Muslim leaders must do more to tackle extremism, says ex-spy chief
MUSLIM community leaders should be more proactive in dealing with the threat of Islamic extremism, the former head of MI6 has said as he accuses them of being “reluctant” to address the issue.
Sir Richard Dearlove, who led Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service from 1999 until 2004, said that the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan meant those working in counter-radicalisation will need to be more vigilant.
But he said that it is “absolutely essential” that Muslim leaders play a role in educating youngsters and ensuring that extremists are not “trying to distract and mislead the thinking” of young people.
“If you are looking at Islamist extremism, the Islamic community should be dealing with it themselves, and there is a reluctance for them to do so,” Sir Richard said .
“The structure of the community is such that some of their leaders are selfappointed and they are the wrong people for us to do dialogue with. What you don’t want it to be is Christians telling Muslims what to do. It should be Muslims telling Muslims what to do.”
Sir Richard said that some of the most effective deradicaliation progra mmes have been developed in the Muslim world. “One of the pioneers in this field who were very successful and very influential was Singapore,” he said.
“The model the Singaporeans developed was used quite extensively and followed by other countries with large Muslim components and even countries which were majority Muslim.
“They used their own religious leaders to run their deradicalisation programmes. It’s a model which works.”
Sir Richard said that youngsters who are at risk of radicalisation may be inspired by events in Afghanistan, adding: “We need to be very vigilant”.
He said that domestic security structures had greatly improved in the past decade and that many lessons had been learned since the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
“It’s a danger for any country with a large indigenous Islamic community that there are very small bits of it which might be susceptible to radicalisation,” he said. “Generally I think our communities are better now than they were at policing themselves but they are certainly not perfect at it.”
He made the comments in the leadup to the 20th anniversary of 9/11, which saw 2,997 killed when al-Qaeda launched a series of coordinated terrorist attacks after hijacking planes and crashing them into the World Trade Centre complex and the Pentagon.
Sir Richard is to speak at a commemorative event on Saturday (9/11) run by Since 9/11, a charity that provides free teaching resources for schools about the attacks and their aftermath.
If terrorist training camps were allowed to operate in Afghanistan under the Taliban’s rule – as they were in the 1980s and 1990s – there was a “danger” that young people from the UK would travel there, he said.
“When the pandemic isn’t raging, you can freely travel to Pakistan and it is very easy to pop over the border to Afghanistan if those activities are revived,” the former intelligence chief said.
“You have to depend on the local communities to know what their young people are doing. If a kid goes off to visit relatives in Pakistan, it becomes a family matter. It’s important that individuals are aware of what their young people are up to.”