UAE asserts commitment to counter threats of extremism, foreign terrorist violence

Abu Dhabi [UAE], Jan.23 (ANI): The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has asserted its commitment to countering the threat of extremism and foreign terrorist violence and finding solutions for it. Maqsoud Kruse, the Executive Director of Hedayah, the Abu Dhabi-based International Centre of Excellence for Countering Violent Extremism (CVE), has said that the issue of countering the phenomenon of foreign terrorist violence will take more than two years to work on. He said the administration is working at the moment to develop Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) national strategy. "When we talk about CVE, we talk about prevention, we talk about community engagement, and when we talk about community actors whether it is women, families, parents. When we talk about community policing, we talk about community leaders, religious leaders cultural leaders all forms of engaging the society because at the end of the day where all are part of the solution," Kruse told ANI. Citing the bizarre situation of young men and women being recruited and attracted to join terrorist group, he said that unfortunately they go through the process of radicalization and end up in killing people or killing their own selves. He further said that they need to understand this phenomenon as to how these people go through this process and what actually it means. Kruse said that these fighters become a solution on returning back to their homes as they have seen the atrocities and they have seen the contradiction with the ideas of these groups as there idea is nothing but words which don't have any meaning or reality. He emphasized on the need to deradicalize the fighters who have succeeded in returning back to their homes and the way to integrate them back into the societies. "When they become the solution and want to go back to the home and when they actually succeed in going back, we have to know what to do with them, can we deradicalize them or integrate them into societies," Kruse said. He said that it need to be thought that what administration has do with the children who are being recruited by terrorists groups like Daesh and Boko Haram, whether to go with a normal juvenile rehabilitation center or to create something different for them. On the role of education, Kruse said that wrong system of education will lead to wrong results. He said extremism starts with an idea and that idea needs to be tackled. Kruse said these ideas trigger emotional response and that emotional response lead to certain behavior which is called as terrorism and act of fine extresim as well. Highlighting the role of community engagement as extremely important, he said the organisation recently produced couple of publications for the role of women in countering extremism. He also talked about the role which religious leaders can play in contributing towards different things that the administration was doing. Kruse pointed out the power of the families in the protection and prevention of youth from fine extremism and how to utilize this. He said communication and counter narratives are extremely important to understand the propaganda, the unfortunate powerful machinery behind certain group like Daesh, who use online media platforms to their advantage. The adminstration has taken multiple initiatives and steps in this regards and we are working closely with Facebook on bring some young innovators who can help in generating innovative ideas," he said. Kruse said that they have produced several guides and manuals on countering extremism in south East Asia that was sponsored by office of attorney general of Australia and also in collaboration with Indonesia. "We have created counter narrative library to connect the experts, the practitioners and people who want to join are movement on the virtual platform that we have created where we use specific products and videos to deal with the issue in long term," he said. He said recently a FTF catalogue was launched, a work place portal that allows to see the activities, efforts and initiatives of the country which have contributed to dealing with foreign terrorist fighters. Kruse praised the European Union for providing 5 million Euros to support 40 programs over the next three years. "We are working directly with different NGOs in part of central Asia through strive global initiative who identify the challenges in their respective countries and they require our support to specifically deal with their challenges," he said. Kruse said that they are dealing with multidimensional type of threats and challenges which requires a different type of approach. He said videos of former fighters and extremists can be used to convey their message to the youths that they had committed a mistake in joining these terrorist groups. Kruse also suggested of providing an alternative to the fighters who are returning back to their homes. (ANI)