Showing posts with label Countering Violent Extremism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Countering Violent Extremism. Show all posts

Wednesday 22 March 2017

Twitter Suspended More Than 635, 000 Terrorism Accounts Between August 2015 And December 2016

Social media giant - Twitter has revealed it suspended a total of 376,890 accounts between July 1 through December 31 last year for violations related to promotion of terrorism. It says the majority of the suspensions (74%) were surfaced via its own “internal, proprietary spam-fighting tools”.

Friday 11 November 2016

Countering Violent Extremism: Centre Trains 200 Islamic Clerics in North-East Nigeria on Countering Boko Haram Narratives

The Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) is to train 200 Islamic Clerics in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe on how to counter radicalization messages by the Boko Haram insurgents.

Thursday 26 May 2016

Countering Violent Extremism: Microsoft Joins the Fight Against Terrorism, Radicalization

Technology giant, Microsoft has finally joined the ranks of technology companies committed to tackling terrorism, violent extremism and radicalization online. 

Microsoft acknowledged that "terrorist content" has been posted to its consumer services, which include Xbox Live and Outlook webmail. 
"Terrorism is one of the truly urgent issues of our time," said Microsoft. "We are committed to doing our part to help address the use of technology to promote it or to recruit to its causes."

It's not exactly clear what Microsoft's anti terrorism strategy involves, but the company stressed that it would not censor results on its search engine Bing. 

Thursday 7 April 2016

Who Will Become a Terrorist? Research Yields Few Clues

WASHINGTON — The brothers who carried out suicide bombings in Brussels a while ago had long, violent criminal records and had been regarded internationally as potential terrorists. But in San Bernardino, Calif., last year, one of the attackers was a county health inspector who lived a life of apparent suburban normality.

Thursday 4 February 2016

Google To Render 'Adwords' To Counter Terrorism, Radicalization

Internet search engine giant - Google, will bring up 'AdWord' messages that seek to combat extremism when potential jihadis look for terrorist material online

Education, Technology As Tools For Disrupting Radicalization And Terrorism

The year 2015 will go down in history as one of the biggest years of violent extremism around the world. The West experienced several brutal tragedies, while those in the Middle East, central and West Africa endured unimaginable suffering at the hands of such terrorist groups as Boko Haram and ISIS.

Tuesday 2 February 2016

Boko Haram: Nigerian Government Set Up Technical Committee on Deradicalisation

The Federal Government of Nigeria has constituted a technical committee in its bid to end violent extremism, crimes and other security challenges bedeviling the country.

Thursday 7 May 2015

Students Counter Violent Extremism With Social Media

As social media continues to infiltrate our everyday lives with new ways of connecting and obtaining information, extremist groups such as ISIS are taking advantage of its ease of use and far-reaching implications to spread their message and recruit new members.

Friday 20 March 2015

Root Cause Must Be Understood First To Counter Violent Extremism

According to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, some 20,000 people have joined ISIL since last summer. They have traveled to Syria and Iraq from more than 100 countries all over the world for that purpose. To make a comparison, it took ten years for the number of foreign fighters against the Soviet Army in Afghanistan to reach 20,000.

Tuesday 17 March 2015

Europe Education Minister Summit Brainstorm On Radicalization

EU Ministers of Education are meeting in Paris today to discuss new measures to tackle radicalization across the European Union. Minister Jet Bussemaker (Education) thinks that teachers need more support in highlighting the issue of radicalization in schools.

Friday 27 February 2015

ISIS Recruiting Nigerian Youths Through Social Media

Coordinator of the National Information Centre, Mr. Mike Omeri, has sounded the alarm that the blood-thirsty Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, ISIS, is currently using the social media to radicalize and recruit Nigerian youths, particularly those who come from a wealthy background.

Tuesday 24 February 2015

Anti-Boko Haram Nigerian Activist Wins Japan Peace Prize Worth $170,000

Esther Ibanga
TOKYO: A Nigerian woman who has campaigned against Islamist extremists Boko Haram was on Tuesday awarded a Japanese peace prize worth $170,000.

Five Ways To Engage The Private Sector In Countering Violent Extremism

Emerging Voices features contributions from scholars and practitioners highlighting new research, thinking, and approaches to development challenges. This article is by Dr. Khalid Koser, executive director of the Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund (GCERF) and a nonresident senior fellow in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution.

Monday 2 February 2015

Effective Ways To Tackle Radicalisation

The problem of some in society becoming radicalised should be tackled by building relationships with those at risk, including through business and faith communities, writes Brian Grim.
As Europeans join and return from fighting with ISIS in Iraq and Syria, people from across the world, including world leaders, agree that something must be done urgently.

Wednesday 29 October 2014

How To End Boko Haram, By Al-Mustapha

Former Chief Security Officer to the late Head of State, General Sani Abacha, Major Hamza Al-Mustapha, yesterday proffered solutions on how to end the almost intractable insurgency in the northern part of the country.

Tuesday 28 October 2014

Researchers Discover Two Genes Linked With Violent Crime

A genetic analysis of almost 900 offenders in Finland has revealed two genes associated with violent crime.
Those with the genes were 13 times more likely to have a history of repeated violent behaviour.

Tuesday 5 August 2014

President Jonathan Using Third Parties To Negotiate With Boko Haram To Free Abducted Chibok Girls

The president of Nigeria disclosed Monday that his government is using third parties to talk to Islamist
extremists and try to secure the safe release of the 200 schoolgirls they kidnapped, saying military action could prove too deadly.

In an exclusive interview with The Washington Times, President Goodluck Jonathan also said that U.S. help during the schoolgirls crisis has not produced any results.

“They have been with us for over a month, and we have not been able to get the girls out,” he said. “So you really see that the help has not yet resulted [in] something positive. I wouldn’t say they have helped or they have not helped. Basically they are there to help with intelligence gathering and so on.”

In Washington for an African leaders’ summit with President Obama, Mr. Jonathan directly addressed the
criticism both inside his country and abroad to his response to the terrorist group Boko Haram’s kidnapping of the girls from the town of Chibok in April, saying a swift military response likely would have resulted in the death of the children.

“We have not been able to get [an answer]. How do we get these girls out?” he said. “If it is to risk a few dead
bodies, it is easier. You can blast the place and carry the corpses. But is that what we have to do? So it is delicate, and that’s why we are proceeding with caution.”

Mr. Jonathan, who faces re-election in
2015, disclosed that he has authorized third parties to try to secure the girls’ safe release.
“Negotiations from Day One. We have set up a committee — what I call a dialogue committee — [for] the challenge we have in the north, even before the kidnapping of the Chibok girls. We have a team. And we encourage people to assist them. We do negotiate,” he said. “Quite a number of people have come with different information. We encourage them. But none of them have yielded any results.”

Nigerian and U.S. advisers to Mr. Jonathan immediately clarified his remarks after the interview, stating the Nigerian government was not directly negotiating with Boko Haram but instead using intermediaries.

“The president is not negotiating with Boko Haram. He is, however, encouraging dialogue between the sect and the government,” said Lanny Davis, a former Clinton White House adviser who has been advising the Jonathan administration on international media strategy related to the crisis.
“Recently, even before the girls were taken, he set up a committee to dialogue with Boko Haram. Currently,
there are third parties reaching out to Boko Haram to secure the safe return of the girls, and the administration is actively encouraging these backroom
initiatives,” he said.

The kidnappings fueled international outrage and spurred a social media campaign in the West with the
rallying cry of “#BringBackOurGirls.”
Mr. Jonathan, who belatedly accepted offers of help from the Obama administration to find the girls, said
American help hasn’t produced any measurable results.

Mr. Jonathan took baby steps on the carpet of his hotel suite to demonstrate the impact so far of the effort by the US and other global allies to help his country finds the girls — “one fraction of a centimeter.”
“It’s like when we are learning elementary physics in secondary school, and they will define ‘walk’ as ‘effort by distance,’” he said. “No matter what the effort, if you don’t move the load by a distance, the walk is zero. The effort I put, multiplied by zero, is zero. No walk. Yes, they are doing something, but no result yet.”

Mr. Davis, the adviser to President Jonathan, said Nigeria was appreciative of the help offered by numerous countries.

Washington Times

Emir of Kano - Muhammad Sanusi II Says Security Is A Collective Responsibility

The Emir of Kano, Muhammad Sanusi II, has said that the general public should not leave security matters to government or traditional rulers alone, even as he blamed insecurity situation in the country on poverty and illiteracy.

The emir who made the call on Monday, while speaking at a meeting of Kano elders, said ensuring adequate security in the society, should be collective efforts of all Nigerians.

His words: “If you see a 17-year-old carrying bomb, there is a need to ask ourselves a question; was she brainwashed because of illiteracy or how much was she paid because of
poverty.”

He, however, informed that his council had already met with Ulamas in the state over the situation.

Nigerian Tribune

Wednesday 30 July 2014

Boko Haram: Nigeria Opens Long-Awaited Battle of Ideas Against Sect's Ideology

KADUNA, Nigeria (Reuters) - In classrooms facing a sandy courtyard in the northern Nigerian city of Kaduna, Maska Road Islamic School teaches a creed that condemns the violent ideology of groups like Boko Haram.
Not everyone has got its message. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, known as the "Pants Bomber", spent his youth in this school - and ended up trying unsuccessfully to blow up a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day 2009 with explosives hidden in his underwear.

But the school is steadfast in preaching tolerance to its pupils, and the government is about to adopt this
message in a new strategy for containing Boko Haram, which has killed thousands in a five-year campaign for an Islamic state.
"We teach them that what they (Boko Haram) are doing is a total misunderstanding of the Islamic religion, that Prophet Mohammed was compassionate, he even lived together with the non-Muslims in Medina," said headmaster Sulaiman Saiki.
"We teach them tolerance," he told Reuters as girls in the next room softly recited Koranic verses in Arabic
melodies.

Abdulmutallab was radicalised in an Al Qaeda camp in Yemen, but his case shows that even youths given a
relatively liberal Muslim education can be seduced by radical Islam. This is something the new government program is aiming to combat.
Koranic schools like Maska Road will be a pillar of the strategy being launched in September to counter Boko Haram's ideology. The aim is to win over the "hearts and minds" of young Nigerians.
They will also challenge Boko Haram's claim that secular teaching is "un-Islamic" - Boko Haram means
"Western education is sinful" in Hausa, the dominant language in Nigeria's mainly Muslim north.

Maska Road teaches only Koranic verses and other tenets of Muslim faith, and encourages its 300 students to take classes such as science and literature outside its walls.
"We want them to get a Western education and combine it with ... religious learning," Saiki says.

Classes are held between 4 and 6 p.m., after secular schools shut.
Fatah Abdul, who studies at Maska Road, scoffs at the idea of violence in the name of Islam.
"Our religion doesn't entertain killing. Boko Haram is absolutely different from what our religion advocates,"
she said. "And it's not true what they say that we need an Islamic state. The leadership doesn't have to be Islamic".

"DECEIVED"
Saiki was a neighbor of Abdulmutallab when the future Pants Bomber was at school. He says Abdulmutallab didn't learn to hate the West there but "was deceived afterwards".
Abdulmutallab, a loner from a well-to-do northern family, showed how easily youths can be radicalised.

Add poverty into the mix, as in Nigeria's troubled northeastern Borno state, and it's not hard to see how Boko Haram finds young recruits.
Boko Haram is suspected of being behind suicide bombings that killed 82 people in Kaduna last week,
including one against a Muslim cleric about to lead a public prayer.

Kaduna, the capital of the north in colonial times, is richer than anywhere in the northeastern region where Boko Haram is based. But it shares many of its problems such as high youth unemployment, attested by the many children begging and hawking phone credit on its rubbish-filled streets.

President Goodluck Jonathan's administration has been pilloried for its apparent powerlessness to crush the rebels or protect civilians, including more than 200 schoolgirls kidnapped in April and who remain in captivity. But he has also faced censure for neglecting the insurgency's underlying causes.

So when Jonathan's National Security Adviser (NSA) Sambo Dasuki announced a new "soft approach to terrorism" in March, many instantly dismissed it as lacking in substance.
But officials in the office of the NSA say imams in mosques and traditional elders will be co-opted to preach tolerance, while measures will be taken to ensure Koranic schools teach "correct" interpretations of sacred texts.

The drive will also include educational programs, especially increased sports and music in northern schools, plus reform programs for convicted Boko
Haram detainees.
"A lot them don't have much Islamic knowledge, so they tend to believe what the mullahs say," Fatima Akilu, director of behavioral analysis in the office of the NSA told Reuters. "We want to teach what the Koran actually says in a language they understand."

A parallel economic program, also funded by the NSA's budget, will address the chronic poverty seen as a major driver of the insurgency.

It may be too late to bring back hundreds of youths already fighting for Boko Haram, but the idea is to prevent more from joining. Northern Nigeria has much lower levels of education than the south, a legacy of British colonialism, which protected the caliphates of the north from the activity of Christian missionaries who set up many schools in the south.

"The aspects of education Boko Haram don't like are the ones that allow you to think," Akilu said. "Keep people in the dark and you can control them with a singular narrative."
Undoing this partly involves showing how "Western" ideas, such as mathematics and some physics and
astronomy, are rooted in mediaeval Islamic thought, which was making strides while Christians in Europe
were busy burning witches.

"UN-ISLAMIC"
At the Sultan Bello mosque in Kaduna's busy downtown market area, local imam Ahmed Gumi takes an unusual step to illustrate his openness to the non-Islamic world: he invites four Reuters journalists in to see, film and photograph his sermon.
Three are non-Muslim, including two Westerners. He introduces the team to his congregation of about 350
packed into a main hall, and after a chorus of "welcome" he offers a live interview about his views on Boko Haram in front of the faithful.
"It's not right to call what those boys are doing Islamic," he later told Reuters privately. "They hide
behind Islam."

Gumi, one of northern Nigeria's most popular clerics, sees the idea of an Islamic state dear to extremists as
a throwback.
"They want to bring back the golden age of Islamic triumph in this modern time." he says. "For a state to survive you need a strong civilization, education, money, lawyers, doctors. You don't create a civilization with AK-47s in the bush."
He knows his outspoken views carry a risk he'll be targeted by Boko Haram. His mosque, a towering structure spread between four sand-colored turrets with turquoise-green domes, is guarded by scores of unarmed volunteers checking cars and bags.

Boko Haram fighters have killed dozens of clerics. One of the targets of the Kaduna bombs was a Sheikh Dahiru Bauchi, an imam whose mystical Sufism is a far cry from the austere al Qaeda-style type of Islam. Bauchi survived.

Though a government critic, Gumi approves of the soft approach, "but it needs local Borno (leaders) more than
people like us who are already openly opposed to them".

"ROOT CAUSES"
Taking issue with Boko Haram's ideology will work only if the government can draw disaffected youths away from the AK-47. The NSA's economic program aims to do this, starting with 2 billion naira ($12.3 million), but with a further 60 billion that can be made available from other agencies for projects, said Soji Adelaja, NSA special adviser on economic intelligence.

They include mobile medical trucks, cash for the orphans and widows of Boko Haram's victims, and a program employing 150,000 youths to fix roads and rebuild police stations.

Parts of Nigeria that are completely besieged by the insurgents are off-limits, but there are other vulnerable areas where the program can be rolled out, Adelaja says. "We are deploying in areas that are safe, and where the community has some resilience against Boko Haram."

The death of Boko Haram's founder Mohammed Yusuf in police custody transformed what had been a clerical
movement into an armed rebellion in 2009. Akilu says Yusuf disliked "Western" science which he saw as
contradicting the Koran, especially evolutionary theory, the fact that the world is round and the process of
evaporation, because "rain is a gift from God".

Getting schools to show how science and religion can co-exist, she says, is essential to combating such ideas.
Down a dirt track with crater-like potholes on the outskirts of Kaduna lies the iron-roofed Focus 1,2,3
International School. Twelve classrooms packed with desks take 25 children each.

Secular education is between 7.30 a.m. and midday. After lunch, Islamic schooling is between 1 p.m. and 5.30 p.m.
Muhammad Saleh, who runs the school, believes strongly in science, although he has doubts about evolutionary theory - as do many conservative Christians in the West.
Even so, his school teaches it. "I teach them evolution myself, and the parents never complain," he told Reuters. "It's education. Once children have an education they can decide for themselves what to think."

Reuters