Expert meeting on CVE Responses to the Challenge of FTF (UAE)

The workshop brought together practitioners and policymakers from a range of GCTF countries to explore different aspects of the phenomenon and share lessons learned.

The GCTF “Foreign Terrorist Fighters” Initiative as led by The Netherlands and Morocco, held an opening session in The Hague in February 2014. The opening session in The Hague was followed by the first GCTF FTF Expert Meeting in Marrakesh on 14-15 May 2014 which focused on practical rule of law issues.

The Abu Dhabi FTF meeting was designed to complement the expert meeting held in Marrakesh and serve not only as a forum to guide and steer evolving work but more importantly to find ways to detect and intervene in the process of foreign fighters recruitment and radicalization.

Speakers included government officials presenting best practices on how to tackle the challenge of FTF from a diverse range of national perspectives, the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT) and the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD).

In particular, the workshop allowed partners to deepen understanding of the drivers of transnational terrorism including identity crisis of youth belonging to some communities, learn more about the methods that are being used by terrorist groups to persuade individuals to travel to take part in the violence such as Internet and social media, promote good practices on counter-radicalization approaches that seek to persuade people not to support these groups or travel overseas to join them by involving community and religious leaders and share lessons learned on how to best address the threat from those returning from conflict abroad and reintegrate into their communities.

The Foreign Terrorist Fighters (FTF) phenomenon is not a new issue, but within the context of recent events, it has acquired more attention from the international community. The security threat posed by radicalized individuals with violent intentions who leave their homelands and travel to conflict zones to receive military-style training – often labeled as “terrorist training” –  and/or to join terrorist fighting groups in a conflict is well-known. In the last decade alone, many so-called “foreign terrorist fighters” have traveled to conflict zones. Governments continue to grapple with how to address the complex set of challenges posed by this threat.

Many countries are concerned that the rising number of radicalized youth traveling to fight as terrorists in foreign countries will become further radicalized and then return home as part of a new terrorist threat.