New PfP Consortium project studies terrorist recruitment
April 4, 2007
Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany — A new research project led by the Partnership for Peace Consortium will analyze the recruitment mechanisms used by Islamist terrorists in Europe.
Marshall Center Professor Dr. John J. LeBeau addresses the Partnership for Peace Consortium's Combating Terrorism Working Group April 3 in Tbilisi, Georgia, as the group plans its new research project on terrorist recruitment in Europe.
Photo by Joe Embler
The PfP Consortium's Combating Terrorism Working Group mapped out the year-long project in a meeting on April 3 and 4 in Tbilisi, Georgia.
The initial meeting, held in concert with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe mission to Georgia, brought together experts from law enforcement and security agencies throughout Europe, including Scotland Yard, the Albanian State Intelligence Service, Croatian Police Academy, Lithuanian State Security Department, Georgian Counter Terrorism Department and Ministry of National Security of Azerbaijan. Dr. Sabine Collmer, director of the Marshall Center Research Program, along with representatives of the U.S. Naval War College, the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point and U.S. European Command’s J2/X counter-narco terrorism program, also presented briefings.
The project addresses a critical security issue in examining terrorist recruitment methods in Europe, according to the working group chair, Marshall Center Professor Dr. John J. LeBeau.
"The most pressing terrorist threat to international stability today is that represented by Islamist terrorists and the continuous recruitment of new adherents,” LeBeau said. “It is broadly recognized by leading terrorism and security scholars that Europe has played a central role in the matriculation of international Islamist terrorists. The 9/11 suicide bombers resided and schooled in Hamburg, Germany, and appear to have been radicalized there. The London and Madrid bombers provide other current examples, as do the formulators of the failed plot to destroy two German trains in 2006.”
LeBeau anticipates being able to use the study’s conclusions in the Marshall Center’s Program in Terrorism and Security Studies, which focuses on trends in the development of international terrorism and strategies and methods for combating it. “We are working not only to identify the characteristics of recruitment mechanisms, but also to identify appropriate counter-terrorism means. We are working with an eye on how to try to diminish the threat,” LeBeau said.
Project members will meet in Garmisch in September to follow up on initial findings, according to PfP Consortium International Program Manager Dr. Valerie Lofland.
