Texts in English

1. We take “foreseeable future” to mean the next five years (2011-2016).
2. If nothing is done (and so far the “international community” has done little), the world—including developed countries—will see a second wave of crime in the next five years, which will exacerbate global “gangsterisation”.

Perseverance of Terrorism : Focus on Leaders – M. Milosevic and k. Rekawek (Eds.) – IOS Press 2014 ©

Threats – what kind of world do we live in?

Threats do not only come from the outside. Without being arrogant or paranoid, our society also has its own weaknesses, which make us vulnerable when it comes to global security. We are going to look at both internal (endogenous) and external (exogenous) threats, but first, it’s important to emphasise a fact …

When a new era begins, the greatest difficulty is to recognize, sufficiently early, the identity of the enemy, the location of the battlefield, the nature of the rules of engagement – if such exist at all. What conclusions can we reach in respect of the real dangers of the world at present?…

The Republican presidential debate shows just how much American politicians are out of touch with global realities. What the French can teach them about Iraq, terrorism and conflict.
By Christopher Dickey

In the classical European tradition, a question, and the words used to formulate it, are as important – if not more important – as the answer….

In “The McGraw-Hill Homeland Security Handbook”

I would like to begin by thanking you for this invitation. When two countries, two continents, each possess part of the means for resolving a problem – in this case to diminish as much as possible the prevailing chaos, find solutions to the disorders of our world today …

The objective menace: that which stems from world chaos

Until yesterday the enemy was known, stable and familiar. Today the enemy is evasive, strange and incomprehensible – but just as dangerous, if not more so. During the Cold War, all threats at a strategic level were constant, stable, slow, identifiable, indeed almost familiar (the Warsaw Pact). Even the terrorist threat was stable and explicable.

The menace: who? where? why? how? (2004)

In “Studies in Conflict & Terrorism”, Volume 6, N°6, November-December 2003

Since sept. 2001, no preeminent leader in what the US press names “al-Qaeda” has been caught. To the best knowledge of the most senior official terrorism experts in Washington, Osama Ben Laden himself is alive, and free…

When SARS erupted in China, spread in Hong Kong then elsewhere in the world, the first move of the concerned authorities (WHO, etc.) was to define this new and atypic disease, that is, find the exact virus causing it. In less than an month, this virus had been identified…

1. The Albanian mafia: a real mafia at the heart of the Balkans? At the end of 1999, the daily newspaper "Koha Ditore" decided to break the law of silence: "Drugs are flowing into Kosovo where we are witnessing the birth of a powerful mafia network", the province is...

“There is a major difference between the challenge posed nowadays by international crime and that posed by our former enemies. Generally speaking, nations are not permanently in a state of war…”

1 – Radically different hybrid terrorist movements

As we approach the XXIst century, terrorism is no longer a marginal, localised, problem for our governments, but has become a major security priority. Terrorism today is all-invasive – every day, throughout the world, bombs are set off for a thousand different reasons; it has also dramatically changed.

I- The Heart of the Matter
Are the “New Threats” Really New?

March 1993, Bombay, India : car, motorcycle and suitcase-bombs explode at noon in the business district. An unprecedented massacre, worldwide : 320 dead, 1200 injured within an hour…

In Europe, the Kurdistan Worker’s Party, or PKK, is the most famous of these hybrid entities combining a “political” appearance (national liberation, independence) and a criminal reality : terrorism and narco-trafficking. But the PKK is in no way an exception and “narco-guerrillas” can be found nowadays in Asia, Latin America and Africa; specifically in Afghanistan, Burma, Cambodia, Colombia, India, Lebanon, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Senegal, Somalia and Sri-Lanka…

Dealing with the islamic fundamentalist and revolutionary groups, european and western experts tend to concentrate on what these organisations do, and neglect their historical background, as well as their beliefs and doctrins. Thus this article dealing with the ideology, origins, traditions etc., of two of the most dangerous islamic-revolutionary groups in the Middle-east, the egyptian Islamic Jihad (sunni) and the lebanese HizbAllah (shi’a).

As far as radical -and violent- islamic groups are concerned, the situation of Europe is characterized by two factors :

1- The persistence of already familiar threats existing since roughly a decade,

2 – The appearance of new threats coming from previously quiet countries and from new, and dangerous, alliances and coalitions.

What is known as terrorism, or political violence, has its own objective reality, and exists independently of our capacities of research, whether they be investigative or journalistic. Clandestinity and secrecy being the norm in terrorist organisations, direct knowledge of their nature is available only to their leaders; even then, it would only concern one specific movement (since no real “international” exists); over a certain period of time, due to the high risks of the game.