Written evidence submitted by Professor Sir David Omand GCB [CT 06]

Any review of the Pursue strand of the UK Counter-Terrorism strategy CONTEST should start with the underlying logic of the strategy: the application of risk management to achieve the aim of the strategy, maintaining conditions of normality.

It is important in assessing the past and current effectiveness of Pursue to see it as a means of managing, not eliminating, the risk from terrorism.  Elimination of risk from terrorism, and from AQ associated groups specifically, is most unlikely to be feasible over the next 5 years (CONTEST originally had a timespan of five years, that has been extended twice after review by successive governments).  And attempts to achieve the absolute aim of eliminating terrorism would undoubtedly have highly undesirable side effects on the liberties and freedoms and respect for human rights that we rightly prize as British values.

In constructing the CONTEST strategy after 9/11, we saw the overall level of risk faced by the public from international terrorism as the product of a number of factors:

(a)  the likelihood of attack (to be reduced both by the immediate Pursuit campaign to uncover and disrupt terrorist networks with a doubling of the capacity of the Security Service supported in increases in police and other intelligence effort, and by the longer term Prevent campaign aimed at countering the radicalization of another generation of young violent extremists at home and abroad);

(b)  the level of vulnerability of the nation to terrorism (to be reduced by the Protect campaign improving security for aviation and the travelling public, crowded spaces and the critical national infrastructure);

(c)  the size of impact of an attack, should (when) terrorists manage to penetrate our defences, together with the duration of the ensuing disruption to normal life (to be reduced by the Prepare campaign through improving emergency services and first responders capability and building resilience so as to enable the nation to bounce back as quickly as possible after attack). 

It takes a balance of investment in all 4 Ps (Pursue, Prevent, Protect and Prepare) materially to reduce the overall risk, and although Pursue is fundamental it is a part of a larger strategy (with interaction between the Ps, for example taking care that over-vigorous Pursuit activities overseas do not prejudice the efforts of Prevent in our towns and cities).

That underlying risk management logic remains, has stood the test of time and should be re-endorsed.

When I decided to launch work to construct CONTEST in October 2002 we were unsure what should be the ultimate aim to which all those involved in the UK counter-terrorism effort, directly and indirectly, should bend their efforts.  For the United States, suffering from the aftermath of 9/11, the overriding goal was to defeat terrorism and

“use every tool available to disrupt, dismantle, and destroy their capacity to conduct acts of terror. The final element to the Defeat goal is an aggressive, offensive strategy to eliminate capabilities that allow terrorists to exist and operate - attacking their sanctuaries; leadership; command, control, and communications; material support; and finances”.[1] 

After much debate, we concluded on the other hand that whilst sharing that absolute determination to protect the public, for the UK the appropriate strategy should start from denying the terrorists that which they most sought, namely the creation of conditions of insecurity and fear amongst the public.  The strategic aim of CONTEST – to reduce the risk in order to be able to maintain normality - has remained constant since then, from its acceptance as government strategy in 2003 to date. Formally:

“The aim of CONTEST is to reduce the risk to the UK and its interests overseas from terrorism, so that people can go about their lives freely and with confidence.”[2]

The caveats ‘freely’ and ‘with confidence’ that we added are, however, very important especially when it comes to the Pursue strand. 

By ‘freely’ should mean without having to sacrifice the values and liberties of a free democratic society. Further tuning of counter-terrorism powers in the light of experience and of shifts in the modus operandi of terrorist groups must be expected, such as has already happened with TPIMS, stop and search powers and reducing the length of time for which people can be held before charge for terrorist offences to 14 days.  But further changes should be at the margins, since the fundamental approach to UK CT legislation is sound in relation to the likely trajectory of the threat over the next few years.  Improved miniaturisation and reliability of the relevant technologies may, however, make it easier remotely to monitor the whereabouts and communications of tagged convicted terrorist offenders released on licence in the community, an issue that will increase in salience as more of those guilty of terrorism related offences come to the end of their terms of imprisonment. 

The caveat ‘with confidence’ is also important. We can see the nation enjoying national security when there is maintenance of trust in the ability of the authorities to enable normal life to continue, that is, with an absence of fear of attack, with markets stable, inward investment flourishing, international travel safeguarded, overseas visitors arriving and welcomed and so on. 

By the fundamental standard of that aim the CONTEST strategy is succeeding, as was well demonstrated by the safe and secure Olympic Games last year.  I see no reason to alter the aim. 

The success of Pursue (and equivalent efforts by allies and partners overseas) has been not only in disrupting networks in the UK and their links overseas (including a significant number of major plots that have been well reported in the media), but also making it much harder for violent jihadists to operate in the UK without detection.  The effect has, as the Committee has recognised, been a shift in the UK from large-scale plots that require long term planning, organisation (including support from trained jihadists overseas) and finance to smaller, cruder local attacks. 

It should be borne in mind, however, that such a mutation in the threat could quickly reverse if the pressure was taken off, and if jihadists were to regain the initiative in havens overseas such as Yemen, and as al-Shabaab threatens in Somalia.  The AQ printer cartridge plot out of Yemen uncovered at Luton airport showed how terrorists far afield can threaten our security.  It must also be remembered that an increased threat of individual acts of violence increases the difficulty of the demands on the intelligence and security services to forestall attacks whilst still avoiding oppressive and counter-productive surveillance of the community as a whole.  And as the aftermath of the Woolwich murder showed the authorities also need to be able to stifle provocations from the extreme right that could threaten to undermine harmony in our town and cities..

Such developments in the terrorist threat will intensify the tension between nations that unilaterally defend their interests with military means - including by targeted killing and in future by offensive use of cyberspace – and those who seek collective security under international human rights law.  A current example is the use of international humanitarian law to justify lethal US armed UAV attacks outside a recognised battle-space on those regarded by their past or current hostile terrorist activity as having foregone their non-combatant immunity.  Other nations such as the UK will be seeking to defend themselves within the different legal construct of international human rights law, authorising lethal force only when hostile intent is actually being shown. We will see more examples of overlapping legal regimes operating in a single geographical space as nations try to protect their interests against terrorist and criminal movements in ungoverned spaces overseas. The Committee will, I am sure, consider the ethically ambiguous position of the British public that has benefitted in that respect from the US armed UAV programme that has removed several leading terrorists who had been associated with plans to attack the UK and UK interests, measures that would not legally be permitted to the UK under the overseas part of the Pursue strategy.

Terrorists will also adapt their methods to minimise the risk of failure.  In the future the biggest change in the conflict environment may well be in cyberspace, given our increasing dependence on cyber systems and the connectivity provided already by 8 billion users of mobile devices, and this may make it more likely that violence is expressed against us from a safe distance lowering the risks to the attackers and lowering their threshold of violence.

Applying the principle of subsidiarity, security issues that can be handled locally should be: there is no need for the concept of national security to become unnecessarily centralised. Personal security, in the sense of absence of fear in one’s home or workplace or when travelling, has traditionally been seen as a matter for local police services.  These services, for example, play an important part in everyday preventive policing relevant to the success of both the Pursue and the Prevent strands, something that needs to be recognised by the new Policing and Crime Commissioners at a time when policing resources are under huge strain. 

Especially since 9/11, however, it has become increasingly clear that important aspects of personal security are now national policy issues, because they have international roots in the activities of terrorists that see themselves as sharing a global religious ideology.   There is thus a continuing need for a strong national counter-terrorism strategy to direct and align efforts supported by effective national intelligence and police capability working in harmony.  The recent transfer of policy responsibility for the subject of serious and organised crime within the Home Office to OSCT to sit alongside counter-terrorism policy is prudent, given that we may see increasing overlap, or at least links, between criminal and terrorist gangs and that will include issues such as countering terrorist financing and terrorist access to cyber hacking capabilities.  One consequence of the spread of cyber attack capabilities is that no longer can the international community impose sanctions (such as the UN sanctions on Iran) and not expect the nation concerned to fight back with cyber means either directly or by proxies.  Another is that commercial companies overseas will find themselves the subject of cyber or other form of attack (for example after an environmental disaster or simply because they represent Western ‘Crusader’ capitalism).  It will be important that OSCT, with the agencies involved, looks broadly at how such hostile long term developments can be countered under a future Pursue strategy.

Does that also argue for transferring the responsibility for police leadership in counter-terrorism from the Metropolitan Police Service (the Met) to the National Crime Agency (NCA)?  One of the great successes of the last decade for the UK has been the partnership between the police service and the intelligence and security community, and their relationship with the Crown Prosecution Service, something with which that most nations struggle.  This fortunate position rests on established relations of trust between different organisations that have, rightly, different powers, mandates and cultures.  That cooperation has been successfully tested in circumstances of terrorist attack and attempted attack, and in the successful conviction of terrorists in the Courts.  Of course, the present arrangements involving the Security Service and the Met and the other police services in England and Wales and Scotland are not the only possible ones, nor necessarily the most economical.  But they have evolved under fire and I would be very cautious about seeking to replace them with a theoretical structure that might look tidier on paper, such as giving the lead to the NCA, until we have seen both a significant diminution in the threat and an NCA that has established itself firmly as being on the top of its game in relation to serious organised criminality.

Furthermore, given the serious counter-terrorist effort still required in the UK, I would see great advantage in an all party statement from the Committee that the NCA should be given at least 5 years to bed down before the topic of counter-terrorism responsibility is reconsidered.  What would erode unity of purpose and divert valuable nervous energy from the Pursue CT mission would be for officers on all sides to feel uncertain about the structure and their place in it over the next few years.

The purpose of Pursue is to stop terrorist attacks in this country and against our interest overseas. This means detecting and investigating threats at the earliest possible stage and disrupting terrorist activity before it can endanger the public and, wherever possible, prosecuting those responsible. The key to Pursue therefore is pre-emptive intelligence, soundly assessed.

Such intelligence can come from three sources: volunteered from the community; accessed from intelligence sources, including traditional and new secret sources (such as social media intelligence); and acquired from overseas liaisons.  Although intelligence oversight is the province of the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee, the Home Affairs Committee may wish to reaffirm the importance of all three of these avenues for accessing pre-emptive intelligence to allow terrorists to be identified, networks and attacks to be disrupted and those responsible for criminal acts brought to justice. 

Looking ahead, it will be essential to an effective Pursuit campaign for the authorities to be able to continue to access and analyse stored communications meta-data and thus uncover the communications of terrorist suspects and their backers and financiers, even when these are hidden in the vast global volumes of the internet.  Following the controversy over revelations by Mr Snowden of details of the capabilities of the US and UK intelligence communities to achieve precisely that there is the danger that well-meaning but exaggerated concerns over privacy, international information sharing and the effectiveness of oversight will hinder the future ability to track terrorists at home at abroad.  The Pursue effort would be seriously undermined by misguided efforts to rush in new European or national regulation or by failure by Parliament to keep up to date UK legislation on internet communications data.

It is likewise important to Pursue that the detailed sources and methods of intelligence work and of investigations by police and Security Service do not become known to the terrorists themselves thus making their ambitions to harm us much easier to achieve.  The proceedings of relevant criminal and civil cases have already revealed much of how the security authorities operate, and judicial proceedings in this country - civil as well as criminal - must be such as to be able to handle sensitive and secret material to preserve the interests of national security whilst dispensing justice. 

The spread of existing and developing technology will create dangers, for example with ever more sophisticated IEDs drawing on mobile phone and shaped charge technology, improvised communications networks being used by terrorists (as seen in the Mumbai attack), and improvised weapons systems where current conflicts already provide a reservoir of weapons, including surface to air missile systems as well as a training and hardening experience for British jihadists who are likely to seek to import their new skills into domestic terrorism. The protection of UK and Western interests overseas, such as in aviation, oil and extractive industries, may well become more difficult, as was seen in the attack earlier this year by a 30 strong armed AQIM jihadist group on the BP/Statoil natural gas facility at In Amenas in south eastern Algeria near the Libyan border.

Another long term factor that should be considered when examining the future of the Pursue strand is that most of the additional global population growth that experts predict will end up in the overcrowded urban littoral of developing nations.  The capacity of these urban mega-cities will be greatly exceeded in terms of security, governance, and basic utilities such as water and sanitation. In the vast slums of coastal urban sprawl will hide terrorists, religious fanatics, and violent criminal and pirate gangs with international connections to the West including in the UK.  Safeguarding UK and Western interests and citizens, and when necessary organising rescue and evacuation, is likely to be a preoccupation of military and security planners. 

What will be very different in future is that all of these many hundreds of millions of people living on the margin will nevertheless be electronically interconnected by their mobile devices, exposed to ideologies hostile to us and aware of global events as they happen.  The implications for counter-terrorism strategy and the Pursuit of terrorists will be profound. There should therefore be no let up in the work by HMG to co-operate with governments overseas and international organisations to improve global responses to terrorism at source whenever it appears.

It is the international dimension of our major security risks that drives the need for a redefinition of national security. The increased vulnerability of advanced cyber-networked societies and reliance upon complex just in time global logistic networks and product sourcing widens the boundary of everyday security.   Interdependent markets, global travel patterns and labour migration interacting with transnational terrorism and piracy all internationalise domestic security concerns.  Success in counter-terrorism therefore depends on international collaboration including with countries whose legal outlook and respect for human rights differ from our own. That should not stop us standing up for our values, whilst encouraging and supporting key partners to build up their capacity to investigate and prosecute terrorists overseas.

Professor Sir David Omand GCB

War Studies Department King’s College London

September 2013