{"id":23591,"date":"2018-11-28T16:22:35","date_gmt":"2018-11-28T16:22:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=23591"},"modified":"2018-11-28T16:22:35","modified_gmt":"2018-11-28T16:22:35","slug":"syria-talks-on-fragile-idlib-truce-begin-in-kazakhstan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=23591","title":{"rendered":"Syria talks on fragile Idlib truce begin in Kazakhstan"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nBEIRUT: \u201cWhy is terrorism becoming more widespread and complex?\u201d That was the question posed by Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim, the general director of Lebanese General Security, to security experts from a dozen African nations during a conference organized by the Lebanese General Security Directorate in Beirut early this week.<\/p>\n

The two-day event, titled \u201cDefeat of Terrorism in the Region and its Impact on Africa,\u201d was attended by representatives of the security services in the Congo, Burkina Faso, Zambia, Tunisia, Angola, Nigeria, Tanzania, Central Africa, Cameroon, Togo, Niger and Benin, as well Lebanese officials and a number of diplomats, including the ambassadors of Russia, Tunisia, Oman and Egypt.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are more than 40 terrorist organizations and groups\u201d in Africa, according to Brig. Gen. Riad Taha, the head of the conference\u2019s organizing committee.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbout 600,000 Lebanese are present in the African continent, and through our work in the security services, we found out that there are terrorist networks in Lebanon that have links with terrorist organizations in Africa,\u201d he told Arab News. \u201cThey are trying to infiltrate the communities of their countries, in addition to the movement of armed terrorists to this continent in an attempt to form a large arch linking the Middle East to the west coast of Africa through the Horn of Africa in the east of the continent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Delegates at the conference discussed the direct and indirect causes of the development of terrorism in the Middle East, the environment in which it incubates, the circumstances surrounding the emergence of terrorist movements and their aims, funding and directions. It also discussed the fall of Daesh and the fate of members of terrorist movements.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe international community is called upon to stop giving instructions remotely and to move toward serious and equal engagement in the open battle which, if we do not win, the whole world will lose, not just a single nation or a single state,\u201d said Maj. Gen. Ibrahim.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe geographic location of the African countries helped transform their lands into a backyard for many terrorist groups that have settled in northern Africa. As they developed, they sought allies and followers in the east and west coast of Africa. They transferred their ideas and tools to the whole continent until terrorist groups, such as Boko Haram, Ansar Al-Din, Jihad and Tawhid, Mujahideen Youth Movement, Ansar Al-Muslimeen, Ansar Al-Islam, and the Lord\u2019s Resistance Army, along with Daesh and Al-Qaeda, settled in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said that the spread of terrorism on the African continent was due to \u201cthe qualitative change in the nature of the activities of terrorist groups, which have come to transcend the borders of countries and continents, and the success of these terrorist movements in employing the electronic industry in the service of its terrorist purposes at the levels of recruitment, media, electronic piracy and training.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maj. Gen. Ibrahim said the spread of terrorist groups to Africa was not unconnected to \u201cfactors of political and economic marginalization and tribal and ethnic conflicts in many African countries, which allowed the formation of \u2018hybrid terrorism\u2019 as a result of tribal hegemony with organized crime, and the intermingling of religious violence with tribal extremism.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said that \u201cpolitical will must be combined with the security administration to combat terrorism,\u201d and added: \u201cOur information indicates that terrorism, though weakened, has not faded and is still flexible. It is still capable of arming itself, acquiring technologies, using electronic platforms to recruit fighters and suicide bombers, planting extremist and violent ideas and launching attacks with simple weapons that are easy to get, including vehicle-ramming or individual attacks against commercial and tourist gatherings, to inflict the largest number of casualties. These operations are known as \u2018lone wolf\u2019 operations.\u201d<\/p>\n

He called for \u201cthe adoption of unified procedures for the exchange of intelligence, data, experiences and knowledge to achieve security and stability.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lebanese academic Jinane El-Khoury focused on \u201cthe transformation of terrorism from traditional terrorism to classic terrorism, then ballistic terrorism and recently to cyberterrorism.\u201d She drew a distinction between \u201cthose who carry out terrorism and those who finance them; they are usually organized criminal groups, and the funding for that is the proceeds of cross-border crimes.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said \u201cthere is no single objective definition of terrorism\u201d and talked about \u201cthe adoption of terrorism as a way to solve disputes and political differences.\u201d She noted that \u201cterrorism might also be financed in a legitimate way\u201d and that \u201cthe Boko Haram group is on Twitter now and is being followed by thousands.\u201d<\/p>\n

El-Khoury also spoke about the use of \u201celectronic means by terrorist groups, providing them with recruitment platforms, identifying potential targets, postal cooperation, collecting donations and destroying websites.\u201d<\/p>\n

Judge Jean Fahed, the head of Lebanon\u2019s Higher Judicial Council, discussed the experiences of the Lebanese judiciary with terrorism and the development of legislation to confront it since 1923.<\/p>\n

\u201cTerrorist acts were carried out by conventional means and developed into proactive actions,\u201d he said. Fahed revealed that 577 terrorism cases were presented to the Lebanese judiciary in 2017, compared with 27 in 2007. He pointed out that terrorists on trial refuse to hire lawyers to defend them, prolonging the legal process in the hope of taking advantage of a general amnesty. He also stressed that laws must be enacted to help protect witnesses.<\/p>\n

Malik Al-Asta, a Lebanese banker, explained the ways in which banks can help to combat terrorism by preventing the spread of funding for terrorist acts and money laundering. As a result, he said, \u201ccharities are classified by banks as \u2018highly risky\u2019 clients until proven otherwise.\u201d<\/p>\n

The audience at the event raised many questions for the speakers. Some stressed the need to strike a balance in protecting human rights while fighting terrorism, while others asked about websites in the \u201cdeep web\u201d which are not blocked despite being very dangerous, while more public sites in the \u201csurface web\u201d are pursued and blocked. The danger posed by the \u201cdark web\u201d was also stressed because \u201cno one knows what is in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Internal cohesion is a necessity to prevent the disintegration of states, said Masoud Al-Dahir, a professor of history at the Lebanese University.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe may have entered into the era of barbaric globalization, because the element of power and domination is overwhelming,\u201d he told Arab News. \u201cThere are countries that are able to protect themselves, while other countries have their economies and systems destroyed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn today\u2019s world, there is no independent state or nation capable of confronting huge financial monopolies. The middle class has declined all over the world, except for internally cohesive countries.\u201d<\/p>\n

Al-Dahir said there he is unaware of any example in history of anything similar to what is happening now.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the past, the system of values ruled people,\u201d he said. \u201cToday, it is governed by the law of the jungle. Production is no longer competing with production. Where are the ideas of the French Revolution and sustainable development?<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the past, big tribes used to protect smaller tribes. Nowadays, powerful states eat the weaker ones. Unless active forces move to stop the bullying, and unless we are united internally, we will proceed in the way of international disintegration, and terrorism will hit a different country every day.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BEIRUT: \u201cWhy is terrorism becoming more widespread and complex?\u201d That was the question posed by Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim, the general director of Lebanese General Security, to security experts from a dozen African nations during a conference organized by the Lebanese General Security Directorate in Beirut early this week. The two-day event, titled \u201cDefeat of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":23592,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23591\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}