Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism

Mike Gapes Excerpts

Thursday 19th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I am not aware of significant numbers of cases that are being heard in the way that the hon. Gentleman suggests. It would be inappropriate to seek to interfere with the judgment of the court. The court will assess the evidence before it and determine what is appropriate in the handling of criminal cases.

However, this is a broader issue that we have debated on previous occasions, and it is appropriate for me now to return to proscription and the different organisations that are under careful scrutiny by this House today.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

The explanatory memorandum states that one of the organisations on the proscribed list, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, has been involved in various forms of terrorist-related activities since 1968. Will the Minister explain why that organisation has not been on a proscribed list—this is a point against all Governments—since then? Why is it only now, when it seems to be fighting on behalf of the Assad regime, that we are listing it? It has been carrying out terrorist actions against Israel and elsewhere for a number of years, but it is only now, suddenly, that it appears on a list.

[James Brokenshire]

I was just about to come on to the specific aspects of each of the organisations, including the PFLP-GC. Home Secretaries of whichever Government will consider proscription based on a number of different factors, including the nature and scale of an organisation’s activity; the specific threat it poses to the UK; the specific threat it poses to British nationals overseas; the organisation’s presence in the UK; and the need to support other members of the international community in tackling terrorism. Organisations will be considered against those factors, and timing issues may determine whether an organisation should be proscribed at any given moment. I hope it will help the hon. Gentleman if I address each of the organisations in turn. Perhaps that will give him some assurance of the consideration that is being given and why action is appropriate at this time.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant is a brutal Sunni Islamist terrorist group active in Iraq in Syria. The group adheres to a global jihadist ideology, following an extreme interpretation of Islam that is anti-western and promotes sectarian violence. ISIL aims to establish an Islamic state governed by sharia law in the region and uses violence and intimidation to impose its extremist ideology on civilians. ISIL has previously been proscribed as part of al-Qaeda. However, steps taken by al-Qaeda’s senior leadership to sever ties with ISIL have prompted consideration of the case to proscribe ISIL in its own right.

The House will also be aware not only that ISIL poses a threat from within Syria, but that in the past two weeks it has made significant advances in Iraq. The threat from ISIL in Iraq and Syria is very serious and shows clearly the importance of taking a strong stand against the extremists.

As I have indicated to the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, we are aware that approximately 400 British nationals have travelled to Syria and some of them will inevitably be fighting with ISIL. It appears that ISIL is treating Iraq and Syria as one theatre of conflict and its potential ability to operate across the border is a cause for concern for the whole international community.

In April 2014, ISIL claimed responsibility for a series of blasts targeting a Shi’a election rally in Baghdad. The attacks are reported to have killed at least 31 people. Thousands of Iraqi civilians lost their lives to sectarian violence in 2013, and attacks carried out by ISIL will have accounted for a large proportion of those deaths.

ISIL has reportedly detained dozens of foreign journalists and aid workers. In September 2013, members of the group kidnapped and killed the commander of Ahrar ash-Sham after he intervened to protect members of a Malaysian Islamic charity.

In January 2014, ISIL captured the Al-Anbar cities of Ramadi and Falluja, and it is engaged in ongoing fighting with the Iraqi security forces. The group also claims responsibility for a car bomb attack that killed four people and wounded dozens in the southern Beirut suburb of Haret Hreik.

ISIL has a strong presence in northern and eastern Syria, where it has instituted strict sharia law in the towns under its control. The group is responsible for numerous brutal attacks and a vast number of deaths. The group is believed to attract foreign fighters, including westerners, to the region, and has maintained control of various towns on the Syrian-Turkish border, allowing the group to control who crosses, and its presence there has interfered with the free flow of humanitarian aid.

ISIL is designated as a terrorist group by both Canada and Australia, and as an alias of al-Qaeda by the US, New Zealand and the United Nations.

Turkiye Halk Kurtulus Partisi-Cephesi, also known as the People’s Liberation Party/Front of Turkey, is a left-wing organisation. It was formed in 1994. The group grew out of the Turkish extreme-left revolutionary youth movements that formed in the 1960s and 1970s. THKP-C now operates as a pro-Assad militia group fighting in Syria, and it has developed increased capabilities since the Syrian insurgency. It is assessed as having been involved in an attack in Reyhanli in Turkey last May, which killed more than 50 people and injured more than 100 people. Its leader, Mihrac Ural, holds Syrian citizenship and was born in the southern province of Hatay, where the organisation has always been most prominent. Ural has formed several other groups under the THKP-C umbrella, including Mukavamet Suriye, which is reported to have been responsible for the recent Banias massacre, which killed at least 145 people.

Kateeba al-Kawthar describes itself as a group of mujaheddin from more than 20 countries that seeks a just—as it perversely says—Islamic nation. It is an armed terrorist group fighting to establish an Islamic state in Syria. It is aligned to the most extreme groups operating in Syria, and it has links to al-Qaeda. Abu Musab, who is also known as Rabah Tahari, a western mujahed commander, is its leader. The group is believed to have attracted a number of western foreign fighters, and it has released YouTube footage that encourages travel to Syria and asks Muslims to support the fighters.

The Abdallah Azzam Brigades is an Islamist militant group, aligned with al-Qaeda and the global jihad movement, that is currently fighting in Syria and Lebanon. It began operating in Pakistan in 2009. The Lebanese branch uses the name Ziyad al-Jarrah Battalions. It is named after the Lebanese 9/11 hijacker Ziyad al-Jarrah, who participated in the hijacking and crash of United flight 93.

The AAB has increased its operational pace since the onset of the Syrian insurgency, claiming responsibility for a rocket attack launched from Lebanon into northern Israel in August 2013. In November 2013, it claimed responsibility for a double suicide bombing outside the Iranian embassy in Beirut, which killed at least 22 people and wounded more than 140 people. On 19 February 2014, the group’s recently established media wing, the al-Awzaey Media Foundation, announced on Twitter and YouTube that the group claimed responsibility for two suicide bombings near the Iranian cultural centre in Beirut, killing 11 people and wounding 130 people, in revenge for actions by Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria. The group has threatened to launch further terrorist attacks, and it has demanded that the Lebanese Government free imprisoned jihadists. It has also threatened attacks on western targets in the middle east. It was listed as a terrorist group by the US in May 2012.

Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command is a left-wing nationalist Palestinian militant organisation. It was formed in 1968. It is based in Syria, and it was involved in the Palestine insurgency during the 1970s and 1980s. It is separate from the similarly named Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. From its outset, the group has been a Syrian proxy. The PFLP-GC has been fighting in the Syrian war in support of Assad, including in the Yarmouk refugee camp in July 2013. The group has also issued statements in support of the Syrian Government, Hezbollah and Iran. It has been designated as a terrorist group by the US, Canada, Israel and European Union.

[Mike Gapes]

I understand from the explanatory memorandum that the organisation was involved in training Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which are already listed as proscribed organisations by our Government. Why has it taken so long for it to be listed as a terrorist organisation?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

I will be quite brief. I want to pick up on the Minister’s comment that this list of five organisations has been brought before the House today because they are involved in or related to what is happening in Syria. In an earlier intervention I queried why one of the organisations, namely the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, which has been in existence for 45 years and has been involved in terrorist activities and terrorist training—maybe not every year, but throughout that period—has only now suddenly appeared on the list.

I support the proscription of those on the list, but there appears to have been a wake-up call. Perhaps we were not as strong about these issues in the past, as though it was somehow okay if the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command was engaged in terrorist activities against Israelis and it is only when countries or organisations are directly involved in terrorism against us or are a possible threat to us that we start listing them. We have to get away from that mindset. It is quite clear that there is a global connection. Many of these organisations—certainly the al-Qaeda-linked ones—have a global footprint and a global aspiration.

We also need to be aware that there is an ideological basis to this issue. My right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, referred to the internet. We know that some people are radicalised not through mosques or madrassahs, but through the internet. In that context, we need to drain the swamp as well as hit the crocodiles over the head—I think that phrase has been used by others, but I happen to agree with that. Therefore, we should be involved not just in proscribing organisations, but in trying to stop the recruitment of individuals as members of those organisations.

We know—because there have been cases that have led to people being on trial, detained, prosecuted and convicted, with some extradited—that there is a conveyor belt in this country. A young person who feels strongly about threats to the Muslim ummah might, perhaps misguidedly, be taken under the wing of someone who trains them, recruits them and mentors them, so that they become someone who is prepared to go to Syria or Iraq or to engage in terrorist planning and activity in Europe.

[Keith Vaz]

My hon. Friend speaks with huge authority, not just as a former Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, but as a representative of multicultural Ilford. This is not just about passing an order; it is about making the case, which means engaging with young people at all times among their peer group. We cannot make people change; we have to engage with them to change. He knows that, does he not?

[Mike Gapes]

That is absolutely right. One of the things we also have to do is make it absolutely clear that this country is proud of the British Muslims who live here and contribute to our society. There has been an horrific murder in the last few days. I will not comment on it because I cannot go any further, but there is an important message that we need to send out to young people in our British Muslim community: you are welcome here, you are equal citizens, men and women, and we will not tolerate attacks and abuse.

When Ministers have discussions, it is important that they do not just have discussions with the internet companies. Perhaps they should also have discussions with some of our national newspapers about the tenor and the tone of the language used. If we want to increase the possibility of people being recruited to go off to Syria, we antagonise them, make them feel angry, make them feel like victims and create a narrative that people are easily able to misguidedly put across to them so that they feel they are somehow not part of this society. We have a challenge, not just in this country but elsewhere in Europe. We have to deal with the ideology as well as the practice of this type of extreme, terrorist organisation.

I shall make two other brief points. There is obviously a spill-over from Syria into Iraq. The manifest failure of the Maliki Government to be inclusive, and the exclusion of Sunni Arabs and also Kurds from the institutional power structures under Maliki, who is not just Prime Minister, but Minister of the Interior and Defence Minister, are contributing factors to the growth of the support for the ISIL organisation. I believe that we in the international community—certainly the United Kingdom and, I hope, the United States—will recognise the urgency of the need to give assistance to the Kurdish Regional Government in Iraq and also to the Iraqi authorities, to try and stabilise the situation and then reverse the defeats that they have suffered in the past few days. However, just giving sophisticated weaponry to a Government who are clearly incapable of providing training and leadership of their armed forces—such that Black Hawk helicopters get captured, and much of the $200 billion of American equipment that has apparently gone into Iraq may now be in the hands of that very well-financed terrorist organisation—is a matter of serious concern.

We can do our bit with these orders and we can do our bit, perhaps, to cut off the chain of people going from our country, but we all know that if, in the long term, there is an al-Qaeda state in the middle of Iraq and into Syria, it will be a threat not just in that region, but to Lebanon and Jordan, and a potential threat to other Arab countries and to Yemen and the Gulf. It is in our own interest to make sure that that does not happen and that that aim is defeated. I am therefore pleased to support the orders, but we must go much further.