European counterterrorism strategies against transnational terrorism and extremism

European Counter Terrorism

Challenges Faced by European Counterterrorism Efforts in Tackling Transnational Terrorism.

Terrorist activities and violent extremism represents a significant threat to the European Union (EU) member states, which necessitates the need for appropriate measures for curbing the severe extent of such activities. This article briefly highlights the hurdles encountered by EU in implementing the counter terrorism strategies. The core challenge involves major threats from Al-Qaeda groups and individuals, radicalization of violent terrorist activities, the drastic growth of cyber terrorism and the challenges faced by European intelligence agencies pertaining to the cooperation among them.

Challenges Faced by European Counterterrorism Efforts in Tackling Transnational Terrorism

The growing pace of terrorist activities in EU member states compelled them to adopt a wide variety of measures in combating them. The structure of EU counterterrorism policies has changes a great deal after the 9/11 terrorist attack in U.S.. The counterterrorism policy revolves around safeguarding fundamental rights in face of the growing danger of radicalization, as regards both religiously and ideologically motivated terrorism. The following are the core challenges faced by European counterterrorism strategies in dealing with transnational terrorism:

The Challenge of Cyber Terrorism

Internet communication measures provide a safe and inconspicuous means of communicating information among the terrorist and violent extremist activities. They tend to be a major threat in promoting propaganda efforts of terrorist groups. The rise of cyber terrorism due to extensive use of criminal tools like botnets, crimeware tool kits, coding activities, phishing of emails and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS attacks) pose a dire threat to counterterrorism efforts in Europe. All these cyber-criminal tools breakdown entire computer networks, saturate servers and websites, until all of them cease to function properly. This involves the challenging feature of identifying the true cause of the attack, which gets quite difficult due to the breakdown of the entire network. Thus the counterterrorism activities are required to be focused on enforcing proper laws and regulations as a holistic response towards these electronic attacks (Europol, 2012).

Threats faced by European Intelligence Agencies

Intelligence and intelligence cooperation plays a pivotal role in the securitization process at the national and European level. The threats of international terrorism necessitate the need for cooperation among the European intelligence agencies. Information sharing and pooling of expertise among European intelligence agencies caters with an effective way of dealing with terrorist activities. Europol and SitCen are the two major European agencies which are involved in counter terrorism activities. However, they suffer a great deal from the ingrained resistance towards the centralization of cooperation of European Intelligence Agencies. The core drawback lies in the fact that the Europol is not playing a coordinating role comparable to the U.S. department of Homeland Security. The efficiency of Europol is limited by the unwillingness of national agencies in providing raw intelligence data to it, as Europol does not collect any of its own (non-open) intelligence (Wille, 2008). This tends to be the focal point of problem for EU and trust tends to be a major obstacle for information-sharing within Europol. Some agencies, who do not employ particular reservations regarding the sharing of intelligence with Europol, are reluctant in providing their intelligence information as they fear that this may spoil their well-established bi-lateral relations with other states, particularly, the U.S.A. Another challenge faced by Europol and its counterterrorism strategies is that the Europol has not been assigned any responsibilities, as it only plays the role of an add-on agency working in parallel to national agencies (Wille, 2008). National services are entrusted with the task of producing and providing national law enforcement authorities with accurate and complete intelligence and hence they are not in favor of trusting upon Europol's contribution. Due to this, the centralization approach towards intelligence cooperation among European agencies is not playing an effective part in counterfeiting international terrorism, and thus decentralization seems to be the only option left for supporting counter-terrorist operations.

Left-wing, Right-wing and Single-Issue Attacks

The threat of violent right-wing and left-wing extremism has touched alarmingly high levels in Europe and they could not simply be underestimated. The threat involves not only lone actors, but underground groups as well, which carry out devastating attacks. Throughout 2011, rail facilities in Germany, Italy and Finland were targeted by left-wing/anarchist extremists. The violent animal rights extremist groups have greatly increased their eventually affecting the businesses involved. Several violent single-issue extremist groups focus on a broad range of targets, including indirectly related institutions and businesses (Europol, 2012). The cross-border communication among violent extremist groups has increased greatly, which poses a new threat to counter terrorism strategies deployed by EU.

Democratic, Legal and Social Legitimacy of Counter Terrorism Networks

The accountability and legitimacy of European counter terrorism networks tends to be an issue of growing concern. Democratic legitimacy encompasses parliamentary oversight, legal legitimacy comprises of application of rule of law, while social legitimacy defines accountability towards citizens and public. Democratic control and accountability are the core requirements of the current complex transnational sphere of counter terrorism. The creation of new counter terrorism networks in Europe and the unaccountability of large internal European security cooperation pose new threats to Europe. Intelligence exchange, strategic partnerships and policy initiation are the main pillars of counter terrorism networks, which are being overlooked by European parliamentarians, judges and citizens (Boer, Hillebrand & Nolke, 2008). The nature of transnational intelligence relationships and the ways and means their accountability is and ought to be guaranteed requires supreme attention, which if ignored, could result in serious threats to European national security.

Counterterrorism strategies in Europe turned over a new leaf after the 9/11 attack in U.S.. EU pose great threats due to the terrorists attacks by al-Qaeda groups, home grown terrorist groups and ring and left wing terrorist groups. The technological innovations in communication and cyber terrorism have further created major challenges in the identification of real culprits involved in the EU terrorist attacks. The accountability and legitimacy of European counterterrorism networks also tends to be an issue of concern for EU. The non-cooperation of national agencies and other intelligence agencies towards Europol further aggravates the situation of counterterrorism activities in Europe.