Archive for March, 2016

Brussels attacks show that terrorists can strike at will

Posted: March 26, 2016 in Financial Times
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It has been a busy week after the sad events in Brussels. A lot of links and posting to catch up on, but am on the road so not so easy to do. For the time being, here is my preliminary thoughts on the attack for the Financial Times. More to come soon.

Brussels Attacks Show That Terrorists Can Strike at Will

The surveillance problems can no longer be described as Belgian alone, writes Raffaello Pantucci

Brussels cops post attack

It is still unclear exactly what Brussels has faced just prior to Easter. The random nature of the date and targeting suggests a plot that may have been brought forward, while the scale of the attack suggests it must have been in the pipeline for some time. The Isis network, also linked to November’s Paris attacks, has claimed responsibility. The bigger issue, however, is not who is to blame for this atrocity but rather how much Europe will warp to address an acute terrorist threat, with cells apparently able to launch large-scale atrocities on an increasingly regular basis.

The first questions raised will focus on Belgium’s response to the problem on their home ground. Authorities may have scored a victory by capturing Salah Abdeslam, one of the Isis-aligned plotters linked to the Paris attacks, but they missed a network planning an atrocity with heavy weapons and explosives. This suggests gaps in the understanding and surveillance of the terrorist threat. Given that Brussels sits at the political heart of Europe, this points to a problem that can no longer be described as Belgian alone.

While for some the terrorist atrocities in Paris was a wake-up call, for security forces it had been expected for a while. Terrorist groups, from al-Qaeda to Isis, have long sought to launch a terrorist attack in the style of the 2008 Mumbai attacks, and a string of plots have been disrupted or launched from a francophone network emanating from Brussels. The Paris attack was the realisation of these fears from a depressingly predictable place.

The networks of radicalised individuals with links to Isis have grown as the group continues to hold sway on the battlefield and send back peopleand plots to their original bases in western Europe. Given the tempo of attacks and the ease with which the networks appear able to acquire weapons and move freely around the continent, Europeans will ask themselves how much longer they will face this threat. Is this the start of a regular diet of such atrocities or the breaking of a wave? Given that terrorist groups have been able to launch three big, ambitious plots in Europe in the past year and half, the sense will be that we are in the thick of this threat with no end in sight.

The choice of targets is predictable. Terrorist groups have long fetishised aviation as a target, both as a way of visibly lashing out against the globalised political establishment but also for the high impact. Mass transport systems by their very nature have to be open to the public, which makes them tempting targets as they offer an easy opportunity to strike at the heart of a society. Questions will be asked about ramping up security levels but this will bring costs and further inconvenience to the daily lives of citizens. Think of the ramifications of a plot in 2006 where a cell planned to use liquid bombs on a series of transatlantic flights. Liquids are still banned on aircraft today.

The Brussels attacks will also play badly against the backdrop of Europe’s migration crisis. It will not be entirely surprising if elements close to the recent attacks found ways of slipping into the country alongside refugees from the Middle East. An already tense situation in Europe will grow more fraught, and this will have inevitable political ramifications too.

This is the biggest problem with which security planners will have to contend. It is often said that the best response to a terrorist threat is to keep calm and carry on. This is sage advice but in the face of a network that appears able to strike with impunity, and a political environment growing more toxic by the day, it will be ever harder for security forces and politicians to ensure that Europe maintains its values in the face of the terrorist threat from within.

The writer is director of international security studies at the Royal United Services Institute and author of ‘We Love Death As You Love Life: Britain’s Suburban Terrorists’

Paris Attacks: Arrest of Salah Abdeslam Does Not Reduce ISIS Threat

Posted: March 19, 2016 in Newsweek
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A brief reaction piece for Newsweek after Salah Abdeslam’s arrest in Molenbeek on Friday. The broader story of ISIS in Europe is going to continue to be an issue and undoubtedly more on this to sadly come.

Paris Attacks: Arrest of Salah Abdeslam Does Not Reduce ISIS Threat

By On 3/19/16 at 1:56 PM

cops in Molenbeek

The arrest of Salah Abdeslam is undoubtedly a success for Belgian and French security authorities. His live capture will provide intelligence agencies with a wealth of information, while his eventual trial will go some way to providing the victims of the Paris attacks with justice and closure. However, his arrest in a district of Brussels only a few hours from the scene of the attack almost four months later will undoubtedly raise questions about how one of Europe’s most wanted men could evade capture for so long. For Belgian and French authorities, success has to be tempered by the reality of the threat they are facing that continues to clearly have deep roots into their communities pointing to a long war in which Abdeslam’s arrest is a battlefield victory.

Since the Paris attacks last November, Belgian and French authorities have been in an aggressive arrest and disrupt mode. Hundreds of arrests and raids have been carried out as authorities in both countries sought to roll up the networks around the Paris attackers as well as ISIS sympathetic communities. The numbers of arrests, weapons found and individuals detained point to a negative picture in the two countries. This was brought vividly to life last month in a BBC interview with German convert and former ISIS video star Harry Sarfo from prison. He reported how his ISIS interlocutors told him: “they have people in France and Belgium. They’ve said that France is easy for them, cause they have enough people who live in France undercover with clean records.”

The interview highlights the size of the networks that French and Belgian authorities are facing. Within this context, it is therefore somewhat unsurprising that Abdeslam would choose to go to ground in this environment. One that he knows well, and one that clearly has a web of supportive figures and locations that he can call on to help him evade one of Europe’s largest manhunts. Molenbeek in particular is a longstanding location of concern, with terrorist plots emanating from the district from before September 11, 2001.

There are further questions about why Abdeslam did not die in the Paris attacks. This likely failure may point to why he did not immediately flee to the Levant. Aside from the difficulties in getting across the continent with the intense intelligence attention in the wake of the Paris attacks, it is also possible that he was not meant to survive and his possible joining of ISIS in Syria would have raised questions with the group. Was he a spy sent by Western intelligence? Had he been meant to survive, the group would likely have had a plan for his arrival to trumpet his evasion from authorities as another example of the group’s strength and power.

Instead, he has now been captured by Belgian authorities in an investigation that has highlighted the depth of the problem that is faced in the country. The raids in Forest outside Brussels in the week prior to Adbeslam’s arrest uncovered a further cell of individuals armed with an AK-47 and ample ammunition who went down fighting with authorities rather than timidly handing themselves in. Alongside these raids, the discovery of a cell of four in Paris allegedly plotting an attack earlier in the week points to how active continental terrorist networks are.

In the face of this threat, France and Belgium (and other European partners) have mobilized a massive response. In the wake of the Paris attacks, a number of high-profile scares in Germany showed the level of concern of a possible attack there, while British authorities continue to warn of the possibility of an attack at home. Most recently, Mark Rowley, the British Metropolitan Police’s assistant commissioner and head of counter-terrorism command in London, talking about the threat from ISIS, stated: “you see a terrorist group which has big ambitions for enormous and spectacular attacks, not just the types that we’ve seen foiled to date.”

It is unlikely that the arrest of Abdeslam will generate a reactive plot. The issues around whether he was meant to survive the plot will mean it is uncertain the group would want to champion him in such a fashion. The fact he was arrested hiding with a network that included Mohammed Belkaid, a 35 year-old Algerian whose details had appeared as an aspirant suicide bomber in the ISIS files that were leaked a few weeks ago, nevertheless suggests that the networks in Belgium had not completely disassociated themselves from him. But it would be out of sorts for them to launch a reactive attack in such a fashion.

This does not, however, diminish the threat from the group in Europe. The live arrest and subsequent interrogation of Abdeslam is likely to generate numerous leads for authorities that will concern others in Europe’s ISIS networks. This may lead to an acceleration of plots currently being formulated to get under way prior to their possible disruption. It may also lead to an exodus of people who fear detention and decide to head back to the relative safety of ISIS territory in the Levant.

Given the intense attention that the network around the Paris attackers had faced in the past few months, however, it is not necessarily likely that any of this is particularly new. And while there is undoubtedly some concern about who it is that Abdeslam might now compromise, the reality is that ISIS had already been seeking other ways to launch attacks in Europe. While European agencies will undoubtedly bask somewhat in the successful live detention of one of the Paris attackers, the reality is most are bracing themselves for the next possible attack.

Raffaello Pantucci is director of International Security Studies at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and the author of We Love Death As You Love Life: Britain’s Suburban Terrorists. Follow him @raffpantucci.

 

The Islamic State Threat to Britain: Evidence from Recent Terror Trials

Posted: March 18, 2016 in CTC Sentinel
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A new piece for the CTC Sentinel looking at recent terrorist attack planning in the UK, trying to identify the specific nature of the threats. For the most part, there has been little evidence at trial of direct attack planning though it certainly is something that lurks in the background of a couple. Undoubtedly a topic there will sadly be more on as time goes forwards.

The Islamic State Threat to Britain: Evidence from Recent Terror Trials

March 17, 2016

Author(s): Raffaello Pantucci

While clearly at the top of the Islamic State’s targeting list, the United Kingdom so far has been spared from any major terrorist atrocities at home with direct links to the Islamic State. A review of the trials of those accused of terrorist plotting in the country between 2013 and 2015 reveals that the violent Islamist threat picture has instead been dominated by lone-actor plots, with some demonstrating connections of some sort to individuals on the battlefield in Syria or Iraq. Going forward, however, the threat is likely to become more acute as the Islamic State pivots toward international terror.

In the wake of November’s terrorist attack in Paris, a series of Islamic State videos suggested the United Kingdom was next on the target list.[1] For British officials, the threat was not new. As British Prime Minister David Cameron put it days after the Paris attack, “Our security services have stopped seven attacks in the last six months, albeit on a smaller scale.”[2] Earlier this month, Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley, who oversees counterterrorism efforts for the London Metropolitan Police, warned, “In recent months we’ve seen a broadening of that—much more plans to attack Western lifestyle, going from that narrow focus on police and military as symbols of the state to something much broader. And you see a terrorist group which has big ambitions for enormous and spectacular attacks, not just the types that we’ve seen foiled to date.”[3]

This article takes stock of the threat to the United Kingdom, drawing on court documents of recent British terror trials of those accused of plotting between 2013 and 2015. Currently, most of the cases that have passed through Britain’s courts have not shown clear evidence of Islamic State direction, though the plots covered in these cases for the most part predate the group’s active surge of international plotting last year that culminated in the Paris attacks in November. Up to this point, most plotting seen in the United Kingdom appears to demonstrate an ideological affinity to the Islamic State, with most plots fitting the lone-actor model and having no clear command and control from Islamic State operatives in Syria and Iraq. Going forward, however, security officials see a growing, direct threat from the Islamic State, with Richard Walton, the former head of the Metropolitan Police’s Counter-terrorism Command, stating in January, “We are concerned about Daesh’s external ambitions to project their terror overseas rather than them just trying to consolidate their so-called caliphate.”[4][a]

Alleged Instigation Overseas: The Erol Incedal Case 
In October 2013, as part of a series of coordinated arrests, four men were detained for allegedly plotting to launch a “Mumbai-style” attack in London. Two men were released soon afterward while Erol Incedal, a British passport holder of Turkish-Alawite descent, and Mounir Rarmoul-Bouhadjar, a British-Algerian were brought to trial. Rarmoul-Bouhadjar pleaded guilty to possession of a bomb-making manual and was sentenced to three years in prison while Incedal instead chose to fight the charges against him. In a first for the British judicial system, the trial was held partially under secret circumstances for reasons that were not publicly revealed.

The public part of this trial shed light on the accused’s travels and contacts. In late 2012 the two men tried to reach Syria through Turkey. Rather than getting across the border, however, they ended up in a safe house in Hatay full of people “engaged somewhat in the resistance against Assad.”[5] Here they met “Ahmed,” a British-Yemeni extremist who would become a key figure in the prosecution’s case. Ahmed had spent time in France, and he claimed to have fled to the Syrian-Turkish border area as he felt under pressure from security services in the United Kingdom. In court, Incedal described him as having ‘“sympathies with the global jihad”[6] though Incedal was also quick to highlight that he was angry at the West since some of his family members had reportedly been killed in drone strikes in Yemen.

By early March Incedal and Rarmoul-Bouhadjar were bored of the inactivity at the safe house and told Ahmed they were going to head back to the United Kingdom. According to Incedal, Ahmed told them, ““Bruv, you know, you are going back, I wish, you know, you could do something in the UK” do some – he actually said “shit,” “do some shit in the UK, blow these guys up” and, you know, basically do an attack in the UK.””[7] In court Incedal stated that Ahmed’s view was not shared by all in the safe house. “The majority of the people there were thinking more specific to Syria and not worried about the West,” he testified. Nevertheless, Ahmed apparently saw value in the men back in the United Kingdom, telling them, “It would be nice to keep in touch and maybe you can help us in this global cause in the U.K.”[8]

Once back in the United Kingdom, the men entered into a world of semi-criminal activity and partying. An Azerbaijani friend named Ruslan who was connected to wealthy Azeris provided them with an entrée into London’s high life. Incedal appears to have been close to the sons of the Egyptian extremist cleric Abu Hamza, who, according to Incedal, were now involved in post office robberies “because their father [had] given them the right to do it.”[9] Incedal appears to have considered ways of working with them and of raising money to buy guns for protection during drug deals.[10] During this time, Incedal appears to have maintained contact with Ahmed (who was either in Turkey or Syria) through Skype conversations during which they discussed sourcing weapon “straps,” getting detonators sent to the United Kingdom from Syria, and whether Rarmoul-Bouhadjar still remembered any bomb-making training he had received at the safe house.[11]

In the end the jury cleared Incedal of the charges of plotting a terrorist attack, he was found guilty of possessing a bomb-making manual and sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison.[12] Rarmoul-Bouhadjar, who had pleaded guilty to the same charge, served some time in prison and was discharged on restrictive release.

In the second half of 2014, British authorities disrupted several separate plots involving attack planning. The missing element from this cluster of cells, however, was clear direction from the Islamic State, though there were clear sympathies.

Stay-at-Home Jihadi: The Brusthom Ziamani Case
The first of these cases was that of Brusthom Ziamani, an 18-year-old extremist known as Mujahid Karim, from Peckham in south London. Raised a Jehovah’s Witness, Ziamani was thrown out of his family’s home after converting to Islam. He subsequently moved (or moved deeper) into the orbit of al Muhajiroun, a British extremist grouping supportive of the Islamic State. In June 2014 he was arrested on an unrelated charge, and during a search of his belongings police found a letter addressed to his parents in which he declared:

“Because I have no means ov gettin there [Syria and Iraq] I will wage war against the british government on this soil the british government will have a taste ov there own medicine they will be humiliated this is ISIB Islamic States of Ireland and Britain.”[13]

Under interview he confirmed that the letter was his but denied he was planning an attack in the United Kingdom. He praised Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale, the murderers of the British soldier Lee Rigby in Woolwich in May 2013, and stated that the letters were “written in case he went abroad and died fighting there, or if the U.K. became an Islamic state, in which case he would join in the uprising.[14] He was bailed, and officials working in the British government’s deradicalization program “Prevent” repeatedly tried to engage him to see if he could be moved off a path of violent extremism. These efforts failed, and Ziamani continued to seek out radical material online. On the morning of August 19 he appeared at his ex-girlfriend’s house with a black backpack in which he showed her he had a large knife, a hammer, and an Islamic flag. He told her, “Me and the brothers are planning a terrorist attack,” though not a bombing. “No, not like that, basically to kill soldiers.”[15]

Later that afternoon police stopped him as he was walking in the street in East London. Searching his belongings, they found his weapons and took him into custody, charging him with terrorist offenses. Months later he told a security officer in prison that he “loved” Michael Adebolajo and had handed out leaflets with him. He also confessed, “I was on my way to kill a British Soldier at an army barracks. I was going to behead the soldier and hold his head in the air so my friend could take a photograph.”[16] There was no evidence provided that Ziamani had any co-conspirators, though in passing a 22-year sentence, Justice Pontius stated that “he had little doubt that, like Adebolajo and Adebowale before him, he fell under the malign influence of al-Muhajiroun fanatics who were considerably older, and had been immersed in extremist ideology far longer, than him but he was, nevertheless, a willing student and all too ready to absorb and adopt their teaching.”[17]

The Power of the Fatwa: The Tarik Hassane Case 
In the second plot disrupted, police arrested a cluster of young men in West London in late September and early October 2014. Over a year later in January 2016, the trial began for four of the men arrested for planning to shoot a security officer with a Baikal gun and silencer that they had procured. The plot was alleged to have started on July 9, 2014, when one of the alleged co-conspirators—Tarik Hassane, then based in Sudan—announced to a Telegram group that some of the men were part of that he had made bay`a to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.[b]

Soon after this, Hassane came back to the United Kingdom via Jordan, and planning for an attack appears to have intensified. The group started to discuss obtaining something from “Umar,” later identified as Nyall Hamlett, a man currently on trial who was identified as being involved in London’s criminal fraternities and had access to weaponry. Using all sorts of coded references, Hassane, Suhaid Majeed (an accused co-conspirator also still being tried who was studying physics at King’s College in London), and others discussed trying to obtain “straps” or “creps.” They looked for a garage in Shepherd’s Bush using an online rental manager.[18] They also sought to obtain a moped.[19] By September 21, with Hassane still in Sudan, the group appears to have finally been close to obtaining a gun. Majeed told the group to “make serious dua [prayer] for me,” which the prosecution suggested was the moment at which the group knew they were obtaining their weapon.[20]

A day after senior Islamic State figure Muhammad al Adnani released his infamous fatwa calling on followers around the world who had pledged bay`a to kill disbelievers “in any manner” wherever they can find them, Majeed went through an elaborate transaction to obtain a Baikal gun, ammunition, and a silencer.[21] Once home, he searched for videos about how to handle the weapon on YouTube and spoke to his friends abroad. Not wanting to take any chances, British police moved in to arrest all of the individuals under surveillance. As Majeed’s parent’s property was being searched by armed police a gun and equipment were tossed out of the window.[22] During the search of co-defendant Nathan Cuffy’s premises they found a series of four different guns and ammunition.[23]

All of this activity was taking place as Hassane was still abroad. On September 30 he returned home and was arrested soon afterward. Hassane pleaded guilty to the charges against him, while the other three continue to fight their charges.[24]

Frustrated Travelers: The Nadir Syed Case 
The al-Adnani fatwa also provided an inflection point for a third plot disrupted in the second half of 2014. The alleged co-conspirators, Haseeb Hamayoun and cousins Nadir Syed[c] and Yousaf Syed, were all from London and of Pakistani origin. The story of their plot begins in December 2013 when Nadir Syed was arrested for public order incidents and released under strict bail conditions.[25] In breach of these, on January 19, 2014, he was stopped from boarding a plane trying to travel to Turkey, alongside his cousin Yousaf and a third man, Luqman Warsame. While Nadir was prevented from traveling, Yousaf and Warsame continued their journey. Yousaf Syed returned after spending some time in Turkey, but Warsame joined the Islamic State in Syria, from where he remained in contact with the two Syeds.[26] Warsame’s current status is unclear. Yousaf Syed was stripped of his freedom to travel in April 2014. Nadir Syed also remained stuck in the United Kingdom, but in October 2014 he applied for a new passport from the Home Office.[27]

Like Ziamani, the group appears to have had a fixation with the murder of Lee Rigby and knives. Evidence was introduced at trial of Nadir Syed talking to others about the two Woolwich killers in 2013. Also introduced into evidence were the trio’s September 2014 WhatsApp conversations in which they shared images of the Woolwich attackers and their activity.[28] In the wake of an attack in Australia on September 23, 2014, in which Numan Haider, a Melbourne teenager tried to stab a pair of policemen after his passport was canceled and was instead shot by the officers,[29] the men praised the attempt and compared it to Michael Adebolajo, praising Adebolajo as a “diamond geezer” in their discussions.[30] After a court appearance by Nadir Syed on November 6, 2014, for his public order offense charges, Haseeb Hamayoun met him outside the courtroom and the men seem to have gone straight to a kitchen shop.[31] Soon after this, authorities decided to intervene, and all three men were arrested separately later that same day.

In the end, the court was unable to reach a conclusion about Hamayoun and Yousaf Syed, though Nadir was found guilty of planning to murder a security official around Remembrance Day with a knife.[32] Hamayoon and Yousaf Syed face a retrial.[33] The reasoning behind Nadir Syed’s plot is best discerned from Nadir’s online commentary after Adnani’s September 2013 fatwa: “These governments need to rethink their policy…esp after Adnani’s speech, why the hell would you let an ISIS supporter stay here….in other words the muslim in the west is left with two choices, either turn back from your deen or end up in jail,” he stated.[34]

Other Cases: The Disconnected, the Very Young, and the Isolated 
The fourth plot thwarted in the second half of 2014 was that of Kazi Islam, the nephew of Kazi Rahman, a former jailed terrorist linked to the 7/7 cell. Arrested in November 2014, Islam was jailed in May 2015 for “grooming” another young man to try to build a bomb or conduct a terrorist attack. An apparent attendee of al Muhajiroun lectures, Islam was undone when the 18-year-old he was spurring on to launch an attack failed to get the right materials to build a bomb and told friends about the plan.[35] Although the exact nature of the plot is not entirely clear, Islam appears to have been pushing the boy to build bombs, obtain knives, and think about targeting security officials.[36]

In late March 2015 police in northwest England arrested a 14-year-old boy from Blackburn after he threatened to behead his teachers, accusing him of being involved in instigating a terrorist plot in Australia linked to attacking a security official on Australia’s day of remembrance, Anzac Day. The boy was accused of talking to Australian Sevdet Besim, a radicalized teenager who was part of a larger community of concern in Australia and spurring him on “to run a cop over or the anzac parade & then continue to kill a cop then take ghanimah and run to shahadah?”[37] Besim was further connected to Numan Haider, the Melbourne teen shot by police in September 2014.[38] While the exact role of Islamic State behind this network is unclear, the group was all connected to the now-deceased[39] Neil Prakash, a notorious Australian jihadi fighting alongside the group in Syria also known as Abu Khaled al Kambodi.[40] The boy was found guilty, becoming the youngest convicted terrorist in the United Kingdom.[d]

The shambolic nature of Kazi Islam’s November 2014 “grooming” plot was matched in May 2015 when police arrested the married couple Mohammed Rehman and Sana Ahmed Khan after Mohammed Rehman tweeted from his Twitter account,[e] “Silent Bomber,” the question “Westfield shopping center of London underground? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.”[41] The question—seeking suggestions about which target he should attempt to attack—caught the attention of authorities. Investigators uncovered Mohammed Rehman, an unemployed drug addict still living with his family. His wife, Sana Khan, also lived at home with her parents who disapproved of Rehman. The two decided that they wanted to launch a terrorist attack against the London Underground or a shopping center, with Rehman seeking chemicals online to detonate a bomb while Khan provided the funding. The couple discussed bomb tests, and Rehman eventually tested a bomb in his backyard. Two weeks after they were detected online, the couple was arrested, and after a short trial, they were given life sentences.[42]

In neither case was there any clear evidence of direction by a terrorist group overseas or links to any other plots. Both appear to be fairly classic, disconnected lone-actor plots with the only clear connections to the Islamic State being either through consumption of radical material (magazines like Dabiq), statements of intent to join the group (which apparently Kazi Islam made to his friends), or a letter that Rehman left pledging his allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.[43]

Alleged Communication with the Islamic State: The Junead and Shazib Khan Case 
An alleged plot targeting the RAF Lakenheath airbase, home of the U.S. Air Force 48th fighter wing, disrupted in July 2015 was more clearly linked to external networks, though any degree of external direction is unclear and the trials are ongoing.[44] Junead Khan and his uncle Shazib Khan (the two were so close in age, they refered to each other as cousins) from Luton are currently standing trial for planning to join the Islamic State, with Junead also accused of wanting to launch an attack in the United Kingdom against “military personnel” at military bases in Lakenheath or Molesworth.[45] Junead apparently knew and admired another local Luton man who had gone to fight (and was subsequently killed) named Rahin Aziz.[46] The men were allegedly in contact with a number of fighters in Syria, including the notorious British Islamic State operative Junaid Hussain who allegedly told Junead via the encrypted messaging app Surespot that “I can get u addresses but of British soldiers” and that “I can tell u how to make a bomb.”[47] There was further evidence presented at trial from his computer and phone that he was seeking instructions on how to make explosives. The case is ongoing and is due to conclude next month.

Conclusion
Since the emergence of the Islamic State as a major terrorist force in the Middle East, there has not been clear-cut evidence presented at trial of plots being directed by the leadership of the Islamic State against the United Kingdom. The cases formally prosecuted through the courts all suggest a threat picture that remains dominated by lone-actor terrorism, in some cases inspired by the Islamic State. The United Kingdom has also seen plots by extremists blocked from traveling to join the Islamic State, something also seen in Australia and Canada.[f]

The trials have not yet revealed clear direction by the group against the United Kingdom. There have been reports that Islamic State recruiters are seeking out Europeans with links to Germany or the United Kingdom to help facilitate attacks there,[48] but thus far, the evidence offered in courts is not as clear cut. Security authorities certainly see an escalating threat, something reflected in Assistant Commissioner Rowley’s warning that British authorities fear a spectacular Paris-style attack.

While the nature of the threat in the United Kingdom is different than in France in certain respects —for example, there is easier access to heavy weaponry and ammunition on the European continent—the Islamic State itself has made clear that the United Kingdom is a priority target. Until now the public threat picture has been dominated by lone-actor plots. Going forward, however, with the Islamic State appearing to pivot toward international terrorism and around 1000 British extremists having traveled to Syria and Iraq, half of whom are still there,[49] there is a growing danger of Islamic State-directed plots against the British homeland.

Raffaello Pantucci is Director of International Security Studies at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and the author of We Love Death As You Love Life: Britain’s Suburban Terrorists. Follow @raffpantucci

Substantive Notes
[a] The British government refers to the Islamic State as Daesh.

[b] Hassane went on to post his pledge in full: statement that showed “that I, poor servant of Allah, Tariq Hassan (sic), swear allegiance to the Amir of [leader] of the faithful, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Abullah Ibrahim ibn Awad al-Quraishi al-Husseini, Caliph of the Muslims, he owes me to listen and obey him through thick and thin as much as I can.” Regina vs Tarik Hassane et al, January 15, 2016, p. 26.

[c] Nadir Syed was part of the broader community around the al Muhajiroun community in the U.K., most clearly as part of a WhatsApp group called ‘the lads’ with prominent figures Abu Waleed and Abu Haleema. See Lisa O’Carroll, “Man convicted of planning Isis-inspired Remembrance Sunday attack,” Guardian, December 14, 2015.

[d] He received a life sentence with a review in five years to see if he had been de-radicalized prior to him ascending into the adult prison population. “Anzac Day terror plot: Blackburn boy sentenced to life,” BBC News, October 2, 2015.

[e] His Twitter account profile photo was an image of Islamic State executioner “Jihadi John.”

[f] The Australian case was the aforementioned case of Numan Haider. In Canada, Quebec attacker Martin Couture-Rouleau was blocked from traveling to join the Islamic State, and Ottawa shooter Michael Zehaf-Bibeau was blocked from traveling to the region. See Allan Woods, “How Martin Couture-Rouleau became an aspiring Islamic State fighter,” Star, October 26, 2015; “How Michael Zehaf-Bibeau went from petty criminal to the face of homegrown terrorism,” National Post, November 7, 2014.

Citations
[1] Raya Jalabi, “Isis video threatening UK claims to show Paris attackers in Syria and Iraq,” Guardian, January 25, 2016.

[2] David Cameron interview with BBC Radio 4 Today program, November 16, 2015.

[3] Vikram Dodd, “Isis planning ‘enormous and spectacular attacks’, anti-terror chief warns,” Guardian, March 7, 2016.

[4] Paul Cruickshank, “A View from the CT Foxhole: An Interview with Richard Walton, Head, Counter Terrorism Command, London Metropolitan Police,” CTC Sentinel 9:1 (2016).

[5] Regina vs Incedal and Rarmoul-Bouhadjar, March 11, 2015, p. 13.

[6] Regina vs Incedal and Rarmoul-Bouhadjar, March 11, 2015, p. 16.

[7] Regina vs Incedal and Rarmoul-Bouhadjar, March 11, 2015, p. 41.

[8] Regina vs Incedal and Rarmoul-Bouhadjar, March 11, 2015, p. 49.

[9] Regina vs Incedal and Rarmoul-Bouhadjar, March 13, 2015, p. 49.

[10] Regina vs Incedal and Rarmoul-Bouhadjar, March 12, 2015, p. 41.

[11] Regina vs Incedal and Rarmoul-Bouhadjar, March 12, 2015, pp. 7-8.

[12] “Erol Incedal Jailed for 42 months over bomb-making manual,” BBC, April 1, 2015.

[13] (Typos as rendered in the document) Regina vs Ziamani, February 9, 2015, p. 4.

[14] Regina vs Ziamani, February 9, 2015, p. 6.

[15] Regina vs Ziamani, February 9, 2015.

[16] Regina vs Ziamani, February 9, 2015.

[17] Regina vs Brusthom Ziamani, Sentencing remarks of HHJ Pontius, Central Criminal Court, March 20, 2015.

[18] Regina vs Tarik Hassane et al., January 15, 2016, p. 68.

[19] Regina vs Tarik Hassane et al., January 15, 2016, p. 69.

[20] Regina vs Tarik Hassane et al., January 15, 2016, p. 87.

[21] Regina vs Tarik Hassane et al., January 15, 2016, p. 95.

[22] Regina vs Tarik Hassane et al., January 15, 2016, p. 101.

[23] Regina vs Tarik Hassane et al., January 15, 2016, p. 109.

[24] Sebastian Mann, “Terror accused have told ‘buffed and polished’ lies to mask guilt, court hears,” Evening Standard, March 8, 2016.

[25] Regina vs Hasib Hamayoon et al., October 8, 2015, p. 6.

[26] Regina vs Hasib Hamayoon et al., October 8, 2015, p. 9.

[27] Regina vs Hasib Hamayoon et al., October 8, 2015, p. 9.

[28] Regina vs Hasib Hamayoon et al., October 8, 2015, p. 11.

[29] Melissa Davey, “Police had no choice but to shoot Numan Haider, inquest hears,” Guardian, March 7, 2016.

[30] Regina vs Hasib Hamayoon et al., October 8, 2015, p. 21.

[31] Regina vs Hasib Hamayoon et al., October 8, 2015, p. 34.

[32] Lisa O’Carroll, “Man convicted of planning Isis-inspired Remembrance Sunday attack,” Guardian, December 14, 2015.

[33] Tom Whitehead, “Extremists allowed to leave UK to ease home terror threat,” Telegraph, December 15, 2015.

[34] Regina vs Hasib Hamayoon et al., October 8, 2015, p.20.

[35] Duncan Gardham and Amanda Williams, “Teenage Islamic terrorist who groomed man with learning difficulties to carry out Lee Rigby-style attack on British soldier is jailed for eight years,” Daily Mail, May 29, 2015.

[36] Ibid.

[37] “Anzac Day terror plot: Blackburn boy sentenced to life,” BBC News, October 2, 2015.

[38] Dan Oakes, “Numan Haider inquest: Anzac Day terror accused Sevdet Besim called to give evidence,” Australia Plus, March 7, 2016.

[39] Joshua Robertson, “Neil Prakash, Australia’s most senior operative in Islamic State, reported dead,” Guardian, January 31, 2016.

[40] Oakes.

[41] Regina vs Mohammed Rehman and Sana Ahmed Khan, November 14, 2015.

[42] Tom Whitehead, “7/7 suicide bomb plot couple jailed for life,” Telegraph, December 30, 2015.

[43] Tom Whitehead and David Barrett, “Middle class daughter of magistrate who turned to suicide bomb plotter,” Telegraph, December 30, 2015.

[44] “Man allegedly planned Lee Rigby-style attacks on US soldiers in UK,” Guardian, February 17, 2016.

[45] Regina vs Junead Ahmed Khan and Shazib Ahmed Khan, February 12, 2016.

[46] “Alleged extremist accused of ‘planning attack on RAF base in East Anglia’ takes stand in trial,” Cambridge News, March 4, 2016.

[47] Regina vs Junead Ahmed Khan and Shazib Ahmed Khan, February 12, 2016.

[48] “You will lose the feeling of being a human being,” BBC Radio 4 PM, February 22, 2016.

[49] Patrick Wintor and Shiv Malik, “Hundreds of Britain caught trying to join jihadis, says Foreign Secretary,” Guardian, January 15, 2016.

Building support for the Belt and Road

Posted: March 15, 2016 in Whose World Order?
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And final catch up post, this time for a think tank I worked for a while ago, the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), with whom I am still doing some things. This is a post for their site which focused on some of the issues of the ‘Belt and Road’ strategy and what they need to do to get greater European cooperation on it. This is a topic that is very rich and has lots of work in the pipeline around it.

This aside, to catch up on some media conversations, spoke to The Times, Reuters and La Liberation about the leak of ISIS documents, to Newsweek about al Shabaab targeting aviation and training Boko Haram fighters, to Buzzfeed about Brexit and national security questions, to The Independent about Prevent issues in the UK, to the Press Agency about the attacks in Ivory Coast, to the Associated Press about the latest round of talks in Afghanistan the Chinese are helping with, and a presentation I did recently in Washington on China-Russia in Central Asia got a write up in the Diplomat.

Building Support for the Belt and Road

Xi Jinping has laid out what is going to be the defining foreign policy vision of his leadership in the form of the Belt and Road. An all-encompassing initiative, it is something that repeated Chinese leaders have said they want to engage with foreign partners on, in particular with European capitals given the vision is one that starts in China and ends in Europe. Yet, there is still a lack of clarity around exactly what this initiative actually looks like and how it is that foreigners can engage with China on this project. Beijing needs to lay out more clearly what it needs and wants from the world to implement this vision.

Seen from the outside, the Belt and Road initiative is one that appears to in essence be about building economic and trade corridors emanating out from China. Through the development of transport links – be they rail, road, ports or airports – and the construction and rehabilitation of pipelines, markets, economic zones and more, China aims to open Eurasia while reconnecting China to Europe across the wide landmass they share. The potential impact is a game-changing effect on a wide swathe of Eurasia, something that has not gone unnoticed in Europe where policymakers spend lots of time thinking about how to develop their continent. Yet, connecting on the initiative has so far proven difficult. If China genuinely wants greater cooperation on this strategy, then a number of key things need to happen.

First, Beijing needs to clarify where the routes of the Belt and Road will actually go. At the moment, all of the maps that have been produced are ones that are done by enterprising journalists interpreting official statements. The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the body responsible for the vision, has so far not expressed a view or produced a map. This is problematic as it means people are unable to know exactly which Beijing’s priorities are and what specific routes Europe should focus on developing to support and work with China’s plan. For example, generally it is clear that the Silk Road Economic Belt will pass through Central Asia, but which specific road or rail projects is China going to focus on first?

Second, China needs to understand that if they want to maximise external support on the vision, then Chinese led funding initiatives need to be open to foreign contractors. European investment structures like the EBRD or EIB (as well as international ones like the ADB) are very keen to work with China on this vision, but need to ensure that the subsequent project contracts to emerge from investments are put out to open tender. This ensures that the best possible contractors will undertake the projects and ensures that the vision gets carried through in the most effective way possible. This is something that extends beyond simple financing terms and contract procedures: it needs to be made clearer that there is a role for others in Chinese led projects. The key point here is that China needs to be open to working with others in very practical terms to try to advance this vision.

Third, China needs to find ways to discuss sensitive security questions with outsiders. Through the Belt and Road, China is going to increasingly find itself becoming one of the most consequential players on the ground in large parts of Eurasia. With such power will increasingly come a greater regional role, including on sensitive security questions where Beijing will find itself having to try to broker negotiations and agreements between sides in open conflict with each other. This is already happening in Afghanistan, and as time goes on Beijing will find itself ever more involved in such discussions across the continent. Europeans have some experience and understanding of some of these questions and would be willing to share their intelligence and experience with China if Beijing showed an equal level of openness in discussions. Genuine cooperation and deeper understanding come from a full and frank exchange.

There are clearly a great deal more detailed issues that need to be discussed, but these three overarching points need to be addressed before greater detail can be gone in to. China needs to understand that many in Europe are keen to cooperate on this vision, but they need some greater clarity to able to find practical ideas for what cooperation can look like in practice. By offering a more detailed outline of what this initiative physically looks like and what projects Beijing is prioritising, opening up to the idea of making joint investments, and being willing to participate in more frank and open security discussions, Beijing will find receptive doors across Europe. All of which will be essential to ensure President Xi’s vision turns into a long-standing foreign policy legacy reconnecting the Eurasian landmass along the old Silk Roads.

Raffaello Pantucci is Director of International Security Studies at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI)

Cyberwarfare: Here’s what you should know

Posted: March 14, 2016 in GQ
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And now one for a completely new outlet, GQ India. Came about after a presentation in Mumbai, looking at a topic that is not traditionally core, though initially the focus on terrorism and online terrorism was a greater focus. Thanks to the editors for their patience with this one and hope to do more in this space!

Cyberwarfare: Here’s what you should know

You don’t know who your enemy really is
Mar 2, 2016
Rohan Hande

In the wake of the November 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris by ISIS, the hacker collective Anonymous launched #OpIceISIS, an online campaign targeting the group’s digital presence. At around the same time, analyst friends studying ISIS noticed that their sites and social media accounts were also getting attacked. Realizing that they’d gotten caught up in this vigilante assault against ISIS, my friends eventually found the Anonymous attackers and explained their role. Soon after, a few of us noticed that The Shield (@an0nshield), a Twitter account offering protection from these sorts of accidents, had started following us.

Were Anonymous’ actions effective? Probably not. I believe that this entire episode was merely an expression of the confusing world of cyberwarfare that is increasingly going to dictate contemporary conflict.

But the link between Anonymous and ISIS is more complicated than this first blush suggests: Individuals have shifted from one group to the other. Take, for example, 18-year-old Junaid Hussain, aka hacktivist TriCk, former head of a collective known as TeaMp0isoN that aligned itself with Anonymous for a while. Responsible for a juvenile series of hacks, like the disruption of Britain’s counter-terrorism hotline and leaking information from the email account of an assistant to former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, Hussain was jailed for six months. Upon his release, he ran off to Syria, where he became a key figure in the ISIS online community, heading up the very CyberCaliphate that Anonymous was later to target.

There’s a sort of logic to this ideological shift – both ISIS and Anonymous ultimately espouse anti- establishment narratives – but Hussain’s tale of switching sides with such alacrity shows only one aspect of the complicated nature of modern cyberwarfare.

Sometimes even the attribution to a non- state group is fake. In April 2015, the French television channel TV5Monde was knocked off air for 18 hours as hackers claiming to be the CyberCaliphate took down its Facebook page and website, and leaked documents allegedly linked to French soldiers fighting ISIS. Yet, soon after the news emerged, investigators started to question the link to ISIS, pointing out that the hackers were using servers which had earlier been connected to hacks linked to the Kremlin. Furthermore, grammatical errors in the messages released by the group proved that the code had been typed on a Cyrillic keyboard and compiled during business hours in Moscow. It all pointed to a state- sponsored Russian attack. Why Russia wanted to target a French TV station like this was unclear, and the nature of the attack worried those who thought it could be an attempt by Russian state-backed hackers to test Western systems.

Cyberwarfare The interview
Could The Interview have been the reason behind the Sony leak?

The most dramatic online attack on a media company, however, came on November 24, 2014 when a group calling itself the Guardians of Peace attacked Sony. It shut down computers, wiped out critical company infrastructure, leaked awkward emails and copies of unreleased film scripts. The US government eventually identified the attack to have emanated from North Korea, allegedly infuriated at the Sony film The Interview, about the attempted assassination of its leader. In an apparent state-level sense of humour failure, Pyongyang decided to lash out against the company. The United States’ response was even blunter, knocking the North Korean Internet (essentially a national-level intranet) offline for a period of days.

The state vs state conflict online seemed fairly straightforward. But an attack two years earlier, whose provenance was never formally confirmed, showed the dangerous potential of an aggressive cyber attack. During the month of Ramadan in 2012, workers at Saudi Arabia’s national oil company Saudi Aramco suddenly noticed that files were disappearing, and 36,000 computers were wiped clean. Engineers panicked and started ripping out cables to disconnect machines from the internet. In a single stroke, a company that’s responsible for almost 10 per cent of the world’s oil production had been returned to a pre-computer era, relying on faxes, typewriters and internal mail systems. For almost two weeks, Saudi Aramco was barely able to function, and was forced to buy some 50,000 hard drives to get its system back online.

While formal attribution was never uncovered, the attack came a couple of months after the New York Times had published an in-depth article, sourced to American officials, indicating that the United States and Israel had teamed up to launch a sophisticated cyber attack on the Iranian nuclear programme. Called Stuxnet, the attack specifically caused centrifuges associated with it to spin too fast, destroying them. For years prior to the revelations, Iranian engineers had been perplexed by this apparent failure in their system. The Saudi Aramco attack, a couple of months after this admission in the American press, may have been an Iranian effort to demonstrate its own offensive cyber capabilities against a close American ally and long-time enemy.

The reality, however, is that cyberwarfare is something that can be conducted without any attribution or claim. Those at the receiving end might have their suspicions, but it is difficult to be certain. Countries often use proxies or purposely establish patterns in their online activity to suggest a different provenance. Anonymous, ISIS or state actors like the United States, China or Russia could all be behind an attack, advancing their own malevolent intentions. Unlike the clarity of dystopian movies like The Terminator or The Matrix, where evil machines use AI to take over the planet, the reality of modern cyberwarfare is a confusing mess of suggestive leads with no clear enemy in sight.

Words:Raffaello Pantucci

Raffaello Pantucci is Director of International Security Studies at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in London, where he continues to worry about how much he relies on his computer.

Can the EU and China work together on violent extremism?

Posted: March 14, 2016 in EU Observer
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And another piece on a previously written theme, this time looking at EU-China cooperation on security questions in particular counter-terrorism. For a semi-regular outlet that people in Brussels read called the EU Observer. More on this theme to come.

Can the EU and China work together on violent extremism?

10 year old Chinese cop

Chinese police. Countering terrorism and violent extremism is a growing priority for policymakers in Europe and Asia (Photo: Michael Mooney)

By Raffaello Pantucci
London, 1. Mar, 09:13

Sat in Brussels or Beijing, the threat of violent extremists is atop most policymakers’ considerations.

The definition of what constitutes a terrorist or violent extremist is something that is complicated by local considerations and concerns, but there is a growing policy question around whether there is any way for China and the EU to cooperate on such matters.

Whilst there are clearly issues in cooperating with China on some aspects, there are some practical measures that the EU and China could explore together to counter the threat from violent extremists.

At an ideological level there is a difficulty in the EU and China countering violent extremism globally together.

First, the reasons for violent extremism are different the world over. Domestically, the Chinese official view is very much that extremism and radicalisation are the product of external ideologies that have entered China and are causing problems.

Sat in Europe, the view is often rather that domestic problems are leading to disenfranchisement that is leaving people prone to exploring radical ideologies. The external ideology is in some ways secondary to the local “root causes” in dealing with the response.

This difference in analysis complicates the possibilities of cooperation, something that is rendered even more difficult when one considers the broad range of people and groups that China captures under the banner of terrorist: any anti-state group, from terrorist networks to dissident communities.

From a European perspective, people who are fighting for the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) are clearly terrorists while the World Uyghur Congress are dissidents. They do not immediately come under the same banner.

Nevertheless, notwithstanding external commentary, the discussion around these questions in Beijing is in fact a fairly sophisticated one, with some advocating for a more nuanced response than others.

Clearly, terrorists bent on murdering other citizens need to be stopped and finding ways of preventing them is something that preoccupies policymakers in European capitals and Beijing alike. Some European capitals have made greater progress in this struggle than others, and learning from these mistakes and approaches is something that others in Europe and China will benefit from.

These lessons are not all equally transferable, but some principles around community policing, community outreach, religious and minority tolerance and less kinetic approaches to counter-terrorism might help alleviate problems on both continents.

But while there are difficulties in cooperating at home, globally speaking there are a number of aspects to counter terrorism and violent extremism that could be worked on collaboratively.

For example, looking at parts of the world where there are problems of violent extremism, there is in some cases a correlation between underdevelopment and some of the root causes driving people towards terrorist groups.

Both the EU and China are probably already active in these countries, but coordinating efforts to address issues like education, employment, local development and so on might help mitigate some of the local root causes.

Looking at a more practical level, considering how to evacuate nationals from unstable locations threatened by terrorist groups in cooperative ways is a way the EU and China might start to plan together.

Such contingencies have already taken place – for example in Yemen – and Chinese ships have helped evacuate European nationals. Planning ahead might be a way to build trust and establish mechanisms that would be useful during the next inevitable crisis.

There is further possible cooperation that could be undertaken in terms of countering terror financing, the disruption of smuggling networks getting fighters or weapons to and from battlefields, and the sharing of threat information in third locations where both have nationals.

The problem with all of this is the practicalities of sharing intelligence – something that is complicated between close allies in Europe, let alone between the EU and China.

Intelligence sharing works best when driven by necessity: it is probably going to take a specific case to take place that threatens both Chinese and European nationals for the pathways and structures to start to be developed to foster such cooperation.

But keeping attuned to the possibility of such opportunities is something that policymakers and security officials on both sides should keep alert to as a way to engender greater practical cooperation on a threat that has killed both European and Chinese nationals.

Countering terrorism and violent extremism is a growing priority issues for policymakers in Europe and Asia. Be this in distant third locations or allies’ territories, the menace of terrorism is one that knows no pity or borders.

Understanding how the EU and China can cooperate on countering this problem whilst bearing in mind differences is key to dealing with a problem that menaces nationals from both countries in an increasingly equal manner.

Raffaello Pantucci is director of international security studies at Rusi, a London-based think tank.

Lone-Actor Terrorism Policy Paper 4: ‘Leakage’ and Interaction with Authorities

Posted: March 14, 2016 in Royal United Services Institute
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And another RUSI research report landing, part of a separate large project looking this time at Lone Actor terrorism. An earlier Literature Review paper was part of the same project and we have a couple more papers to come on this. The project has its own page on the RUSI site, and we are now exploring how to continue digging on this particular theme. Huge thanks are due to my colleague Clare on this project for really keeping the whole thing moving and providing excellent insights. This particular paper explores the issues around the fact that Lone Actors tend to leak information about their intentions.

In addition to this paper, we also published a large analysis paper which was the product of the entire consortium’s work, so I am not going to republish it in its entirety here. However, to read that please follow this link.

Lone-Actor Terrorism Policy Paper 4: ‘Leakage’ and Interaction with Authorities

Clare Ellis and Raffaello Pantucci

RUSI Publications, 29 February 2016

UK Counter-terrorism, Lone-Actor Terrorism, National Security and Resilience Studies, International Security Studies, Domestic Security, Terrorism

This fourth policy paper of the Countering Lone-Actor Terrorism series examines how lone-actor terrorists reveal their intent to commit attacks and recommends a targeted approach based on the characteristics and motivations of the specific threat.

Download the report here

Countering Lone-Actor Terrorism Series: No. 8

The aim of the Countering Lone-Actor Terrorism (CLAT) project is to understand lone-actor terrorism in a European context. The project will develop a database of lone-actor cases from across Europe. Its overall objective is to see if it is possible to discern any trends or patterns that could be translated into useful observations or recommendations for practitioners and policy-makers.

This is the fourth and final policy paper in the CLAT series. It outlines the policy implications of analysis in relation to changes in perpetrator behaviour, ‘leakage’ of extreme views or intention to act, and interactions with public authorities in the time leading up to an attack. It provides a series of practical policy recommendations in order to develop an effective response to various lone-actor threats.

Security and Stability along the Silk Road

Posted: March 14, 2016 in Royal United Services Institute
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And now a short paper co-authored with Sarah, my co-editor on the China in Central Asia site, as part of a larger project we have been working on at our home institution of RUSI looking at China in the region. There has been an earlier report in this series, and more to come.

Security and Stability along the Silk Road

Sarah Lain and Raffaello Pantucci
RUSI Publications, 29 February 2016
Central and South Asia, International Security Studies

Proceedings of a 19 January 2016 workshop on the security context for the Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) across Central Asia and the stabilising effects of investment and infrastructure development

Download the report here

On 19 January 2016, RUSI in collaboration with the University of World Economy and Diplomacy hosted a day-long workshop in Tashkent on the security context for the Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) across Central Asia and the stabilising effects investment and infrastructure development could have on the region.

The workshop included a specific discussion about Uzbekistan’s role in regional security in light of the SREB initiative, as well as China’s views and approaches to security questions throughout the broader region. The event brought together participants from Uzbekistan, China and the UK, including representatives from academia and think tanks.

This workshop report summarises the discussions from the conference and offers insights into the current state of the Chinese-led project.

China’s new silk road is designed to cut Russia out of Eurasian trade

Posted: March 14, 2016 in South China Morning Post
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And now another (very short piece) for the South China Morning Post, this time looking at the implications to Russia of the opening up of Iran and what this means for the Silk Road Economic Belt vision.

China’s new silk road is designed to cut Russia out of Eurasian trade

Raffaello Pantucci says the ‘One Belt, One Road’ trade initiative is likely to sideline Moscow and give Beijing the upper hand in their awkward relationship

PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 16 February, 2016, 2:00pm
UPDATED : Tuesday, 16 February, 2016, 2:00pm

China Tehran train

The first Chinese cargo train, following Iran-China efforts to revive the Silk Road, arrives in Tehran on February 15. The 32-container train arrived after a 14-day journey from northwestern China. Photo: EPA

President Xi Jinping’s ( 習近平 ) visit to Tehran – the first by a foreign leader since the lifting of sanctions – highlights the potential centrality of Iran to China’s broader regional foreign policy. The opening up of Iran, a country in which China has long maintained substantial interests, means Xi’s “One Belt, One Road” vision can now go cleanly across Eurasia without ever going through Russia. Moscow can be cut out.

Rouhani XJP

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani (left) shakes hands with President Xi Jinping in Tehran in January. Photo: Reuters

Visiting Tashkent, one can see the ancient routes laid out by the Timurid empire that constituted the ancient silk road. Rather than track through Russia, most would go below the Caspian and Black seas to reach Turkey and Europe. An iron silk road has been established that will track the old silk routes

Soon after Xi visited Tehran, a train laden with goods left Yiwu, Zhejiang province (浙江), headed to Tehran following this route. On February 10, it crossed the border from Turkmenistan and arrived in Iran this week. The Ukrainian minister of infrastructure announced at the same time that, by the end of the month, a direct rail line would open between Ukraine and China, cutting across Georgia, Azerbaijan, the Caspian Sea and Kazakhstan. An iron silk road has been established that will track the old silk routes.

Train carriage Tehran China

The first Chinese cargo train arrives in Tehran after passing through Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. Photo: EPA

Moscow has long been an awkward partner for Beijing and the question of how Russia fits into the belt and road vision was always unclear. Some incorrectly saw the Eurasian Economic Union as an effort by Moscow to push back on China’s dominance in Central Asia. This misinterprets both powers’ interests: Moscow is aiming to recreate a former space of control, while China is building trade corridors. For China, the existence of a common economic space with a single tariff barrier from its borders to the edges of Europe is a benefit to trade.

Putin and XJP Sochi

Russian President Vladimir Putin (right) and Xi Jinping meet in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi. Photo: AFP

The reality is that cutting a path across Russia is a long rail route that is only going to be attractive to high-value small objects which are still fairly limited in production volume in Xinjiang – and can now instead go along the route to Ukraine. Mass-produced, high-volume goods for which China is famous are much better placed going by sea to Europe. Unless, that is, the ultimate market is in the heart of the Eurasian continent. And this is where the route across Iran is interesting – connecting China’s markets directly to the bustling bazaars of the Middle East.

In paving an iron silk road, China is gradually reducing Moscow’s importance. This will further strengthen Beijing’s hand in their bilateral relationship and reduce Russia’s power on the international stage. Isolated by the West and increasingly sidelined by China, Moscow’s decline will only be highlighted by the opening of these new routes across Eurasia.

Raffaello Pantucci is director of international security studies at the Royal United Services Institute

India and China key partners in keeping Afghanistan stable

Posted: March 14, 2016 in Reuters
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It has been over a month since I posted anything here, but do not worry I have not been idle. To those who receive this via email, please forgive the coming blast as I want to catch up on myself a bit. Will save all the media discussions until the last one. First up is a short blogpost for Reuters about China-India-Afghanistan, very much building on the bigger project on the subject that have been a big focus of work for some time.

Tags:

afghanistan | china | India | Raffaello Pantucci | security | stability

A U.S. soldier from the 3rd Cavalry Regiment shields himself from the rotor wash of a UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter after being dropped off for a mission with the Afghan police near Jalalabad in the Nangarhar province of Afghanistan December 20, 2014. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson/Files

(Any opinions expressed here are those of the author and not necessarily those of Thomson Reuters)

Landlocked in the heart of Eurasia, Afghanistan sits in between superpowers. Previously this was Russia and the United Kingdom, using its territory as a chessboard across which they would plot intrigue against each other.

During more recent history, it became a covert battlefield between Russia and the United States as the wider ideological struggle between communism and capitalism was played out. Nowadays, however, a new momentum is building behind cooperation between two superpowers whose domestic security is linked to Afghanistan’s stability.

Beijing and Delhi’s ability to cooperate in Afghanistan is likely to be a key axis through which long-term Afghan stability will come.

Both China and India are already active players in Afghanistan. In November last year, Vice Premier Li Yuanchao visited Kabul and offered a package of $79 million for housing construction in the city. Just over a month later, Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the city to inaugurate the Indian built Parliament building.

China has taken an increasingly prominent role in helping broker peace talks between the warring factions in Afghanistan, while both countries have offered differing levels of support for Afghanistan’s security forces. China has provided the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) with non-lethal support while India has instead provided attack helicopters and discussed the idea of reviving arms factories with Russian support.

Both are major aid providers to Afghanistan and have played important roles in the so-called ‘Heart of Asia Process’, and while current commodity prices (and the current uncertain political and security situation) have made it less attractive at the moment, both are hosts to large state-owned extractives firms who have the capacity, scale and appetite to try to mine Afghanistan’s mineral wealth.

Chinese Vice President Li Yuanchao (L) and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani attend a signing ceremony of mutual agreements in Kabul, Afghanistan November 3, 2015. REUTERS/Ahmad Masood/Files

Both have similar interests in Afghanistan — an eagerness for the country to have a stable heart of its region — and both have enunciated a desire for any peace process in the nation to be Afghan-owned and Afghan-led. Whilst they might share extremely different relationships with key outside player Pakistan, they share a surprisingly concurrent view on some of the security problems within that country.

Cooperation between them at a more strategic level has long been moving in a positive direction – President Xi Jinping has made reaching out to India a priority, while Prime Minister Modi has reciprocated through a targeted effort to connect with China. Beyond rhetoric, joint counter-terrorism training exercises, positive border dispute discussions and cooperation on the Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) all show how this relationship is one that goes beyond geopolitical rhetoric.

Yet notwithstanding these similarities, cooperation and collaboration on Afghanistan has remained remarkably limited. There have been some discussions, but little action. Both have continued to undertake their efforts in parallel while they have laid out much larger visions for a broader pattern of regional engagement — China under Xi Jinping’s ‘Belt and Road’ vision while India through the Connect Central Asia strategy. But neither has particularly addressed the question of where Afghanistan fits into this, and have in fact enunciated visions that can go around Afghanistan.

For Beijing, the ‘Belt and Road’ can flow cleanly through Central Asia, across Russia or the Caspian to Europe, or go straight from Kashgar to Gwadar, turning Pakistan in a ‘corridor’ for Chinese goods. For Delhi, the investment into the Iranian port Chabahar can be read as an attempt to create a route for Indian interests and investments to get out of Central Asia bypassing Afghanistan. In other words, both are developing regional visions that can go around Afghanistan.

But at the same time, both realize that notwithstanding their ability to develop routes around the country, an unstable Afghanistan is going to be something that could destabilize the larger visions. And this is where greater cooperation is important. Focusing on playing a complementary role in supporting Afghanistan’s security forces through providing funding and undertaking niche training rather than solely the equipment provision they are currently undertaking would address a gap that the West is eventually going to want to stop providing.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi (L) shakes hands with the Afghan Chief Executive Officer Abdullah Abdullah in Kabul, Afghanistan December 25, 2015. REUTERS/Mohammad Ismail

Prime Minister Narendra Modi (L) shakes hands with the Afghan Chief Executive Officer Abdullah Abdullah in Kabul, Afghanistan December 25, 2015. REUTERS/Mohammad Ismail/Files

And this points to a larger question which China and India both seem to recognize bilaterally, but have not engaged with enough together. Both see that the West’s appetite and attention in Afghanistan is waning, and while this may irritate them and only serve to reinforce a belief in the fickle nature of Western foreign policy, it fails to resolve the fact that Afghanistan sits in their neighbourhood.

The age of competitive geopolitical games is by no means over, but in Afghanistan there are the outlines of a future cooperative relationship between two of Asia’s great emergent superpowers. Both have a key interest in Afghanistan and have a different set of relations with Kabul that if handled correctly could be complementary. Beijing and Delhi are already re-shaping the world through their sheer size and growing clout in international affairs — in their immediate neighbourhood they could direct this weight to help Afghanistan find some stability at the heart of Eurasia.