Security Expert: 'We Have To Contain It And Aggressively Prevent It'
23 May 2017, 10:00 | Updated: 23 May 2017, 11:02
An international security expert told Nick Ferrari people can be "brainwashed easily" and governments need to contain extremism "aggressively".
Shashank Joshi, of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), who specialises in international security, spoke to Nick Ferrari following the Manchester Terror attack.
The explosion at the end of the sold-out Ariana Grande concert at Manchester Arena killed 22 people and injured 59 others.
Nick asked him: "What can you about this sort of, brainwashing if that's what it is, this kind of infiltration of the mind. How do they get the message across?"
He said: "Well I think it's something that's been evident in multiple attacks going back over 12 years in the UK, and it fits absolutely with the jihadist message, which is sort of a defiled Islam must be purged of all apostate ideas.
"That anyone who is an apostate is subject to being killed mercilessly, and that of course includes not only little girls in concert venues, but also Shia Muslims, it includes Sunni Muslims who are not sufficiently pious.
"That includes Yazidis, as we saw in Iraq. You know, in a way, after a decade of seeing this philosophy play out, if indeed this is an Islamist attack, we don't know for sure ye.
"There really isn't any surprise left that people can be brainwashed easily into committing these sorts of atrocities for what they believe are legitimate political and religious reasons."
Nick said: "And if it is a terror attack, and if someone has been persuaded to this particular ends, where does it end? When would they be satisfied?"
Mr Joshi said: "Well I don't think it ends any particular clean way. We have seen how a group like Al-Qaeda, which killed 3,000 people in New York, was eclipsed by an even more violent group.
"And indeed we have evidence of arguments between Osama Bin Laden, who wrote to his commander in Iraq, to Al-Qaeda in Iraq, which became Islamic State, saying 'look, some of your ideas about mowing down people in cars with blades on the wheels, are a little bit extreme for me, it's too much, it's not something I agree with.
"So, of course, you saw an evolution of terrorism towards more barbaric, more extreme means, and I think there's no suggestion that even if Islamic state is now surrounded in its key cities and headquarters in Raqqa in Syria, in Mosel in Iraq, that the philosophy will go away.
"I think it will fester in new and more dangerous ways, in very dispersed parts of North Africa, the Middle East in Asia.
"In other words, to answer your question, it does not end in a very simple way, we have to contain it and aggressively prevent it, as we have been doing."
