Bonus Content: Aimen gives evidence in Parliament
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Hello, dear listener. We are bringing you something extra special on the Conflicted Feed this week. As you may or may not have seen, our very own Eamon Dean gave evidence in Parliament this weekend. And such is the wonderful democracy that is the United Kingdom, we are able to share his full evidence with you here.

I was invited to observe Eamon's testimony and what can I say? He did us proud. The questions came hard and fast and he didn't blink once.

Articulate as always, and opinionated of course, but always informed, Eamonn never fails to impress. Can't lie, it was pretty mind-boggling to think that our podcast has now reached real decision-makers at the top of the UK government. We can only hope, and indeed pray, that our objective, fact-based discussions of Middle Eastern history and politics will encourage those decision-makers to adopt similarly grounded policies. I hope you enjoy this fascinating exchange.

Order, order. Welcome to this hearing of the Foreign Affairs Committee, which is our penultimate hearing as part of our counter-terrorism inquiry. The last will be with ministers. Eamon, grateful if you can kindly introduce yourself. Yes, my name is Eamon Dean and in a past life I used to work in an undercover capacity for the UK intelligence and security services. Do you have any declarations you need to make before we start?

I don't think there is anything relevant, apart from the fact that I went, you know, worked in banking. Perfect. And as obviously you know, parliamentary privilege does apply. Well, thank you ever so much for joining us this morning. You joined Al-Qaeda in the 90s. I'm interested in your view of how you think Al-Qaeda has changed as an organisation since then, particularly kind of post the 9/11 period, and how you think the ideology and their objectives have shifted since then, and also since the emergence of Daesh as part of that.

Well, they moved from analog to digital. I mean, that's exactly what happened. And then after that, they...

kept changing their objectives from global to regional to local and they adapted according to whatever branch they have established in whatever country, like in Yemen, they have their own different goals and aspirations. In Somalia, Shabab, even though they declared their allegiance to Al-Qaeda, but nonetheless they remain

committed to the Horn of Africa and to their objectives in the Horn of Africa. So they changed, really. Forgive me, why do you think AQ was able to remain resilient despite the death of bin Laden? At the end of the day, I think Al-Qaeda was about an idea that...

It is part of a civil war within Islam, if we can call it this way, because there is a war between those who believe in the nation state as a concept, an institution, a perfect model to live in the 20th and 21st century.

and those who believe in transnational ideologies, in another word, empire building. So the idea is that all of these borders need to be raised in order to create that pan-Islamic caliphate. Al-Qaeda started that aspiration and then slowly, gradually other groups picked up on that, including ISIS.

Why do you think the whole of Africa has become this hub for al-Qaeda? You know, obviously, I think historically back to my childhood where, yes, you had Bosnia and Chechnya, but a lot of the activity was in the Middle East. So why do you think the whole of Africa has become this new hub for them? Wherever there are ungoverned spaces and chaos and the lack of central governments, you always find this disease, you know, spreading around.

That's why we call them non-state actors, because they flourish in places where the rule of law and governance is so weak.

In contrast to that, so the Emirati foreign minister back in 2017 said that Europe was going to become or should be classed as an incubator of terrorism and that he thought that the route for radicalism was becoming a lot more ripe within Europe. So how does that sit with your explanation of it being ungoverned space? Do you think that was a fair explanation for him to make or statement for him to make?

Not necessarily, because when we talk about ungoverned spaces, we're talking about the place where the authority, the ability to carry arms and to establish authority by force, that's where you have the proliferation of such ideology. If you look, for example, however, for radicalization, that's a different issue altogether. If you look at Saudi Arabia and Tunisia, we are looking at the two countries

far ends of the spectrum in the Arab world. One is secular and the other is conservative, at least until recently. So Saudi Arabia, during the height of the recruitment for ISIS, roughly about 145 per million joined ISIS. Tunisia was fiercely secular under Habib Bourguiba and then after that under Ben Ali. It was absolutely secular and yet it

immediately after the Arab Spring and then the rise of ISIS, 206 out of every million joined ISIS. It was more than any other Arab country. So it's not necessarily because the environment is secular and there is a strong rule of law and there is a strong government. I think there are other factors at play. And if you compare even Tunisia to Europe,

The UK, 345 out of a million. France, 354 out of a million. Belgium, 722 out of a million. So the numbers are really big, even bigger than that in Europe. Fabian? Thank you, Chair. I was just wondering if you could tell us a bit more about the motivations underlying the reasons that people join jihadist terror groups. I mean, have those reasons evolved?

Are they more complex now than they were, say, 25 years ago or 24 years ago, since 2001? Is it to do with increasing inequality in society? Is it, as you said, to do with ungoverned spaces, the rule of law? Is it just to do with a perception of decadence and Islamophobia? Can you tell us a bit more? It is so much to unpack here, but I can tell you that

We have to understand that no one wakes up one day and decides, oh, today I'm going to be a terrorist. I'm going to join a terrorist group and I'm going to go and kill everyone around. No, it doesn't happen like that. It all starts with good intentions. It all starts with good intentions. The path to hell is paved with good intention. And this is why in Islamic principles that good intentions are not good enough. You need to have wisdom with it.

However, when I was 16, wisdom was in short supply. And I think even when you are 26 and even 36, still wisdom is in short supply. So this is the role of the elders. And this is why, you know, when the elders neglect their duties in society,

sharing their wisdom with the young and trying to tell them that don't do this, don't go down this path, it will lead only to suffering, misery and death and destruction. If these voices were more amplified, you know, then things would have been different. But unfortunately, these voices were more muffled actually than amplified.

The reality is that there are many complex answers for this. It includes grievance, but not all grievances

are legitimate. Just because someone wants to build an empire, "Oh, I want to build my empire, get out of my way," that is not a legitimate grievance. Then you have the question of Western culture being dominant. People just get angry and frustrated about it. So they feel their voices are silenced. I'm talking about certain parts of the Arab and Muslim world. And then you have the desire for empowerment

That's an important motivation. I mean, you see many of these people, as soon as they are ending up in these jihad theaters, if you can call it this way,

you see them, you know, taking pictures and posing with weapons, you know, and they feel that sense of pride. You know, they feel that there is that, you know, empowerment because they feel that they are marginalized. They feel powerless wherever they come from. And then once they are there, that inner desire for power is liberated. And this is one of the reasons why prisons are

were a fertile ground for recruitment because many of these people experience humiliation but also experience guilt about the things they've done. So when there is an ideology that comes that offers redemption through struggle and fighting and dying for a cause while at the same time liberating the inner sadism in order to become violent but in a way that is rewarding,

If we could talk about it, I could be talking about it for hours, just to explain the multi-layered complex nature of radicalization. This is why there isn't one single jihadi prototype. I used to see all people from the PhDs all the way down to the prison graduates. Would it be fair to say that one of the antidotes to violent radicalization might be education?

It's at the core of it. Not just only education, but critical thinking. Without asking people to really look deep into the consequences of their actions, and at the same time understanding that the world is far more complex. If you tell people, this is the nation state you live in, but if you try to bring down that nation state,

The result will be there will be no ATM outside to withdraw cash. There will be no ambulance to come and pick you up. There will be no school to educate you and your kids. There will be no police to come and help you if there is anything that goes wrong. That is, I think, when we start to tell people that don't bring down the state structure because what will replace it will be far worse.

Will I then ask you how you think the UK, and this should be an area you know quite a bit about, how the UK can disrupt the appeal of jihadist terrorism? I mean, what factors, we've already talked about some of the factors that draw recruits from the West to groups such as Daesh and Al-Qaeda. But can you tell us a bit more about how we could disrupt this? The best way to disrupt, and there aren't any silver bullets here, but the best way to disrupt is always debate.

And the reason for debate is because that is how you insert the virus of doubt into the minds of those who would use the absolute certainty of their faith to carry out unspeakable atrocities. I mean, so how do you stop someone from taking a knife and stabbing someone and taking someone else's life? If you put a doubt in his mind that, well, you do that, you're not going to end up somewhere nice. In fact, like, you know, you will have to answer and pay for what you've done.

So, inserting doubt, even 1%, 2%, 3% doubt into the mind of someone who just went into that path of radicalism could disable that violent threshold, basically. Can you tell us a bit more, in your view, and you mentioned this already, about the types of people who join jihadist terror groups? You mentioned the PhD graduate and then the prison graduate, but

Is there a particular character trait or multiple character traits that push people towards jihadist terror and violence more so than any other? Within the jihadist context, there is one common denominator, which is redemption and seeking redemption because in a sense,

You know, unlike Catholicism where, you know, you go to a priest, you confess your sins and, you know, and that's it, you gain absolution. There isn't that system within Islam. I mean, you have to repent directly to God and you have no idea if your repentance is accepted. And also at the same time,

You know, there has been some crisis in the state of preaching within Muslim societies over the past 50, 60, 70 years because of the advent of Western culture and liberal values. So, you know, preaching in Islam used to be based on three pillars, love, hope and fear. You know, you love the Lord, you hope for his reward and, you know, you fear his damnation.

So a standard preaching would be to divide your preaching into three thirds. However, I think the emphasis on damnation and the eternal punishment has pushed significant in a number of young people to think,

That's it. I have no hope. The way I'm listening to preaching these days, people just keep telling their congregations, out of love, of course, out of the idea that they want to safeguard their congregations from whatever temptations, that if you drink hell, if you smoke hell, if you deal drugs hell, if you join a gang hell, but there isn't that incentive that, well, if you don't do any of this, you'll go to heaven.

I mean, so they have replaced, you know, some of them, not all of them, but some of them, you know, replaced...

in a hope with fear and that creates more a generation of guilty people like and I mean who would say haram to everything who will say like and I mean that no you shouldn't do that you shouldn't greet people for Christmas you shouldn't like and I mean mix with people who are outside of our faith circle you see it's it's it starts with guilt and then that guilt unfortunately again through the desire to do good end up in a way that people end up doing bad.

Can I ask you, to that point around critical thinking, a lot of people who've left terrorist groups talk about having that moment when they realise, for example, why is it my leaders keep asking me to blow myself up and why they want me to have this great, eternal, hopeful future, but they don't want it themselves.

Was there a turning point for you where you thought, I need to leave al-Qaeda? Or was it that you were just approached by an effective recruiter? And then what was it? There's one thing to leave an organisation, there's another to actively turn against them and to obviously work against them for the secret services. Can you talk us through what that journey was for you? Doubt. It all started with doubt. I think the first thing you have to have is something like of a moral compass pointing true north, a little bit at least.

And on top of this, the fact that you have also that fear of God, you know, that, you know, you don't want to do the wrong thing. And so you become more and more inquisitive about the legitimacy of whatever, you know, you are asked to do. So it was the East Africa bombings in 1998.

So I remember that day, it's in my memory, it was 4th of August. And when it happened, of course, I was shocked by the number of civilian casualties. I mean, there were 12 American diplomats killed, but there were more than 220 innocent people from Tanzanians, Kenyans, Somalians, Ugandans. I mean, and that was, you know, too much for me even to contemplate and to understand even.

And to put it within a context, to justify it. And I wasn't thinking that this is what's going to be. I thought prior to that, and this is the first time Al-Qaeda used terrorism on a massive scale, I thought we are joining Al-Qaeda in order to really harass the US forces within the Middle East, not go and kill innocent people, you know, going about their own daily lives in Africa. This is where it all started. Thank you, Chair, and good afternoon, Eamon.

Can I ask how successful is groups like al-Qaeda and Daesh's online radicalization? Who is most vulnerable to it? And how influential are their online magazines? Who are they targeting? In the 1990s, recruitment used to be peer-to-peer because it was really...

there was no digital means. And so you have to go and recruit people one by one, more or less, just like a fishing rod. And you have to catch them one by one. The net.

really brought the era of the net. And you have a whole net cast wide in order to catch as many people as possible because in the past you couldn't invade 100,000 living rooms, 100,000 smartphones, 100,000 bedrooms at night with your videos, with your tweets, with your posts, with your secret Telegram postings.

You know, this wasn't possible, but you see the explosion and no pun intended, you know, the explosion in the number of recruits took place as the means of communication became more prevalent and easy and widespread. And that started even to target more people who are tech savvy, people who are, you know, curious. Who are they? The young people.

I remember that in the 1990s, I was maybe the youngest or one of the youngest people there. But then you start to see in the 2000s, the age bracket started to drop to the point where we started to see ISIS recruiting children, not only basically from the male side of it, but also from the female side. What steps do you think the UK could be taking to tackle this threat? There are...

No more effective measures than the seeds of doubt, always. You have to destroy the credibility of the people who carry out the recruitment. Why don't you go? Why is it that, you know, you want me to go, but your kids are going to this university or to this college or they are enjoying life in this public school? I mean, why is it that you get to enjoy the fruits of this life, but you're

you're more than happy to send other people to their slaughter. I think there is always that. It's the same way in the other area that I work more constantly, which is terrorism finance. Not that I provide terrorism finance, like an ex-counterterrorism finance. So in that field,

The disruption happened through highlighting how most of that money end up in the pockets of those who are raising it and doesn't actually reach even the groups that the donations were intended to. And so through highlighting the embezzlement of those who are raising funds, and because fundraising and recruitment go hand in hand, by the way, so when you do that, you start to hurt both fundraising and recruitment. You think we're doing that? Or what is that?

Not effectively. Can I just quickly, before I bring in Nia, ask you, it was interesting when you said about the move to starting recruiting women. When you joined Al-Qaeda, were they actively targeting women in the 90s or was it solely people to fight? And do you think it is that transition towards the creation of a caliphate and therefore the need for repopulation? Or do you think that there's something else that suddenly saw them wanting to target women and bring more women to join them along that path of radicalisation? I think it was...

You know, when the

And jihad started to take root in Syria, that the idea of a territory and a territory to be populated, that women need to be recruited. I remember that Al-Qaeda was entirely male dominated and the females were just only the wives or the daughters and the sisters of the senior people even. Most of us were just single men. It was a practical requirement rather than some...

great rejuvenation with actually recruiting women. Yeah, recruitment of women became prevalent because it was a necessity.

Thank you. Neil? It used to be the case that in prison and online were the two key areas for radicalisation. Is that still the worst place to be radicalised? Are they the worst places to be radicalised? And I think you just said there wasn't sufficient effectiveness in tackling online radicalisation. So what more powers or resources are needed to tackle the problem? The three key areas were radicalisation,

People are vulnerable. You're talking about the online space. You're talking about university campuses and prisons. I know like these three are far in between. They almost make a triangle. But the reality is that university campuses is where people go there in order to think they will change the world.

And when you offer someone the means to change the world, you know, through a radical way, some of them unfortunately will take it. In prison, these are souls looking for three things mainly, redemption, empowerment, and the means to liberate their inner violent, you know, sadism.

And online, this is where people who are curious, who want to know, they want to find out answers. And the problem with online is the fact that it all starts with several starting points. There isn't one starting point. Some people start from the conspiracy theories.

you know, this world is run by a certain group of people, a cabal or whatever, and, you know, we have to fight against this cabal. And so they are drawn to conspiracy theories, and then that conspiracy theories then lead them down the path of, well, I must do something. Other people end up in the world of fantasies invented, you know, um,

you know, due to civil wars within Islam, in a dynastic, actually, wars within Islam, 1300 years ago, in order to look into prophecies, eschatology, and about the end of time. And, well, these are the battles at the end of time. God ordained this fight, and I need to join it. Who am I to argue with the divine? I need to join this fight. So, again, it's a really complex phenomenon.

They're not being taught this in university. You're saying that they hang on to an idea and then explore it further, and that's where the conspiracies come in. So is this the algorithm of escalation for both right-wing and Islamic Jihadist extremism? Are the platforms doing enough to tackle that? And does the government have sufficient powers to be monitoring and intervening to try and prevent that escalator? It's not about power. It's about knowledge.

I mean, if I tell you about an object that you have to look for me, but I tell you this is the object, but I don't give you any good description, how will you find it? So, first of all, those who are supposed to enforce the laws and regulations and the powers, they need to know what they're looking for first, in the first place. And this is, I think, one of the reasons is just the... I think it's just the lack of awareness and the lack of...

full understanding, a holistic approach to what actually makes a jihadist because there isn't one single journey. You have to imagine jihad as a river and all the other factors are tributaries to it.

Just on that point about redemption, empowerment, and you said inner means of sadism for prisoners. Isn't it also, is there a link between university and prison in that both are seeking a sense of order and ideology? Maybe more of an ideology at university, but a sense of order in their lives of prison, and radical Islam, Islamicism provides that. Just like with the, the reality is that most of the

I would call it the Islamist ideology-driven groups. And I'm talking here about... And when I say Islamist, I mean political Islam. Yeah, that's what I mean. I mean, so most of it, most of these groups actually were founded in universities. And this is where it all started because they seek...

They think that the world is chaotic around them, that, you know, and especially during the 50s and 60s, you know, the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood and jihadism is because of, you know, that pull and push between, you know, communism and capitalism, between socialism and, you know, free market. And the question is, you know, as the Muslim world is being squeezed, you know, from both sides, you know, why aren't we united? And everyone started to...

yearn and become nostalgic to an era that actually hardly existed. It's just the romanticizing of the history led to the idea that we could all be united, one big large empire, which basically never happened like in the entire history of Islam except for 39 years. So this is, I think, like in a way this ideology of empowerment, but

You know similar to how communism started the idea is a world revolution in order to unite all the people in one happy semi-utopian Empire, but it's just not gonna work. And when you're talking about that you're talking about a psychopia? Yes. Okay.

Just looking at the structure of his ideas, do you think there is a similarity in structure, although clearly very different because one was very secular, one was very religious, between Qutb and between the Bolsheviks and sort of Marxist-Leninism? Or do you think in their structure they're really very different? Actually, Sayyid Qutb in his early life was a socialist. And so therefore, he was...

affected and influenced by socialism. And the idea is that, you know, to borrow the framework of socialist society and a structure of governance and to bring it into Islam in order to create that revolutionary sense. Islam generally wasn't really revolutionary throughout 1300 years of its existence. It was more of a religion that left the leadership of the state to statesmen.

kings, royals, princes, tribal leaders, but did not involve the clergy in the ruling. I mean, the first cleric since the Prophet Muhammad to actually ascend into power in any Muslim community was Khomeini. And there is 1400 years difference between the two. And that tells you that Islam never actually gave ruling and the governance to the clergy.

it gave it to the ruling class. Who are the ruling class? Merchants. Very interesting. I think you want to come in on that point. In your view, what is the most effective form of government to counter the threat of radicalization and terrorism? For instance, monarchies, autocratic leaderships in the Middle East? The reality is that

You know, the Middle East is a complex place and we, I know I always advise people, especially like, you know, from the private sector is not to refer to the Middle East as just one, you know, homogenous, you know, zone. There are two zones there. There is the royal zone and there is the non-royal zone. So the royal zone inherently stable, the non-royal zone is inherently unstable. And there is a reason for that. Like, you know, the Middle East is a birth of monarchy, you know, and, you know, from the beginning, I mean,

King Sargon of Akkad and you know and Hammurabi and you know the Mesopotamian kingdoms and then spread you know throughout it's been around for about 7,000 years I think this kind of system I think we more or less you know see that it has established its roots and its legitimacy so in tribal societies

What is a king but a glorified tribal sheikh at the end of the day? And therefore, the social contract between kings and their people is far more binding than autocratic generals or dictatorial presidents of a republic. Because there is a difference. A king is looked at as a legitimate form of power.

governance that's been around for thousands of years, while the other one is just a usurper who just took the place. He's a commoner like the rest of us. Why is he better than the rest of us? And I think this is why you see the difference here, that the countries in the Arab world, the six GCC countries plus Jordan and Morocco, despite everything, despite all the challenges, they are resilient. And that all the countries where

the monarchies ended up overthrown, Iraq, Libya, Iran. You can tell what really happened. They became inherently unstable. What do you think about how we as democracies engage with those types of leaderships? Because often we will have our own views of politics

leadership of our values of democracy. Do you think there's a, would you just comment on how we engage with those types of countries? It's by acknowledging that, you know, while democracy is the most admirable governance system that man has created so far,

It cannot always be applied overnight and there has to be that kind of transition. And the best vehicle for transition into that system, you know, is the monarchies. One of the greatest missed opportunities in Afghanistan was when the U.S. objected to the return of King Mohammad Zahir Shah to Afghanistan. He would have united everyone, including the Taliban, eventually.

because kings command in a tribal society far greater status and far greater legitimacy and therefore their words are heeded. The oath of allegiance in Islam given to kings

is the same as the one that is given to a caliph. So there is that religious anointment, let's put it this way, an ordination to this oath that you give to the king. And therefore, I think it was a missed opportunity because then, you know, Afghanistan ended up where it is right now, 20 years later. And I think this is why the engagement needs to be first by accepting that this is

the current reality. We can work with it because that is the best outcome right now. Any attempt to destabilize it is going to create even more trouble down the line. And beyond monarchy, what other factors do you think bring about stability in the region? Can you think of any? Preservation of tradition while at the same time introducing modernity

both socially, economically, and in the field of science.

That is important. It's like the steady ship going forward. There is no going backward. And this is why you will see that only the monarchies in the Middle East seem to have improved their HDI more than any other of their neighbors. Just look at the Human Development Index of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, and compare it to Egypt, Iran, Iraq, and the rest. It's

It's just abysmal for the rest, while it's almost approaching European standards in the GCC countries. Just on that final point, is that because those people that took power did so in the name of socialism or communism, which has not been particularly successful in many human societies, and effectively kings have allowed something approaching a democratic capitalism, or is it more complex? It is more complex because Iran is theocracy.

I mean, in the name of religion, and yet it's a failed state. Taliban is going to be a failed state at some point. So this is why it is important to understand that it's not just because the abandonment of Islamic traditions, because kings within a tribal sector, or sorry, a tribal society, do actually have a responsibility of preserving tradition. And under that umbrella of tradition is religion.

So they are viewed as the guardians of, you know, virtue, values, and therefore no one question whether they are legitimate or not and whether the way they run their government is legitimate, even though

Countries such as the UAE or Kuwait are absolutely liberal by any standards in the Arab world. And yet, there is the sense that their leaders are also the guardians of conservative values. Once you lose, once a monarch loses their role in Afghanistan, for example,

isn't it almost impossible to bring that monarch back? Because once the magic of the irrational idea of monarchy goes, it's very, very difficult to recreate. And you're assuming that in Afghanistan it could have been recreated. Because the last king was still alive at that time. This is why there was a chance. There was just that chance. And his memory was still there.

Thank you, Chair. Could I ask about the potential impact of October 7th and the conflict in Gaza on the growth of radicalisation and how concerned we should be about that? And is there evidence that al-Qaeda, Daesh, the Iranian proxies, for example, have exploited the conflict and

Have you seen a greater level in support and funding of those groups since October the 7th? And where should we be looking for that potential growth and those dangers? Please, keep going. Just making sure, like I don't have to... No, no, no, there are no no-no's. No, go on. Go on. OK. When it comes to terrorism, it's cyclical. There is that, you know, cycles, like the moon. So I always used to say that

You know, we always have that full moon sometime. We had Afghanistan in the 1980s. We had Bosnia and Chechnya in the 1990s. We had Iraq in the 90s. We had Syria in the 2010s. So this is when, you know, a new moon with this gravity, you know, bringing out all of this upheaval,

and causing people to become lunatic. And so this is, I think, where we have a situation now where Gaza is now the new Syria. This is the gravitational pull that is bringing people, you know, or bringing out the worst in people, unfortunately. Again, because the lack of wisdom, lack of understanding, lack of awareness, you know. So, for example, like, I mean, when you talk about October 7, the question is, you know, yes, Hamas did it, but

Since 2014, it is my assessment that Hamas ceased to be a national Palestinian liberation movement and became an Iranian tool. So it wasn't doing anything on behalf of the average Palestinian. It was doing it on behalf of the Ayatollahs of Tehran. And so this is why...

And yet, I mean, many people still are blind to this fact. So this blindness is the lack of awareness, lack of education, lack of wisdom. People are not confronting back with facts and evidence-based facts. And therefore...

when the narrative is hijacked by radicals who try to simplify it, simplify this whole complex conflict, when in fact it is as complex as it could be, this is when radicalization happens. And unfortunately, since October 7th,

a revival of ISIS in Syria, in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and also a revival of Al-Qaeda in Yemen. And we start to see more funding going to Shabab in Somalia. We started to see the Taliban also improving their funding mechanism, especially through trade in commodities. All of this

highlight the fact that Gaza became a lucrative brand in itself, not only just for, you know, the Sunni terrorist groups, but also for the, you know, Iranian Shia network, a threat network, such as Hezbollah and the Houthis in Yemen and the militias in Iraq.

Is there any evidence, you talked a lot there about Syria, Iraq and Somalia. Is there any evidence of a domestic upsurge? Should we be aware of anything that's going on domestically and increased radicalisation since October the 7th? I don't think there is anything that...

basically make it domestic in places like Yemen and Iraq and Syria because the war has been going on there for years and years. The conflict and the dynamics of the conflict have been there for a very long time. It's just the opportunity. Again, that cycle, that new moon that has risen called Gaza, it is the best way to exploit people's emotions, anger, frustration, and

It is a perfect neon sign for recruitment. Can I just finally, this last question, just take you back to something you said at the beginning about the nation state and that pivot. The question would be, has there been a pivot away from that sort of global transnational terrorism to more of a sort of localised focus? And is there any evidence for that? You will see that in the...

protests around the globe or in the recruitment efforts or in the fundraising, Gaza plays an important part and yet how many of those involved are actually originally Palestinians from Gaza or even the West Bank or from the diaspora?

You will find that the majority are actually non-Palestinians, some of them non-Arabs, from the Indian subcontinent or from sub-Saharan Africa. So you see that, so really they are not galvanized by domestic

nation-state concerns. They are actually galvanized by this notion of pan-Islamic solidarity as a precursor towards a pan-Islamic action to establish a caliphate again. The idea of the caliphate started to take center stage again just

Look at what happened in Hamburg just a few days ago when a group of protesters in their hundreds, you know, carrying black flags and chanting slogans for the return of the caliphate in Hamburg in Germany. Thank you.

And some of the protests that we've seen here, we've seen the emergence or re-emergence, if you like, of some terrorist paraphernalia, including on the streets of London. Do you feel the police are trained sufficiently to identify and intervene when...

when we see the symbols, the flags, the leaflets, the literature. And is prevent, I know prevent is overseen by the Home Office rather than Foreign Office, but is this, is prevent resourced enough, do you feel, to intervene to prevent people going down a path of radicalization? Again, you know, the realistic issues here are very complex because of the

sacred laws when it comes to freedom of speech. And so the question is, how do you define the very thin line between

free speech and incitement? And what is it that actually caused radicalization and what is it that is just political speech? It might be radical, it might be not to the taste of everyone, but it is still a legitimate speech in the mind of those who authored it. I think it is quite subjective and it is really up to the

authorities to judge case by case. But if, let's say there is, as Hamas is a proscribed organization, if their literature were to be spread, then this is in itself an incitement. This is in itself a crime. The question is, does the police take action? Generally speaking, my experience over the past 25 years looking at how different governments around the world deal with terrorism is the fact that

The more you try to appease people to avoid confrontation will invite confrontation. So the more you show moral backbone and the bravery to confront and head on, not try to skirt around it, that would generate that level of

not only just fear, but respect from the other side in order to step back and to think about what they're doing. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. I'm trying to remember when there was last a caliphate in Hamburg, but I can't kind of work that one out. Can I move on to financing terrorism? Because I think they often say if you want to stop a criminal action, you look, you follow the money.

So how did the financing of terrorism evolve, do you think, in the wake of restrictions imposed following 9/11? How do you expect it to change in the next few years? Who are the main donors and finances of jihadist terror groups? Because I wonder where they're located and what their motivation is. Why would they give money? Is it to fund terror from a shared ideology or is it to leverage specific geopolitical outcomes?

Sorry, multifaceted question. You know, at some point, I remember in 2016, I was, you know, standing for eight hours on my feet explaining to the captains of the diamond industry in the Antwerp World Diamond Center, you know, how terrorism finance work. And it took eight hours, just including question and answer. Like, you know, so it's a really complex place, but I can just condense it. And to say that,

Terrorist groups

are two categories: state-sponsored and the non-state-sponsored. So the state-sponsored, something like Hezbollah, the Houthis, because they have a state sponsor such as Tehran. And then of course, they have other means of funding, including criminal enterprises, weapon smuggling, narcotics. Narcotics becoming an important staple of

Hezbollah and the Syrian regime financing. For example, the Ceptagon, which is called the zombie drug, which has even started to become available here in the streets of the UK and Germany and France. This is all manufactured in Syria and manufactured in Lebanon and then shipped here. But before that, it used to be... What was the target? The target was Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, and...

It is, we're talking about multi-billion dollar business, you know, annually. So this is the state sponsor. Now, if we go to the non-state sponsors, such as Al-Qaeda, Taliban, ISIS, Al-Shabaab,

There are a multitude of funding streams. So you have donations coming from the diasporas or coming from the ideologically like-minded people who see in their struggle a kindred spirit, something like basically that they share with. It's a common cause. However, also there is the business networks. What many people don't understand is the fact that

Al-Qaeda in the 1990s, the precursor to ISIS, which was the ISI or the Islamic State of Iraq in the 2000s,

They built a network of businesses, farms, consumer goods places, cafes and restaurants, retail, in order to generate funds to keep laundering that cash and to make sure basically that they have a network of intelligence gathering through these shops and businesses.

and the legitimate businesses, but also at the same time in order to generate funds. Exploitation of natural resources, that's what the Shabab do with the coal and copper of Somalia and selling it in the markets in Kenya and Uganda and Ethiopia. Of course, you have the Hawala system. The Hawala system in itself is alive. In fact, it hasn't been even better than before. And the reason is because of the conflicts. The conflicts have now driven...

tens of millions of people out of their homes, you know, in Syria, in Libya, in Yemen, in Iraq, in Iran, in Pakistan, Afghanistan. So you end up with tens of millions of people fueling this black economy. So hiding among those big numbers, like you are now hiding maybe 20, 40, 50 needles within one single haystack, sorry, within a billion haystacks, sorry.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Chair. I think that's a really interesting point you make because you said earlier that radicalisation and finance go hand in hand. Exactly to that point, diet, most of its funding came from small Western Union transfers of less than 50 quid at a time from the UK. It wasn't the billions coming or the millions coming from big donors. It's this small scale. You might compare it to some political parties who are more focused on small donations than they are on the big ones now. Royston, you wanted to come in, however, on the States to add a point. Yeah, I...

I talked to you about involving terrorists in political settlements. So you talked, I think, earlier about appeasement and showing a show of strength and confronting the ideology or the terrorists. But an alternative, and we're seeing it perhaps, we're seeing it in Yemen, where the Houthis may well be part of a political settlement. Is that a good or a bad thing?

A political settlement can be reached if the objective of the group in question revolves around power and revolves around material gains. The problem is if the group in question is not concerned with borders

with staying within the confines of the internationally accepted borders, then we have a problem. Ideologically driven groups such as Hamas, the Houthis and others basically are going to have

The idea that these borders are artificial and these are the construct of colonial era that needs to be deleted, needs to be erased, needs to be gone. And I think this is where the question is, how do you then expect to have a rational outcome from someone who might not be entirely rational? They might be rational tactically,

But the strategy is not rational. And I think this is the exasperation that was expressed by multiple regional leaders in the GCC when they complained publicly on TV about the irrationality of the other side.

Article 5 of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Article 5 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran stipulate that who the leader of the country. Now you might think that the leader of the country is Ayatollah Khamenei, like he's a supreme leader, but really the real leader, he's just a deputy, the real leader is someone who's been missing for 1200 years.

So you have a child, a five-year-old who disappeared 1,200 years ago, and just so happened that this child is, by the Article 5 of the Iranian Constitution, is the leader of the state. Ayatollah Khamenei and before him Khomeini are just his deputies, you know, waiting for his return. So this is why the Constitution says during his occultation,

someone will deputize on his behalf. Someone who has to be a grand cleric, you know, and brave and knowledgeable and experienced. So this is the first red flag of irrationality. I mean, so you are waiting for someone, like, I mean, you know, this isn't like, you know, basically a traditional

either monarchical or secular or liberal or even conservative. This is just something out of the realm of rationality and that we have to deal with it. Yet, this particular problem of eschatology, which I talked about as being the driving force for terrorism and radicalism across the Muslim world, both the Sunni and the Shia divide, is what is causing, you know, most of our problems right now. The Mahdi

you know, the idea that there is this messiah figure coming is driving Hezbollah, driving the Houthis, driving the Shia militias. It drove Al-Qaeda before, it drove ISIS before because everyone has the idea that they are paving the way for a savior. So,

This eschatology, and I wrote a long paper about it before, about 13 years ago, where I talked about it in a sense that it's going to poison the minds of so many people, especially young people, by convincing them that you are God's instruments and therefore you must join God's army.

And that's exactly where we are right now. So what is the battle cry for the Iran-sponsored Shia terrorists? We are here for you, Mahdi. What is the battle cry for Al-Qaeda and ISIS and Al-Shabaab? We are here to establish the state for the Mahdi. So we are caught between two, unfortunately,

radical visions that are fed by eschatology that is not even rooted properly in Islamic texts. The West seem to look in the wrong direction when a lot of these organizations are becoming more radicalized and more capable. Are we in danger of seeing that again, either in Afghanistan

or in Yemen where in the last few weeks, um, AQAP have carried out attacks on the recognized government of Yemen and are said to be working now with hand in hand, hand in glove with the Houthis who are releasing al-Qaeda prisoners and supplying them with drones and the rest. You know, are we in danger of seeing this happen again just somewhere else and the West not

looking or seeing it coming so much? Is their capabilities increasing in places like Afghanistan and Yemen and elsewhere? Because the idea of using Al-Qaeda and other Sunni radical groups, including Hamas, is something that Iran perfected over the past two and a half decades. In 2002 and 2003 and 2004, when I used to work for the UK intelligence services abroad in Arabia,

the orders used to come to Al-Qaeda from where? From Iran. So Hamza Rabi' who used to be the head of Al-Qaeda's operational command was based out of Chabahar in Iran. Saif al-Adl was in Zahedan and then he moved to Tehran. And many of the other leaders ended up under the protection of Qasem Soleimani himself. And their entire focus

Even though al-Qaeda was fighting Iran in Iraq, yet al-Qaeda in Iran was fighting alongside Iran against Saudi Arabia and trying to destabilize the Saudi royal family. That has happened between 2002 until 2006. And there is a brilliant documentary called The Path of Blood. It's available on Apple TV. I mean, this is where...

you will see how it was an entire war. It was warfare between Al-Qaeda and the Saudi authorities for four years. And I think this was mostly funded and directed from Al-Qaeda operatives based out of Iran and supported by Iran. Because at the end of the day, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. This is how now the Houthis started to apply this textbook, Iranian textbook,

strategy and they started the process of supplying Al-Qaeda in Yemen with whatever they need in order to create that chaos and to make it difficult for the Yemeni government because at the moment based on the truce between the Houthis and the Saudi government the Houthis are not going to attack Ma'rib, they're not going to attack Aden and so they

relegated that task to a third party. And this is one of the reasons why I always argued that Iran cannot be trusted to be a nuclear power because of the presence and because of the founding, establishing, nurturing, training, and funding of so many proxies that you never know if they are going to build a device

modify it for land detonation and then hand it over to one of these terrorist groups, especially if it's a Sunni one, and then they say, go and do whatever you want. Because at the end of the day, it is deniable. It's not my material. It's not my bomb. And I think this is why it is important to understand that

The Middle East is truly, truly the battleground between the nation-state, the modern nation-state as a concept and institution, and the non-state actors that are there. And just to show you how the cancer of non-state actors is so prevalent in the Middle East, how could it be that the Iranian army standing is about 600,000?

That's within Iran, but they have a standing 700,000 fighters fighting under their banner outside of their border.

There are Iraqis in the militias, Hezbollah alone have 100,000, the Houthis have 300,000. So the question is, how could there be this massive number of people under arms fighting for them and all under the banners of non-state actors, states within a state? And also at the same time, to make it even more bizarre, is the fact that these groups, some of them, like the Houthis, possess weapons

with long-range offensive capability exceeding 2,000 kilometers. That is more than what the armies of Egypt and Turkey possess. Turkey is a NATO member. They don't have anything that can reach beyond 2,000 kilometers. And then finally, Chairman, the Houthis we are sure that are being funded as a proxy from Iran. What about in Afghanistan and in Yemen with al-Qaeda? Are they

Are they being funded directly, ISIS in Afghanistan and al-Qaeda in Yemen? Are they being funded directly or they're being funded indirectly or has Iran got nothing to do with that? Well, ISIS is a separate issue because after the fall of ISIS in 2019 and when their last territory was taken over and extinguished, their cash wasn't recovered and there were hundreds of millions of dollars of it. And there was a question, what happened to that cash?

So that cash most likely moved to Turkey. And this is where it was converted, invested and became the feeding or the seed money for other cells, including in Afghanistan. It is no coincidence. It's not a coincidence that we start to see a resurgence of ISIS in Afghanistan.

just when the Taliban started to have direct Hawala, more semi-official Hawala banking with Turkey. Thank you. Brendan. Thank you, Chair. Can I ask you about the detention camps in North East Syria? Do you think the UK pays enough attention to what's going on in those camps or be kind of less seen, quick as forgotten attitude?

Some of these people are kids and some of them will grow to become even more resentful and vengeful. And the question is, it's better that they are under control, even if it is in prison here, than for them to be on the loose out there without having any control.

degree of control. And this is why I think, and this is something I floated in 2019 when I said that maybe the UK sovereign base in Cyprus could play an important role in terms of having a detention centre there and processing their cases and passing sentences in terms of establishing a court in order to try them. Because

Leaving them there indefinitely is going to create that uncertainty which could have an indefinite danger down the line. So they need to be under control somehow. Yeah. Well, I don't know if you saw, there was a fascinating series of reports from Alex Crawford on Sky News. And she painted a pretty terrifying picture of the women and children detention camps and basically the breeding ground for a new generation of radicals.

Do you think that the UK and the West generally is sufficiently robust in tackling what's going on in those camps or have they essentially left it to the Kurds to guard and control and hope for the best? I think, unfortunately, the fact that all of them are gathered in one place

a single camp and that camp will become unfortunately a breeding ground of radicalism, of extremism. There are already people who have seen enough death and trauma. So instead of trying to first confront their radicalism and then rehabilitate them, I mean, unfortunately, they are left

to their devices in order to become more resentful, more vengeful in the future without any control. And this is why I'm stressing. The fact that they are out there with minimum control is what worries me. And I'm asking, forgive me, I'm going to ask you to generalise here, but what would be the general view of the public in the region about those being held in the camps in Syria? Would they be sympathetic, supportive, apathetic and different

What is that general opinion? And have you noticed a shift at all? It depends who you ask. But generally, ISIS is a toxic legacy right now in most of the population in the Middle East, especially after what they've done and the atrocities they committed. I think yet most of these women and children are viewed as the unfortunate, idiotic,

people who just ended up in the wrong place. Some of them are viewed with suspicion that, you know, they came on their own volition. It's just the sympathy more is reserved for the children who were children at the time of the fall of the ISIS territories.

Thank you. Final two questions from me because I'm afraid we have to wrap up. But just on that point about de-radicalisation, I'm offered considerably quite an extreme view on de-radicalisation, which is I don't think you can de-radicalise people because I think the psychological drivers remain there. You can just redirect it or refocus it to a different area of obsession and focus. So given that we spend a lot of time being told that we should take back all these people to the UK, and particularly children, I mean children of anyone under 18, allow them to live in society freely, why...

Where do you think we sit on that in terms of being able to de-radicalise people? And then finally, just what you think, this is a very different question, but what would be the biggest change you would make to either UK foreign policy or to our approach towards counter-terrorism that you think would meaningfully make us safer from the risk from terrorism? In terms of de-radicalisation, I never really agreed with it, because I agree with the term rehabilitation, because...

I think this is the best approach. Counter-violent extremism, de-radicalization, I always find it to be unhelpful because it's already carries a stigma. I mean, the idea is that you have to confront the problem head on to say,

you are on the wrong path. You know, being a member of this group is equivalent to being a member of, you know, a gang or a drug circle or anything like that. So, you know, you need to get out of that. And therefore, the question is, you know, how do we do rehabilitation? So it's not about de-radicalization. It's about taking away the violence that

and the driver towards violence from the person in order for them to function normally or semi-normally within a society. That's the best you can hope for. And then within time,

you hope that the seeds of doubt that you sow in their minds will grow enough in order to make them think critically about the path they have taken before and how they can do what they need to do, which is a U-turn. As for the UK foreign policy,

It is my view, and this is just personal view, that the UK should conduct its foreign policy according to the interests of the UK and its people. It shouldn't be dictated by any loud voices from any minority. And this is why, I mean, I think this is where the nation state

assert its authority, asserts its entitlement to set the policy according to the mandate in which they were elected. And this is how, you know, the government should behave with any dissenting voices is that, look, you know, I'm the elected government. I decide what foreign policy is the best for the UK and its population. You can disagree, no problem. You can take a megaphone and shout all you want. But

If you step out of the line and use violence in order to assert your point, this is when things will be different. And the same thing with incitement to violence. So to be clear, you're making a distinction between

Because you're not suggesting that you're functioning semi-normally. You're rehabilitative, right? So you're not suggesting it's impossible for some. What you're suggesting is that those who've committed violent acts should be treated differently to those who have not. Those with blood on their hands, I don't think they should be treated exactly as those who, you know, thank God, like, you know, basically I never had any blood on my hand. Like, you know, so basically this is, I think, where those who got out early

are not the same as those who got out too late. So there has to be always a case by case. So rehabilitation works according to the needs of the individual. Some individuals went too deep and some individuals just realised that they were in the wrong path early on and did a U-turn at the right time. Some might equally have had the will to shed blood on their hands but not had the opportunity and that's the challenge.

Thank you ever so much for your time. I'm going to suspend the session briefly.

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