New trends in terrorism

Over the last few decades we have seen the evolution of terrorist groups from Al Qaeda through to Daesh. The key change witnessed was an increased level of violence and brutality in these groups’ doctrine and attacks.

There are many questions regarding the capacity of these groups to survive, like financing, commercial exchange and weaponry.

The growing global terrorist networks appear to be functioning quite efficiently, so it is important to understand how they operate and integrate in order to identify how they are surviving and thriving.

A key lifeline of these terrorist groups is a strong relationship with organised crime. These links have always been there, but have become far more sophisticated in the last decade due to the growing crises in the Middle East.

Despite differences in the objectives of organised crime and terrorist groups, they are able to cooperate and integrate their operations.

Terrorist organisations aim at political change, while criminal organisations focus on making profits and maximising their reach.

Recently there has been an even deeper connection, as terrorist groups work to radicalise criminal organisations, which are no longer the primary target of security services, as the focus has shifted to Islamist terrorist groups.

While this integration is creating new challenges for security services focusing on terrorist threats, they need to be aware of the new landscape and respond.

With the focus of most security services on terrorist threats, the level of organised crime is increasing and becoming more sophisticated, witnessing escalation in the trafficking of humans, drugs and weapons.

As a result of these increased activities, they have an increased cash flow used to corrupt public officials.

This growing involvement of people and networks creates a new aspect of terrorism. 

According to many security reports, there have been increases in the movement of weapons from the Balkans to Syria and of human trafficking and refugees moving from the Middle East towards Europe. 

In order to face this new dimension of terrorism, it is important to understand the new face of these groups, and that criminal groups represent a serious threat that must be met with professionalism and decisiveness. 

Short of that, a record number of crimes will be seen, and the trend will become more and more difficult to reverse.

Maintaining law and order with determination and decisiveness is the first concrete step towards putting an end to the new trends of terrorism.

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