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Terrorists or trafficking victims? An analysis of how the UK Prevent policy frames those at risk of joining terror groups abroad
Slater, Caitlin ; Anceschi, Luca (advisor) ; Aslan, Emil (referee)
The aim of this research is to analyse whether the Prevent policy in the United Kingdom has resulted in the labelling of the Muslim community as 'suspect' and to assess the impact this has on potential victims of terrorism related trafficking. The strategy was first implemented in 2003 in the wake of 9/11 and in the early years of the 'War on Terror'. It has been accused of being Islamophobic and playing a large role in labelling Muslims as a suspect community. Prevent is a referral system through which anybody who causes concern regarding extremism can be reported. Once reported the case is assessed and it is decided if it will be dismissed, signposted to other services or taken further (UK Government 2019). This report will analyse statistics released by the government regarding Prevent referrals as well as case studies through which it is evident that the policy creates a suspect community. The rise of ISIS in 2011 led to a rise in people travelling to join in the following years. Among these people there were children aged under 18. The international definition of human trafficking lays out that there does not need to be proof of deception involved in order for a child to have been a victim of trafficking (OSCE 2021). Prevent is the policy that would be employed if there was believed to be risk...
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Lethal crossroads: The evolution of Taliban violence in response to counterinsurgency strategies in Afghanistan 2006-2021
Mccafferty, Sean ; Biagini, Erika (advisor) ; Aslan, Emil (referee) ; Kaczmarski, Marcin (referee)
Lethal Crossroads: The Evolution of Taliban Violence in Response to Counterinsurgency Strategies in Afghanistan 2006-2021. July 2022 Presented in partial fulfilment for the Degree of International Master in Security, Intelligence and Strategic Studies Word Count: 21861 Date of Submission: 24/07/2022 Student Number Glasgow: 2188272M Dublin: 20109547 Prague: 19142078 Supervisor Dr Erika Biagini Abstract This thesis examines how the Taliban's use of the Improvised Explosive Device (IED) evolved in response to changing counterinsurgency strategies in Afghanistan between 2006 and 2021. The work aims to identify the role of state counterinsurgency strategies in affecting variation in IED use by insurgents. The evolution of methods of violence in Afghanistan has rarely been focused on. Yet, the Taliban's return to power in 2021 amid the withdrawal of the last coalition forces necessitates reflection on the conflict across academia and policy making. To investigate the evolution of the IED this research employs a longitudinal case study design applying qualitative research methodologies such as the constant comparative method to analyse three distinct phases of insurgent and counterinsurgent violent competition in Afghanistan between 2006 and 2021. An evolutionary theoretical framework outlined by Veilleux-Lepage...
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Risk assessment: VNSAs' ability to achieve CBRN capabilities
Lucas, Makenzie Troi ; McDonagh, Ken (advisor) ; Aslan, Emil (referee)
Academics disagree on the risk of VNSAs being able to build or acquire CBRN weapons. Their analysis is based on motivation, geographical factors, potential targets, and VNSA group attributes. Missing is the detailed investigation of how and where a VNSA obtains the necessary precursor materials and the type of security surrounding common materials used for CBRN weapons. This paper will explore the possible routes an actor could take to acquire the knowledge, skills, and materials necessary to make an operable CBRN weapon. Case studies are used to show past routes that allowed VNSAs to achieve capability and the type of weapon and attack utilized. The implementation of regulations, both in response to CBRN attacks and their effectiveness in preventing VNSA CBRN weapon capability, are analyzed. Public online forums, weapons manuals and weapons research along with past prosecuted criminal CBRN attacks revealed the financial capacity needed to acquire materials as well as the technical capacity required to build a successful CBRN system. Existing databases logging insecurity in nuclear facilities, radioisotope thefts, chemical and biological incidents and more are used to establish trends among past and present pursuits and use of CBRN weapons. Viable routes to CBRN capability remain reenforcing the...
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Gender equality, women's participation in the post-conflict society, and civil war recurrence
Drevená, Katarína ; Aslan, Emil (advisor) ; Kotvalová, Anna (referee)
A large amount of academic literature demonstrated that intrastate conflicts often occur in countries that have already experienced civil war. This reoccurring pattern forced several researchers to analyze which factors contribute and which lower the risk of war recurrence. This master thesis focuses on the civil war recurrence through the lenses of gender. I will argue that higher gender equality could lower the risk that intrastate conflict will reoccur. If the countries are organized by norms of gender inequality, the same treatment is reproduced towards the other groups within society. On the other hand, more gender-equal societies may transform these relationships into the same tolerant relationships with those who are perceived as different and foreign in the country. Moreover, socialization and the way children have been raised play an important role in how they will behave as adults. Less patriarchal societies with a lower focus on the norm of dominance create space for norms of tolerance, respect, peace, freedom, and equality which has a pacifying effect on the behavior of the state and people within it. Therefore, I will hypothesize that the higher women's political, economic, and social participation, the longer the duration of peace after the civil war. Large-N quantitative analysis in...
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Countering Religious Extremism and Online Radicalization in Uzbekistan
Khakimov, Farrukh ; Anceschi, Luca (advisor) ; Fitzgerald, James (referee) ; Aslan, Emil (referee)
From the early days of its independence the Republic of Uzbekistan considered religious extremism and terrorism as the most serious threat to national and regional security. During the 1990s internationally designated terrorist organizations: "The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan" (IMU), "The Islamic Jihad Union" (IJU)1 , Central Asian branch of "Hizbut-Tahrir al Islamiya" (HT) and other radical groups emerged in Uzbekistan as opponents to secular political system of the newly independent state - Republic of Uzbekistan. Due to strict counterterrorism policy of Uzbekistan the level of the threat in the country steadily declined, however, religious extremism and radicalism have not disappeared as major radical organizations moved to neighbouring Afghanistan and Tajikistan; some of which still conduct covert activities within the country and abroad. In addition, the recent emergence of different radical militant groups in Afghanistan such as Katibat al-Imam al-Bukhari (KIB) and Katibat Tavhid wal Jihod (KTJ), which have returned to the region from Syrian civil war, caused concerns for Central Asian countries, especially for Uzbekistan as these radical militant groups are fighting in the north of the Afghanistan, not far from Uzbekistan's border (Cornell & Zenn, 2018). Moreover, with the development of...
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Contemporary conceptualisations of anti-drug efforts in Central Asia
Supueva, Zarina ; Berg, Julie (advisor) ; Connolly, Catherine (referee) ; Aslan, Emil (referee)
Since the end of the Cold War, the security agenda has shifted from a strictly state-centric focus to one focusing on protecting individuals and the international community. The nature of the new security threats has challenged national security, thus encouraging joint regional and international cooperation. One of the significant risks posed to security is the rapid proliferation of organised crime, which entails a variety of different activities that pose a danger humankind. With illicit trafficking being a substantial financial resource for organised crime groups, along with the significant societal and health risks of illegal drugs, this paper focuses on one of the main trafficking routes from Afghanistan, the world's leading opium producer, to Central Asia. While the number of known trafficking routes is always changing, there are several general routes that are used to smuggle Afghan drugs, the Balkan, Northern, and Southern routes. Since becoming independent in the 1990s, the Central Asian countries are still in the development stages of both establishing their legal systems and exercising effective policies, while at the same time being challenged by chronic economic underdevelopment, high levels of corruption, and transnational threats. Thus, this research will study anti-drug efforts in...
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Counterterrorism strategies as a consequence of terrorism: understanding United Kingdom's CONTEST 2018
Orozbakieva, Aizhan ; Aslan, Emil (advisor) ; Aliyev, Huseyn (referee) ; Biagini, Erika (referee)
The relative peace that the world citizens enjoy today keeps being sabotaged by forces that kill and injure innocent civilians via terrorist attacks. In recent times, a number of violent attacks took place between 2013 and 2017 in all parts of the world. The territories that have been affected the most are the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia, and Western Europe. While terrorism in the MENA region, for instance, was mostly carried out by local forces, in Western Europe it was either external powers or domestic perpetrators who have been indoctrinated by foreign radicals. Western European states started becoming more cautious and alert. As a consequence of terrorism, new counterterrorism strategies have been written and implemented. The following research project seeks to analyse and interpret the United Kingdom's counterterrorism strategy in order to understand the dynamics of the legitimisation of security- oriented policies. The UK has been selected as a case study because it has predominantly struggled with the phenomenon of Northern-Irish related terrorism, long before the infamous September 11th , 2001 attacks in the US. Post-2001, the UK has been mostly targeted by jihadi- inspired terrorism. In response to the growing threat, the country initiated and implemented strategies to reduce...
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Hybrid Warfare' or 'Weaponisation' of Information? Comparative study of the evolution of Russian assertive (dis)information actions
Topuria, Revaz ; Cheskin, Ammon (advisor) ; Murphy, Karl (referee) ; Aslan, Emil (referee)
Russian assertive actions over the last decade have led some observers to think that Kremlin is employing fundamentally new concepts of armed conflict. Subsequently, scholars came up with a number of buzzwords and ill-defined concepts such as 'hybrid warfare' and 'Gerasimov Doctrine'. This paper believes that novelty of Russian actions is not in terms of its military, but rather the specific nature of operations employed by Kremlin had to do more with the way military was integrated with other instruments, mostly state-run and coordinated information operations. Thus, the project puts a whole new emphasis on information operations and claims that while in certain cases Moscow still uses conventional military, Kremlin's new plan is to achieve goals through information online in the first place, rather than fight the enemy on the battlefield. As paper intends to analyse how Russian information strategy has evolved, it employs quantitative and qualitative content analysis to examine narratives built by RIA Novosti and Russia Today/RT during Russo-Georgian War of 2008 and annexation of Crimea in 2014. The results show that Russia has learnt its mistakes from Georgian case as in 2014 pro- Kremlin media was more sophisticated and relied on using contested areas of international law to depict Russian...
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The Authoritarian Shortcut: Russia's Unorthodox Population-Centric Counterinsurgency during the Second Chechen War and Strategic Implications for Western Military Planners
Colombo, Roberto ; Aliyev, Huseyn (advisor) ; McDonagh, Ken (referee) ; Aslan, Emil (referee)
Dissertation title: The Authoritarian Shortcut: Russia's Unorthodox Population-Centric Counterinsurgency during the Second Chechen War and Strategic Implications for Western Military Planners. Author: Roberto Colombo Abstract For authoritarian incumbents, waging counterinsurgency (COIN) warfare is often a wantonly cruel, yet remarkably successful business. While previous research has shown that authoritarian regimes employ a wide array of kinetic and non-kinetic techniques to suppress insurgency, the authoritarian model of COIN warfare remains heavily under-theorised. This study proposes a novel theoretical framework expounding the logic of authoritarian COIN operations and empirically examines its mechanisms by looking at Russia's COIN experience during the Second Chechen War. In investigating the strategic rationale underpinning the authoritarian toolkit of COIN measures, this research aims at establishing whether authoritarian counterinsurgents can effectively deliver mission success. Drawing upon a large pool of secondary sources and primary data collected during face-to-face interviews with eyewitnesses of the Chechen conflict, this study demonstrates that Moscow prevailed against the rebels by resorting to a sophisticated combination of heavy-handed intelligence, information, military, political, and...
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Criminal Intelligence in the Fight Against Organized Crime in Italy
Matiz, Sophie ; Michálek, Luděk (advisor) ; Aslan, Emil (referee)
Criminal intelligence or Law Enforcement intelligence has been conceived to fight crime and restore the order of law whenever a country's national security is at risk. The discipline has its origins in the 1920s, a time in which the main method for intelligence collection was the famous dossier system - the gathering of basic information about individuals. Nowadays, the discipline has come to be considered a key tool in order to contrast organized crime. However, the European discipline on the matter as well as the establishment of the European Model on Criminal Intelligence are to be considered quite recent. In fact, the first real model on criminal intelligence was established only at the beginning of the years 2000s in the United Kingdom. Therefore, the scope of this thesis project is to study the ways in which criminal intelligence operates at the European level. However, this cannot be accomplished without providing an accurate definition of the main concepts - such as organized crime and intelligence - related to the discipline. Moreover, a fundamental part of this thesis regards the study of Europol and its evolution into a proper agency that works to eradicate the phenomenon of organized crime throughout the European territory. In particular, the elaborate aims to underline Europol's...
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