Countries and governments need to work together in partnership with community organisations to immunise vulnerable segments of the population against extremist ideologies and defeat the terrorism threat, said terrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna.
The Professor of Security Studies at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies and Head of the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research at Nanyang Technological University was speaking at a conferencein Singapore.
Until last year, the threat landscape revolved around Al Qaeda, but today, 90% of it is the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militant group, he observed. Yet, ISIS’ influence is still only in an early, formative stage. About 22 groups have so far pledged allegiance to its leadership and thousands have travelled to join the group.
Dr Gunaratna said that in moving from cooperation to collaboration, there were a few areas to consider. “One is building common databases of ISIS fighters, and the second is first-hand personnel exchange between law enforcement and military organisations, between national security agencies and law enforcement agencies.
“Another line of effort is joint training that can help joint operations, and finally, it is the sharing of expertise, resources and experience.” He said the last area was most important, and that every country could draw invaluable lessons to protect themselves.
“Today, your terrorist group becomes my terrorist group. Your security concerns become my concerns…no terrorist group is confined to its national borders, as they have been in the social media space, and travel across borders to co-operate, collaborate and raise funds,” he commented.
He noted that three ingredients are needed to fight terrorism. The most important is political will, the second is building large intelligence services, and the third is long-term capacity building to create an environment and counter-ideology as a hostile response to terrorists. It is therefore important to educate the community against extremist ideology, provide those in prison with vocational rehabilitation so that they will not go back to terrorism when released, and provide rehabilitation in arts, psychology and the family so that they are reconnected with society.
“We need to integrate hard power with soft power and produce smart power. That is the strategy for fighting extremism,” said Dr Gunaratna.