The challenges associated with facial recognition technology (FRT) need to be studied in detail before deploying them in counter-insurgency/counter-terror operations.
The recent Joint Statement issued after the Quad Foreign Ministers’ meeting in Melbourne indicates the grouping’s drive towards institutionalisation and coming close to achieving a concrete mandate for its existence.
The decline in terrorist incidents and reduction in infiltration from across the border is no doubt a positive development but this alone cannot guarantee peace in Jammu and Kashmir. Strengthening of democratic institutions at the grassroots level is also required.
The false compliance present within the radicalised individuals and convicted terrorist offenders pose a considerable threat to the society, following their release from de-radicalisation-based institutions.
The 2015 terrorist attacks in France have seriously tested the nation’s faith in liberal and secular values as well as its tolerance for Political Islam. Taking a hands-on approach to combat terrorism, France has initiated what is being described as the “biggest trial” in its modern history.
The attack on former Maldivian President and current Speaker of the Majlis, Mohammad Nasheed, on May 6, 2021 has brought to attention the country’s tenuous political stability, compounded by the problem of Islamist radicalisation.
In the aftermath of Samuel Paty’s beheading, France is taking measures that seek to reverse the processes through which individuals become ‘terrorists’. If successful, other countries could emulate such policy interventions in their own counter-radicalisation efforts.
What pales the counter-terrorism regime is not that its procedures are cumbersome or that its working is not transparent, but that it only selectively raises the cost for those who inflict terror.
There is an urgent need to formulate a ‘Counter Proxy War Doctrine’ that integrates diplomacy, defence, development and other tools of hard and soft power.
Australia has remained insulated from mega terrorist attacks, but post-September 11 its involvement in the war on terror in Afghanistan, Iraq and against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has brought terrorism into its backyard. In the wake of these emerging threats, particularly home-grown terrorism (HGT), successive governments have introduced changes in the counter-terrorism (CT) laws, and expanded the Criminal Code Act 1995 (Commonwealth-Cth) at the recommendations of the Council of Australian Governments (COAG).
