Kazan, Russia:

Prime Minister Narendra Modi emphasised the need for unified action against terrorism at the 16th BRICS Summit. He stressed that combating terrorism requires “single-minded” focus and “firm-support” of all nations. He asserted that “double-standards” have no place in addressing this global challenge.

He also highlighted how important it is to stop radicalisation of young people and urged action to counter terrorism and terror financing. These remarks come after China had blocked several proposals at the United Nations to designate Pakistan-based terrorists.

“We must work together on the long-pending matter in the UN of the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism,” PM Modi said. He also added that work needs to be done on global regulations for cyber security and for safe AI.

Furthermore, he spoke about the expansion of the BRICS forum. “India is ready to welcome new countries into BRICS as partner countries,” he said.

He also emphasised that decisions should be taken by consensus and the views of BRICS founding members should be respected.

He advocated the compliance of guiding principles, standards, criteria and procedures adopted during last year’s Johannesburg summit, by all members and countries and said that BRICS is an organisation willing to evolve with time.

He concluded by saying that BRICS should be an exemplary organisation for the world, and that they should raise their voice for reforms in global organisations in a collective and united manner but also ensuring that they avoid any perceptions that they are “trying to replace global institutions, instead of being perceived as one that wishes to reform them”.
 

When members of Al-Qaeda flew commercial jetliners into New York’s World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, the idea of who was a terrorist crystallised for the world. But, 23 years on, the reality is there is no one “kind” of terrorist. As security forces around the world grapple with myriad threats from all manner of groups, an essential agreement on who the opponent is becomes crucial.

An effective definition of terrorism is necessary to provide the operational rules of engagement to national security agencies and, at an international level, to facilitate combined efforts based on the shared perspective of peace and war, of friends and enemies, of the threat scenarios.

Good, evil and the terrorist

A person is a terrorist because of what they do, not because of what they believe, and for their actions, they are prosecuted.

Discussing terrorism on the theoretical level of  “good and evil” is counterproductive and pointless. Even if we all agree that terrorism is the expression of evil, it is not possible to reach an agreement on who the terrorists are.

This is because the category of evil, in today’s fragmented world, is understandable only at a local level, difficult to share outside one’s cultural boundaries. Evil as a concept depends on cultural perspectives and therefore it cannot lead to a definition of terrorism based on an objective assessment of damages and threats.

Furthermore, in a world of conflict, the same effect can be generated by terrorists, insurgents, freedom fighters, and other groups using violence and doing the same thing, for different reasons, with a different label.  

The whole question about the “good or evil” of an action depends on the reasons that motivate that action, so again it is a vague criterion. The acceptance or rejection of actions cannot depend on the value of “good or evil”, nor on the reasons that generate them.

So this is one more reason to change how we measure terrorism, forgetting “good and evil”, instead focusing on the results of terrorism, banning its effects we cannot accept. Those effects, unlike the ideas that constitute motivations, can be counted and measured.  When “an act of terrorism is such because of the effects that the act generates, and not because of the causes that drove it”, then the way is open for all to agree to a common counter strategy to terrorism.

Defining terrorism

Ten years after 9-11, Alex P. Schmid, Distinguished Fellow at the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT) and Director of the Terrorism Research Initiative (TRI), collected the opinions of dozens of experts to arrive at a scientific definition of terrorism for the 21st century.

The result has been a long list of characteristics, among which the objective of “terrorising” is emphasised, identifying communication as a specific element of terrorism, and the use of violence, indiscriminately directed towards “civilian” targets.

This plethora of definitions makes it difficult to come up with a common operational perspective for countering terrorism threats.  

Unfortunately, too many definitions of terrorism, refer to the experience around this phenomenon gained in a world that no longer exists.

Italy is a fine example of this.

A history of violence

Italy is notorious for the violence it experienced during the last 30 years of the 20th century from groups on the far left, such as the Brigate Rosse (Red Brigades) to those on the far right (Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari) along with the mafia and other organised crime.

Italy experienced violent political terrorism that wanted to change the state to affirm another idea of the state.

Counterterrorism laws that still address the phenomenon were created based on that experience.

However, today’s terrorism no longer has anything to do with the terrorism of that time. So old regulatory tools are still used to regulate a phenomenon that has changed.

This means that for an effective, updated response to terrorism, we have to go back to identifying the phenomenon as it appears today, asking the basic question: “What is terrorism?”.

In recent years, terrorism has proven to be flexible, adaptable and opportunistic. It is very skilled in exploiting an enemy’s vulnerabilities and from this ability it gains strength.

Europol, in the TE-SAT Terrorism Situation and Trend Report 2023, lists current terrorism types and dangerous groups, and warns that “the lines between different types of terrorism, including right-wing, left-wing, anarchist, jihadist, and other ideologies, are likely to become more blurred in the future”.

Europol unlights that points of convergence have already been observed among terrorist and violent extremists across the whole ideological spectrum.

Salad Bar terrorism

Ideologically today one can talk about Salad Bar terrorism (or Mixed Ideology terrorism), where the ideological dimension is present, but it is articulated according to a personal taste, to justify the choice of violent affirmation of one’s ideas.

Yet, the actual reasons for terrorism can be found in terrorism itself as a choice and action. They lie in the conviction terrorists have that only violence can change a situation already irrecoverable, urgent, and dramatic. The personalised ideology terrorists create for themselves is the justification for the terrorist action and not the real motivation.

In this framework, recruitment and propaganda are strategic pieces of the ideological puzzle: ideas are to be reassembled according to a flexible and adaptable image that constitutes the scenario in which the terrorist’s violence will be expressed.  

This fragmentation is the main feature of terrorism affecting young people’s identities (since young people are the main victims of terrorist propaganda and recruitment).  A fragmentation where geographical, political and cultural borders are no longer useful, reorganised by the global network of communication technologies.  

More than ideology

The first challenge that comes out is the need to reconsider the meaning of nation and state.

The paths that can lead to terrorism are many and this is why the definition of terrorism based on reasons and motivations does not work: the unpredictable Salad Bar Ideology offers many ways to become a terrorist.  

Ideologies no longer provide sufficient analytical categories to identify and, subsequently, prevent threats effectively. The reasons that drive radicalization today are multiple and come from various inputs.  

A good example of the failure to adequately address terrorism today is the numerous tools developed by law enforcement to identify potential terrorists are the so-called Terrorist Risk Assessment Instruments.  

All these have, so far, led to poor results, because they are based on the wrong assumptions of continuity, linearity, and ideal coherence, while today’s Salad Bar Terrorism offers a circular route, rapid and unpredictable, always original for everyone.  

For example, the Australian Institute of Criminology recently released a report on the use of four risk assessment tools designed to gauge the threat posed by radicalised offenders and, in some cases, justify them being held behind bars or closely supervised after their sentences have been served.  

The AIC report found there was a “relative lack of research into the efficacy of these tools”, something it found was a “barrier to their use and undermines confidence in expert assessments that rely on these tools”.

There are often no credible signs to identify the “typical terrorist” until it is too late.

Today, a more effective method for identifying a potential terrorist risk could be adopting a so-called “Digital Humint” approach, which analyses both the “real” and “virtual” dimensions together, exploring not only the network of offline relationships and habits but also the social media ecosystem and chat rooms.

A new approach

A new approach, abandoning the ideological dimension as a founding dimension of terrorism is pivotal and it means “an act of terrorism is such for the effects that this act generates, not for the causes that drove it”.  

This approach is not just backed up by the previous empirical results and failures of counterterrorism efforts. It also has a theoretical foundation from the field of crisis management, where a crisis is defined as an event whose effects are not controlled by a system.  

It also has a practical basis, in seeking an agreement on “what terrorism is” by referring to the effects, to the damage caused, for which an objective assessment can be agreed.  This is in total alignment with the needs of the criminal justice system and legal framework.

In the EU, terrorism is defined by its aims to: “a) seriously intimidating a population; b) unduly compelling a government or an international organisation to perform or abstain from performing any act; c) seriously destabilising or destroying the fundamental political, constitutional, economic or social structures of a country or an international organisation”, without any reference to a typology of ideological motivations.

Terrorism is no longer what it used to be, but those who fight terrorism have not realised this. Bold decisions have to be made to abandon obsolete approaches and tools that cannot deliver any more results.  

What worked 50 years ago to fight terrorism in the 70s and 80s is irrelevant today, because contemporary terrorism bears little resemblance to its previous expressions. After all, human society has changed. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

It was around 8:30 or 9 in the evening on the last day of 1999. I was in Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark, and was visiting a fellow Bihari friend, Tabish Khair – now an established novelist and poet – to celebrate the New Year festivities. While waiting for others to get ready, I switched on the TV to get an update on IC 814, an Indian Airlines plane hijacked eight days earlier with 155 passengers on board. The news was that the terrible saga had ended, and all passengers had been freed. But, of course, their freedom was secured in exchange for the release of three terrorists. 

Two of them released from jail were known in India – Maulana Masood Azhar (founder of terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed) and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar (Al Umar Mujahideen). But except the police and intelligence agencies, only a few had heard of the third person: Omar Saeed Sheikh. Just two years later, Sheikh would become infamous worldwide for kidnapping and beheading a US journalist. He also nearly caused a diplomatic crisis between India and Pakistan following the November 26 terror attacks in Mumbai in 2008.

The Kidnapping Of 3 Westerners

The Netflix web series IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack has sparked a controversy over names and the portrayal of a few of the hijackers. But it has taken me back to my chance encounter with Sheikh. 

The year was 1994. My cameraman and I were out to cover a story for a Delhi-based TV channel; it was going through dry runs before the launch. We had barely reached Ghaziabad when we witnessed elaborate security arrangements outside a private hospital. The road was cordoned off. We were told that a terrorist was admitted to the hospital after being wounded in a police encounter in Saharanpur the previous night, during which a police inspector had been shot dead.

Security was tighter inside the hospital. But some smooth-talking with an amiable Uttar Pradesh ‘daroga ji‘ did the trick. He allowed us in on the condition that we would brief him on our conversation with the man inside, Omar Sheikh, whose English accent, he admitted, he did not understand. We rolled the camera as we entered the room, not knowing who Sheikh was and how big a catch he was for the police. The only piece of information we had was that the injured man had kidnapped three Britons and an American in Delhi and hid them in a house in Saharanpur on their way to Kashmir. He had told his captives that his name was Rohit Sharma, and that he was taking them to his quaint ancestral village in Kashmir. But when a Saharanpur police patrol party stumbled upon the captives, a shootout ensued. A police inspector was killed, and Sheikh got injured. All the captives though were freed.

Omar Sheikh, The London-Born, LSE-Educated Terrorist

The hospital was posh, Sheikh’s room big and clean. He lay in bed with a bandage around his right shoulder. The camera was rolling as we came face to face with a tall and bearded young man, propped up against hospital pillows, looking puzzled and befuddled. His first reaction was to shout a barrage of questions at us, “Who are you, why are you here, who has sent you?”. 

We asked for an interview, but he refused to speak to us in protest because he said he had no prior notice we were going to do an interview with him. He relented after I produced my press ID card. Before the interview began, he told us his name and that he was 20 years old. He was a student at the prestigious London School of Economics (LSE). He also said he was born in London and was raised both there and in Lahore. His Pakistani immigrant parents lived in London, where they ran a clothes business. 

During the half-hour interview, Sheikh Omar looked extremely worried. He told me he would give anything to return to life in Britain. He also kept pleading with me, “Brother, take me out of here, please.” During the interview, he revealed how at the age of 18, he had already done ‘jihad’ in Bosnia, fighting alongside and on behalf of Bosnian Muslims, who, he said, were being butchered by the Serbs. He was strikingly young and his accent was distinctly British. I thought he had the gift of the gab. I am not surprised he managed to lure foreign tourists and later, in 2002, used the same trick to lure American journalist Daniel Pearl into captivity.

Fooled by Extremists

He also recounted how he had been indoctrinated on the campus by an Islamist organisation that wanted to establish an Islamic society in Britain. He said he had been fooled by the hard-luck stories he had heard about the plight of Muslims and Kashmiris in India. 

Sheikh admitted that he was charged with kidnapping some foreign tourists to barter for Maulana Masood Azhar, who was then held in prison in India. He also admitted that he had been in Delhi for more than a month before the kidnapping and was struck by the religious freedom he saw. “I had been told that Muslims in India had no religious rights and Kashmiri Muslims were being subjected to torture and rape by the Hindu army,” he said.

I asked him, if released, would he go back and tell people in Britain that Indian Muslims were free to build mosques, say prayers, and work in government offices? He said he would. He appeared repentant, but clearly not enough.

Meeting Masood Azhar

Why Omar Sheikh chose the path of destruction was hard to say. He was exposed to Islamist extremism at a tender age. But that doesn’t fully explain the path he chose early in his life. He was privileged. He went to the private Forest School in London – the same school former cricketer Nasser Hussain studied in. But while Sheikh became a terrorist, Hussain went on to become the captain of the England cricket team. 

At LSE, Sheikh was known for his academic brilliance, especially in maths and economics. But he dropped out before completing his degree to join the ‘jihad’ in Bosnia. It is reported that he met a couple of Pakistani “fighters” there, who introduced him to Maulana Masood Azhar upon his return to Pakistan. He trained in both Pakistan and Afghanistan.

After his release, it’s unclear where Sheikh went in Pakistan. According to some Pakistani papers, he lived in Lahore, where he married a local woman and had a child.

Until this time, Omar Sheikh was known mostly to Indian investigators and intelligence communities. His name cropped up at the time of his release in December 1999 from Tihar, but outside of India, he remained unknown. 

The Kidnapping Of Daniel Pearl

That changed after the kidnapping of American journalist Daniel Pearl. Suddenly, everyone wanted to know who Sheikh was. A foreign media outlet published my encounter with him, and I was inundated with requests for interviews by the Western media. 

Sheikh was found guilty of kidnapping and murdering Pearl. He was given a death sentence, which was later turned into life imprisonment. According to a respected Pakistani journalist, who met a prison officer where Sheikh was lodged, Omar was shuttled regularly between Karachi and Hyderabad jails, spending a fortnight in each. The officer told the journalist that it was necessitated by the fact that he used his gift of the gab and often cast his spell on prison officials, who would then do him favours, like smuggling cellphones. 

When Sheikh Posed As Pranab Mukherjee

It is precisely this gift that once landed the authorities into hot water and led to a near diplomatic crisis between India and Pakistan. A year after the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, Karachi’s Dawn newspaper ran an investigative story claiming that Sheikh had called the Pakistani President at the time, Asif Zardari, claiming to be India’s then-foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee. It was reported that he used unparliamentary language on the call and threatened Zardari with dire consequences for the Mumbai attacks. The English daily claimed, “Omar Saeed Sheikh, a detained Pakistani militant, had made hoax calls to President Asif Ali Zardari and the Chief of Army Staff, Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, in a bid to heighten Pakistan-India tensions after last year’s terrorist attacks on Mumbai, investigators have told Dawn.”

A diplomatic crisis was averted after the call was traced to his cell in Hyderabad jail. The cell was raided, and it was found that Sheikh used a British SIM card to make the threatening calls.

Despite Daniel Pearl’s wife, Mariane Pearl, writing a book, titled A Mighty Heart, and despite the book being made into a Hollywood film with the same title, the story of Omar Sheikh remains shrouded in mystery. In dozens of court appearances, he often appeared affable and charming, but not a lot of his terror connections have been confirmed.

Omar Sheikh Is Still A Mystery

Former dictator Pervez Musharraf called him a British spy in his autobiography. Omar himself boasted of his deep links to Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in his off-the-cuff remarks to journalists during court hearings. He was known to have good relations with Jaish-e-Mohammed’s Maulana Masood Azhar and Lashkar-e-Toiba’s Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi. Some journalists, who investigated the roles terror outfits played in the  9/11 attacks, claimed he was an operative of Al-Qaeda.

Omar is being held in jail despite his release order by the Supreme Court in Pakistan. It is believed the country has kept him in prison after re-arresting him because of international pressure. But some also claim that he is better off in jail, lest he reveal too much.

(Syed Zubair Ahmed is a London-based senior Indian journalist with three decades of experience with the Western media)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author

It was around 8:30 or 9 in the evening on the last day of 1999. I was in Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark, and was visiting a fellow Bihari friend, Tabish Khair – now an established novelist and poet – to celebrate the New Year festivities. While waiting for others to get ready, I switched on the TV to get an update on IC 814, an Indian Airlines plane hijacked eight days earlier with 155 passengers on board. The news was that the terrible saga had ended, and all passengers had been freed. But, of course, their freedom was secured in exchange for the release of three terrorists. 

Two of them released from jail were known in India – Maulana Masood Azhar (founder of terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed) and Mushtaq Ahmed Zargar (Al Umar Mujahideen). But except the police and intelligence agencies, only a few had heard of the third person: Omar Saeed Sheikh. Just two years later, Sheikh would become infamous worldwide for kidnapping and beheading a US journalist. He also nearly caused a diplomatic crisis between India and Pakistan following the November 26 terror attacks in Mumbai in 2008.

The Kidnapping Of 3 Westerners

The Netflix web series IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack has sparked a controversy over names and the portrayal of a few of the hijackers. But it has taken me back to my chance encounter with Sheikh. 

The year was 1994. My cameraman and I were out to cover a story for a Delhi-based TV channel; it was going through dry runs before the launch. We had barely reached Ghaziabad when we witnessed elaborate security arrangements outside a private hospital. The road was cordoned off. We were told that a terrorist was admitted to the hospital after being wounded in a police encounter in Saharanpur the previous night, during which a police inspector had been shot dead.

Security was tighter inside the hospital. But some smooth-talking with an amiable Uttar Pradesh ‘daroga ji‘ did the trick. He allowed us in on the condition that we would brief him on our conversation with the man inside, Omar Sheikh, whose English accent, he admitted, he did not understand. We rolled the camera as we entered the room, not knowing who Sheikh was and how big a catch he was for the police. The only piece of information we had was that the injured man had kidnapped three Britons and an American in Delhi and hid them in a house in Saharanpur on their way to Kashmir. He had told his captives that his name was Rohit Sharma, and that he was taking them to his quaint ancestral village in Kashmir. But when a Saharanpur police patrol party stumbled upon the captives, a shootout ensued. A police inspector was killed, and Sheikh got injured. All the captives though were freed.

Omar Sheikh, The London-Born, LSE-Educated Terrorist

The hospital was posh, Sheikh’s room big and clean. He lay in bed with a bandage around his right shoulder. The camera was rolling as we came face to face with a tall and bearded young man, propped up against hospital pillows, looking puzzled and befuddled. His first reaction was to shout a barrage of questions at us, “Who are you, why are you here, who has sent you?”. 

We asked for an interview, but he refused to speak to us in protest because he said he had no prior notice we were going to do an interview with him. He relented after I produced my press ID card. Before the interview began, he told us his name and that he was 20 years old. He was a student at the prestigious London School of Economics (LSE). He also said he was born in London and was raised both there and in Lahore. His Pakistani immigrant parents lived in London, where they ran a clothes business. 

During the half-hour interview, Sheikh Omar looked extremely worried. He told me he would give anything to return to life in Britain. He also kept pleading with me, “Brother, take me out of here, please.” During the interview, he revealed how at the age of 18, he had already done ‘jihad’ in Bosnia, fighting alongside and on behalf of Bosnian Muslims, who, he said, were being butchered by the Serbs. He was strikingly young and his accent was distinctly British. I thought he had the gift of the gab. I am not surprised he managed to lure foreign tourists and later, in 2002, used the same trick to lure American journalist Daniel Pearl into captivity.

Fooled by Extremists

He also recounted how he had been indoctrinated on the campus by an Islamist organisation that wanted to establish an Islamic society in Britain. He said he had been fooled by the hard-luck stories he had heard about the plight of Muslims and Kashmiris in India. 

Sheikh admitted that he was charged with kidnapping some foreign tourists to barter for Maulana Masood Azhar, who was then held in prison in India. He also admitted that he had been in Delhi for more than a month before the kidnapping and was struck by the religious freedom he saw. “I had been told that Muslims in India had no religious rights and Kashmiri Muslims were being subjected to torture and rape by the Hindu army,” he said.

I asked him, if released, would he go back and tell people in Britain that Indian Muslims were free to build mosques, say prayers, and work in government offices? He said he would. He appeared repentant, but clearly not enough.

Meeting Masood Azhar

Why Omar Sheikh chose the path of destruction was hard to say. He was exposed to Islamist extremism at a tender age. But that doesn’t fully explain the path he chose early in his life. He was privileged. He went to the private Forest School in London – the same school former cricketer Nasser Hussain studied in. But while Sheikh became a terrorist, Hussain went on to become the captain of the England cricket team. 

At LSE, Sheikh was known for his academic brilliance, especially in maths and economics. But he dropped out before completing his degree to join the ‘jihad’ in Bosnia. It is reported that he met a couple of Pakistani “fighters” there, who introduced him to Maulana Masood Azhar upon his return to Pakistan. He trained in both Pakistan and Afghanistan.

After his release, it’s unclear where Sheikh went in Pakistan. According to some Pakistani papers, he lived in Lahore, where he married a local woman and had a child.

Until this time, Omar Sheikh was known mostly to Indian investigators and intelligence communities. His name cropped up at the time of his release in December 1999 from Tihar, but outside of India, he remained unknown. 

The Kidnapping Of Daniel Pearl

That changed after the kidnapping of American journalist Daniel Pearl. Suddenly, everyone wanted to know who Sheikh was. A foreign media outlet published my encounter with him, and I was inundated with requests for interviews by the Western media. 

Sheikh was found guilty of kidnapping and murdering Pearl. He was given a death sentence, which was later turned into life imprisonment. According to a respected Pakistani journalist, who met a prison officer where Sheikh was lodged, Omar was shuttled regularly between Karachi and Hyderabad jails, spending a fortnight in each. The officer told the journalist that it was necessitated by the fact that he used his gift of the gab and often cast his spell on prison officials, who would then do him favours, like smuggling cellphones. 

When Sheikh Posed As Pranab Mukherjee

It is precisely this gift that once landed the authorities into hot water and led to a near diplomatic crisis between India and Pakistan. A year after the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, Karachi’s Dawn newspaper ran an investigative story claiming that Sheikh had called the Pakistani President at the time, Asif Zardari, claiming to be India’s then-foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee. It was reported that he used unparliamentary language on the call and threatened Zardari with dire consequences for the Mumbai attacks. The English daily claimed, “Omar Saeed Sheikh, a detained Pakistani militant, had made hoax calls to President Asif Ali Zardari and the Chief of Army Staff, Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, in a bid to heighten Pakistan-India tensions after last year’s terrorist attacks on Mumbai, investigators have told Dawn.”

A diplomatic crisis was averted after the call was traced to his cell in Hyderabad jail. The cell was raided, and it was found that Sheikh used a British SIM card to make the threatening calls.

Despite Daniel Pearl’s wife, Mariane Pearl, writing a book, titled A Mighty Heart, and despite the book being made into a Hollywood film with the same title, the story of Omar Sheikh remains shrouded in mystery. In dozens of court appearances, he often appeared affable and charming, but not a lot of his terror connections have been confirmed.

Omar Sheikh Is Still A Mystery

Former dictator Pervez Musharraf called him a British spy in his autobiography. Omar himself boasted of his deep links to Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in his off-the-cuff remarks to journalists during court hearings. He was known to have good relations with Jaish-e-Mohammed’s Maulana Masood Azhar and Lashkar-e-Toiba’s Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi. Some journalists, who investigated the roles terror outfits played in the  9/11 attacks, claimed he was an operative of Al-Qaeda.

Omar is being held in jail despite his release order by the Supreme Court in Pakistan. It is believed the country has kept him in prison after re-arresting him because of international pressure. But some also claim that he is better off in jail, lest he reveal too much.

(Syed Zubair Ahmed is a London-based senior Indian journalist with three decades of experience with the Western media)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author

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For the first time, the UK government is planning to treat extreme misogyny as a form of terrorism, the Telegraph reported.

To tackle growing incidents of violence against women and girls, UK home secretary Yvette Cooper has ordered a review of the counter-terrorism strategy which will help identify gaps in current laws and also study emerging ideologies especially online misogynistic discourse.

This move will look at violence against women in the same way as far-right extremism.

Under the suggested legislation, it would be mandatory for school teachers to refer students they suspect of extreme misogyny to the government’s counter-terror programme.

Anyone who is referred to the programme is assessed by local police to see if they show signs of radicalistaion and need to be deradicalised.

This comes after reports warned that misogynistic influencers like Andrew Tate are radicalising teenage boys online in the same way terrorist draw in their followers.

Last year, counter-extremism workers warned of a rise in the number of cases being referred to them by schools concerned about the his influence. The reports included incidents of verbal harassment of female teachers or other students which reflected the influencer’s views.

The UK Home Ministry has several extremism categories marked as areas of “concern” and this includes a category for “incel” – an abbreviation of the term “involuntary celibate” – which refers to a misogynistic view that blames women for men’s failure to get sexual opportunities.

UK officials now fear that this category does not capture other forms of extreme misogyny.

“For too long, governments have failed to address the rise in extremism, both online and on our streets, and we’ve seen the number of young people radicalised online grow. Hateful incitement of all kinds fractures and frays the very fabric of our communities and our democracy,” Ms Cooper told the Telegraph.

Last month, UK’s National Police Chiefs’ Council published a report on violence against women and girls labelling it as a national emergency.

New York:

Warning against terrorists deploying new technologies, the Quad foreign ministers have reinforced their call for concerted international action against Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), as well as Al-Qa’ida and the Islamic State outfit.

After their meeting in Tokyo, the Quad ministers said in a joint statement on Monday that they were committed to working with international and regional partners to forestall “threats posed by the use of new and emerging technologies for terrorist purposes”.

“We reiterate the call for concerted action against all UN-listed terrorist groups including Al-Qa’ida, ISIS/Daesh, Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT), Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), and their proxy groups,” External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Foreign Ministers Penny Wong of Australia and Yoko Kamikawa of Japan said in their statement.

“We deplore the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), drones, tunnels, and information and communication technologies by terrorists and terrorist entities,” they said.

Recalling the 26/11 Mumbai and the 2016 Pathankot terrorist attacks, they called for “bringing the perpetrators of these attacks to justice without delay”.

The ministers said the first meeting of the Quad Working Group on Counter-Terrorism established at the ministerial meeting in New Delhi last year had “fruitful discussions” at its first meeting and at the fourth tabletop exercise in Honolulu in December, and added that they looked forward to next exercise to be hosted by Japan in November.

The tabletop exercises look at scenarios to develop responses to an overwhelming terrorist incident in the Indo-Pacific region.

The 4,000-word joint statement ran the gamut from the conflicts in Ukraine and Palestine, and China’s regional threats to cooperation on undersea cable connectivity and environment.

On Ukraine, where there are differences in nuances between India and the other three Quad partners who are all in on aiding Kiev, the statement said unequivocally, “We reiterate the need for a comprehensive, just, and lasting peace in line with international law, consistent with the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, including respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

India reiterating, this time in this forum, its joint commitment to upholding international law and the UN Charter in Ukraine comes days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Moscow which drew criticism from the West and Ukraine and underlined its independent stand on international relations.

The joint statement did not name Russia.

The ministers’ statement made pointed references to the dangers to regional peace and security posed by China, but again, without naming it.

They reiterated their fundamental “steadfast commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific, which is inclusive and resilient, and are united in our commitment to upholding the free and open rules-based international order”.

They called for upholding “sovereignty and territorial integrity, and peaceful settlement of disputes and prohibition on the threat or use of force in accordance with the UN Charter”, while also committing to “the principle of freedom, human rights, rule of law, (and) democratic values”.

Regarding foreign manipulation through exploitation of the information infrastructure, the four ministers vowed to “leverage our collective expertise and capacity to respond” to those threats.

They warned of “foreign information manipulation and interference, including disinformation, which undermines trust and sows discord in the international community” which are tactics that are “intended to interfere with domestic and international interest”.

The ministers said they would promote human rights while “supporting media freedom, addressing online harassment and abuse, and countering unethical practices”.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Washington:

Principal Deputy Spokesperson for the US Department of State, Vedant Patel reiterated the country’s stand on terrorism and said that they hope that any country on the planet condemns terrorism anywhere.

Vedant Patel was asked by a media person about where the US relations stand with India and Pakistan as India has always emphasised that terrorism and talks cannot go together with Pakistan.

Addressing the media briefing on Monday, the US official was responding to a question on where the US stands as a triangle between the US and India, Pakistan and India and India-US relations.

The reporter restated Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s intent and quoted that he has been trying even during his second term that India wants a good relationship with Pakistan, adding that terrorism and talks cannot go together.

“We would hope that any country on the face of the planet condemns terrorism anywhere,” Patel said.

He further said that the US welcomes any countries making more positive relations with their neighbours.

“But ultimately this is between India and Pakistan broadly, of course, we welcome any countries making more positive relations with their neighbours. But as it relates to this specifically, I just don’t have anything to offer,” he said.

Vedant Patel emphasised that India is a country in which the US is deepening relations in a number of key spaces.

“India is a country in which we are deepening our relations within a number of key spaces, especially as it relates to deepening our economic ties, deepening our security cooperation,” he said.

He further noted that US President Joe Biden had the opportunity to briefly see Prime Minister Modi in the margins of the G7 a couple of weeks ago.

“So, this is an area we will continue to cultivate this relationship,” he said.

Further underscoring PM Modi’s state visit to the US, Patel said that there will be several additional areas where the US continue to deepen cooperation.

“You are no stranger to the fact that we hosted India for a state visit last summer. And I imagine there will be a number of additional areas where we continue to deepen cooperation. National Security Adviser Sullivan just had a visit to Delhi a number of weeks ago as well,” he said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

File picture of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) force attending a rally in Tehran, Iran
| Photo Credit: via Reuters

Iran condemned Canada’s listing of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organisation as “an unwise and unconventional politically-motivated step,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani was quoted as saying by the semi-official Fars news agency on Thursday.

“Canada’s action will not have any effect on the Revolutionary Guards’ legitimate and deterrent power,” Mr. Kanaani said, adding that Tehran reserves the right to respond accordingly to the listing.

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On Wednesday, Ottawa listed the Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organisation, a step that could lead to the investigation of former senior Iranian officials now living in Canada.

The United States took a similar step in 2019 against the Revolutionary Guards, which Western nations accuse of carrying out a global terrorist campaign.

Tehran rejects such claims, saying that the elite force is a sovereign institution responsible for safeguarding national security.