SCOTLAND’S counter-terrorism strategy should be adopted across the continent to help prevent attacks such as those in Paris, Brussels and Nice.
As the continent’s intelligence leaders fret about the impact on Brexit on international security, a leading think tank is proposing a Scottish solution to bringing crime-fighters and communities together.
The Bratislava-based Globsec has singled out Scotland’s Strategic Multi-Agency Response Team or Smart system, which brings law enforcement into the same teams as councils and other bodies to identify potential problematic individuals and wider threats.
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The think tank – led by former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bilt, former UK Home and Defence Secretary John Reid, former US Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and retired German spy chief August Hanning – represents some of the highest profile security experts in the world.
It is trying to figure out why some parts of Europe – such as Belgium – have suffered more Islamist terrorism than others, such as Scotland.
And it has pointed to this country’s ability to pass information up from communities and ensure that tackling terrorism is not only a matter for intelligence services.
In a major report entitled Globsec Intelligence Reform Initiative, the think tank stressed that “European terrorism is increasingly a local law enforcement issue, relying on good relations and deep familiarity with local communities to collect actionable intelligence. Law enforcement is essentially on the frontline of counter-terrorism efforts.
“Nevertheless, numerous intelligence, law enforcement and legal services have not succeeded in developing a strong sense of a single community.”
Globsec stressed that some of the men behind the Paris and Brussels attacks where known to the authorities and considered a threat. But they were able to move to the Middle East “with relative ease”.
This is contrasted with the Scottish approach.
Smart is described as a successful hub, enabling the mutual exchange of intelligence, including sharing concerns about an individuals of concern and signposting them to the most appropriate agency, not necessarily criminalising them. (Scottish authorities avoid terminology such as “radicalised”).
Globsec added that all 32 Scottish councils had their own threat assessments.
It added: “This allowed the authorities to brief and educate their employees as to what to look for, allowing thousands of people to know the threat to their communities.
“This in turn identified, harvested and disseminated intelligence which ultimately monitored community tensions and matters out of the ordinary.”
Globsec wants to take best practice from across the continent – and learn from lessons of failures in community relations in countries like Belgium
Its suggestions – made as Britain and Scotland’s role in a continent-wide policing system is threatened by Brexit – include a Core Transatlantic Counter-Terrorism Hub “in order to provide a secure space for linking existing national counter-terrorism centres with high degrees of mutual trust”.
This facility, reminiscent of Police Scotland’s Crime Campus, “would encourage less capable or willing nation states to improve their services to join”.
READ MORE: Beyond Brexit: Analysis - Security and fight against Islamic State demands intelligence sharing
The hub would host individual tax forces to meet cross-border cases.
Globsec also wants EU nations and their Nato allies to open up their data bases to a simple “hit-no-hit”: this would mean authorities in, for example, France being able to check whether, say, Scotland, had information on a named individual.
Scottish experts are eager to see this country contribute the kind of system proposed by Globsec, whose advisors include Police Scotland’s former head of counter-terrorism and organised crime, retired Detective Superintendent John Cuddihy.
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