Helping to prevent the consolidation of a jihadist condominium in northern Mali, including support for regionally concerted military action, should lead Europeans to reflect on their own responsibility in the growth of terrorism in the area.
Pragmatism, flexibility and effectiveness replace normativism, formalism and legitimacy as the founding principles of international security. Changes from multipolarity towards multinodality are challenging traditional mindsets, theories and mentalities.
Between April and June of 2012 three Jihadist organisations have managed to jointly impose their rigorist Islamist control over some 1.5 million inhabitants in northern Mali, a vast desert area of around 850,000 square kilometres between Mauritania, Algeria and Niger.
This Working Paper offers an insight to understand the political ramifications of the news coverage of violence in Mexico. It shows that drug trafficking organisations have important goals related to the media, the impact of news on public opinion and the consequent influence over policy making.
Arguably, the more likely route by which terrorists might gain access to nuclear or other WMD capabilities is not through the possible collaboration between ‘rogue states’ and terrorist groups but through theft from improperly-secured sites in countries like Pakistan.
While it is premature to draw conclusions, there are reasons to believe that the events of the Arab Awakening are not triggering a wave of radicalisation among European Muslims but might actually decrease it.
The entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty and the launch of the European External Action Service are an opportunity to introduce reporting and assessment mechanisms to render CSDP (Common Security and Defence Policy) missions more democratically legitimate and accountable.
Legal, social and religious reforms shape Morocco’s counter-terrorism. Though the policy has worked, in general, there have been reversals with human rights shortcomings and corruptions which affect these reforms. Returning to reform in counterterrorism should involve the Moroccan public.
With growing instability across the Arab world, it has become de rigueur to argue that the primary al-Qaeda threat now comes from the Persian Gulf or North Africa. While these regions certainly present a threat to Western security, al-Qaeda’s primary command and control structure remains situated in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border regions.
Remarks by Joseph Mutaboba, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Guinea-Bissau, on the peace-building priorities in this country at the Elcano Royal Institute (Madrid) on16 February 2011.
The failure of counterintelligence to prevent and pre-emptively disrupt terrorist plans and networks is highlighted in this paper as the single most critical flaw highlighted by the Domodedovo attack and other recent terrorist incidents in Russia.