Counterterrorism policies in the Middle East and North Africa: A regional perspective

The 9/11 attacks and the “War on Terror” brought terrorism and counterterrorism to the forefront of politics. Today, terrorism remains one of the most serious threats to national and international security. Yet, amid the surge of scholarly and policy interest in terrorism and counterterrorism, the literature on counterterrorism policies and strategies in the Middle East at the local and regional levels is sparse, limited and predominantly Western. The experience of political terrorism and violence in the Middle East throughout the 1980s and 1990s, which led to the introduction of a securitization process and the adoption of counterterrorism measures in the region long before the 9/11 attacks, offers important lessons. This paper takes its point of departure from the definitional conundrum of the concepts of “terrorism” and “(national) security” within the Middle East context. It examines the evolution of the securitization process in the Middle East in response to terrorism, with reference to the experiences of countries in the region. As it analyzes the different counterterrorism models and methods employed, it argues that counterterrorism strategies in much of the Middle East have not been effective and have at times been counterproductive.

Social Anarchy, ‘Common Danger’ or Political ‘Terrorism’? Origins of Transnational Legal Suppression of Terrorism in the Unification of Criminal Laws, 1927–35

Ben Saul takes us back to legal antecedents of modern terrorism laws, unfolding a story of how increases in the level and sophistication of law enforcement cooperation against anarchists led eventually to the attempted negotiation under League auspices of an anti-terrorism convention, the AIDP’s attempts to draft a code of common offences for mankind including terrorism, and the work of the International Bureau for the Unification of Criminal Laws (IBUCL) in trying to unify national criminal laws under the League.

Political Terrorism in the Russian Empire in 1901-1911 and Its Role in the Historical Memory of Russia

The first outbreak of mass political terrorism in the 20th century took place in the Russian Empire, especially in the First Russian Revolution of 1905-1907. However, these events have not received proper attention in the historical memory of Russia and Europe and in the history of world terrorism. The author examines the factors enabling the continued existence of a huge “blank spot” in the memory of Russia and the world. The under-evaluation of the significance of terrorism in the first decade of the 20th century is closely connected with the under-evaluation of the First Russian Revolution as an independent revolution. In the Soviet Union, historians emphasized that the Revolution of 1905-1907 was “the dress rehearsal” for the Great October Socialist Revolution of 1917. In post-Soviet Russia, many historians and publicists consider the Revolution of 1905-1907 “the dress rehearsal” for the “Golgotha” of 1917. There is a strong tendency to idealize the autocracy and right-wing movements and to demonize socialists and liberals. Many solid monographs and articles about terrorism are now being published in Russia. However, we still do not have exhaustive investigations covering the entire period of terrorism between 1866 (attempted assassination of Tsar Alexander II on April 4, 1866 by the revolutionary D.V. Karakozov) and 1911, examining the ideologies and tactics of different parties and movements, the government’s policies on political crimes, the relationships of society, especially among different political movements, to terrorism, and the differences between terrorism and other types of mass violence such as mass protest movements of different strata of the population and criminal violence. Only through a painstaking and multi-sided analysis of the terrorist phenomenon in the European-wide historical context we can determine the place of terrorism in the historical memory of Russia and Europe.