Conflict Analysis and Resolution Information Services

The city of Manchester has been added to a growing list of European cities that have suffered ISIS inspired terrorism. The horrors inflicted on Paris, Nice, Berlin, London, Stockholm, and St Petersburg occurred in different ways, but all had the basic aim of causing carnage in cosmopolitan cities. It seemed that the capacity to shock had been exhausted, but the events of the 22^nd March at the Manchester Arena are a new low: the deliberate targeting of the young at an event which would appeal mainly to children and teenagers. It is this callous difference in the choice of target that has plunged Manchester and the United Kingdom into a state of shock. A heart-breaking sign of the resulting trauma is the frantic Facebook feeds with posts from friends and families who have lost contact with their loved ones. We do not know the names of the victims, the dead, the injured, the witnesses, only that this is the worst attack in the United Kingdom since 7/7.

The UK Government website below gives information for support for those affected by the attack:

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/manchester-attack-may-2017-support-for-people-affected

The Manchester Evening News has information on how people can help, including donations.

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/manchester-terror-attack-how-help-13076350

After the Westminster attack this blog made a call for the victims of the attack to be the ones who were remembered, not the perpetrator of the violence, and the same call is made here. Much will be written about the motivations for the attack and who inspired it, but the most reducible truth is that the responsibility lays firmly at the feet of those who believe that they have the right to take life for a cause. There are also things in common with other attacks: people stood together, the emergency services did their work under extreme pressure, political differences were set aside, and there was support from abroad. People will also be angry, and rightly so, but we should be wary of knee jerk reactions, or those who would exploit tragedy for their own ends. Fear, anger and hate are what the bad guys want: don’t let them have it.

For more information regarding this blog see:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-40008389

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/manchester-arena-bombing-live-attack-13075807

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/23/sophisticated-weapon-used-in-manchester-terror-attacks-is-disturbing-says-security-expert.html

Dr Carl Turner,

Site Coordinator

When a people are under threat they stay in their homes and try to avoid trouble. When their situation becomes unbearably dangerous they leave their homes and become refugees. The large numbers of people displaced from Myanmar’s Rakhine State to neighbouring countries is a red flag for how dangerous it has become to be a Rohingya in Myanmar. The flow of refugees into Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand had reached crisis proportions even before the infamous crackdown that began in October of 2016. The outcome of this is an estimated 420,000 refugees and 120,000 internally displaced within Myanmar since 2012.

The words that have been used to describe the Rohingya’s plight have included ‘forced displacement’, ‘ethnic cleansing’ and ‘genocide’. The response of the Myanmar government has been to deny any claims of wrongdoing by the army or to say that the claims are exaggerated. What is clear, from reports by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the International Crisis Group (amongst others) is that a major human rights violation has taken place and is continuing. This is enough to warrant the world’s attention, even without proof of the more serious allegations of genocide, as reports of murder and rape on a large scale have been documented. This is what makes people leave, but the refugee sea routes out of Myanmar are dangerous, worse so than those taken in the Mediterranean, with the refugees in the hands of people traffickers, meaning exploitation and child marriage.

That there was a serious of terrorist attacks, provoked by years of oppression, is undeniable and these acted as a trigger for the current violence, but the situation in the Rakhine State is hardly one of a battle between an army and insurgents. It is in fact the systematic and cruel crushing of any form of dissent and is fundamentally one sided in nature. This is not a war, nor an insurgency, as has happened elsewhere in Myanmar and previously in Rakhine State, but a blatant military crackdown on a people whom the state has historically refused to recognise, thus encouraging Buddhist nationalists to see them as foreign and inferior. Myanmar, whose de facto leader is a former Nobel Peace Laureate, is undergoing a transition to democracy in a state still dominated by the military. There has been a commitment to resolving the numerous insurgencies that have beset what is a multicultural state. This is the right track for a reforming government to take. Forced displacement isn’t. What was needed in Rakhine State was a defusing of the tensions between the Muslim Rohingya and Buddhist Rakhine, not a major military crackdown that has benefited one side over the other.

For more information regarding this week’s blog see:

https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/rohingya-migrant-crisis

http://reliefweb.int/map/myanmar/myanmarburma-regional-implications-rohingya-crisis-echo-daily-map-12112015

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/burma-eu-supports-un-human-rights-council-resolution-investigate-rohingya-muslims-aung-san-suu-kyi-a7714471.html

http://www.unhcr.org/uk/news/latest/2017/5/590990ff4/168000-rohingya-likely-fled-myanmar-since-2012-unhcr-report.html

https://unhcr.atavist.com/mm2016

https://carisuk.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/caris-briefing-one-the-rohingya-crisis.pdf

Dr Carl Turner,

Site Coordinator

The attitude of the Europe, Russia and US to the situation in Ukraine is one that beggars’ belief: on the one hand, a collective denial that Russian forces are involved, on the other, a collective wish not to see it at all.  This is despite the presence of OSCE observers who are documenting the frozen conflict in the east.

This may be because it raises the question of what to do about what has been a spectacular land grab. The leaders of Russia and Ukraine have reached an agreement in Minsk that President Poroshenko cannot present to the Ukrainian people as while it returns control of the border with Russia to Ukraine, it also allows for the Donetsk and Luhansk regions to have a devolved status. Germany and France also backed the Minsk II agreement. The separatists, whom have their own de facto governments in the east of Ukraine, were not present, unless of course we are to treat Russia’s participation as their representation. There is no mention of Crimea, which was occupied by ‘little green men’ in 2014 and effectively annexed by Russia.

In 2014 Ukraine did in fact have many internal problems, including the economy, politics and endemic corruption, and the outcome was the Euromaiden protests and the 2014 Ukrainian revolution. Both were major events in their own right and were enough of a trauma for any country. Nor were pro-Russian leanings in Donetsk and Luhansk unheard of, with the prospect of Ukrainian accession to both the EU and NATO a divisive political issue. Clearly, there were significant problems in Ukraine prior to 2014, but none that could not be resolved politically, and in an environment of political unrest there were political opportunities to be exploited by activists in the east. Yet, with barely the blink of an eye, the Crimea had been occupied and in the east, the separatists were quickly able to take territory. Which returns us to the porous border with Russia, across which military equipment flows, along with a rotation of Russian troops alongside other irregulars whom have joined the separatist side. This is denied of course, despite the grieving families of dead soldiers in Russia and the addition of ‘hybrid warfare’ to the lexicon of armed conflict. Nor is it really seen, as to see it means realising that a major European power is currently involved in armed conflict within the borders of another European state and no one is coming to help.

All of which takes us to the dangerous regional rivalry that has persisted since the end of the Cold War and the explanation for why the Russian government has chosen to interfere in Ukrainian affairs in such a blatant manner. In a nutshell, there was an understanding that NATO would not expand into Eastern Europe, and of course it did, taking in countries that had experienced Soviet domination and were looking nervously to the East. Alongside this was the expansion of the EU, whose ‘soft power’ was also deemed a threat and was also encroaching towards Russian interests. That the EU is not a military power does not allay the fear of the EU’s socio-economic power. The warning signs of Russia’s dismay at NATO and EU expansion were clearly demonstrated in 2008 when Russia intervened in Georgia, a previous candidate for NATO expansion (an ill-advised one). Put in the simplest terms, Russia sees NATO as a threat and has been alarmed at its expansion, enough so to break an important agreement guaranteeing the borders of Ukraine in exchange for nuclear weapons based there. The agreement, guaranteed by the US and the UK, is a rare example of a country with nuclear weapons freely giving up its arsenal.

None of the above excuses the violation of an international border, although it does help explain it. Moreover, the ‘West’ has been served a notice: Russia is back and no longer to be ignored, although how much of this down to the leadership of President Putin is another question. Ukraine’s frozen conflict, with its daily military deaths and the displacement of civilians, is a casualty of a wider stand-off that we all assumed would have been left behind in 1989. Yet it has lumbered on needlessly and has re-escalated. There is of course one rule that has been present since 1945: the major powers will never fight each other directly, nor should they given the potential consequences, but proxy wars are acceptable. This is an unpalatable truth that pervades international politics. It is also a crying shame, for the countries of the northern hemisphere have more in common than international rivalries indicate and there is a great deal of room for cooperation. It is time they cooperated again in Europe. Ukraine is a good place to start, although this is only part of the solution to an unnecessary armed conflict, which ultimately needs to be resolved at the national level.

For more information regarding this week’s blog see:

http://www.trtworld.com/magazine/ukraine-conflict-rages-on-in-silence-325725

http://www.newsweek.com/2017/04/21/ukraine-only-hope-east-may-building-homes-and-schools-582509.html

http://uaposition.com/category/main/special-sections/war-in-donbas/

https://euobserver.com/foreign/127667

http://emerging-europe.com/regions/ukraine/the-stalled-conflict-in-ukraine-will-be-formalised/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/03/two-years-after-war-broke-out-in-ukraine-the-death-toll-continue/

Dr Carl Turner,

Site Coordinator

The furore over whether or not the Syrian government used chemical weapons against Khan Sheikhoun and the US response in targeting the Syrian airbase at Shayrat continues to rumble on. Every explanation of why the government is guilty of a war crime is countered by explanations of how the attack was either ‘faked’ entirely, a ‘black flag’ attack to draw an outraged US militarily to the rebel side, or the result of government bombs striking chemical weapons munitions held by the rebels. The ‘truth’ of the matter seems to depend on whose side you are on, previously held beliefs about the legitimacy of the actors in the conflict, or the competing output of a ‘mainstream’ media versus ‘alternative’ media. The result is an unedifying debate, in which the discussion consists of ‘facts’ marshalled on two sides, ranging from the height of power in the UN Security Council, through competing pressure groups supporting both ‘sides’, to individuals tapping away on social media. An attempt by Bellingcat (see below) to cut through this has comments in the discussion that demonstrate the point. No sooner is a report produced concluding that the government was responsible than the counternarrative kicks in and robustly explains why it is wrong. The most recent report concluding that chemical weapons were used against Khan Sheikhoun has been released by Human Rights Watch on May 1^st.

The reality of Syria’s civil war is that there are so many internal and external parties involved that it can barely be called a civil war at all. The government lost any pretence of legitimacy years before the attack on Khan Sheikhoun, along with swathes of territory which is now controlled by a disparate array of local actors, including the Kurds, an ill-defined opposition, groups linked to Al-Qaeda, and ISIS. The only thing that any of the rivals agrees on is that ISIS is a common enemy.

Drawing the line at chemical weapons use is a high bar to set and both the Syrian government and ISIS have been accused of using them. They are a despicable weapon to use, even against military targets, but then so are most weapons used in warfare. More conventional weapons such as mines and cluster bombs, which are also banned internationally, are indiscriminate and attract children and kill people even after a conflict has ended. The heavily improvised ‘barrel bombs’ of the regime and ISIS’s improvised explosive devices are also indiscriminate, as likely to kill civilians as they are military targets. Nor should conventional bombing by aircraft, a favourite of both the Russians and the US, be discounted. While the targeting capability of airpower has improved over the years, it is still a blunt instrument to apply and its true benefit is seen in reducing the casualties of friendly forces during combat. It is doubtful that the regime worries much about a stray bomb or two that keeps the opposition areas terrified and their defenders busy.

For more information regarding this week’s blog see:

https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/2017/04/10/khan-sheikhoun-chemical-attack-bombed/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-39728682

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-turkey-iraq-idUSKBN17R0D2

https://www.hrw.org/report/2017/05/01/death-chemicals/syrian-governments-widespread-and-systematic-use-chemical-weapons

Dr Carl Turner,

Site Coordinator

The battle for the city of Raqqa, ISIS’s de facto capital, has yet to see ground forces enter the city but there has been substantial activity by an array of forces opposed to ISIS with neighbouring villages and towns fought over.

Within Syria’s charnel house, and in what is the first war to be dominated by reporting via social media, Raqqa’s fate has been brutal occupation by ISIS and targeting by the airpower of the US led coalition and Russia. Reporting on the consequences has been limited to the controversial organisation Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently (RBSS), some of whose small membership no longer reside in Syria. The reasons are sadly obvious: criticising ISIS is a dangerous and lethal activity in a city run by the group and RBSS and people associated with them have incurred the wrath of ISIS through their reporting. As foreign journalists are unable to access either opposition or ISIS held areas in Syria with any degree of safety, reporting from Raqqa is limited to those willing to take a monumental risk from within the city and its surrounding area.

That there will be a battle for Raqqa soon is without doubt, the question lies as to who will undertake what is a dangerous task with further questions as to who will hold and administer the city afterwards. Turkey’s advance has stalled, and is at the whim of its leader, whom is concerned at the consequences of Turkish casualties on his position at home. The Syrian army and its allies are not yet in a position to mount an assault, leaving the Kurdish-Arab Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), backed by US artillery and Special Forces, as the most likely to mount a ground assault. In what is a complex microcosm of the Syrian tragedy there are many competitors for territory but seemingly little appetite for being the ones who advance into Raqqa and fight ISIS on the ground. In contrast, there has been little restraint in launching airstrikes as the one thing that all the regional rivals agree on is that ISIS should be comprehensively crushed. Airpower has been used against Raqqa from the outset, often as punishment for ISIS inspired attacks abroad, and it is a notoriously blunt weapon to use when there are no ground forces to aid accuracy. The addition of Russian airpower has further added to this.

Raqqa’s immediate future is unfortunately grim: the ongoing battle for Mosul has demonstrated that defeating ISIS in a city is a laborious task and civilian casualties are a consequence of war. We cannot be certain how an assault on Raqqa will play out, or if it will end with competing forces occupying the city as an attack by government forced cannot be ruled out once ISIS has been engaged by the SDF. Nor can the limited reporting by citizen journalists be taken for granted: it is already terrifyingly risky and an all-out battle with increased airstrikes adds to this.

For more information regarding this week’s blog see:

http://www.independent.co.uk/topic/raqqa

http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/04/20/a-coherent-approach-to-raqqa/

https://www.thecipherbrief.com/article/middle-east/battle-raqqa-its-complicated-1091

http://www.raqqa-sl.com/en/

https://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/03/the-brutality-and-barbarism-of-everyday-life-in-raqqa/#

Dr Carl Turner,

Site Coordinator

The Syria crisis continues to shock: for all the conferences, peace talks and talking, new events continue to stand out against the background of daily violence. Today a car bomb exploded during a population transfer and casualties are still to be confirmed, but range in the dozens. A previous population transfer in 2016 was delayed when an unidentified rebel group torched coaches to be used in the transfer.

Population transfers, in which people from areas besieged by either the government and its allies or the opposing groups are exchanged, are controversial as critics argue that they effectively amount to forced relocation along sectarian lines. For the people concerned they are welcome relief from years of siege, whether by the government and its allies or the opposition and jihadists. The predominantly Shia residents of Foah and Kefraya have been encircled by rebels and jihadists since early in 2015, while the predominantly Sunni residents of Madaya and Zabadani have been besieged by the Syrian army and Hezbollah since the summer of 2015. The hard reality is that the desperate people being moved are unlikely to argue when the alternative is the continued threat of violence, food shortages and denial of basic human rights. No one wants to stay in a warzone, even if the map is being redrawn as a consequence, and even if Syria’s diverse population doesn’t fit neatly into any attempt at reorganisation along ethnic and religious lines.

The current transfer owes little to the Syrian government, although they have been involved in other local agreements, some in which rebels surrendered their weapons and agreed to exile. In fact, it took over two years of negotiations between regional and local actors to set out a plan that has a timescale of months. The key players in the deal reflect the complexity of the Syrian tragedy: it has been brokered by Iran and Qatar with the involvement of Hezbollah and Ahrar al-Sham. The component linking them and driving the conclusion of the deal were members of the Qatari royal family, whom had been held by an Iranian proxy since they were captured after crossing from Saudi Arabi to Iraq in error in 2015 while hunting.

There are no easy answers in the Syrian conflict, but the killing of desperate civilians in a disputed population transfer is not one of them.

For more information regarding this week’s blog see:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-39609288

https://syriaaccountability.org/updates/2015/08/26/population-transfers-the-wrong-path-to-peace/

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/14/besieged-syria-towns-evacuated-as-regime-and-rebels-begin-huge-people-swap

http://en.annahar.com/article/570425-syrian-deal-to-evacuate-tens-of-thousands-of-people-begins

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/04/exchange-residents-begins-evacuation-deal-170414051642212.html

Dr Carl Turner,

Site Coordinator

The ongoing civil war in Syria is never far from the headlines but has recently become the dominant news story for reasons that are both tragic and infuriating.

The news cycle began with a reported chemical attack on Khan Sheikhoun in northern Syria, which was followed within days by a rapid and unexpected US response when a Syrian airfield at Shayrat was attacked using cruise missiles. The subsequent diplomatic faceoff between Russia and the United States and a visit by the US Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, to Moscow has thus far produced two outcomes: deadlock in the UN Security Council and a return to cooperation between the US and Russia to prevent their aircraft accidently coming into contact with each other. This is admittedly a reductive explanation of what has occurred, given that the EU and G7 also discussed what to do, and Iran also had its say, coming up with little. The concern of foreign actors in the Syrian quagmire to avoid actually coming into direct conflict with each other highlights a justifiable concern that there is potential for dangerous escalation with regional and global ramifications. The brutal reality is that they won’t, as the regional and global powers are well practised at avoiding a direct military confrontation, yet have far less compunction when it comes to contributing to the carnage that is being inflicted within Syria. The origins of Syria’s civil war are internal, its trajectory since driven by regional and global concerns: whatever the civil war was at the outset is very different to what it is now, or may be in the future. There has already been spill over within the region, and there is a real potential for this to inflame unresolved tensions within the region, but the most likely outcome is that foreign actors will continue to pour fuel on the fire, maintaining the violence, instead of working towards a long and torturous path to ending the violence.

The situation is Syria is very complicated (see the earlier blog on this) and here we will focus the recent events only. That there was a chemical attack on Khan Sheikhoun, which was followed up by further airstrikes, is increasingly been proved to have occurred. Yet, the investigations into this had barely begun before the US strike against the Shayrat airbase, and part of the explanation for this is that President Trump and his daughter were horrified by the images of the Khan Sheikhoun tragedy. The Syrian government and Russia almost immediately claimed that Khan Sheikhoun was the victim of either a ‘black flag’ attack by the opposition to provoke the US to intervene or that a government airstrike had hit chemical munitions belonging to the opposition. Mainstream and social media reporting and commentary of events is bitterly divided with claim and counterclaim, substantiated and unsubstantiated, fact based and opinion based, with experts dragged out to support the multiple narratives available. Syria, it seems, fits into everyone’s precious narratives in some way, and there is little thought over the other narratives, except to debunk them so as to maintain one’s own precious narrative, and most certainly not to seriously consider an opposing viewpoint.

The truth? The investigation into the attack on Khan Sheikhoun is very likely to prove that it was undertaken by the Syrian government, which has been accused of using chemical munitions in the past. The opposition, or that part of it which is not Jihadist, would certainly welcome military intervention by the US, but this does not mean that it has either the capacity or the will to use chemical weapons, or that it never does anything brutal. Russia, meanwhile has invested heavily in Syria, and may not be directly responsible for the regime’s actions, but is still backing a government accused of war crimes. Russian power of veto in the UN Security Council means that achieving a UN resolution and action against the Syrian government should the allegations of war crimes be proven is nigh on impossible. Ivanka Trump may have influenced her father, whom has said that he was moved to action by the images coming from Khan Sheikhoun. This, and the accompanying about-face in US foreign policy, are not encouraging signs. It is one thing to be rightly distressed by the images of suffering men, women, and children, and want to do something about it. It is entirely another to be the President of the US and have the power to take uninformed and unilateral action that has had little impact on the ground. At least some common sense prevailed as, apparently, Russia was informed beforehand to make sure none of their people were around to be hurt. Please forgive the italics, I just want to be clear that this is my view, and I want you to agree, but would rather you thought it through first.

So, a lot of talking going on, but not about how to actually resolve the conflict in Syria, more about who is to blame and where the fingers should point, and God forbid that anything is done that impacts on anyone’s interests.

And Syria? Syria is bleeding.

Dr Carl Turner,
Site Coordinator

There is much to write about and comment on this week, so much so that a single weekly blog will not do. Syria’s ongoing tragedy continues to dominate the news, with a reported chemical attack on Khan Sheikhoun in northern Syria and a rapid and unexpected US response. These are indeed major events, and there is much talk about the impact on US-Russia relations while Syrians are dying, as they have done every day for nearly seven years. Syria will be covered in an extra blog.

On the 3^rd April 14 people were killed and over fifty injured when a suicide bomber detonated a bomb on the St Petersburg metro. A second device did not explode and at the time of writing we do not know if there were more attackers, or what links there are to Al Nusra, who have claimed the attack. The method was different to that of attacks in other European cites but the outcome was the same: the murder and maiming of people going about their daily business, unity and bravery in responding to help the victims, and messages of solidarity from abroad. And as the bombing took place in a cosmopolitan city, the victims are not only Russian, but included people from Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan also.

In London, a Romanian tourist Andreea Cristea died, a result of the events in London on the 22^nd March. In the ending of one life we see the randomness of the actions of ‘lone attackers’ exposed. As with all the victims in London, St Petersburg, and Stockholm, Ms Cristea had her life taken because someone felt they had the right to take life in order to exact revenge in the name of a cause. She was an architect who was 31 years old. It should be said that none of the deaths and injuries from recent attacks were in any way less pointless, or for that matter less deserving of attention, rather that the perpetrators achieve nothing but take everything.

On the 7^th April Stockholm suffered an attack by an individual using a lorry as a weapon, in what has been an ongoing trend, and this time four people were killed and a dozen people injured. The names of those affected are yet to be released, but the reaction was similar to that in London and St Petersburg: We will not change who we are, or what we are because of a single act.

In rare good news, the Basque Separatist group ETA has disarmed, having declared a permanent ceasefire in 2011. The group emerged in the days of the Franco regime and had continued its campaign for independence during and after the transition to democracy. They ultimately reasoned that more could be achieved through political participation than armed violence. We should not confuse ETA’s armed struggle with the actions of lone attackers, or for that matter the very different approaches and motivations of Al-Qaeda or ISIS, but should take heart that in the long run, terrorism does end, and while some groups are able to persist for decades, most do not.

Later this week, Syria, and we must ask the question: If World leaders are able to demonstrate solidarity when tragic events take place in their own countries, how is it that they are unable to do so with regard to Syria?

Dr Carl Turner,

Site Coordinator

Analysts of international terrorism have long warned that the UK has been in danger of a terrorist attack influenced or organised by Jihadist terrorist organisations. ISIS and Al-Qaeda have long encouraged attacks, with ISIS in particular employing a sophisticated and professional approach through social media with the aim of recruiting volunteers to join the group at home and abroad. In fact, the terrorism alert level has been at ‘severe’ since August 2014 due to the threat of British born members of ISIS.

On the 22^nd March this year the long predicted attack occurred and in a manner consistent with recent attacks in Nice and Berlin when Khalid Masood ran over his victims in a car and fatally stabbed PC Keith Palmer, who was unarmed, before being shot by police officers.  This is typically described as a ‘lone wolf’ attack, although many commentators, including this one prefer to use ‘lone attacker’. The attack was later claimed by the so-called Islamic State (which here is referred to as ‘ISIS’) and is characteristic of the type which analysts have warned is an increasing threat: radicalised individuals, with no clear connections to Jihadist groups, whom carry out their attacks using vehicles, knives, or firearms. While ISIS claim such attacks, they generally don’t have any knowledge of the plan or the attacker, and their claim is made on the basis that they acted on ISIS’s behalf.

The solidarity of Berlin and Paris, amongst others, with the UK in the wake of the attack is reflected in the victims. Those killed were PC Keith Fletcher, Aysha Frade, Leslie Rhodes, and a visiting US citizen, Kurt Cochran, whose wife was also injured. The over 50 injured from twelve counties include people from the UK, France, Romania, Greece, South Korea, Germany, Poland, Ireland, China, Italy and the US. These are the consequences when an attack takes place in a cosmopolitan capital.

Much focus will now take place on the attacker’s past and motivations, and as to whether he genuinely acted alone. Attention will also be on the performance of the security services, who are faced with the unenviable task of countering terrorism from a plethora of threats not limited to Jihadist terrorism, but which also includes that of far-right extremists and fringe republican groups in Northern Ireland. There is also the inevitable propaganda boon for ISIS from a follower striking at a western capital, and such attacks do in fact garner more attention than the many, bloody, attacks in the middle-east. This is not the fault of the media, who could hardly be accused of neglecting  Syria and Iraq, at least when they are simply doing their jobs and reporting news.

Attention should instead be placed on the victims, for it is they who should be remembered, not an individual who believed he had the right to kill others because of his own grievances and beliefs. Remember also those who stepped up to the task in the immediate aftermath and set about trying to protect and save life, including that of the attacker. Government went back to work the next day, as did London and the rest of the UK, as is the right and proper response to an isolated act of terrorism. Nor should these tragic events or the victims be used to justify another’s twisted ideology of division and hate, misplaced blame, or the exploitation of divisions within society. Much will be said and written as a consequence of the Westminster attack, some of it will be said in the heat of the moment, as will be the reactions, but in time knee-jerk reactions will be seen as foolhardy and counterproductive. Fear, anger and hate are what the bad guys want: don’t let them have it.

For more information regarding this week’s blog see:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-39355108

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/mar/23/no-surprise-that-london-attacker-was-born-in-uk

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/isis-london-westminster-parliament-attack-claim-syria-iraq-islamic-state-militants-plan-what-does-it-a7646871.html

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/commentary-the-3-types-of-jihadist-attacks-in-the-west/3622264.html

For more resources see the earlier blog: ISIS and the ‘Far Abroad’.

Dr Carl Turner,
Site Coordinator

The Syrian civil war has now lasted six years and has proved to be varied and complicated, with the participants and their respective aims increasing and changing year by year. It has in fact evolved into a regional conflict complex, with Syria at the centre of a complicated array of actors, internal and external, state and non-state, with competing aims and goals.

Syria is beset by multiple insurgencies involving non-state actors, some bounded by the ethnic identity of the peoples involved and their battles for survival as distinct cultures with a historical identity, others by their resistance to the Assad regime, and others by their adherence to a militant Islamic identity. The distinction between insurgency and terrorism should be made clear: insurgents hold territory, exploit resources and govern, badly or no, and are able to engage government forces in strength; on the other hand, terrorism, of the sub-state type it should be added, does not require territory to be held and groups are limited in what they can actually do. It is also the case that insurgents oft utilise terrorist tactics. The clearest example is ISIS, whom are insurgents as they hold and administer territory, yet employ terrorism as a tactic as they will also carry out bombings in Syria and abroad.

State actors, including the Assad regime, whose overreaction to protests set the country on the path to civil war, also have varied, and competing aims and goals. These include neighbouring countries directly affected by the conflict, regional actors and powers with their own political agendas, and the major international powers. These all have their own reasons for involvement, with only the battle against ISIS as common ground, but have all had a direct impact on the course of the conflict.

Understanding the Syrian conflict as multiple insurgencies with varied and competing external support enables us to understand the role of conflict resolution and transformation in proposing solutions to the conflict and the conditions under which a sustainable peace can be gradually achieved. We do not know what a post-conflict Syria will look like, but we can, and should, approach the question of how we can get there in order to enable villages, towns, cities and regions to be rebuilt, refugees to return, and communities to thrive. The solutions are multi-level, working from local and regional bi-lateral and multi-lateral agreements, to the state-level conferences such as those held in Vienna, Geneva, and Askana. A complicated conflict situation requires an approach that exploits every opportunity for local, regional, and national conflict transformation and peacekeeping support for areas that negotiate a peace deal, whether this is bi-lateral or multi-lateral. The onus should also be placed on the regional and international actors to set aside interests that fuel the conflict and adopt approaches that promote peaceful solutions.

Dr Carl Turner,

Site Coordinator