New York-based Algora Publishing has introduced to market another fresh book by prominent author and journalist Musa Khan Jalalzai (Securing the Insecure States in Britain and Europe). This book spotlights important aspects of European intelligence agencies, and reveals about their failure in countering radicalization and domestic violence. Mr. Jalalzai has published six books with Algora Publishing focusing on Pakistan, Afghanistan, and questions of security, law enforcement, and the global intelligence war.
The spate of recent terrorist attacks in London, Paris, Brussels and Berlin highlights the security crisis in Britain and the EU member states. The author points to weaknesses in intelligence sharing and cooperation at the law enforcement level. He shows that these shortcomings are both rooted in, and contributing to, misunderstanding and distrust among the EU member states.
At the same time, these attacks showed how urgent is the need for strong and professional law enforcement across the continent. These developments are lessons for other Eastern EU member states - those who face the threat of radicalization, home-grown extremism, and international terrorism.
In his book, Mr. Jalalzai recognises the failure of reform process in some European states. During the last two decades, he argues, that EU intelligence experienced numerous challenges within the political and bureaucratic circles, while international pressure and its participation in global war on terrorism in Asia, EU and Africa forced authorities to introduce security sector reforms. These reforms set new international standards relating to operational mechanisms, information collection and authorization procedures.
In Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia and Bosnia, Mr. Jalalzai warns that the outdated Soviet policing and intelligence infrastructure that remains in place is unable to meet today's needs, while the slow process of security sector reforms has caused several national security challenges.
The exponentially growing smuggling networks of nuclear, chemical and biological material, dirty bomb and plutonium, has put the stability and security of all EU member states. Musa Khan Jalalzai puts his finger on major problems and raises the call for better international performance before it's too late for Europe and the UK.
Eastern European states, including Slovakia, Lithuania and Romania, have become centres of terrorist, extremist and human trafficking networks.
After the recent attacks in the EU, Mr. Jalalzai argues that movement towards more coherent intelligence network has become a top priority, while responding to the new kinds of terrorism with modern and democratic approaches to national security would be the best way to secure domestic harmony and concordance.
Together, these developments can lead to a professional approach in national security, and lay the foundation of structural reforms. The process of state building and reinvention of state institution has faced some challenges, but with a relatively short space of time, this was tackled. In 2016, more than 142 terrorist attacks foiled in eight member states, while 80 were reported in Britain. In these terrorist attacks more than 400 innocent civilians injured. Currently, more than a thousand people are on the radar of the Spanish police, while 259 people are being investigated by the courts and 500 telephones are being tapped as part of dozens of investigations.
In Britain and EU, Mr. Jalalzai noted more than 50,000 jihadists were essentially dancing in the streets and towns. During 2015-2017, ISIS cells and ISIS-inspired lone wolves launched a series of terrorist attacks against European cities indicating a level of organization and sophistication that clearly took the authorities by surprise.
The EU faces an increasingly an insecure and instable neighbourhood. The war in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, humanitarian crisis in the region and the weakening of state structure have created many problems like the invasion of refugees and infiltration of extremist and terrorist forces into the region. The EU may further face deteriorating security environment and an unprecedented level of threat, while the Brexit has made the security of the project complex. Germany and France face wide range of security challenges including the lone wolves attacks and radicalization, which prompted wide-ranging legal and administrative reforms in these two states.
In December 2016, Germany, France and Italy proposed a multilateral cooperation in the field of intelligence sharing to counter extremism and radicalization in Europe. The EU member states collectively established three competent institutions to make effective the process of intelligence sharing: Berne Group, Europol and the EU Military Staff, but never thought to tackle the crisis of mistrust. In 2016, Europe suffered multifaceted security crisis, including record arrival of immigrants from Asia, Africa and Middle East, and the Brexit, but the crisis of intelligence cooperation will continue in 2017 as there will be three elections in the coming months. This year will bring more fatalities to Europe if the member states did not changed their way of countering terrorism and extremism. Not all immigrants, but there are lone wolves coming into EU with to organize their network, and carry out attacks against civilian and government installation.
Noor Dahri, a Director of Pakistan Israel Alliance (PIA) and Editor-in-Chief of Pak-Israel News (PIN), is an independent researcher based in London. He has studied Counter Terrorism at the International Institute for Counter Terrorism ICT-Herzliya - Israe