The advent of the Internet has made the process of radicalisation easier to achieve and the process of combating it much more difficult. This is because many of the behaviours associated with the Internet are not criminal in nature, says Ronald Noble, secretary-general of Interpol.
He blames this on the “skyrocketing” number of extremist Web sites. Noble says these Web sites shot from only 12 in 1998 to 4 500 just eight years later.
“The threat is global, it is virtual, and it is on everyone's doorsteps.” What is worrying, says Noble, is the fact that increasingly, the individuals targeted are young, vulnerable people from middle-class backgrounds who were usually not “on the radar of law enforcement”.
He says the only way to prevent radicalisation is for law enforcement to use international police networks. According to him, Interpol is uniquely placed to support police worldwide as a network of law enforcement agencies from 188 member countries.
“It links the police worldwide via the I-24/7 [Interpol's global communications system], global databases and network of national central bureaus,” he points out. “This is to empower front-line officers with access to the information they need to establish the links between terrorism and other criminal activities.”
He says Interpol has also created a database of stolen and lost travel documents in response to the threat of terrorists using fraudulent passports to plan or carry out attacks. This database has more than 22 million records submitted by more than 150 countries.
According to Noble, more than 120 member countries contribute data on active terrorist groups through Interpol's Fusion Task Force, its primary counter-terrorism initiative. The registry includes close to 10 000 names of wanted or suspected terrorists.
Share