Terrorism, Law and Policy

A Comparative Study

David Lowe

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781000568141
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Derecho
• Subtopic: Derecho internacional

Terrorism, Law and Policy: A Comparative Study is a textbook offering a comparative study of the terrorism-related legislation, policy and practice introduced from international governmental bodies such as the UN and the European Union, and individual states, with a focus on Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the US. It offers a uniquely legal perspective on key themes relating to terrorism and security.

This new edition is brought fully up to date with the ever-changing developments in terrorist activity, as well as in states' approaches to anti-terrorism legislation and policy. It includes new chapters on the far-right and extreme far-right cause, one on offering a comparative study of the anti-terrorism policies of states and international bodies, and the role of international and national counter-terrorism agencies, planning and preparing acts of terrorism and a new chapter on freedom of expression, hate crime and proscribing groups as terrorist organisations.

Terrorism, Law and Policy: A Comparative Study is ideally suited for terrorism and security modules at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, and will also be of interest to practitioners working on the legal aspects of these areas.

Part I
Current terrorist threats

Chapter 1 Islamist-inspired terrorist groups

DOI: 10.4324/9781003195627-2

Topics covered in this chapter:

1. If there is a difference between old and new terrorism;
2. Overview of Al Qaeda;
3. Overview of Al Shabaab;
4. Overview of Islamic State;
5. Case study – Islamic State in Russia;
6. Overview of Boko Haram and growth of Islamic State groups in Africa and Afghanistan.

At the end of this chapter you will:

1. Understand how and why Al Qaeda were formed and what the group’s cause is;
2. Understand how and why Al Shabaab were formed and what the group’s cause is;
3. Understand how and why Islamic State were formed and what the group’s cause is;
4. Assess how and why Islamist groups pose a threat to states’ security.

Introduction

This and the next two chapters cover the development of terrorist groups, with the focus of this chapter on Islamists groups. Beginning with a discussion on the meaning behind the terms ‘old’ and ‘new’ terrorism, this chapter examines the growth and influence of the Islamist groups that have posed the greater danger to Western states’ national security, namely Al Qaeda, Islamic State (Daesh) and Al Shabaab.

Terrorism: It is not a new phenomenon brought about by Al Qaeda in 2001

The impact of 9/11 on people’s psyche

Terrorism has become an increasingly popular area of research and academic study mainly due to governmental responses following the Islamist group Al Qaeda’s attack on the USA in September 2001 (commonly referred to as 9/11), which Manning observes exemplifies how politics and political interest shapes research.¹ It is understandable why terrorism has become such a popular topic in recent academic work, as Manning points out the Al Qaeda attack made a distant spectral reality a closer and more threatening idea, saying:

The imagery of terror is media created, since few people actually saw people leaping to their death or the collapse of the Towers. Yet it seems real and is part of a political spectacle … While the powerful and immediate imagery of the Twin Towers being hit, the people fleeing, others jumping to certain death from buildings, the exhausted fire-fighters and the Twin Lights monument opened in New York in March 2002 all suggest that what we saw was a reality, a palpable natural event.²

It was a live event that was witnessed by millions around the world on their television screens, and once the second aircraft flew into the World Trade Centre’s towers, the horror of a terrorist attack became a reality in the minds of those watching. As the planning, sophistication and sheer effrontery of the attack unfolded there was an immediate terror effect that this could happen by persons hijacking aircraft and flying them into targets. Added to this was the shock that this was the first attack on the US mainland by a foreign national since the British in 1814, when they burnt down the White House.³ On this occasion, Evans states Al Qaeda destroyed an equally as important symbol of the US, the twin tower blocks of the World Trade Centre,⁴ the Pentagon⁵ and whether Al Qaeda would have emulated the British in 1814 with the United Airline Flight 93 by destroying the White House we will never know, but it is believed that was the target of that aircraft. Since the 9/11 attacks we have witnessed many other Islamist-based attacks around the world, including Al Qaeda-inspired attacks in Bali 2002 that killed 202 people from 21 countries, including 88 Australians, 38 Indonesians and 28 Britons;⁶ Madrid 2004 bombing, killing 191 and injuring up to 1,800 people;⁷ and London 2005 bombing, killing 52 and injuring over 700 people.⁸ With both the breadth of countries attacked and the high casualty rates, it is understandable that there has been the perception that terrorism has been a recent twenty-first-century phenomenon.

Origins of terrorism and examples of conflicts pre-9/11

Studies have revealed that terrorist campaigns have been carried out for over 150 years. The term ‘terrorism’ can be traced to the French Revolution period of 1793–1794 where in a French dictionary the term was used in a positive sense regarding the state’s systematic reign of terror. By the early nineteenth century the term ‘terrorism’ began to be associated with criminal implications.⁹ Laqueur traces acts of terrorism back to 1880 with the Russian Narodnaya Volya group which had its roots in 1878 and fought against the Tsarist regime which it saw as tyrannical and brutal against the masses in Russia¹⁰ and the Irish Fenian movement in 1880 whose aim was the end of British rule in Ireland.¹¹

It was of course the Fenian movement that brought about the formation of the first policing department solely dedicated to counter a terrorist threat, the Special Branch in England in 1883, whose remit was to combat the Fenian bombings in London. Originally called the Special Irish branch, by 1888 the word ‘Irish’ was dropped as the department’s role developed it was clear the Special Branch’s role was not limited to Irish insurgency.¹² Arguably one could go back even further to the 1800–1812 period, with the Luddites in England who destroyed factories, as this was a political and social conflict where factories were seen as places of exploitation and at stake for the Luddites was that they saw the factories as reducing the artisan to a dependent state. They were protecting their way of life as well as their own independent livelihoods as the machines in the factories were a means of oppression on the part of the rich and of corresponding degradation and misery to the poor.¹³ It can be argued that the UK took advantage of the terrorist tactics of guerrilla warfare in the Peninsula Wars 1809–1813 where the Commander-in-Chief of the British Army, Duke of Wellington utilised the Spanish guerrillas who were credited with eliminating between 400,000–500,000 French soldiers.¹⁴

Chaliand traces international terrorism to 1968 with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) hijacking of an El Al Israeli airline aircraft which was forced to land in Rome. He sees this action as the birth of what would today be termed as international terrorism.¹⁵ In more recent times in Europe we have seen the activity of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) in Northern Ireland wanting to bring an end to British rule in the Province, which started in 1969¹⁶ and ended in 1997,¹⁷ and in Spain with Euzkadi ta Azkazatuna (Eta), where Eta demanded the creation of an independent Basque state with Basque as its official language where its campaign started in earnest in 1975.¹⁸Although Eta has ceased their activity in the Basque region, dissident Irish republican groups are still active in the north of Ireland, but nowhere on the scale as seen with PIRA during the Irish Troubles. While nationalist groups only impact upon one, maybe two national states, the Islamist groups have become the common enemy of many states, bringing those states together to deal with them. The activities of Al Qaeda and other Islamic groups are only part of the history of terrorist activity, but what appears to bring them to greater prominence is the imagery of the 9/11 attacks, which was global in its reporting due to the modern media technology and global in the nature of the attack, as Al Qaeda do not represent one single nation, they claim to represent a global faith, Islam.

Is there a difference between old and new terrorism?

Spencer supports the argument that there is no ‘old’ and ‘new’ terrorism. He points out that, in their desire to distinguish between ‘old’ and ‘new’, for the proponent of the ‘new terrorism’ the motivations of terrorists have changed due to the growth of religious fundamentalism. Key here is that the most important defining characteristic of the new terrorist is religion.¹⁹ Gunaratna is a proponent of there being a new terrorism. He says Al Qaeda is an example of this, where Al Qaeda has operational linked associates in the Muslim world.²⁰ Although not necessarily a conflict based on religious differences, in the UK the Provisional IRA (PIRA) had links in the Roman Catholic world. PIRA members were mainly Catholics and their safe houses based in England were supplied by English Roman Catholics sympathetic to their cause. Also, as Spencer points out, PIRA had close links and were partly motivated by religion (Catholicism) as were PIRA’s opponents the Ulster Volunteer Force and the Ulster Freedom Fighters who were predominantly Protestant.²¹ Even though there appears to be a religious divide between Irish republican and loyalist groups, their conflict was carried out under a political cause. In essence, it is important to note that terrorism has been present in the world prior to 9/11 and there is no difference between an old or new terrorism, as the results of terrorist action have always killed and injured people. The only differentiation to decide on is what is the ideology is that drives a group’s cause.

Points for reflection

1. Why is it thought that there is a difference between a perceived old and new terrorism?
2. What impact has 9/11 had in the psyche of citizens in relation to terrorism?

Acknowledging there are many more groups in this category than this section covers, the main focus is on the three predominant Islamist groups, Al Qaeda, Al Shabaab, Islamic State (IS).

Al Qaeda

Al Qaeda was established in 1988 by Osama bin Laden. A Saudi Arabian national coming from a wealthy family, bin Laden helped to finance, recruit, transport and train mainly Sunni Islamic recruits initially to fight the Soviet Union’s armed forces in Afghanistan.²² After uniting various Islamic factions to fight a defensive jihad against the Soviets,²³ following the Soviet Union’s withdrawal of its armed forces in Afghanistan, bin Laden was concerned by the way in which national and ethnic divisions reasserted themselves strongly among the volunteers.²⁴ Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990 resulted in a coalition of armed forces, including US and European military, joining alongside Arab states’ armed forces basing themselves in Saudi Arabia to fight in this Gulf War. It was the fact that US and European militaries were based in Saudi Arabia that gave bin Laden another reason to unite Islamist factions and start another holy war. The main reason for this was the Saudi government’s rebuff of bin Laden’s offer to have his warriors join Saudi forces to fight alongside the Saudi government’s forces to remove Iraqi forces from Kuwait. Saudi Arabia’s preference to invite US and European forces to set up bases on Saudi Arabian territory resulted in the next phase in the growth of Al Qaeda.²⁵

As a consequence of this, in August 1996 Osama bin Laden announced that Al Qaeda was declaring war on the US. This war is still ongoing and for Al Qaeda it w...