behavior of the two men. Following the report, an officer assigned to the area stopped by the building but failed to <a href="http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2016/03/27/the-bomb-maker-the-landlord-the-cipher-who-lives-dies-in-attacks-gives-clues-about-terror-cells.html">investigate further</a>. In hindsight, his omission is lamentable. However, these human blunders are all too common. No organization or system has been devised that would eliminate all such errors.</p>
<h2>Successes downplayed</h2>
<p>As a number of reliable U.S. news organizations have reported, based upon conversations with European intelligence sources, a host of terror attacks have actually been thwarted in the United Kingdom, France, Germany and even in Belgium. </p>
<p>However, two practical concerns have inhibited counterterrorism officials from revealing more about the foiled plots. They argue that telling more about the planned incidents might tip off terrorist organizations about how much is already known about their plans, enabling them to alter their tactics and targets. Such revelations could also sow panic among the public about impending dangers.</p>
<p>The attacks in Brussels were no doubt tragic and disturbing. However, the many broadsides that have been launched against Belgian counterterrorist efforts appear ill-considered. Compelling reasons exist for the seemingly feckless lapses.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56873/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sumit Ganguly does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Ensuring complete security against terrorist attacks, especially against vulnerable targets in Europe, is all but impossible. Here’s why.Sumit Ganguly, Director of Center on American and Global Security and Rabindranath Tagore Chair in Indian Cultures and Civilizations , Indiana UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/567162016-03-26T02:00:19Z2016-03-26T02:00:19ZBelgium has divided and decentralized itself almost out of existence<p>Only days after the arrest of Salah Abdeslam, one of the Belgian-based organizers of the Paris attacks in November 2015, Brussels was rocked by <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35869985">two suicide attacks</a> that killed more than 30 people and injured more than 200. </p>
<p>The bombings have called attention to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/brussels-terror-attacks-a-continent-wide-crisis-that-threatens-core-european-ideals-56723">crisis of security across Europe</a> in the face of terrorism and <a href="https://theconversation.com/brussels-attacks-how-radicalization-happens-and-who-is-at-risk-52248">radicalization</a>. </p>
<p>But the incidents also add color to the image of Belgium – my native country – as a failed nation-state, one that seems egregiously incapable of protecting its own people. </p>
<p>As it is, Belgium is no longer a nation-state in any functional sense, but rather a “federation” of three different regions (Flanders, Wallonia and Greater Brussels) and of three different “linguistic communities” (Dutch, French and German). As a result, it is host to an array of police and juridical districts that don’t map onto each other geographically, demographically or politically. </p>
<p>“Belgium” is now, arguably, just an intermediate stage on the way to a regularly predicted and yet never fully realized <a href="https://theconversation.com/belgium-wont-split-after-sundays-elections-but-it-could-take-a-step-in-that-direction-26938">political separation</a>. </p>
<p>So how, exactly, has it come so close to the point of simply ceasing to exist?</p>
<h2>Language as wedge</h2>
<p>Belgium’s “failure” has been a long time in the making. It stems from a century or more of determined and well-organized efforts to weaken the national state in favor of local control over almost all decision-making. This insidious politics of division has been advanced largely via language, the ultimate phony “wedge” issue in Belgium.</p>
<p>Though we share a country geographically smaller than the greater New York metropolitan area, we are a nation of polyglots, and most of us speak not only French and Dutch, but also English, German and other languages besides.</p>
<p>Historically a border region situated between France and the Netherlands and ruled by the <a href="http://www.habsburger.net/en">royal Habsburg family</a>, modern Belgium first emerged as an independent entity in <a href="http://www.napoleon-series.org/research/government/Belgium/c_BelgiumRevolution.html">1789</a>. But it was quickly absorbed into the Napoleonic French empire, and after Napoleon’s defeat in 1815, merged into the kingdom of the Netherlands.</p>
<p>Anti-Dutch sentiment, fuelled by both religious and linguistic differences, led to the <a href="https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/explore-the-collection/timeline-dutch-history/1830-1831-the-belgian-revolution">revolt of 1830</a>, which created the current nation-state of Belgium. </p>
<p>In the 19th century, French reigned; it was spoken in the wealthy coal-rich south, and was the preferred idiom of the Francophilic bourgeois elite. But in the 20th century the situation was reversed. Mines in the French speaking Wallonian south became depleted and left endemic unemployment and poverty, while a commercial boom in the Dutch-speaking north empowered Flemish pride and linguistic assertiveness.</p>
<p>The German occupations during the two World Wars encouraged and exacerbated these rifts through calculated strategies of <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=7c-luyz-hdQC&pg=PA146&lpg=PA146&dq=flamenpolitik+germany&source=bl&ots=Ac1noMCKK2&sig=d5Rh2HY4ELVFt4WSrv7RiCwDrEQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiY05OVpNzLAhUBGj4KHVYMDnQQ6AEIIjAB#v=onepage&q=flamenpolitik%20germany&f=false">divide-and-rule</a>, encouraging linguistic nationalist movements. </p>
<p>In the post-war era, the language issue was in principle “settled” by dividing the country along provincial/linguistic lines. Only the nine central communes of Brussels are officially bilingual, and one small eastern part of the country is officially German-speaking. </p>
<p>Today, demographic data about who actually speaks which language are almost impossible to come by, since the Belgian constitution <a href="http://usefoundation.org/view/123">effectively stipulates that language follows region</a>. </p>
<p>But “Flemings” and “Walloons” are not ethnic groups in any meaningful sense, and these labels don’t necessarily tally with the language people speak at home. Rather, they simply indicate in which region one resides, since Belgians are simply presumed to speak their region’s designated language. As an example of the confusion this creates, Brussels is <a href="http://www2.derand.be/livingintranslation/en/Brussels_bilingual.php">officially bilingual</a> even though most of its residents speak French – and yet it’s also the capital of Flanders.</p>
<p>In reality, we have families that readily straddle the supposed linguistic border between the regions. We go to soccer matches and sports events where players and spectators yell in unpredictable mixtures of both languages. We freely switch languages as the need arises. And yet, opportunistic wedge-issue campaigning by local politicians foments resentment that our “native” language (whatever that is) is <a href="http://insidestory.org.au/border-control-the-complexities-of-life-along-one-of-europes-hottest-cultural-fault-lines">not sufficiently respected or appreciated</a> within our own confines (whatever those might be). </p>
<h2>Neither here nor there</h2>
<p>Precious little has been done to clean up this mess. </p>
<p>There’s little recognition that <em>le français standard</em> and <em>algemeen Nederlands</em> are in fact two imported foreign languages, rather than the <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=xUQNfkmtVV4C&pg=PA127&lpg=PA127&dq=belgium+traditional+dialects+wallonian+border&source=bl&ots=FlwXzRbeOo&sig=xD0Io-BH6ps6mqCuadyhGEAFFG4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi64vP51tzLAhUGwiYKHZ7VC_8Q6AEITjAH#v=onepage&q=belgium%20traditional%20dialects%20wallonian%20border&f=false">old border dialects</a> we traditionally spoke. Those dialects, which began to diminish as industrialization swept the country, epitomized our uniquely opportune yet hopelessly marginalized status among the dominant European tongues and their cultural ambitions. </p>
<p>But even the two principal “foreign” languages of French and Flemish have yet to be properly embraced. </p>
<p>When Belgians travel abroad, we speak to each other in English to avoid offending the assumed linguistic sensitivities of other Belgians we don’t know – and at home, Belgian media and advertising are <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-971X.2007.00510.x/abstract">saturated with English</a>. Indeed, we may be headed for an Anglophone future and the end of French and Dutch (to say nothing of classic Wallonian and Flemish). </p>
<p>But instead of the obvious solution of teaching everyone both languages in school and thereby eliminating much of the gap between them, Belgium has allowed endless arguments over local language differences to be used as pretexts for dragging state functions down to the local or municipal level.</p>
<p>This is made all the more acute by the EU’s explicitly stated aim of <a href="http://web.cor.europa.eu/epp/AtWork/PlenaryOpinions/Pages/devolution-schausberger.aspx">devolving power and decision-making downwards</a> to “regions” and localities, bypassing the nation-state altogether – except in countries institutionally strong enough (the U.K., say) or even just homogeneous enough (such as <a href="http://denmark.dk/en/quick-facts/facts/">Denmark</a>) to resist. </p>
<p>The Belgian embrace of the EU is also a way to avoid addressing the needs of a nation-state in increasing distress.</p>
<p>The consequences of this elite-driven downward spiral of decentralization were becoming increasingly and frighteningly apparent long before the March 22 attacks.</p>
<h2>Ineptitude breeds disaster</h2>
<p>Belgian national uproars used to be innocuous; the <em>bourgmestre</em> or mayor of a Flemish town would be revealed to be communicating with other members of the city council in French, or vice versa. But in the 1990s, these were superseded by examples of the Belgian police’s <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/267330391_Reforming_the_Belgian_police_system_between_central_and_local">scandalous ineptitude</a> in tracking criminal activity across the country’s linguistic, regional and municipal borders. </p>
<p>None was more infamous than the saga of serial child rapist and murderer <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/feb/18/marc-dutroux-child-killer-mother-jail">Marc Dutroux</a>, who was <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1775576.stm">twice arrested but then freed</a> before his final arrest. </p>
<p>While the EU’s program of lowering external borders and <a href="http://europa.eu/pol/pdf/flipbook/en/trade_en.pdf">trade barriers</a> have helped Belgium become a <a href="http://www3.weforum.org/docs/gcr/2015-2016/Global_Competitiveness_Report_2015-2016.pdf">strongly competitive economy</a>, the very same policies have weakened the national state to the advantage of both local governments and the broader EU.</p>
<p>That made Belgium itself an increasingly dangerous center of criminal activity, from <a href="http://www.emcdda.europa.eu/countries/belgium">drug-dealing</a> and car theft and housebreaking (for which it has been ranked <a href="http://knoema.com/atlas/topics/Crime-Statistics/Burglary-Car-Theft-and-Housebreaking/Theft-Motor-Vehicle-Rate?baseRegion=BE">in the global top 20</a>) to horrendous instances of <a href="https://www.coe.int/t/dghl/monitoring/trafficking/docs/Reports/GRETA_2013_14_FGR_BEL_with_comments_en.pdf">human trafficking</a> and <a href="http://www.politico.eu/article/council-of-europe-highlights-xenophobia-in-belgium/">violence against immigrants</a>.</p>
<p>Immigration to Belgium increased under the all-but-insatiable labor needs of western Europe’s postwar economic miracle, and the country is now <a href="http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/belgium-country-permanent-immigration">more than 10 percent foreign-born</a>. Just over half of Belgium’s foreign citizens are from the EU’s member states; among the others, Moroccans and Turks are particularly visible.</p>
<p>Those who come to Belgium unaware of its invented linguistic divide often reject its self-divided culture. Many have retreated into sectarian communities – such as the sprawling Arab and Maghreban ghetto in <a href="https://theconversation.com/dont-rush-to-blame-molenbeek-for-harbouring-paris-attacker-56575">Molenbeek</a> – that view themselves as embattled and without a place in society at large.</p>
<p>If Belgians don’t imagine a way to reinvent themselves as a functioning nation-state, despite their linguistic and other differences, the consequences could be dire indeed. </p>
<p>Without a state strong enough to keep all its people safe, and cohesive enough to include all its divergent populations as citizens of a common polity, the forces behind what happened in Brussels on March 22 will only fester and grow.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56716/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Georges Van Den Abbeele does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Torn between localism and pan-Europeanism, the idea of “Belgium” means almost nothing.Georges Van Den Abbeele, Dean, School of Humanities, University of California, IrvineLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/567722016-03-24T16:18:50Z2016-03-24T16:18:50ZCould super recognisers be the latest weapon in the war on terror?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116364/original/image-20160324-17817-eeph59.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Three suspects in the Brussels airport bombing caught on CCTV.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Belgian Police</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the wake of the terror attacks on Brussels, Belgian police rapidly identified two of the suicide bombers that carried out the attacks: brothers <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/belgium/12201940/Brussels-attack-suspects-unmasked-the-El-Bakraoui-brothers.html">Khalid and Brahim el-Bakraoui</a>, both Belgian nationals. The identification came after the police released CCTV images showing three men at the airport in Zaventem in the hope that people might recognise them and come forward with information.</p>
<p>The search for the <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/us-belgium-blast-idUKKCN0WO0LB">third man</a> wearing the white jacket and hat in the CCTV image has become the immediate focus for the massive police operation. He was thought to be carrying <a href="http://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/brussels-attacks-man-in-white-still-at-large-had-biggest-bomb-which-did-not-go-off-a3210116.html">the most powerful bomb</a> which <a href="http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/655005/Brussels-attacks-bombs-Zaventem-airport-Belgium-terrorism">failed to go off</a>, prompting him to flee. The unexploded bomb was later safely <a href="https://twitter.com/AP/status/712313556591632385">deactivated</a> by experts.</p>
<p>It is clear the release of <a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/brussels-attacks-terror-suspect-manhunt-7611403">images plays</a> a massive role in the manhunt – a taxi driver is said to have come forwards after <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/22/brussels-police-raids-manhunt-suspected-bomber">recognising CCTV images</a> of the three men he earlier dropped off at the airport. But looking at the grainy CCTV footage, it is hard to make out the blurred features of the suspects. So how easy is it to actually identify someone from a CCTV image?</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116370/original/image-20160324-17824-1wnjvbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116370/original/image-20160324-17824-1wnjvbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=262&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116370/original/image-20160324-17824-1wnjvbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=262&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116370/original/image-20160324-17824-1wnjvbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=262&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116370/original/image-20160324-17824-1wnjvbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=329&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116370/original/image-20160324-17824-1wnjvbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=329&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116370/original/image-20160324-17824-1wnjvbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=329&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The hunt for the third man involved in the Brussels bombings is underway.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Belgian Federal Police</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>You may not have heard of “<a href="http://www.ifsecglobal.com/super-recognisers-in-the-metropolitan-police/">super recognisers</a>” – people who literally never forget a face. In the UK, the <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/super-recognisers-used-by-the-police-to-identify-criminals-and-spot-offenders-in-crowds-10324186.html">London Metropolitan Police</a> has its own super recogniser squad who have been shown to have extraordinary powers of recall when it comes to identifying people from an image or photo.</p>
<p>Both in policing and at border control, unfamiliar face matching – rather than face memory – is key to successful operation. Super recognisers have been shown to <a href="https://www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2016/research/super-recognisers-metpolice/">perform significantly better</a> than control groups in a number of tasks related to identification. So could this enhanced ability to spot a face in a crowd be used in the fight against terrorism?</p>
<h2>Face off</h2>
<p>A group of current Met Police super recognisers were assessed with the <a href="http://homepages.abdn.ac.uk/m.burton/pages/gfmt/Glasgow%20Face%20Recognition%20Group.html">Glasgow Face Matching Test</a> (GFMT), a standardised test of unfamiliar face-matching ability. In this task, participants are shown pairs of faces and are asked to determine whether they show the same person or two different people. </p>
<p>The GFMT sounds like a deceptively simple task, show a person two faces and ask whether they show the same individual or two different people. However, the key thing here is that they are unfamiliar faces – and <a href="http://www.facevar.com/">our research</a> has shown that <a href="https://dspace.stir.ac.uk/bitstream/1893/130/1/hancock-tics-2000.pdf">unfamiliar face recognition is hard</a> and highly prone to error. </p>
<p>In fact, error rates in this task for the average person range from <a href="http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0150036">15-20%</a> – and we know from previous findings that even a group of passport officers perform no better, even those with years of experience in matching faces. </p>
<p>So how did the super recognisers do? Well, their performance on the GFMT unfamiliar face-matching task was <a href="http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0150036">outstanding</a>, where average error rates in the comparison group – of police trainees – reached 19%, average error rates for the super recognisers fell to just 4%, with one officer reaching perfect levels of performance. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116374/original/image-20160324-17832-psku8e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116374/original/image-20160324-17832-psku8e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116374/original/image-20160324-17832-psku8e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116374/original/image-20160324-17832-psku8e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116374/original/image-20160324-17832-psku8e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116374/original/image-20160324-17832-psku8e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116374/original/image-20160324-17832-psku8e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116374/original/image-20160324-17832-psku8e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Could super recognisers be key in the fight against terrorism?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dmitry Kalinovsky/Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In a <a href="http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0150036">second experiment</a>, the demands of the task were increased by replacing the GFMT faces with those of male models. Models often alter their appearance and in this way the authors could test super recogniser’s unfamiliar face-matching performance for faces that varied in appearance to a greater degree. This type of task also mirrors an offender’s change in appearance, using of different hair styles, beards, and clothing.</p>
<p>Once again, the super recognisers <a href="http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0150036">outperformed</a> the control group – a group of university students – on the models task, with error rates falling from 27% among the control group to 10% in the super recognisers. </p>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.york.ac.uk/psychology/news-and-events/news-and-events/2016/yorkscientistsbackmetpolicesuper-recognisers/">third test</a> the super recognisers were presented with a familiar face-matching task using celebrity face images. The photos were all pixelated to mirror a forensic identification situation in which only low-quality CCTV images would be available. The super recognisers again scored significantly fewer errors (7%) compared to the control group (27%). </p>
<h2>Facing the facts</h2>
<p>These findings provide more evidence for the view that there are wide <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3125173/Are-super-recogniser-test-one-elite-group-people-rarely-forgets-face.html">individual differences</a> in face recognition ability across individuals in the population. And that people’s level of ability appears to be innate – training or years of experience makes little difference to the level of performance.</p>
<p>Across these three experiments using both unfamiliar and familiar faces in both easy and difficult viewing conditions, the Met Police’s super recognisers consistently outperformed the control groups. </p>
<p>The wider recruitment of this special breed of recognisers in other police forces and in agencies such as the passport office and border control – where accurate unfamiliar face matching is vital to the nation’s security – is very important in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-journey-from-jihad-to-islamist-terrorism-56717">fight against terrorism</a> and could go some way to bolstering national security efforts.</p>
<p>Much has been said about <a href="http://time.com/4269505/brussels-attacks-security-failure-belgium/">Belgium’s security failures</a> in the aftermath of the latest attacks on Brussels. But it isn’t just the Belgians who are struggling to keep a track of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-local-terrorist-cells-make-a-mockery-of-european-security-56698">jihadi networks</a> within their country. The latest talks have renewed calls for a <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-35889584">European wide intelligence agency</a> that could share information quickly and easily between countries. Because it is clear that for long as terrorists can cross borders, we need security that can do the same.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56772/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The York FaceVar Lab (<a href="http://www.facevar.com">www.facevar.com</a>) receive their funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-2013) / ERC Grant Agreement n.323262, and from the Economic and Social Research Council, UK (ES/J022950/1)</span></em></p>How easy is it to recognise a suspect from a CCTV image?David James Robertson, Research Fellow @ York FaceVar Lab, University of YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/568002016-03-24T04:09:31Z2016-03-24T04:09:31ZBrussels attacks: why do family members commit terrorism together?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116304/original/image-20160324-20800-1rbiozp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Brothers Khalid and Brahim el-Bakraoui are suspected of carrying out suicide bomb attacks at Brussels Airport on Tuesday.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Interpol</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It appears to be increasingly common that terrorist attacks not of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/parramatta-shooting-how-much-do-we-really-know-about-lone-wolf-terrorists-46746">lone-wolf variety</a> involve members of the same family. </p>
<p>Some of them, like the <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2015/12/06/us/san-bernardino-shooting-what-we-know/">San Bernardino attack</a> last December, are committed by married couples or romantic partners. </p>
<p>But quite a few recent terrorist atrocities – the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/18/world/europe/paris-terrorism-brothers-said-cherif-kouachi-charlie-hebdo.html?_r=0">Charlie Hebdo attack</a>, the <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/dzhokhar-and-tamerlan-a-profile-of-the-tsarnaev-brothers/">Boston Marathon bombings</a> and now Tuesday’s <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35879141">Brussels attacks</a> – have been perpetrated by siblings. So is there a link between within-family radicalisation and acts of terrorism? And is terrorism different from any other crime in this respect?</p>
<h2>Family ties and the militant extremist mindset</h2>
<p>Both genetics and environment are <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-goes-on-in-the-mind-of-a-militant-extremist-30533">known to influence</a> criminal behaviour. But the exact nature of these influences and their relative importance are still being debated. </p>
<p>It can be expected, therefore, that genes contribute to terrorist behaviour. But it is wrong to conclude that just because two individuals have a common genetic make-up, one will follow the other if the other becomes a terrorist. Instances of only one family member displaying criminal behaviour are very common.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, there may be environmental factors that contribute to and interact with genetics to cause terrorist behaviour. If so, one would expect to find more terrorist acts than other kinds of criminal acts committed by members of the same family. Family members share both genetics and environment to a greater extent than people in general.</p>
<p>Studies of the <a href="http://pages.uoregon.edu/gsaucier/Saucier_et_al__militant_extremist_mindset_October08.pdf">militant extremist mindset</a> provide clues to why we can expect to find more siblings among terrorist cells. From the three components of this mindset, only one – “nastiness” – is directly linked to other varieties of criminal behaviour. </p>
<p>Violent criminals of any kind tend to strongly advocate harsh punishment of their enemies. For example, they are more likely than most people to approve of physical punishment for insulting one’s honour. </p>
<p>While both genetics and environment may be implicated in “nastiness”, the other two components of the militant mindset – “grudge” and “excuse” – represent environmental influences to a greater extent. These are usually the focus of recruiters. </p>
<p>An important component of radicalisation is a strong feeling that the group one belongs to is under threat from some other group – that is, the person feels a “grudge” of some kind. A common example is the feeling that the West has exploited and hurt “my” people, and this needs to be avenged.</p>
<p>Sometimes grudge is more general and not oriented towards a particular group. The person simply feels that this world is unfair and full of injustices.</p>
<p>“Excuse” is a dressing-up part of extremism. It relies on religious and ideological “higher moral principles” to justify the feelings of nastiness and grudge.</p>
<p>It follows from the nature of the militant extremist mindset that we can expect to find more siblings among terrorists. This is because such attacks tend to be carried out by people who are more ready for action and are prepared to be vicious in dealing with their enemies. This tends to be a shared characteristic of criminal family members. </p>
<p>Being raised together – and therefore being exposed to the same set of stories about the enemies and the same set of moral, ideological and religious reasons justifying their feeling of hate – is likely to contribute significantly to the same tendency.</p>
<p>And then there is a feeling of trust, due to a common upbringing and feelings stronger than typical camaraderie when you are doing something together with somebody who is close to you. Overall, it is likely that there will be more instances of siblings committing terrorist attacks. </p>
<p>From a security point of view, it may be reasonable to ask whether this tendency calls for a different approach to detection. There is currently an emphasis on internet-based radicalisation, rather than on person-to-person contacts. Family interactions diminish the role of the former and point to the need to maintain traditional policing methods.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56800/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lazar Stankov does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Family members share both genetics and environment to a greater extent than people in general. And this has implications for counterterrorism approaches.Lazar Stankov, Professor, Institute for Positive Psychology and Education, Australian Catholic UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/567642016-03-23T19:35:48Z2016-03-23T19:35:48ZWhat is Turnbull’s take on foreign policy?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116278/original/image-20160323-28187-1v3jrlf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Mick Tsikas</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>For anyone who has been following Malcolm Turnbull’s progress as prime minister, his much-anticipated speech to the Lowy Institute contained few real surprises, other that the fact that it was inevitably preceded by an acknowledgement of events in Belgium. </p>
<p>On the contrary, in many ways it was business as usual, replete with the now mandatory calls for agility, innovation and the like. If there was one slight surprise, it was just how much attention was devoted to unambiguously domestic issues.</p>
<p>One of the big ideas about foreign policy under the Turnbull government is consequently the idea that all policies will be driven primarily by a desire to grasp the opportunities offered by a process of economic development in the Indo-Pacific that is “just getting started”.</p>
<p>In this context, one of the justifications for Australia’s significantly expanded defence spending is that it will amount to a de-facto industry policy that drives innovation and helps to diversify the domestic economy. </p>
<p>While there may be something to be said for this approach, it is striking, nevertheless, that Turnbull feels the need to justify security policy in domestic terms. All politics is, indeed, local.</p>
<p>Turnbull’s hosts at the Lowy Institute would no doubt have been delighted by all the references to the “Indo-Pacific” in his speech as they have been at the forefront of promoting this way of describing the region. It has rather displaced the formerly fashionable “Asia-Pacific” as the preferred descriptor of Australia’s geographic location. </p>
<p>It’s an interesting illustration of what a well-funded think-tank can achieve in shaping the national policy debate.</p>
<p>The Indo-Pacific idea has the advantage of highlighting the growing importance of India and Indonesia, both of which were singled out for praise. Turnbull rightly made the point that Indonesia and Australia are no longer quite so different in the wake of our giant neighbor’s successful democratic transition.</p>
<p>Whether Australia’s domestic capitalist class has the wit to belatedly recognises this, too, is another question that was unsurprisingly left unaddressed.</p>
<p>India is the other great regional hope, and Turnbull praised its “political miracle”, too. Not only is India seen as the next major driver of Australia’s own economic development, but it has major strategic significance. </p>
<p>Although there were a number of references to the recent defence white paper, India’s potential importance as a security partner was not spelled out. It might have been awkward to do so given that India, like Japan, is seen as a key strategic relationship in responding to the rise of China and its destabilising impact on the region. </p>
<p>China was mentioned. It could hardly be otherwise given its importance to the region and its own “counter-productive” recent policies. To Turnbull’s credit he spelled out Australia’s priorities in the South China Sea fairly clearly. The rule of law, respect for international norms, and a general commitment to institutionalised problem-solving are the predictable order of the day.</p>
<p>While such sentiments and goals may be unobjectionable – even desirable – they might look rather more persuasive if the principal architect of the prevailing international order, the US, subscribed to them as well. Until the US also agrees to be bound by potentially key important agreements like the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, it’s not clear why China should either.</p>
<p>The US received the standard plaudits about the importance of the alliance and the “vital” nature of its continued strategic presence in the region. </p>
<p>What was perhaps most interesting in this context was the reference to an “emerging multipolarity” in the region. Turnbull may well be right about this, but it’s rather at odds with the recent white paper’s claims about America’s continuing centrality and importance in the region.</p>
<p>If the region is changing in the way that Turnbull seemed to be suggesting then Australian policymakers need to think carefully about what this new world order might actually look like. Turnbull was right to argue that we should not:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… view our strategic circumstances solely through the prism of counter-terrorism.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>We also need to think what the implications of failing to see the bigger and more immediate regional picture might be.</p>
<p>It is becoming increasingly clear that we cannot be entirely confident about what either China <em>or</em> the US is likely to do in the near or long term. Even if Donald Trump does not become America’s next commander-in-chief, middle powers like Australia need to develop independent policy perspectives that reflect our unique circumstances and capabilities.</p>
<p>Regional institutions could and should play a bigger role in such circumstances. Apart from another ritual acknowledgement of ASEAN’s potential importance, any reference to the region’s institutional architecture – which Australia has played a surprisingly prominent role in trying to create – was notable by its absence.</p>
<p>This really is an area where Australia might continue play the sort of role to which our policymakers have often aspired, but which they have never quite managed to pull off. Whether Turnbull will have any more success than some of his predecessors remains to be seen. Actually putting it on the agenda in a serious way has to be the first step though.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56764/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
For anyone who has been following Malcolm Turnbull’s progress as prime minister, his much-anticipated speech to the Lowy Institute contained few real surprises, other that the fact that it was inevitably…Mark Beeson, Professor of International Politics, The University of Western AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/567622016-03-23T17:19:04Z2016-03-23T17:19:04ZTerror attacks put journalists’ ethics on the frontline<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116235/original/image-20160323-28209-bepiqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">h</span> </figcaption></figure><p>Everyone along the street seemed to be watching the same thing. The evenings were still light and curtains were not yet drawn, so people’s TV sets were visible through their ground-floor windows. All the screens showed the burning Twin Towers. This mass consumption of the same news – as happened on September 11, 2001 – is rarer now. The ever-multiplying number of media platforms continues to fracture the attention of their audiences.</p>
<p>Back then, I was on my way back to my flat in Brussels to pack for a flight across the Atlantic. Two days later, I was able to fly to Montreal and travel from there to Manhattan to cover the aftermath of the attacks. It was while I was there that <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/09/20/gen.bush.transcript/">George W Bush warned</a> the nations of the world: “Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.”</p>
<p>This remark may not have been aimed at journalists in particular. The best reporting, however, often leaves room for a degree of interpretation – “with us, or against us” does not. One of journalism’s roles in a democracy is to speak the truth to power, not simply accept power’s rules. </p>
<p>I was reminded of this when I heard the experienced foreign correspondent <a href="http://www.ksmfund.org/2015-awards/2015-guest-honour">Peter Greste reflect</a> on the 400 days he had spent in jail in Egypt after being arrested there on trumped-up charges. Speaking last October, as he presented the Kurt Schork awards in International Journalism at Reuters, he said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>You know generally when you push the boundary. You know generally when you work when you’ve done something that might upset somebody – someone in government, some administration some way so I was completely taken aback because we hadn’t done anything that was pushing any boundaries.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Greste linked his fate to the way that the world had changed for journalists since September 11. Increasingly, they were not seen as neutral observers – and, as a consequence, were not treated as such.</p>
<h2>Mobilising opinion</h2>
<p>Journalists have greater responsibilities in time of war or national crisis than at any other. Their role is vitally important to voters’ understanding of what their leaders propose to do in their name. The world since September 11 2001 seems to have seen a growing effort in time and money from governments keener than ever to get their side of the story across. The controls placed on reporting in Iraq – for example, “embedding” journalists with troops – during the 2003 invasion and beyond were a reflection of this. The idea that “<a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/20024822">TV lost the Vietnam war</a>” – wrongheaded though it may be – retains an enduring power. </p>
<p>Russia’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/more-truths-than-combatants-as-ukraine-and-russia-gripped-by-a-new-kind-of-media-war-24000">massive deployment of media resources</a> to mobilise supportive opinion of its policies in Ukraine and Syria is just one example. In that case, many Russian journalists have appeared willing to support their country’s foreign policy. Given the overwhelmingly patriotic tone of contemporary Russian coverage of international affairs, that may be the only option for anyone wanting airtime. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116238/original/image-20160323-28196-1303xr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116238/original/image-20160323-28196-1303xr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116238/original/image-20160323-28196-1303xr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=790&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116238/original/image-20160323-28196-1303xr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=790&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116238/original/image-20160323-28196-1303xr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=790&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116238/original/image-20160323-28196-1303xr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=993&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116238/original/image-20160323-28196-1303xr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=993&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116238/original/image-20160323-28196-1303xr9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=993&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">How the Evening Standard reported the threat from Iraq in 2003.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yet what of other cases? How well are audiences served by a one-sided view of events? The answer is not at all well, as <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/26/world/from-the-editors-the-times-and-iraq.html">The New York Times acknowledged</a> when admitting that coverage of the run-up to the Iraq war “was not as rigorous as it should have been”. The New York Times was not the only guilty party. At least they decided to admit their failings. </p>
<p>Journalism has risen to unprecedented challenges with varying success. Some of The New York Times’s reporting of the occupation of Iraq and the insurgency which followed was truly outstanding. Yet western journalists covering the “War on Terror” in its various forms have found themselves tested. </p>
<h2>Centre of conflict</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/brussels-attacks">attacks on Brussels</a> on March 22 were a reminder of why this is. Journalists find themselves at the centre of events as never before. The bombers struck at soft targets to inspire fear. That fear spread as the coverage continued. Without the coverage – or at least if there had been less of it – would the attackers’ aim have been frustrated? Perhaps so. But even if the authorities had requested that, it would have been wrong to agree.</p>
<p>As Greste noted, journalists find themselves at the centre of conflict as never before. Not just war, but political battles, and “anti-terrorist operations”. They are targets. Islamic State beheads them. Others seek to co-opt them. </p>
<p>Ethical dilemmas emerge. In July 2005, I was among the BBC editors who agreed to a reporting blackout as police closed in on the suspects in a series of failed suicide bombings. The idea was that live TV coverage might have tipped off the wanted men. Was it right to do the authorities’ bidding? </p>
<p>There are more questions. How seriously should editors take warnings from anonymous “security sources” about threats? Is this important public safety information, or spin aimed at securing extra funding? </p>
<p>What about stories affecting journalists themselves? As a correspondent based in Brussels, I passed through Zaventem airport countless times. How to keep out of reports the thought “that could have been me”? </p>
<p>The rise of Islamic state, just as much as Tuesday’s attacks, show the value of good journalism. The former by its initial absence from the news – hence the surprise which accompanied the group’s territorial gains in Iraq and Syria – the latter by telling people about the world they live in. Few did, or could, report the rise of Islamic State. Its seizure of territory, and oil fields, came as a shock. </p>
<p>Ideally, journalists would do their jobs without having to take sides – although some would still choose to do so, as we saw by the <a href="https://theconversation.com/brussels-attacks-callous-brexit-tweeters-will-lose-the-battle-for-hearts-and-minds-56710">shabby attempts by controversialist Brexiteer columnists</a> to make a political point out of the Brussels bombs. </p>
<p>In a world where, despite its complexity, journalists are under pressure to be with us or against us, their craft cannot function properly – and that is a loss for all of us.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56762/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Rodgers does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The reporting of terrorist atrocities is polarising opinion in a way that is dangerous for the craft of journalism.James Rodgers, Senior Lecturer in Journalism, City, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/567172016-03-23T17:15:51Z2016-03-23T17:15:51ZThe journey from jihad to Islamist terrorism<p>The twin <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/brussels-attacks">bomb attacks in Brussels</a> mark a new chapter in the unfinished book on the history of Islamist terrorism. </p>
<p>To understand the terrorist attacks we must examine the wider circumstances. These include the hypothesis that many of the terrorists – including the Algerian Muhammad Belkaid <a href="http://nypost.com/2016/03/19/dead-brussels-gunman-wanted-to-be-isis-suicide-bomber/">killed in a Brussels raid</a> earlier in March – have been involved in the conflict in Syria and Iraq, and as a result have become radicalised. But as the investigation continues, questions will be asked about where the radicalisation of those involved took place: in Syria or Iraq, or in the back streets of the Molenbeek quarter of Brussels.</p>
<p>It is important, however, to note that while the terrorists appear to be Muslims, this does not equate to a relationship between the attacks and Islam. It is like equating the 1980s IRA attacks on the UK mainland to Christianity (despite the sectarian nature of that conflict, it was a political struggle). Let’s not forget that the residents of Molenbeek <a href="http://mashable.com/2015/11/18/molenbeek-peace-vigil/#nT8CxdeSsqqp">publicly mourned</a> the Paris attacks.</p>
<h2>The Syria connection</h2>
<p>The conflict in Syria and Iraq has undoubtedly contributed to the spread of Islamist terrorism both in the Middle East and wider world. The foreign participants in this conflict have gained experienced in a violent landscape where the ostensibly noble idea of a classical style of defensive jihad in support of the Syrian people against Bashar Al-Assad, has morphed into nihilistic Islamist terrorism. </p>
<p>This in turn has radicalised many individuals, who on their return home, have difficulty readjusting. They return with some additional “street credibility” and may subsequently become both potential terrorists or trainers and ideologues. One man wanted by police in connection with the Brussels attack, Najim Laachraoui, is <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2016/03/21/europe/belgium-appeal-paris-suspect/">believed to have</a> travelled to Syria in 2013. </p>
<p>A key point here to understand is that many individuals, both Arabs and Westerners, who go to Syria to join Islamic State are not necessarily radicalised already (in the sense of holding extreme political or religious beliefs), but that fighting and socialisation among Islamist fighters in Syria can radicalise them. </p>
<h2>Complex routes to radicalisation</h2>
<p>A recently published trove of <a href="https://www.zamanalwsl.net/uploads/isis.pdf">Islamic State documents</a> gave an insight into the many individuals who go to Syria and don’t join Islamic State immediately, but join other (perhaps more moderate) groups initially. To support the point that many of those travelling to Syria are not necessarily radical, a <a href="https://www.bellingcat.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/The-Other-Foreign-Fighters.pdf">recent report</a> was published of US citizens who went to Syria to fight against (not alongside) Islamic State. Reading their narratives confirms that they too were not considered radical. </p>
<p>The notion of radicalisation is complex and contested. The <a href="http://icsr.info/">International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation</a> at Kings College London argues that radicalisation is a combination of grievances, ideology, and socialisation. Given that, and with the backdrop to the Syrian conflict, these factors appear to change over time. </p>
<p>Those who may have had initial grievances against the Assad regime in Syria, may later embrace a more extreme ideology, perhaps due to their socialisation with more extreme fighters in Syria. This transformation from fighting a classical jihad (against Syrian combatants) to one of terrorism (against civilians and non-combatants) is a much understudied phenomenon. </p>
<p>In this context, classical jihad is a fight to defend fellow Muslims against those who are persecuting them. The same logic was applied during the 1980s Afghan jihad, against the Soviets who were persecuting fellow Muslims in Afghanistan. This classical jihad had the full support of the United States as noted in <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Arabs_at_War_in_Afghanistan.html?id=FULangEACAAJ&source=kp_cover&redir_esc=y">a recent book about the war</a>.</p>
<p>The attacks in Brussels were largely, but regrettably, to be expected. One <a href="http://hegghammer.com/_files/Hegghammer_-_Should_I_stay_or_should_I_go.pdf">report</a> noted that “one in nine foreign fighters returned to perpetrate attacks in the West”. With this in mind, and aware <a href="https://pietervanostaeyen.wordpress.com/2015/12/07/belgian-fighters-in-syria-and-iraq-december-2015/">that at least 553 Belgians</a> (many from the group Sharia4Belgium) have been active in Syria or Iraq, such attacks should not come as a surprise. </p>
<p>Islamic State, through its news agency Amaq, <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-belgium-blast-idUKKCN0WO0L9">admitted responsibility</a> for the Brussels attacks, perpetrated by “soldiers of the caliphate”. So the attacks in Brussels must be seen in the light of the geo-political events playing out in Syria and Iraq. They are not born out of a sectarian issue of Muslim versus Christian; but stem from groups and individuals who have been radicalised, beyond the point of involvement in defending their fellow Muslims through classical jihad, to one of Islamist terrorism.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56717/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Roger Warren does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The road to radicalisation can morph from an idea about noble deeds.Roger Warren, PhD candidate, Handa Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, University of St AndrewsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/567582016-03-23T17:04:00Z2016-03-23T17:04:00ZThe bitter fruits of alienation: Belgium’s struggle is the problem of our age<p>“What we feared has happened,” <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/belgian-prime-minister-charles-michel-says-feared-happened-104403140.html">remarked</a> Charles Michel, the prime minister of Belgium, in the immediate aftermath of the horrible and violent attacks on <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/brussels-attacks">Brussels</a> airport and the Maelbeek metro station on March 22.</p>
<p>Yes, indeed. Nothing is less surprising than that the vortex of terrorism and repression that has developed since the November 2015 attacks in Paris should have resulted in these new violent attacks.</p>
<p>But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t consider how these circumstances came about. These events reflect several, much longer-term issues. </p>
<p>First of all, there is the ever more emphatic pursuit of a level of security that can never be achieved. European leaders from <a href="https://theconversation.com/france-cradle-of-liberty-struggles-to-balance-anti-terrorism-law-and-rights-41412">François Hollande</a> to <a href="https://theconversation.com/british-pm-wants-to-bomb-is-in-syria-but-its-hard-to-see-how-that-will-make-things-any-better-51357">David Cameron</a> are promising somehow to wipe away the threat of terrorism from Europe. That of course cannot happen. Only those who believe most naively in the capacities of Europe’s current intelligence structures – hovering over the incessant noise of email, mobile phone messages and the twittersphere – will believe that what has come into existence can be willed to disappear.</p>
<p>There is indeed a police problem – one above all of capacity and coordination – but the solution to Europe’s security crisis can never simply be more security. That has to be combined with more imaginative efforts to look at the origins of the problems. And that of course means that Europeans need to look at themselves and the societies they inhabit.</p>
<h2>Long incubation</h2>
<p>Brussels was not randomly selected for this attack. It is a prosperous, peaceful and predominantly secular city. In many ways it embodies the values that many in 21st-century Europe hold dear. But it is also home to radicalised minorities. </p>
<p>Most bars on most nights of the week within easy reach of the Maelbeek metro station will contain a cross-section of the successful young generations of Europe. They mix in those easily permeable domains between European institutions, lobbying and journalism.</p>
<p>But think also of those who are not present in those bars: the micro-communities of Europe’s margin. Some of those are well established and familiar; but others are emphatically more recent – notably the arrival in the poorer districts of central Brussels of populations from North Africa and the Middle East. These are people with relatively little interest in the society they now inhabit. And indeed Belgium seems to have little to offer to them, beyond the immediate and insubstantial opportunities of transient employment. They are the expendable populations, and they know themselves to be that.</p>
<h2>Molenbeek</h2>
<p>Which brings us inevitably to <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-it-about-molenbeek-the-bit-of-belgium-that-was-a-base-for-paris-terror-attacks-51007">Molenbeek</a>. That one commune of the 19 which constitute the city of Brussels should have come to symbolise all its problems is in many respects unfair. What has happened in Molenbeek could easily have happened in the neighbouring communes of Anderlecht or Schaerbeek. But the wider reality is indisputable – inner-city communities often lack clear structures of governance, social solidarity and opportunity.</p>
<p>There is a Belgian and a European explanation for that. The Belgian dimension must focus on the manifold complexities of the Belgian state. It is inefficient and simply lacks the capacity to provide effective governance to many of the most disadvantaged populations who now live on its territory.</p>
<p>Belgium is not, by contemporary European standards, a conventional state. It lacks an instinctive ethos of centralism. Belgians know themselves to be diverse and are rightly proud of the fact that they do many things at a local, rather than national level. That works when the participants sign up to rather basic values of co-existence, but it fails when they contain populations who do not experience the basic amenities and opportunities which draw people into the European social contract.</p>
<p>But it is that social contract which has been stretched to breaking point and beyond, in Belgium and elsewhere, over the past 20 years or more. The replacement of structures of social solidarity with the relentless logic of the market, have hollowed out the ways in which the poorer communities of Brussels and many other cities across Europe have invested in their larger collective existence.</p>
<p>There are of course many reasons for that, most obviously the way in which the scale and diversity of migration has transformed cities into communities where there is no identifiable majority. But the larger picture, in Brussels and elsewhere, is the degree to which social inequality has generated its own dynamics of marginalisation and radicalisation.</p>
<p>In Molenbeek, as in many other disadvantaged communities, the emergence of cultures of militant Islam has been less a stand-alone phenomenon than the product of wider phenomena of poor schooling, limited economic opportunities and consequent petty criminality.</p>
<h2>Confronting the real task</h2>
<p>Previous manifestations of terrorism in Western Europe have had immediate and tangible origins. The conflicts between communities in Northern Ireland and between Basques and the Spanish state are two of the most well-known causes of the 20th Century.</p>
<p>It is tempting to see the current waves of terrorism as very different – the result of the sudden invasion of militant Islam. But in many respects the origins of the current violence remain just as local. They lie in the willingness of young men of immigrant populations to turn the quasi-criminal expertise learned in their formerly marginal lives to more political and violent ends.</p>
<p>For some, such radicalisation leads to Syria and back. For others, there is no need to travel further than across the cities of Brussels and Paris from the neighbourhoods of the marginalised to the bars, music venues and metro stations of the comfortable classes.</p>
<p>All of which suggests that the problems that we – a pronoun which is more exclusive than we are often inclined to recognise – confront today are not going to go away soon. The current terrorism is so amorphous and so shallow in its political affiliations that it may fade away, as those drawn towards it today are attracted to the more immediate opportunities of tomorrow.</p>
<p>But it is more likely that the breaking up, arrest and imprisonment of particular networks of individuals will simply be replaced by other such groups, who will similarly find in particular languages of Islam the vehicle for their angers and their emotional rejection of wider society. Putting back together Europe’s social contract might take longer than any of us would like to think.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56758/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martin Conway does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The seeds of radicalisation were being sown long before Islamic State came along.Martin Conway, Professor of Contemporary European History, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/567662016-03-23T17:03:01Z2016-03-23T17:03:01ZBelgian government saw terror attack coming so why did it fail to stop it?<p>It’s no secret that Belgium, and especially Brussels, has been a <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-it-about-molenbeek-the-bit-of-belgium-that-was-a-base-for-paris-terror-attacks-51007">major hub</a> of Islamic terrorist activity for more than a decade. Belgium provides the <a href="http://indy100.independent.co.uk/article/belgium-provided-the-most-isis-fighters-per-capita-of-all-eu-countries-last-year--b1yD_bwvtx">highest per capita number</a> of fighters in the Syria conflict of any Western nation.</p>
<p>The events of March 22 are but the latest incident. There was a <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34832512">Belgian connection</a> to the terror attacks in Paris in January and November 2015, and the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-27733876">Jewish Museum in Brussels</a> was attacked by Islamic terrorists in 2014, with three people killed. Yet the Belgian government haplessly continued to ignore the threat in its midst and repeatedly failed to take serious action.</p>
<p>Belgium has been a benign environment for Islamic terrorists. That is a major reason why Brussels was hit with these two major terrorist attacks, which have killed more than 30 and wounded more than 100.</p>
<p>The city was an easy and convenient target thanks to the policies of the Belgian government. While radical Islamists have had a decade to build up an infrastructure in Brussels, the Belgian police and intelligence services remain understaffed and <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/france-shooting-belgium-criticism-idUSL8N13C3OV20151117">underfunded</a>. Belgium simply does not have enough police and intelligence personnel to deal with the size of the threat.</p>
<p>It is estimated that more than 100 Belgian nationals have returned from fighting in Syria. There, they learned to use weapons and explosives and gained fighting experience. Several of the Paris attackers had <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11996120/Paris-attack-what-we-know-about-the-suspects.html">returned from Syria</a> to Belgium, yet they were left free to plan their deadly mission. It seems the government did not consider them to be a threat.</p>
<p>Belgian counter-terrorism police are <a href="http://www.politico.eu/article/belgium-failed-state-security-services-molenbeek-terrorism/">notoriously lax</a> and Belgian police have less authority to conduct surveillance and make arrests than British or French officers. The Belgian authorities can break up one or two cells, but the lax policy towards fighters returning from Syria is a guarantee that Islamic State will be able to quickly rebuild terrorist cells and expand existing cells without much trouble.</p>
<p>It is impossible to protect the public entrances of rail stations or <a href="https://theconversation.com/qanda-brussels-attacks-and-airport-security-56706">airports</a> from suicide bombers – especially when the attackers are well-organised and well-supported. The only real protection is stopping attacks before they happen.</p>
<p>To do this it is necessary to break the terrorist networks and infrastructure, but that requires a lot of expert police and intelligence work. It takes properly staffed, trained and organised security agencies – and Belgium is well behind in this respect.</p>
<p>The Belgian government needs a dramatic restructuring. It needs to increase its security forces and it must, as a priority, set much tougher counter-terrorism policies, especially to monitor the Islamist groups operating in its cities and deal with jihadis returning from Syria.</p>
<p>Even if the Belgians move quickly to change their security policies the threat will remain high. It takes years to develop adequate security forces. Doing the right thing will cost Belgium a lot of money and take considerable political will. On the other hand, continuing to ignore the Islamist threat will cost more Belgian lives.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56766/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Corum does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It’s going to take time and money, but the country must act on its terrorism problem.James Corum, Lecturer in Politics and Contemporary History and leader of the MA in Terrorism and Security Programme, University of SalfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/566982016-03-23T12:54:34Z2016-03-23T12:54:34ZHow local terrorist cells make a mockery of European security<p>In the aftermath of the explosions at the airport and in the metro station in <a href="https://theconversation.com/brussels-attacks-a-throwback-to-pre-9-11-terrorism-56705">Brussels</a> on the morning of March 22, 2016, the search for the bomb-making factory became increasingly urgent. Someone who knew what they were doing provided the explosives for this attack. </p>
<p>The suicide belts used at Stade de France and elsewhere during the Paris attacks in November were made with the “Mother of Satan”, TATP (<a href="http://www.ibtimes.com/what-tatp-paris-attackers-used-unstable-hydrogen-peroxide-based-explosive-detonations-2184934">triacetone triperoxide</a>). It is very unstable and made from ingredients found in the cosmetics area of most chemists’ shops. It is difficult to detect by the normal procedures developed for nitrate based explosives, such as sniffer dogs. </p>
<p>It was invented in 1895, and reappeared in the 1980s, used by West Bank Palestinian groups. It is easy to detonate but as likely to damage the user as the target, so some expertise is required to amalgamate the ingredients into an explosive. It can deteriorate quite quickly, so a bomb-making factory or factories needs to be within reasonable range of the point of delivery.</p>
<p>The ingredients cost very little to purchase and, as long as purchases are made at a number of different shops, would be unlikely to be noticed by the shopkeepers concerned.</p>
<h2>Self sufficient</h2>
<p>Local cells, whether they are groups owing allegiance to al-Qaeda or to so-called Islamic State can <a href="http://www.fatf-gafi.org/media/fatf/documents/reports/FATF%20Terrorist%20Financing%20Typologies%20Report.pdf">rely on self-funding</a>, which is mostly carried out via local petty criminal activities such as drug dealing and ATM fraud. The bar in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-it-about-molenbeek-the-bit-of-belgium-that-was-a-base-for-paris-terror-attacks-51007">Molenbeek</a> area of Brussels owned by one of the Abdesalam brothers allegedly involved in the Paris attacks in November was suspected by the police of being a place where <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-france-shooting-belgium-bar-idUKKCN0T52RU20151117">drugs were sold</a>. </p>
<p>The beauty of recruiting petty criminals to an organisation such as Islamic State is that they know people who know people who can move or launder money. Money for terrorist activities is moved in the same way as profits for other criminal activities – via suitcases full of cash, small volume, high-value commodities such as drugs and precious stones, and all the pieces of paper such as shares and bonds that can be exchanged. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/paris-attacks-terrifyingly-fatal-layers-of-resources-and-tactics-1.2580749">Hawala</a> banking and money exchange bureaus have been alleged in newspaper reports to have been involved in funding the Paris attacks.</p>
<h2>What happens at borders</h2>
<p>The trouble is, controlling every land border crossing in Europe is more or less impossible because of the sheer volume of traffic. From my own research interviewing border guards in Eastern Europe in the early 1990s, I learned that at an external land border, if the police spend longer than 45 seconds checking a vehicle, a queue of more than five kilometres develops. </p>
<p>Businesses will resist such measures, despite the terror threat, because they don’t want to return to a situation where a lorry driving from Spain to Netherlands loses two hours on the French border, two hours at the Belgian border and two hours on the Dutch border.</p>
<p>Controls at internal European borders <a href="http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20100303205641/http:/www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitecontent/documents/managingourborders/crime-strategy/protecting-border.pdf?view=Binary">are supposed to have been</a> replaced by offender profiling and offence profiling. There should be a mixture of random checks and profiled checks. But for that to happen, there has to be sharing of intelligence between countries. In addition, smuggling has to happen again and again before a pattern becomes noticeable. </p>
<p>Although borders don’t exist for criminals, terrorists and businesses, they still do for police – and there are still conflicts between different countries’ police forces. Nevertheless, the majority of terrorist activities no longer require cross-border activity. They are locally sourced and financed – and this is what makes them more difficult to detect.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56698/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bill Tupman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Terrorist attacks that are locally sourced and financed are very hard to detect.Bill Tupman, Honorary Research Fellow, University of ExeterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/567362016-03-23T06:16:40Z2016-03-23T06:16:40ZBrussels airport attacks are not just a matter of airport security<p>The deadly <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/brussels-attacks">terror attack in Brussels</a> has again raised the issue of safety and security at airports. But expanding the “security bubble” around airports might not be the best response.</p>
<p>Europe barely had the time to recover from the horror of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/paris-attacks-2015">Paris attacks last November</a> before another of its capital cities was hit at its heart, presumably by ISIS terrorists.</p>
<p>In a devastated Brussels, investigations are running at full speed and authorities are already flooded with questions about the vulnerability of their critical infrastructure.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, this refrain seems to resurface every time a terrorist attack achieves its goals.</p>
<p>Traditionally, governments respond to these events by setting higher security standards. In this sense, modern airports epitomise the significant improvements that have been achieved in security over the past decades, especially after the September 11 attacks in the US in 2001. </p>
<h2>Screening</h2>
<p>Security screening has proved to be an effective deterrent against acts of terror such as hijacking and bombing. Following a procedure that is typical of security risk management, the security bubble around the vulnerable element – in this case, the airplane – has been progressively expanded in order to keep malicious individuals out.</p>
<p>The sterile area in a modern airport is among the most secure places on Earth. However, the terminal buildings can still be threatened, such as when the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6257194.stm">Glasgow airport was hit</a> by a vehicle ramming attack in 2007. </p>
<p>In the aftermath, more stringent regulations were put into place to prevent vehicles from getting too close to the terminal buildings. Thus the security bubble was further expanded.</p>
<p>Even so, in 2011 <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-12268662">two suicide bombers managed to kill</a> more than 30 people at Moscow’s Domodedovo airport by walking into the baggage claim area and activating their Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs). This was an act strikingly similar to what just happened in Brussels.</p>
<h2>Increase security?</h2>
<p>What should be our response to the latest attack? In the next few days we will probably hear more requests for strengthened airport security. Some might argue for a further expansion of the security bubble in order to cover the check-in area or entrance of the terminal buildings. </p>
<p>Would that be an effective solution? I don’t think so, for three main reasons.</p>
<p>First, the costs associated with the implementation of such a security system would largely outweigh the benefits; the bigger the area, the more expensive its protection. </p>
<p>Second, the associated operational disruptions would require some time (and a lot of patience) to be contained. When the perceived threats are low, people tend to consider security measures as an annoyance rather than a safeguard. Most of time, security awareness is not an ingrained mindset.</p>
<p>Third, and most important, the effectiveness of this new security system would still be questionable. Expanding the bubble would just move its boundaries outwards, with no guarantee that a new attack won’t happen on its edge. </p>
<p>For example, if security were increased before reaching the check-in at the airport, that might cause crowds to gather outside the main doors, and this would present a new target for terrorist attack.</p>
<p>So expanding the bubble would be just another symmetric response to an issue that has proven highly asymmetric.</p>
<p>This last point, in particular, emphasises that the Brussels’ airport attacks are not just a matter of airport security. They involve the need to reconsider our perception of modern security risks.</p>
<h2>Where people gather</h2>
<p>Airport security works very well these days. The problem is that, especially in some countries, any gathering involving more or less large crowds is a vulnerable target for terrorist attack.</p>
<p>Sport events, public transport, concerts, and even the queue in front of a museum, constitute a potential target for malicious individuals.</p>
<p>This requires governments to adopt a different approach to security. Security management needs to be performed at an asymmetric level, penetrating our societies and engaging terrorists at the individual level. </p>
<p>Random security checkpoints, enhanced intelligence networks and additional investments in street-level security technologies are some examples of asymmetric countermeasures that should be strengthened.</p>
<p>Technology, in particular, seems to be a powerful ally in our fight against terrorism. Especially when technological development is associated with the reduction of security costs.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56736/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ivano Bongiovanni does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The deadly terror attack in Brussels raises the issue of safety and security at airports. But this is more about our approach to risk in any areas where people are known to gather.Ivano Bongiovanni, PhD Candidate in Airport Safety and Security; Sessional Academic in Strategic Management, Queensland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/567342016-03-23T04:47:10Z2016-03-23T04:47:10ZArt and terror: a new kind of memorial<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116134/original/image-20160323-28114-1l50eau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Rome's Trevi fountain lit up with the Belgian flag. Why do some violent acts prompt global artistic memorial, but not others?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stefano Rellandini/Reuters</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Images are powerful. And the ways in which artists respond to events like Tuesday’s bombings in Brussels can sometimes strike a particularly potent chord with our collective emotions. </p>
<p>One such image, which has spread throughout social media in a matter of hours, is a cartoon of a French tricolor flag, turned into a sorrowful human figure, empathically consoling a tearful Belgian flag. </p>
<p><tweet url=“https://twitter.com/plantu/status/712229072512884736”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116110/original/image-20160322-32323-1fvjluf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116110/original/image-20160322-32323-1fvjluf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116110/original/image-20160322-32323-1fvjluf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116110/original/image-20160322-32323-1fvjluf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116110/original/image-20160322-32323-1fvjluf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116110/original/image-20160322-32323-1fvjluf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116110/original/image-20160322-32323-1fvjluf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Plantu.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The loosely rendered poignant cartoon was penned by Jean Plantureux, a French cartoonist for Le Monde going by the name of Plantu. It is accompanied by words that read, “13 November … 22 March”, reinforcing the solidarity between France and Belgium through their now-shared experience of horrific political violence in their capital cities. </p>
<p>Similarly, various images are circulating today of Hergé’s Tintin, the iconic Belgian cartoon character, shedding a tear, sometimes in the red, yellow and black of the Belgian flag. </p>
<p>From the Brandenburg Gate to the Eiffel Tower and the Trevi Fountain (main image), Europe has lit up in red, yellow and black, and the rest of the world is beginning to follow. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116110/original/image-20160322-32323-1fvjluf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116110/original/image-20160322-32323-1fvjluf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116110/original/image-20160322-32323-1fvjluf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116110/original/image-20160322-32323-1fvjluf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116110/original/image-20160322-32323-1fvjluf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116110/original/image-20160322-32323-1fvjluf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/116110/original/image-20160322-32323-1fvjluf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">San Francisco’s City Hall lit up after the Paris terror attacks.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stephen Lam/REUTERS</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yet, Plantu’s cartoon will likely become the visual icon of these attacks, as it spreads throughout Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and beyond, in a similar way to <a href="http://time.com/4113068/paris-peace-sign-artist-interview/">Jean Jullien’s symbol of peace for Paris</a> following the attacks in November last year. </p>
<p>Certainly within the last year or so, since the Charlie Hebdo attacks, the rapid exchange of images in social media has emerged as an important way for many of us to make sense of contemporary political violence in the hours following it. </p>
<p>However, some commentators are noting the unevenness in responses between this tragedy in Brussels and one on a similar scale only nine days earlier in Turkey’s capital, Ankara. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/downing-street-raises-the-belgian-flag-and-we-tweet-for-brussels-but-where-was-this-sympathy-after-a6946271.html">Yasmin Ahmed wrote last night in The Independent</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Where was our cartoon for those who have died in Turkey at the hands of terrorists?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In Turkey, three attacks in 2016 so far have left 49 dead and 149 injured. The most recent attack was ten days ago, on March 13, when suicide bombers from a Kurdish insurgent group <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/radical-kurdish-group-close-pkk-claims-deadly-ankara-080118522.html">killed 35 people in Ankara</a>. Were they the wrong kind of victims? Or perhaps the perpetrators were the wrong kind of terrorists? </p>
<p>Interestingly, our different responses to these tragedies may well have a visual origin, according to theorists of visual culture who have grappled with these issues since the “war on terror”. </p>
<p>In the early days of the war on terror, which played out on live television as commercial jets were flown into New York’s World Trade Centre towers, Susan Sontag, herself a New Yorker, wrote that images of violence are “a species of rhetoric”.</p>
<p>In other words, we might assume that, confronted by exactly the same images of human suffering, we universally feel the same gut-wrenching sense of horror, but, Sontag says, this is not the case. </p>
<p>In her book <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52373.Regarding_the_Pain_of_Others">Regarding the Pain of Others</a> (2003), Sontag argues that when we see images of human suffering in the media, we cannot help but see them through the lens of our own ideological positions. </p>
<p>Similarly, in <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6420922-frames-of-war">Frames of War: When is Life Grievable?</a> (2009), Judith Butler argues that certain images of violence are more easily understood than others, and the ones that resonate most with us are those that fit our own pre-existing ideas of who are victims and who are perpetrators. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"712278100315389953"}"></div></p>
<p>She says ideas that fit our existing “frames” are the ones we continue to see the most. The “frame” is not just literally the rectangle of an image, but what our values and culture actually recognise and therefore allow us to understand – our ideas that allow us to “frame” our world, to contain it and understand it. </p>
<p>Butler’s point is that we can only grieve lives lost far away if those losses are shown in the media, and if we understand those lives enough to identify to some extent with them. </p>
<p>In another book, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/171255.Precarious_Life">Precarious Life</a> (2004), Butler argues that the other lives lost, those we don’t identify with, are effectively “ungrievable”. They, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>cannot be lost, and cannot be destroyed, because they already inhabit a lost and destroyed zone … When they are destroyed in war, nothing is destroyed. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Of course, it is impossible to grieve every life lost to political violence around the world, every day. </p>
<p>Images such as Plantu’s cartoon can grant us an avenue through which to express our grief at such tragic and violent loss of life. Yet they can also demonstrate that our empathy might be lacking for those whose lives we less understand, who don’t fit the “frame”, who are in effect “ungrieveable”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56734/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kit Messham-Muir does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>From Tintin weeping to spotlit buildings, images are rapidly circulating on social media as a way of comprehending the Brussels bombings. But where was the cartoon for those who died in Ankara? Are some tragedies “ungrievable”?Kit Messham-Muir, Associate professor in Art, Curtin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/567312016-03-23T01:10:12Z2016-03-23T01:10:12ZBrussels attacks show just how desperate Islamic State has become<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116105/original/image-20160322-23223-my79k6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The world can only expect more attacks such that that took place in Brussels, as Islamic State continues to decline and lash out.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Christophe Petit Tesson</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Islamic State (IS) was <a href="http://www.skynews.com.au/news/top-stories/2016/03/23/brussels-airport-and-metro-attacks-kill-34.html">quick to claim responsibility</a> for bombings at two major transportation hubs <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/brussels-attacks">in Brussels</a> on Tuesday that left at least 30 people dead.</p>
<p>With attacks like these, the group is seeking to sow fear among its enemies, maintain itself as the forerunner in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/islamic-state-vs-al-qaeda-a-rivalry-that-dates-back-to-old-personality-clashes-43893">global jihadi brand war</a> with al-Qaeda, and maintain the veneer of organisational vigour and vitalism it established with its <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-has-iraq-lost-a-third-of-its-territory-to-isis-in-three-days-27933">stunning victories</a> in Syria and Iraq in 2014. </p>
<p>But while the Brussels bombings may have wreaked carnage, they have failed to replicate IS’s triumphalism of 2014. Although not an intuitive conclusion, the attacks are in reality indicative of the group’s growing decline and desperation.</p>
<h2>The imperative of now</h2>
<p>Motivations behind the bombings are likely to be found in the tactical and strategic strains currently being exerted on IS and its wider global network. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/03/salah-abdeslam-fingerprints-belgium-raid-160318141056179.html">recent arrest</a> of Paris terror attack suspect Salah Abdeslam in Brussels was likely seen as an existential threat to IS-linked cells inside Belgium. The perception of a breach may have driven planners to accelerate operations, for fear that the European authorities could employ critical intelligence gained from Abdeslam to disrupt future attacks. </p>
<p>Such a ticking clock may explain why the terrorists opted for a crude dual-bombing in place of a more sophisticated and co-ordinated hybrid assault similar to that <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/paris-attacks-2015">undertaken in Paris</a> in late 2015. </p>
<p>At a broader level, the attacks may also be linked to the immense pressures placed on IS by an array of local, regional and international actors. Collectively, the actions of Russia, the US, Iran, Turkey and many other players have translated into a loss of around <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/03/16/mapped-the-islamic-state-is-losing-its-territory-and-fast/">one-quarter</a> of the group’s territory over the last year.</p>
<p>Kurdish and Iranian-backed Shi'a militias have, in many cases, actively routed the group from its territorial holdings over the last year. Thanks to Iranian and Russian backing, the Syrian army is also exerting increasing pressure on IS. The Syrian army has made recent advances in areas such as <a href="https://twitter.com/Souria4Syrians/status/697867580493664257">Tabqa</a> and <a href="http://kurdishdailynews.org/2016/03/16/russian-jets-pound-isis-in-palmyra-as-syrian-troops-advance-monitor/">Palmyra</a>, signalling a significant shift in the regime’s willingness and capacity to combat IS.</p>
<p>All this has served to dispel much of IS’s mystique and the viability of its mission. In 2014, the group’s emir, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, could point to IS’s many and exceptional successes to make the case that it was clearly on track to establishing its Islamist utopian ideal. Such apparent evidence in turn allowed the group to garner legitimacy, support, and recruit new members. </p>
<p>Today, such successes are few and far between. Some are <a href="http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/03/turkey-syria-iraq-last-year-islamic-state-demise.html#">now questioning</a> whether IS will even be a significant insurgent player in the Syrian conflict by 2017.</p>
<h2>Terror, weakness and desperation</h2>
<p>As IS stunned the world with its blitzkrieg across eastern Iraq in 2014, there was little need for it to conduct attacks outside the Middle East. Its apparent success and superiority over its local rivals was more than enough to draw large amounts of external support and recruits for its cause. </p>
<p>But as IS has weakened over the past two years, its popularity and freedom of action have become increasingly constrained within its immediacy. In such circumstances, insurgent groups often seek to strike outside their own borders as both a punitive measure and a demonstration of strength to potential supporters. </p>
<p>This was precisely Somalian terrorist group al-Shabaab’s logic when it <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/terror-group-al-shabaab-is-fighting-for-survival/story-fni0ffsx-1226727161640">assaulted Kenya’s Westgate mall</a> in 2013. This story echoes much of what IS is experiencing now. </p>
<p>Under increasing pressure from an African Union occupation force that included large contingents from the Kenyan army, al-Shabaab found itself pushed from its seat of power in Mogadishu into Somalia’s south. Unable to mount a serious offensive on the occupiers, the group opted to strike in Kenya itself. This sent a message that Kenya could not expect to safeguard its own territory as long as it engaged in such perilous dalliances abroad.</p>
<p>As pressure has grown on IS, it has become increasingly inclined toward this strategy – from <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/aug/06/suicide-bomber-attacks-mosque-in-saudi-arabia">Saudi Arabia</a> to <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2015/11/12/middleeast/beirut-explosions/">Lebanon</a> to <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2016/03/20/europe/turkey-blast/">Turkey</a> to <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/paris-terror-attacks">France</a>, and now Belgium.</p>
<p>We can only expect more such attacks as IS continues to decline and lash out. Some will invariably foil the various security establishments arrayed against them.</p>
<p>But, it is crucial to remember that this type of terrorism is <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-lose-the-war-on-terror-panic-and-feed-islamic-states-narrative-50974">aimed at</a> sowing discord, chaos, suspicion and divisiveness among the multicultural societies it targets. In doing so, IS is seeking to create the conditions in which its message finds more willing supporters among those disenfranchised by such division.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56731/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ben Rich does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Although not an intuitive conclusion, the Brussels attacks are actually indicative of Islamic State’s growing decline and desperation.Ben Rich, Unit Co-ordinator in Politics, University of New EnglandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/567072016-03-22T22:37:10Z2016-03-22T22:37:10ZBrussels terror attack victims show how humans help each other in times of crisis<p>The world is rightly shocked by the immense pain and suffering caused by the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-35869254">deadly attacks</a> at Zaventem airport Brussels and on the city’s metro. But it is also important to consider that while such acts need to be condemned in the strongest possible terms, the way people respond to them can also illustrate a more positive side to human nature. </p>
<p>People affected by attacks such as those in Brussels often behave much better than is traditionally expected by the authorities and in popular discourse. People tend to come together <em>en masse</em> to respond to such incidents and support each other in the face of adversity.</p>
<p>The term “panic” is widely <a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/brussels-airport-terror-attacks-panic-7605810">used by the media</a> to describe crowd responses to mass terrorist attacks, and Brussels was no exception with <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-35869486">mobile phone footage</a> clearly showing people fleeing the Zaventem airport terminal. Yet so far there is no evidence of actions that might be associated with “panicked” behaviour – such as pushing or trampling over others to get out.</p>
<p>One could even say that people’s speed at fleeing the scenes of the attacks was a logical response to a credible threat. Brussels <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-35199793">had been bracing itself</a> for a terror attack in the wake of the November <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/paris-attacks-2015">attacks in Paris</a>, and was on a heightened state of alert following <a href="https://theconversation.com/dont-rush-to-blame-molenbeek-for-harbouring-paris-attacker-56575">recent anti-terror raids</a>. </p>
<p>Such orderly behaviour also appears to have been apparent during the attack on the Brussels metro, and <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2016/mar/22/brussels-airport-explosions-live-updates?page=with:block-56f14437e4b0d8d3833859b4&CMP=share_btn_tw#block-56f14437e4b0d8d3833859b4">mobile phone footage</a> of passengers evacuating the Brussels metro is eerily reminiscent of images from the 2005 London bombings. </p>
<p>While “mass panic” is often predicted by the media after such events, it almost never happens. Many of us involved in the study and practice of emergency planning responses would like to see the term disappear from descriptions of such events. It is too loaded a term and rarely describes them accurately.</p>
<h2>Rush to help</h2>
<p>The attacks also seem to have inspired active co-operation among those affected. For instance, a BBC reporter <a href="https://twitter.com/GavinLeeBBC/status/712239961215524865">tweeted</a> pictures of a baggage handler who helped evacuate injured from the terminal in the aftermath of the explosion. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"712239961215524865"}"></div></p>
<p>There have also been <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-europe-35869266?ns_mchannel=social&ns_source=twitter&ns_campaign=bbc_live&ns_linkname=56f1513f710000836db0eda9%26%27Hotel%20brought%20out%20towels%20to%20treat%20metro%20wounded%27%20-%20witness%26&ns_fee=0#post_56f1513f710000836db0eda9">reports</a> of hotel workers near to the metro station bringing out towels and sheets to help the injured as they reached the surface. </p>
<p>This fits with <a href="http://www.sussex.ac.uk/affiliates/panic/IJMED%20Drury%20et%20al.%202009.pdf">research</a> I did with <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/john-drury-178246">John Drury</a> into the July 7 2005 London bombings, where we argued that such situations could bring out a positive response among those affected, as survivors and bystanders co-operated with each other before the emergency services arrived. We suggested that this was because such situations could bring people together in a shared sense of adversity (“we’re all in this together”), which would encourage co-operative behaviour. </p>
<p>In a <a href="http://dontpaniccorrectingmythsaboutthecrowd.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/some-thoughts-on-closing-statements-of.html">blog</a> after the inquests into the 7/7 bombing, I argued that co-operation in such situations was usually the norm, not the exception. This was because the shared identity that developed would encourage altruistic rather than selfish acts. </p>
<p>This isn’t to say that everybody behaves like superheroes. It’s more that the often calm (as opposed to “panicked”) nature of people in emergencies means that cooperation becomes a psychological norm. Individually selfish or anti-social behaviour is usually rejected by the crowd as a whole. </p>
<h2>The benevolence of crowds</h2>
<p>Drury and I <a href="https://www.academia.edu/877636/Everyone_for_themselves_A_comparative_study_of_crowd_solidarity_among_emergency_survivors">have proposed</a> a social identity model of “collective resilience” that we believe explains crowd behaviour in emergencies much better than outdated and clichéd models of “mass panic”. This <a href="https://theconversation.com/as-we-remember-7-7-its-time-we-learned-to-trust-the-crowd-44210">has implications</a> for emergency planning and response: crowds should be trusted more in emergencies, as they could provide valuable support and resources.</p>
<p>Another aspect of this shared identity in the aftermath of such horrific events, is the way that they often bring people together in a shared sense of mutual support in the days and weeks afterwards – often in <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-shooting-world-idUSKCN0T303O20151114">global solidarity</a> as after the Paris attacks. </p>
<p>Already, people online have been sharing the graphic below from <a href="http://indy100.independent.co.uk/article/people-are-sharing-this-powerful-cartoon-to-show-solidarity-with-the-people-of-belgium--WJbbDYalklZ">Le Monde</a> newspaper in response to the attacks in Belgium. </p>
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<p>Far from dividing people and communities – as those behind such outrages often intend – the murderous acts of the few can often unite the majority to respond positively in their aftermath instead.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56707/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The research into 7/7/2005 mentioned in this article was funded by an Economic and Social Research Council grant paid to John Drury as Principal Investigator and ran from 2004-7 at the University of Sussex</span></em></p>Solidarity and support for those affected shows collective resilience of crowds in emergencies.Chris Cocking, Researcher in Crowd Behaviour, University of BrightonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/567232016-03-22T19:47:17Z2016-03-22T19:47:17ZBrussels terror attacks: a continent-wide crisis that threatens core European ideals<p>The attacks of March 22 in Brussels were shocking, but not surprising. They reinforced what many have known for years: Belgium has a serious problem with terrorism. </p>
<p>For a long time, security analysts have expressed anxiety about the depth and extent of radicalisation and fundamentalism in the country. It is thought that Belgium has the highest per capita rate of foreign terrorist fighters of any EU country. A February 2016 <a href="https://pietervanostaeyen.wordpress.com/2016/02/02/february-2016-a-new-statistical-update-on-belgian-fighters-in-syria-and-iraq/">“high-end estimate”</a> puts that number at 562 out of a population of just over 11 million.</p>
<p>Last November it was revealed that some of the Paris attackers had Belgian connections and <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/16/french-and-belgian-intelligence-knew-paris-attackers-had-jihadi-backgrounds">were known to the security forces there</a>, and Brussels was virtually locked down for almost a week.</p>
<p>Over recent years there have been attacks on Belgian museums, supermarkets and trains, raising questions about why the country cannot seem to effectively tackle the challenges of insecurity. </p>
<p>As ever, the answer is not a simple one. Rather, <a href="http://www.politico.eu/article/belgium-failed-state-security-services-molenbeek-terrorism/">as observed by Tim King</a>, Belgium’s “failures are perhaps one part politics and government; one part police and justice; one part fiscal and economic. In combination they created the vacuum that is being exploited by jihadi terrorists”.</p>
<h2>A country divided</h2>
<p>So-called Islamist extremism in Belgium can be traced back at least to the 1990s, when [Algeria-related militant activity in France](<a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=wEih57-GWQQC&pg=PA440&lpg=PA440&dq=algeria+militants+belgium+1990s&source=bl&ots=13WRc9MyTa&sig=tOxi9yuW4eTAEXcWSG-re9LwYhQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwigr87J9tTLAhVLnBoKHTDIACIQ6AEILzAE#v=onepage&q=algeria%20militants%20belgium%201990s&f=false">http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/22/why-was-belgium-targeted-by-bombers</a> spilled over into the country. The failure to properly tackle extremism in the 1990s and early 2000s, and to effectively integrate the minority Muslim community, are important factors in understanding how Belgium became fertile ground for radicalisation.</p>
<p>It seems increasingly likely that poorly resourced and fragmented policing at least partly explains the crystallisation of this trend into fatal attacks in and beyond the country. And that is linked to the country’s relative political instability.</p>
<p>Belgium has a sharply fragmented system of policing and justice. In Brussels alone there are six police forces covering 19 communes; an extraordinary system for a city of just under 1.5 million people. While the federal police system includes a counter-terrorism unit of around 500 officers, this seems simply insufficient when compared to the estimated scale of the problem.</p>
<p>Intelligence sharing with non-Belgian forces is also challenging, and remains so in spite of an agreement for enhanced cooperation with the French <a href="http://www.nasdaq.com/article/france-and-belgium-to-boost-cooperation-in-terror-fight-20160201-01335">announced in early 2016</a>. That agreement followed a period of tension related to the role of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/paris-attacks-reveal-fatal-flaws-at-the-heart-of-european-security/2015/11/28/48b181da-9393-11e5-befa-99ceebcbb272_story.html">Belgian and French security failures</a> in respect of the Paris attacks.</p>
<h2>Questions for the European Union</h2>
<p>However, while the particularities of Belgian politics and policing are relevant to explaining the challenge there, the country is not entirely idiosyncratic. Its challenges are a sharpened manifestation of similar difficulties experienced across the EU.</p>
<p>Europe has an increasing amount of shared counter-terrorism law and institutions such as the <a href="https://www.europol.europa.eu/content/ectc">European Counter Terrorism Centre</a> within Europol, that are designed to help coordinate counter-terrorism. Yet it still struggles to share and process information across police and security forces. That is true within states, between member states, and between member states and EU institutions. Many individual European countries have long struggled to integrate marginalised populations and to counter radicalisation, and their internal failures are becoming transnational problems.</p>
<p>It is also becoming clear that the ease with which people can travel across Europe, and the desire to maintain freedom of movement as a feature of European citizenship, must be addressed. There are real questions about security, but just as many about what imposing more onerous barriers to travel means for the values and freedoms that underpin the European Union as a political entity.</p>
<p>This points to the fundamental challenge that must, ultimately, be addressed by European leaders. Serious threats to European security are no longer merely external, nor are they confined to states. They are internal, they are serious, and they are difficult to detect. Tackling them effectively while retaining the core of the European political identity may require a fundamental reassessment of what Europe is, what it wants to be, and how that can be achieved. </p>
<p>Passing new <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/european-agenda-security/legislative-documents/docs/20151202_directive_on_combatting_terrorism_en.pdf">counter-terrorism laws</a> is a limited response in the face of this challenge. Domestic police and security forces urgently need effective resources to make it possible for them to enforce the powers they already hold. There needs to be significantly better intelligence sharing with and through institutions such as Europol. There needs to be deeper trust between EU member states. There needs to be a serious consideration of the extent to which movement within Europe can be both free and less risk-laden.</p>
<p>Figuring out ways of creating effective expectations that member states will ensure their domestic security challenges do not create Europe-wide vulnerabilities, while maintaining our identity as a law-based, rights-oriented Europe of freedoms must be the goal, but it is a difficult one to achieve. </p>
<p>The question now is whether Europe can resist compromising its commitment to freedom as it strives to improve its ability to deal with terrorism.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56723/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Fiona de Londras was the Project Co-Ordinator of SECILE (Securing Europe through Counter-Terrorism: Impact, Legitimacy and Effectiveness), a project that received funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreement n° 313195.</span></em></p>Fragmented policing had played a part in this tragedy – and the EU must acknowledge what has gone wrong before solutions can be found.Fiona de Londras, Professor of Global Legal Studies, Birmingham Law School, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/567122016-03-22T19:36:36Z2016-03-22T19:36:36ZBrussels attacks: why Europe?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/116098/original/image-20160322-32285-1e97z17.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Charles Platiau</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>What goes on in the mind of a suicide bomber? What motivates someone to spend their last day on the planet blowing up complete strangers? Bad enough, perhaps, if the strangers in question are soldiers, police, or other representatives of the state. But holidaymakers and commuters? </p>
<p>It takes a special sort of alienation, radicalisation and dehumanisation to think that the people standing next to you in the check-in queue merit being randomly dismembered.</p>
<p>One assumes that the growing number of people who volunteer for these sorts of missions are confident that they are off to paradise. Given that they won’t live to see the results of their zealotry, the logic must be in some way transcendental, and not one available to rational scrutiny or dissuasion by the rest of us. </p>
<p>Either way, if paradise is going to be full of ex-jihadists I’m rather glad I’m not going. </p>
<p>In the meantime, back on earth, the effectiveness of this suicidal strategy is all too clear and painful, especially for those directly affected. Even for the rest of us, the net result is to add yet another level of depressing tedium to our day-to-day existence, as security is increased to ever-higher levels.</p>
<p>No doubt we ought to be grateful to have the opportunity to travel around Europe or spend a long lunch enjoying a bit of intellectual chit-chat in a Parisian café, as I did today. I am – very. </p>
<p>This is, as they say, just about as good as it gets. And that is rather the point of the attacks on the symbolic heartland of Europe as a civilisation and – in today’s case – as an institution.</p>
<p>The freedom of association, expression and thought that is such a distinctive feature of European intellectual and social life is clearly resented by an alarmingly large group of people. Such hitherto taken for granted freedoms are directly threatened by the randomness of terrorism. Last week, for example, I had to queue to have my passport checked on re-entering France – despite arriving from another Schengen area country.</p>
<p>Yes, I realise this is an especially privileged sort of problem and one that evokes little sympathy. But it is another very real manifestation of Europe’s steadily shrinking public space. One doesn’t need to be a starry-eyed cosmopolitan to recognise that passport-free travel is one of Europe’s greatest practical and symbolic achievements. </p>
<p>It takes a particular sort of confidence in one’s neighbours to make such an idea feasible. The Schengen agreement was unlikely to survive the migration crisis; terrorist outrages may seal its fate.</p>
<p>What this suggests is that noble ideas, admirable principles and feelings of human solidarity may only be possible under particular, possibly unique and historically unrepeatable circumstances. </p>
<p>The European project emerged from the greatest trauma that continent has ever known. It ought to be remembered that today’s problems pale into insignificance beside them. Europeans have made remarkable progress over the last 50 years or so – in every sense of the term. It is no wonder so many people want to live there.</p>
<p>And yet it is also painfully apparent that such achievements are being steadily eroded and undermined. EU President Donald Tusk’s suggestion that European solidarity will be a vital part of the response to these events looks like well-intentioned wishful thinking. </p>
<p>The reality seems to be that there are sufficiently large numbers of people in Europe who are prepared to die and slaughter others in an effort to undermine Europe’s greatest achievements. There is, it seems, very little that can be done to stop them.</p>
<p>Depressingly, there is also no basis for negotiation with zealots who think they are on a mission from God. It’s not even clear – to me, at least – quite what the suicide bombers hope their deaths will actually achieve or what the big plan is. </p>
<p>It’s hard not to think that some of the animus directed toward European civilisation is fuelled by a resentment of just how agreeable and successful it has been for those fortunate enough to be part of it.</p>
<p>No doubt some will consider such views as naïve and Eurocentric. Yes, the French did dreadful things in Algeria, and the Belgians did worse in the Congo. </p>
<p>But even if this is construed as some sort of post-imperial blowback, it looks a bit late, ludicrously out of proportion, and unlikely to do anything other than to make life in Europe miserable, too. But perhaps that’s ultimately the point.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56712/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
What goes on in the mind of a suicide bomber? What motivates someone to spend their last day on the planet blowing up complete strangers? Bad enough, perhaps, if the strangers in question are soldiers…Mark Beeson, Professor of International Politics, The University of Western AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/567112016-03-22T18:27:03Z2016-03-22T18:27:03ZExplainer: what is COBRA?<p>As reports came in of the terrorist strikes in Brussels, which were subsequently claimed by Islamic State, it was also reported that in response David Cameron was to convene a COBRA emergency meeting to consider the developing security situation in Brussels. </p>
<p>At 9am the prime minister’s Twitter feed noted that he would be chairing a meeting of COBRA later in the morning, underlining how seriously he and his government were taking the situation and concerns that there may be similar attacks on British soil.</p>
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<p>But <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-18958032">what is COBRA</a>? The name itself perhaps evokes images of the very rapid response of a striking cobra, but it is just an acronym for one of the venues where the COBRA committee meets: Cabinet Office Briefing Room A. However, convening it can give the impression that the state is operating effectively and rapidly in response to a crisis. </p>
<p>The COBRA committee does not always meet in the same place due to security concerns; it has several secure sites where meetings may take place. It is the United Kingdom’s emergency response team which meets in response to crises, including but not limited to, terrorist strikes (for example, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-35178381">it met in response to the Cumbria flooding in 2015</a>). </p>
<p>COBRA will normally meet in response to a terrorist attack, whether or not it is in the UK. So the group <a href="http://www.theweek.co.uk/politics/2343/911-when-tony-blair-looked-true-leader">met in relation to the 9/11 attacks</a>, the <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/11715557/Ten-years-on-from-77-How-London-responded-to-the-terror-attack.html">7/7 bombings in London</a>, the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-34824903">November 2015 attacks in Paris</a> and the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-africa-33208573">Tunisian attacks in 2015</a>. It is mainly a way of ensuring that security, intelligence, police, emergency services (or whoever is needed due to the specific crisis) are all brought together in one place and can communicate very rapidly with each other. It coordinates the roles of government agencies in responding to crises because it covers issues that cross departmental boundaries within government.</p>
<p>The membership of the committee is variable and depends on the nature of the crisis in question. It will usually include the prime minister, if he or she is available, police representatives, senior ministers, the head of MI5, the police, members of the civil contingencies secretariat and civil servants at the head of the departments affected. In the prime minister’s absence, the <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/immigration/11769689/Calais-crisis-Theresa-May-to-chair-emergency-committee-as-holidaymakers-face-misery.html">home secretary will usually chair the meeting</a> especially when issues of national security are under discussion.</p>
<h2>Crisis management</h2>
<p>The COBRA team may meet a number of times in response to a particular crisis and can invoke emergency powers. That includes examining whether to invoke the powers contained in the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/guidance/preparation-and-planning-for-emergencies-responsibilities-of-responder-agencies-and-others">Civil Contingencies Act 2004</a> – legislation which provides the state with significant extra powers in times of a serious emergency. These include requisitioning property, restricting the movement of people and setting up special courts. </p>
<p>This law provided a unified framework setting out the responsibilities of local authorities in responding to a major incident, including a large-scale terrorist strike – as in July 2005. Emergency planning allows ministers, security services, emergency and health service officials to execute very rapidly a highly structured emergency strategy. The overall response to an emergency is directed by COBRA. </p>
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<p>In this instance the strategy to be discussed by COBRA will relate at least in part to a further stepping up of security at certain places likely to be targets, and the drafting in of extra police officers. Security is <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brussels-attacks-uk-security-stepped-up-in-airports-and-train-stations-following-deadly-explosions-a6945981.html">already being stepped up</a> at transport hubs and major airports, iconic sites and other crowded places. COBRA will consider the cross-government responses to the changed security situation in response to the Brussels attacks.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/56711/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Helen Fenwick does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The government’s crisis management committee sounds as if it can strike fast and effectively.Helen Fenwick, Professor of Law, Durham UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.