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The US-Led NATO And Its Allies Need Dominance In Afghanistan Over Global Powers, Not Over Their Proxy Taliban
By Siddhant Hira and Kagusthan Ariaratnam As US-led NATO forces prepare to withdraw from Afghanistan, General Scott Miller — the United States’ longest-serving military commander in the area — told the BBC that the priority of NATO troops is “the risks to our forces” and “the risks to the future of Afghanistan.” General Miller’s comments…
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Spy Tigers: The LTTE Intelligence Wing (Part II)
By Adrien Fontanellaz & Kagusthan Ariaratnam One key contributor to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam’s (LTTE) effectiveness was the organization’s initial focus on gathering, analyzing, and exploiting intelligence. This dedication led to the development of an intelligence apparatus rivaling established state services. The LTTE formally established its intelligence wing in 1986, known as the…
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Special Report: Sri Lanka’s Easter Sunday Bombings – An Intelligence Failure? Or an Intelligence Operation?
This article was originally published by “The NATO Association of Canada” on May 25, 2020. Since the Easter Sunday bombings that rocked Colombo, Sri Lanka, on April 21, 2019, killing more than 250 people and injuring another 500, questions remain unanswered surrounding the role of the Sri Lankan military and intelligence services before and after…
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The Role of Arts in Countering Violent Extremism
This article was originally published by “NATO Association of Canada” on March 25, 2019. Reporting on the defeat of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the BBC wrote that the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) sponsored by numerous global powers surrounded ISIS within a small patch of land near Syria’s border with Iraq. This…
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Opinion: Returning ISIS foreign fighters, what needs to be done?
This article was originally published by “NATO Association of Canada” on March 4, 2019. An American citizen and former college student, Hoda Muthana, left the US four years ago to join ISIS. She is currently being held in a refugee camp in northeastern Syria. President Donald Trump has tweeted that he had directed Mike Pompeo…
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The Impending Threat of Islamic Radicalization: A Look at Assimilation
By Kagusthan Ariaratnam & Ammna Nasser This article was originally published by “The NATO Association of Canada” on January 22, 2018. Youth radicalization has acquired renewed momentum in the current age of ISIS (Daesh). Repeated victories reported by the Iraqi and Syrian security forces are pushing Daesh to rethink survival strategies to live and fight…
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Unintended Intelligence Consequences: How Yesterday’s Proxy Insurgents turned into Today’s Terrorists
Introduction During the Cold War, nations were increasingly sponsoring and/or supporting insurgencies. For instance, the United States of America supported Afghan-Mujahedin, Nicaraguan Contras, and Tibetan Buddhist fighters. The Soviet Union supported communist guerrillas in Angola, Greece, and South Africa. China supported insurgents in Vietnam. India supported Sri Lankan Tamil rebels. In fact, Trends in Outside…
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Recognizing Outdated Power and Eliminating the Divide: Countering Terrorism through Smart Power
Introduction Countering terrorism through “smart power” is a concept deliberated on creative thinking to combat one’s enemy, especially terrorists. This essay will examine the reconceptualization of traditional approaches toward counterterrorism and discuss how ideologies from a Western liberal democracy can respond to an unconventional terrorist ideology. To begin with, the term “power” will be defined.…
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Intelligence Innovation Outside The Anglosphere: Deconstructing The Sri Lankan Counterterrorism Model For Obliterating ISIS
Introduction As the entire world is coming forward to combat the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), I would like to share my opinion here on how to fight ISIS and eventually obliterate them just like the Sri Lankan military defeated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) just seven years ago. ISIS, an…
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Responsibility to Protect Syria – A Case Study
Introduction It is widely believed that non-intervention is the norm within an international society since international law restricts the use of force except for purposes of self-defense or by way of collective enforcement as authorized by the United Nations Security Council (Bellamy and Wheeler 2014). This misunderstanding is grounded in the debate on how the…