Daily Times

In the UK, every year, the fluctuation of our security threat level become questionable when new jihadist networks are introduced to communities here. These security threat levels remain irksome as we have been unable to tackle the threat of radicalisation and extremism. They are sometimes high, sometimes potential and sometimes severe, but no permanent solution has been sought to professionally tackle threatening ideologies. We are living in fear and do not feel secure as these elements are openly dancing in our streets. They are also involved in serious organised crime to generate funds for the military operations conducted by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the Taliban or Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (LeT).

Organised crime has deeply affected our financial market while the National Crime Agency (NCA) and police have failed to prevent narco-smugglers and criminal mafia groups from ruining the lives of our communities across the country. The issue is very serious as jihadists are returning from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh with a new zeal and radicalised Salafist ideology. There are 500 UK citizens fighting for ISIS. The man who beheaded a US journalist, a UK national in Iraq, was one of them. We have another newly converted man who beheaded an 82-year-old woman in London last week.

This is a new Taliban-style killing tradition introduced to the UK recently. This way of killing frightens the entire population. With the arrival of these radicalised young jihadists and perhaps the awakening of jihadists already associated with the sleeper networks of international terrorist and domestic extremist groups, security and law enforcement agencies will face the real ordeal of maintaining stability in the near future. The changing threat level, return of control order and the new amendment to the national security document indicate that the government has failed to tackle the crisis of domestic radicalisation. Short term fixes and patch-up jobs are not enough. Real zeal and real solutions are urgently needed.

The National Security Strategy (NSS) has given priority to counterterrorism and information warfare but there is a gap between the priorities of the government and the private sector. In order to meet the needs of the private sector, the government needs to evolve policies to combat the changing security threat in our country. In 2011, the government updated the strategy of counterterrorism that focuses on four specific areas. The strategy stresses the need to stop terror attacks and the people who support them. The four key areas are: pursue, prevent, protect and prepare (PPPP). After the killing of a British soldier in East London, priorities changed and a new counterterrorism strategy was introduced to tackle domestic radicalisation.

Prime Minister David Cameron introduced a new strategy called the Tackling Extremism and Radicalisation Task Force (TERFOR) but failed to deliver positively. Extremist and radicalised elements continue to participate in overseas jihadist operations. Moreover, the PPPP strategy has also failed to intercept UK jihadists from joining ISIS and Taliban networks. The scale of danger posed by extremists in and outside the country was underlined when jihadists threatened to kill non-Muslims in the streets of the UK. The returnees will be kept under surveillance as the government still looks for a community based de-radicalisation programme. How is this possible as the government has never consulted communities on counterterrorism strategies and law enforcement mechanisms? In addition, the government is also thinking on different lines to restore control order. The idea of control order has already failed. Unless these extremist returnees are de-radicalised on the community level, no TERFOR or control order can intercept them from joining the ISIS terrorist network.

Moreover, we also face the threat of cyber terrorism. This threat is violent and damaging. No doubt, the GCHQ is the best professional intelligence agency but we are unable to counter the threat of Chinese, Russian or Indian cyber attacks as we still need to recruit young information warriors. They have established strong cyber forces respectively that use modern technologies of the kind we do not have. When we failed to counter cyber attacks professionally, we made more amendments to cyber laws and Computer Misuse Act, under which hackers who threaten the UK’s national security face life imprisonment. The fact of the matter is that hackers or cyber warriors target us from a safe distance. How can we arrest them? We need to undermine those who target us from within the country. The UK Cyber Security Strategy (2011) also notes that cyber threats come from other states that seek to conduct espionage with the aim of spying on or compromising our government, military, industrial and economic assets, as well as monitoring opponents of their own regimes.

The threat to national security has intensified as information warriors directly challenge us. According to the UK Home Office’s recent report: “A major cyber attack on essential networks such as the national grid, police computers or supermarkets’ distribution systems could trigger severe social disruption.” Under the new Serious Crime Bill, cyber attacks that cause loss of life, serious illness, injury, or serious damage to national security, will carry a life sentence. Moreover, cyber attacks that cause environmental and financial damage will carry a 14-year prison sentence. The irony is that we have failed to arrest a single cyber terrorist so far, while professional cyber warriors continue to establish their networks here and target state institutions. We are already facing a new kind of intelligence war in the UK that targets our institutions from a safe distance. We also face the threat of nuclear terrorism. Extremists and terrorists can gain access to nuclear materials like uranium and plutonium to make an improvised explosive device and use it against our critical infrastructure. In fact, the threat of the availability of nuclear material has intensified as technologies and capabilities proliferate. We can easily find ourselves in a far more dangerous world. We hope that, one day, the GCHQ will push back the enemy to its frontiers.

The writer is author of The Crisis of Britain’s Surveillance State and can be reached at zai.musakhan222@gmail.com