UNIPATH STAFF In a move the country hopes will build stability and help sustain human rights, Tajikistan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs is expanding its network of community policing centers. The centers are aimed at building trust between the police and the populace and upholding the rule of law. Each of the centers has a community policing partnership team, and meetings are held with police and community members to discuss crime prevention, partnership building and problem solving. As of May 2013, Tajikistan had established 19 centers in nine districts with more planned for the future. The centers are part of a…
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UNIPATH STAFF Members of the Yemeni Customs Authority received instruction in detecting suspicious baggage and passengers during an International Air Cargo Interdiction Training course in Cairo, Egypt, in June 2013. Protecting airports, seaports and border crossings is a key part of national security, and the Yemenis tapped the expertise of agencies such as the Egyptian Customs Authority and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection and Transportation Security Administration. Course participants learned tactics and techniques to inspect air cargo and process passengers to intercept contraband such as illegal cash, weapons and narcotics. The Egyptian, U.S. and Yemeni…
ORGANIZATION FOR SECURITY AND CO-OPERATION IN EUROPE A second center to improve the public’s access to environmental information is planned for the Kyrgyz Republic. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) has been supporting the establishment of Aarhus Centres for more than 10 years. The centers have been created to support the implementation of the United Nations Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters, also known as the Aarhus Convention. There are currently 43 Aarhus Centres in 13 countries in Europe, South Caucasus and Central Asia. “The new Aarhus…
UNIPATH STAFF The creation of Iraq’s first national park is one way the government and people of Iraq are rectifying atrocities committed under the late dictator Saddam Hussein. In the summer of 2013, the Iraqi Council of Ministers created the Central Marshes of Iraq to help preserve the country’s important marshlands. In the 1990s, the Saddam regime conducted a campaign to drain the marshlands to punish the local Madan Marsh Arab population for backing an uprising against the dictator and eliminate hiding places for political opponents. Saddam ordered the killing of thousands of Marsh Arabs, slaughtered their livestock and initiated…
A Jordanian artillery commander finds a new calling as head of his country’s border guards Unipath Staff Jordanian Brig. Gen. Hussein Rashid Al-Zyoud spent decades as an artillery officer, but the real barrage began when he assumed his position in 2012 as commander of the country’s Border Guard Forces. More than 500,000 Syrians have crossed into Jordan, fleeing violence and disorder in the civil-war-wracked country that runs along Jordan’s 378-kilometer northern border. On the days he’s not personally visiting border posts near Mafraq, Jabir and Irbid, the banks of closed-circuit video monitors in Al-Zyoud’s office near the capital of Amman…
A coalition think tank provides vital analysis to U.S. military leaders By: LT. COL. MARIUSZ MINDA/FORMER POLISH REPRESENTATIVE TO THE COMBINED STRATEGIC ANALYSIS GROUP The terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, and the subsequent declaration of the Global War on Terrorism ushered in a most dynamic chapter in history. The United States and its coalition partners launched Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan on October 7, 2001. Because of their leading roles, various coalition partners quickly established national liaison elements at U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) headquarters in the U.S. These liaisons eventually led to the creation…
The Fight Against Terror Must Contend With Extremist Propaganda On Social Media Platforms UNIPATH STAFF Terrorists no longer hide in the dark corners of the Web in password-protected forums. With a few clicks of the mouse, anyone can follow their tweets, read their posts and watch their propaganda videos. Just as businesses, governments, celebrities and the everyday Internet savvy are embracing social media to gain loyalty and connect with the world, extremists have also recognized the value of these communication tools and are employing them to achieve their ends. The migration of extremists onto social media platforms has attracted the…
Debunking Modern Myths About Terrorism’s Roots UNIPATH STAFF Many myths surround popular beliefs about what contributes to extremism. Global experts dismiss explanations such as poverty, illiteracy and troubled childhoods and agree that generalizations should be avoided. There is no single underlying cause for the emergence of extremism, experts say. Myth No. 1 Extremists are Crazy or Mentally Ill Despite the emotionalism inherent in much violent extremism, few adherents are mentally debilitated. Within their own oftentimes fanatical worldviews, terrorists see their violent exploits as reasonable. Experts caution that efforts to treat violent extremism as a mental illness can simply create well-adjusted…
Disasters, both natural and man-made, are the theme of a multinational exercise UNIPATH STAFF As if the government of Kazakhstan didn’t have enough work tending to hundreds of thousands of earthquake and flood victims, a mysterious terror group started blowing up chemical plants and trains, hijacking relief convoys and spreading disinformation to an already distressed population. For many of the Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Afghan and Tajik officers at a Regional Coordination Center overseeing the disaster response, the first impulse was to summon their best troops and remove the physical threat posed by the self-styled Asian Unification Brigade (AUB). But organizers of…
Successful counterterrorism programs in Muslim-majority countries often employ similar approaches By: PROFESSOR HAMED EL-SAID/GUEST AUTHOR We still don’t know as much as we think we do about radicalization, counterradicalization and deradicalization processes and programs. We are also, by extension, still ignorant of the ideal recipe of successful counterradicalization and deradicalization programs (counter/derad), and even of how to measure the effectiveness of our efforts in this area of research and practice. Chief among the causes of our ignorance is that counter/derad programs remain the exception and not the rule. Most United Nations member states follow an approach based on a long…