By Christine June
Public Affairs Office
George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies

GARMISCH-PARTENKIRCHEN, Germany (May 25, 2016) – Countering Terrorist Narratives in Asia, Central Asia, South Asia and Oceania was the topic of discussion on the second day of the Marshall Center’s Global Counterterrorism Alumni Community of Interest Workshop that began May 24.

The 73 participants from 41 countries listened to two panel discussions by Marshall Center alumni who are involved with counterterrorism in this region.

Dr. Sam Mullins, Marshall Center’s professor of Counterterrorism at the College of International and Security Studies, moderated the panel discussions on Countering Terrorist Narratives in Asia, Central Asia and Oceania.

The first panelist to speak was Irfan Abubakar, director of the Study of Religion and Culture in Jakarta, Indonesia and alumnus with the Daniel K. Inouye Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies. He talked about the threat of radical ideology spreading out using online media, including the Jihadist propaganda. He also talked about different approaches to facing this threat such as banning radical websites and gaining greater public support to countering radicalism.

The next panelist was Dr. Irina Chernykh, chief research fellow in Kazakhstan and PTSS alumna. She talked about the major terrorist acts in Kazakhstan, Foreign fighters from Kazakhstan, internal and external radicalization factors, strategies for fighting violent extremism, legislation, institutions creating counter-narratives on terrorism, the people’s assembly of Kazakhstan, the religious affairs agency, and mass media and social media factors.

Australian Col. Stuart Davies, director Special Operations Development within Australia’s Special Operations Command, was the last panelist for the discussion on Countering Terrorist Narratives in Asia, Central Asia and Oceania. He gave an Australian perspective on countering violent extremism and went into strategic methods such as understanding the Issue to create a strategy, developing content with simplicity as the key, implementing the campaign and finding out if you are having the affect you want.

Professor James Wither, Marshall Center’s professor of National Security Studies at CISS, moderated the Countering Terrorist narratives in South Asia.

One of the panelist for this discussion was Bangladesh Army Maj. Gen. Md Shafeenul Islam, an alumnus from PTSS, who explained the basic themes of terrorist’s narratives and counter narratives in Bangladesh, as well as shared best practices, key challenges and recommendations.

The Global CT Alumni COI Workshops are designed to support and engage the more than 1,500 alumni of the Marshall Center’s premier Program on Terrorism and Security Studies, as well as CT-focused alumni from other U.S. Department of Defense Regional Centers.