security

Terrorism Southeast
 by Rise to Peace

Security and Counter-Terrorism Efforts in Southeast Asia

The Global Terrorism Index (GTI), a comprehensive study prepared by the Institute for Economics and Peace on the impact of terrorism in 163 countries, reports that since 2020, the Southasia region has recorded a higher fatality rate compared to other regions. According to GTI 2022, among Southeast Asian countries, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand, and Indonesia top the list. On the other hand, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Brunei, Cambodia, and Laos are least impacted by terrorism.

Although GTI is an ideal tool to assess the impact of terrorism on countries, the study is not without limitations. The countries are ranked based on four indicators: incidents, fatalities, injuries, and property damage. It means that the index relies only on the ensuing consequences of terrorism and fails to take into account the persisting threat of terrorism. For instance, according to the GTI 2022, Singapore is least impacted by terrorism. However, the Singapore Terrorism Threat Assessment Report 2021, published by the Ministry of Home Affairs, acknowledges that the terrorism threat to Singapore remains high. The situation is similar to that of an active volcano. It means that a ‘zero score’ in GTI, as in the case of the majority of Southeast Asian countries, may not necessarily imply that the country is free from terrorism threats.

The terrorism activities reported in the Southeast Asia region reveal the changing dimension of international terrorism. In March 2021, a woman lone wolf attacker, inspired by the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL), opened fire at the National Police Headquarters in Jakarta. In the Philippines, two women ISIL terrorists staged suicide bombings to avenge the death of their terrorist leader. Dr. Rommel C. Banlaoi, the Philippine Institute for Peace, Violence, and Terrorism Research chairman, warned of the increased active participation of women in terror attacks. Further, he stated that women also teach and encourage children to be their successors after martyrdom. The situations indicate the spread of female militancy in the region and the intergenerational succession of terrorism.

The Singapore ministry of home affairs cited self-radicalization, Islamist terrorism, and far-right extremism as a potential threat to its homeland security. The ministry confirms that within Southeast Asia, ISIL remains the primary terrorism threat actor. ISIL’s success in digitalization of radicalization has accelerated the spread of propaganda and lone wolf attacks in the region. The situation makes it challenging for law enforcement agencies to identify sleeper cells and prevent acts of terrorism.

The nexus between conflict and terrorism is apparent in Myanmar. Political turmoil fuelled violent conflict leading to terrorism has landed Myanmar on top of GTI 2022. Since the military coup in February 2021, there has been a significant rise in terrorist attacks, and the  Anti-junta armed groups are responsible for causing the majority of deaths. Terrorism continues to breed on push and pull factors or vulnerabilities born out of conflicts, such as political instability, violence, poverty, unemployment, forced displacement, and oppression.

Thailand continues to be a transit and facilitation hub for terrorist organizations, including Al-Qaeda, Jemaah Islamiyah, and Hezbollah. The country is facing political instability, which impedes the government’s efforts to implement a counter-terrorism strategy. Further, Bangkok has become a hub for global organized crime syndicates. A report of the Regional Office for Southeast Asia and the Pacific of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime confirms that organized crime syndicates are targeting Southeast Asia to expand operations, and the profits generated by such groups have reached unprecedented and dangerous levels. There exist a nexus between organized crime and terrorism. Organized crime facilitates terrorism and vice versa. Organized crime breeds in areas with political instability and a weak law enforcement system. Terrorism creates fertile ground for organized crime to breed. On the other hand, organized crime aids terrorist organizations in recruitment, funding, and logistics. In short, this nexus is capable of eroding regional security, as is the case in Southeast Asia.

An analysis of the counter-terrorism efforts made by Southeast Asian countries evidences the success of regional cooperation in overcoming the challenges and threats posed by evolving terrorism. A joint declaration of the Association of Southeast Nations (ASEAN)  to counterterrorism strongly condemns terrorism in all its forms and manifestations and declares terrorism as a direct challenge to the attainment of peace, progress, and prosperity. ASEAN has established a regional framework to control, prevent, and neutralize transnational crime. The ASEAN Convention on Counterterrorism aims to strengthen mutual legal assistance, cooperation, and rehabilitative programs to combat terrorism.

At the national level, Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia are pioneers in counter-terrorism efforts. Indonesia is effectively implementing the four pillars of the United Nations Global Counterterrorism Strategy. It means that the country is making an effort to address the conditions conducive to the spread of terrorism, prevent and counter-terrorism, support member states and the UN to combat terrorism, and promote the rule of law and human rights. Indonesia has sought the support of the international comity in addressing the issues of terrorism financing and foreign terrorist fighters. The Singapore government has initiated the ‘SGSecure movement’ to empower its citizens to effectively identify radicalization signs and report suspicious activity. The programme is spread through educational institutions, civic societies, workplaces, etc. The government acknowledges the importance of people’s participation in countering self-radicalization and terrorism. Similarly, Malaysia has established specialized institutions, including the Southeast Asia Regional Centre for Counterterrorism (SEARCCT), to counter terrorism and extremism through partnerships for goals, capacity building, and research.

Varun VM, Counter-Terrorism Research Fellow 

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 by Sydney Neuman

Racial and Religious Profiling in the United States in the Name of ‘National Security’

Many things changed in the United States following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Changes in law, policy, and security were made not only in the United States but around the world, in order to tackle the growing threat of terrorism. In response to these attacks, the United States government launched a military campaign called the “War on Terror.” This led to the enactment of many laws for law enforcement agencies to protect against terrorist activities.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Justice, and the Department of Homeland Security are just some of the law enforcement agencies that are effective in combating terrorism. However, there is a major flaw in their combating measures. This is their improper use of racial profiling used to address national security and public safety concerns. Racial profiling is wrong and has been proven to be a very ineffective measure for preventing terrorism.

The post-9/11 era has seen racial profiling of people perceived to be Muslim in the U.S. through many different factions. This has included airport profiling, surveillance of Muslim communities, detention, deportations, special registration of immigrants, and much more. Many American Muslims have been treated as potential terrorists based on their faith alone. Following the attacks, law enforcement agencies detained over a thousand Muslims in the United States, both citizens, and noncitizens, while the government figured out whether they had any connection to the attacks.

This blatant racial and religious profiling went on for years. The first step to try and prohibit this was in 2003 when the Department of Justice issued guidelines prohibiting racial and ethnic profiling in most law enforcement contexts. According to the guidelines, profiling is ineffective because it is “premised on the erroneous assumption that any particular individual of one race or ethnicity is more likely to engage in misconduct.” These guidelines also emphasize that race-based assumptions in law enforcement “perpetuate negative racial stereotypes that are harmful to our rich and diverse democracy, and materially impair our efforts to maintain a fair and just society.”

Shortly after his inauguration, President Joe Biden reversed former President Donald Trump’s Muslim Travel Ban. This ban was an executive order that prevented individuals from primarily Muslim countries, and later, from many African countries, from entering the United States. It was seeking to keep out or deport people perceived to be Muslim based upon the racist assumption that “they” are violent potential terrorist enemies of the U.S. nation. There are solutions to improve this major flaw through more intense and reconstructed training as well as implementing new policies for all law enforcement agencies.

The next step that can be taken is for Congress to pass the End Racial and Religious Profiling Act which was most recently introduced as part of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. This Act would prohibit federal, state, and local law enforcement from targeting a person based on actual or perceived race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, gender, gender identity, or sexual orientation without trustworthy information that is relevant to linking a person to a crime. These measures would help demonstrate to the many diverse communities in our nation’s commitment to protecting national security based on facts rather than on bias.

It is so important now than ever before, to change racist, common sense ways of thinking about Arabs, Iranians, Afghans, and anyone perceived to be connected, in one way or another, to the idea of a “Muslim terrorist threat.”

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 by Stefan Bakumenko

The United Nations in Africa: South Sudan’s Quest for Stability

Background

On July 9th, South Sudan celebrated ten years of independence, remembering how its people overwhelmingly voted for independence from Sudan in 2011. But another entity, the United Nations Mission in the Republic of South Sudan (UNMISS), is also marking ten years of existence this year. Initially meant to consolidate peace and development in the world’s youngest country, UNMISS has grown into the largest UN peacekeeping operation in the world, currently deploying 19,233 personnel. With a budget of over $1.2 billion for the 2020-2021 fiscal year, it is also the second most expensive ongoing UN mission. This is after the mission in Mali. This article hopes to analyze this monumental mission that has shaped a country.

Early UN attempts at state-building were violently reoriented by a civil war between President Salva Kiir and opposition leader Riek Machar and by broader communal violence between (and within) their respective Dinka and Nuer ethnic groups. Though a 2018 peace agreement facilitated the tenuous formation of a unity government in 2020, a recent UN report found that violence has only gotten more brutal, unaccountable, and decentralized since the end of the country’s civil war. The Government of South Sudan (GoSS) has failed to implement major security and accountability measures from the peace agreement. Consequently, its security forces are frequently accused of obstructing peacekeepers and violating civilians’ human rights. With the UNSC recently renewing UNMISS’ mandate until 2022 and establishing a three-year “strategic vision” for the country, practitioners are tasked with interpreting mission effectiveness within the four key pillars of the mandate. 

The UN Mandate

Keeping in mind the centrality of the mandate to any UN mission, this article uses UNMISS’ updated mandate as a point of departure for evaluating mission effectiveness. It will also keep the 2018 peace deal as an additional guideline. The terms of the mandate reaffirmed in 2021 are essentially the same as those in Resolution 2155 (2014), which was updated when the nascent country fell into civil war. With some important clarification in the language in the 2021 resolution, the four pillars are broad: protection of civilians, monitoring of human rights abuses, facilitation of humanitarian aid delivery, and supporting the active peace agreement. 

Sadly, these four pillars look nothing like the original mandate from 2011. This is because UNMISS has had to drastically scale its ambitions back from consolidating the state to alleviating and containing a multi-dimensional crisis. Using the mandate itself to measure effectiveness is essential. In part, it reflects the wishes of concerned multilateral actors and frames what the mission is actually allowed and expected to do. This article distills the goals of the mandate into two broad, dynamic criteria for evaluating UNMISS: providing protection and facilitating aid to civilians and promoting institutional stability and security. These have been constant, salient challenges facing UNMISS, and they encompass much of what the mission is there to achieve.

Providing protection and facilitating aid to civilians

Though UNMISS can only exist with the consent of the GoSS, one might forget considering how often peacekeepers are blocked or even attacked by government forces. The UNSC acknowledged this in 2014 and again in Resolution 2567 (2021), when it “[condemned] the continued obstruction of UNMISS by the GoSS and opposition groups, including restrictions on freedom of movement, assault of UNMISS personnel, and constraints on mission operations.” Government intransigence amid vast civilian suffering presents UN personnel with difficult decisions and frequent occasions of paralysis in the face of violence against civilians. Since it cannot achieve protection of civilians (PoC) in every case, UNMISS has also been tasked with reporting on government privations, hoping for long-term accountability through documentation and human rights pressure.

Though UN missions are frequently criticized for the lives they fail to save, a critical analysis must try to understand what would have happened had peacekeepers not been there. As of 2020, there were almost 200,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) inside UN-administered PoC sites. UNMISS’ recent focus has thus been protecting civilians and administering aid and basic services in and around these sites. This establishment of veritable peace corridors is reminiscent of early visions of peacekeeping, but even through this lens, UNMISS can only be viewed as semi-successful. This is because it has frequently been unable to protect civilians and aid workers within its own PoC sites. Subsequently, it has had little success expanding the domain of its PoC sites outwards. There remain 1.5 million IDPs outside of PoC sites. Ultimately, violence against civilians and aid workers has continued and even worsened since the end of the civil war. 

Similar things can be said for humanitarian aid. The UN has estimated that 8.3 million South Sudanese are currently in need of humanitarian assistance, an increase of 800,000 from 2020. Both sides were known to intentionally starve communities during the civil war, and the GoSS continues to block access to peacekeepers and aid workers seemingly at will. Though a great deal of aid has moved through roads restored and protected by UNMISS, GoSS corruption and violence and the frequent pilfering of humanitarian goods have deterred major international donors in recent years. UNMISS should leverage these once-eager financiers against GoSS intransigence, putting economic pressure on a government reliant on international support.

Promoting institutional stability and security

In terms of building a stable and responsive state in South Sudan, the 2018 Revitalized Agreement offers valuable metrics, such as refugee resettlement, rebuilding of physical infrastructure, and finalization of a permanent constitution. Unfortunately, any traction on these issues is largely out of the hands of UNMISS. This is because African regional organizations have led the way in mediation and implementation. Relations with the GoSS have soured ever since the 2014 mandate said UNMISS would protect civilians “irrespective of the source of…violence,” tacitly pitting it against government troops. 

But the mission is not completely ineffective on the political front. At a community-level, UNMISS-facilitated dialogues have deescalated violence in numerous areas recently. There is significant potential to partner with communities instead of the GoSS, but UNMISS has yet to hire a sufficient number of community liaisons to foster engagement. Subsequently, its patrols have been notably hesitant to engage on foot in communities. These are tangible policies UNMISS must correct if it is to overcome the challenges posed by the government. UNMISS should institutionalize and expand these often-successful dialogues for reconciliation and deradicalization in local South Sudanese communities.

Conclusion

It is certainly better for hundreds of thousands of South Sudanese that UNMISS was deployed, but with its resources, the mission could do far more to push the country in a constructive direction towards peace. From a strictly peacekeeping lens, UNMISS receives a somewhat passing grade for establishing areas of relative protection. But with the post-Cold War pairing of peacekeeping and peacebuilding, UNMISS has fallen flat. Frequently marginalized from the peace process, it has largely abdicated its role in shaping post-war South Sudan. 

Most South Sudanese remain susceptible to factional violence and dire humanitarian need, and little has been done to grow state capacity or even state interest in helping them. As much good as UNMISS has done in specific areas, it can only be national stability that helps those millions of South Sudanese still living on the precipice. And now that UNMISS has begun transitioning its PoC sites into GoSS-controlled IDP camps, it is unclear what major tools are left for this mission to fulfill its mandate. 

Overall, UNMISS has a great deal of experience and success to pull from but has not been bold enough in tackling one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. The UN must either recommit to the political process in South Sudan or accept that it is merely being used to protect a civilian population ignored by the government. It should also expand and standardize conflict resolution initiatives of the kind frequently highlighted in its own reports. Much of the violence in South Sudan stems from specific, community-level disputes. Engaging with at-risk communities and investing in specialized civilian personnel would go a long way towards saving lives in South Sudan.

 

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 by Rise to Peace

Cyberterrorism in Europe Has a Clear Target, but the Motives are a Mystery

Tehrani’s description of terrorism is defined using Black Law’s dictionary and cites “the use or threat of violence to intimidate or cause panic, especially as a means of affecting political conduct”. Tehrani argues that while an all-describing definition for terrorism has proven difficult to agree on, one common aspect of terrorism is apparent. This includes that acts of terrorism are conducted to cause fear and coerce the ‘enemy’ for the pursuit of a political, ideological, or religious goal.

Recent ransomware attacks in Europe

The application of this type of terrorism to the cyberspace has become a predominant topic of concern in the twenty-first century. The European tendency to digitize infrastructure with the benefit of it being more efficient and accessible has made it equally susceptible to ransomware attacks.

The WannaCry ransomware attack on the UK’s National Health Service in 2017 and the 2021 attack on Ireland’s Health Service Executive are examples of terrorism targeting vital institutions. Additionally, Finland witnessed a ransomware attack on a private company named Vastaamo. The company runs 25 therapy centers in Finland. The transcripts of these therapy sessions had been hacked. Consequently, clients were reportedly threatened to pay $200 dollars in bitcoin to deter their therapy sessions from being leaked. The director of Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation, Robin Lardot, estimates the number of victims to be in the tens of thousands.

Upon an internal inquiry, it was believed that the actual theft may have happened two years prior, in 2018. Despite the victims’ best efforts to adhere to advice set out by ministers and not engage with the threats, confidential notes of therapy sessions for 2000 patients had been discovered on the dark web.

Implications

The WannaCry, Vastaamo, and Health Service Executive attacks depict a grim reality of the most confidential aspects of people’s lives being leaked to the public. The implications are widespread and infringe upon multiple aspects of both personal lives and the functioning of society. The healthcare service attacks resulted in limited access to health services, often involving postponed treatment or even cancellation thereof. England’s NHS saw the cancellation of 19,000 appointments following the WannaCry hacks and cost the health service 92 million pounds. An added reason for concern is in the case hackers have access to the live documents of patients, information on the patients could be altered to result in large-scale misdiagnosis of patients.

In the case of the Irish ransomware attack, a statement made by the HSE declared that a small amount of data had landed on the dark web, much like Vastaamo hack. The curious turn of events happened when the hackers who committed the ransomware attack against HSE Ireland provided the software tool to reverse the hack. Despite this, it took a lot of work to rebuild the system. This clearly depicted how irreversible and deeply damaging a ransomware attack is, especially when data had already been leaked to the public via the internet. Here, nothing can be completely deleted. The truly harmful nature becomes especially noticeable when considering that the attack happened on May 14th, and July’s HSE statement included the warning that it was still being dealt with. This hits especially hard given the COVID-19 pandemic that not only involves more demand for the healthcare system but has also pushed back many vital treatments for those awaiting diagnosis/treatments for other illnesses even further than they already were.

How are ransomware attacks cyberterrorism?

Since ransomware attacks are committed anonymously, it’s impossible for spectators to know with certainty what the motive behind the attacks is, making it all the more difficult to label it as an act of terrorism. That being said, the commonalities in recent ransomware attacks seem quite clear. In Europe especially, health care services and companies are being hacked, and the patients are threatened.

The ransomware attacks definitely share the characteristic of terrorism which proscribes the use of violence to instill fear and coercion against ‘the enemy.’ This furthermore involves the targeting of innocent civilians. The withholding of a health service, especially during a pandemic, might be considered an act of indirect, albeit harmful, violence. What remains unclear, is the perpetrator’s motives, whether they were ideologically or financially motivated. The targeting of civilians, which included demanding ransom from minors, as well as the intentional destabilization of an infrastructure a country and civilians depend on, may be a message in itself which could constitute a new type of terrorism – requiring a new or separate definition. In this case, it may not be the motive, but the target that sets the tone for terrorism.

Conclusion

Moving forward, an increase in cyberterrorism is to be expected. This will become especially pronounced as more companies and institutions make plans to work remotely even post-pandemic lockdowns. For this reason, it is crucial for governments to clearly define cybercrime and cyberterrorism that can be utilized in prosecution.

Additionally, European governments should work towards protecting vulnerable adults and minors who are at risk of becoming victims of cyberterrorism. It must remain a high priority to get students vaccinated and back into educational facilities with safety measures implemented on site. If not possible, institutions are urged to use effective encryption for any data that is handled online.

The Vastaamo attack may have been preventable if the data had been encrypted properly. The continuation of online learning could open doors for cyber-terrorists to gain access to a wide range of new material for ransom threats.

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Maritime Terrorism and the United States
 by Rise to Peace

The Rise And Countering Of Maritime Terrorism By The United States

Since the maritime environment is so open there is plenty of opportunity for maritime terrorism. Many terrorist organisations like Al Qaeda, the Chechen rebels, Hezbollah, and Hamas participate in maritime terrorism. Maritime terrorism is the act of terrorism in the maritime environment, using boat vessels or seaports. One of the most interesting types of maritime terrorism is the targeting of cruise ships for the purpose of mass casualties, and the hijacking of larger vessels like oil tankers. The goal of most maritime terrorism is economic, to kill, or shift foreign or domestic policy. Vessels like US navy ships and vessels are attractive targets because they symbolise American power. 

In the early 2000s, there was a spike in terrorist attacks in the sea. Fear that more transnational terrorist organisations are going to move their tactics to the water was high in the west. Many planned strike attacks were planned by Al Qaeda, including an attack on the USS The Sullivans in January 2000. 

Maritime Terrorism Solutions

The future of countering maritime terrorism needs to focus on offensive and defensive options for the long-term solution, not just the short-term. The problem is the long-term solution to maritime terrorism is not as feasible as the short-term. Typically when the US sees a quick solution like combat or prevention policy making we hop on it very fast. War is a very easy way to defeat an enemy, just going in and attacking them. 

Cruise ships, ferries, and cargo ships are targets for maritime terrorism because they offer mass casualties and even economic harm. The US is currently on the front lines on trying to combat maritime terrorism, they have created the container security initiative, the International ship and port facility security code, the proliferation security initiative,  and the customs trade partnership against terrorism. Washington has been active in investing in these initiatives because the US gives counter-terrorism the highest priority.

Counter-Terrorism Initiatives

These initiatives are on the defensive side of countering terrorism but are only short-term. These initiatives are for prevention purposes and crisis management. The pros of this type of defence are that the US is being active in countering the attack. The cons of these initiatives are that these only go so far. The US should enforce a maritime security collaboration that conducts high-level maritime threats. The Maritime industry should also be increasing their communication with each other, in order for the security of the water to be in a good position to combat or prevent an attack. 

Another tactic that the United States use in order to combat maritime terrorism is the war model. The US began to attack terrorist organisations in order to dismantle them, prevent them from spreading their ideology, and protect ourselves from future attacks. The problem with the war model is that it is very short-term. Just removing terrorists, is not going to end terrorism. The pros of the war model are the intelligence that we collect on terrorism through the military, which we can use to learn about terrorism and use the intelligence to de-radicalise or take terrorism down in another way. 

Conclusions and Recommendations

At any time there are tens of thousands of vessels traveling the ocean and employing people from all over the world. The ocean is a highway for a huge international market. Maritime terrorism has the potential to paralyse global maritime commerce. Many terrorist organisations do not have the skill or resources to successfully carry out one of these attacks, but those who do pose a major threat that is constantly growing. The debate that is going on about maritime terrorism is about conserving resources that the West has. Should we be spending money on combatting maritime terrorism when it is rarer than land terrorism? The problem with this argument is that, once a major terrorist attack happens on the water it could ruin global maritime commerce. We can not wait for an attack to happen, we should be prepared for the possibility of the attack. 

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