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Terrorism

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Judd, for initiating the debate, and to the expert speakers who have taken part, including the noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, to whom I pay particular compliment. Speakers have drawn attention to the three key factors which impact on this subject. Dominating all, of course, are the after-effects of 9/11. In many ways,   we are in even more dangerous waters. We have moved from the highly disciplined, relatively closely organised network of Al-Qaeda of five years ago, which was after all able to mount the remarkable logistical achievement of the 9/11 hijacking. By all accounts, Al-Qaeda is now a much more amorphous club, shall we say? That club has minimum rules, the first of which is a fanatical interpretation of Islam, coupled with a violent hatred of the West and of the United States in particular. The very looseness of the structure makes it very much more difficult to destroy in one fell swoop by an attack at the centre. Now it is a case of finding a few suicide fanatics and you are in business. Cross the porous boundaries of Iraq and there are targets without limit. The suicide bomber has lent a totally new dimension to what it is sad that one has to describe as the effectiveness of terrorism. The events of the past year have demonstrated in a most frightening way that the threat of insurgency through the principal weapon of the suicide bomber is an open-ended one. It is only this week that Donald Rumsfeld gave it as his opinion that we were in for anything up to a 12-year stint to defeat the insurgents. There are other aspects of global terrorism in the 21st century that have not occurred hitherto, one of which is the emergence of the rogue nuclear powers—principally North Korea and Iran—to which the noble Lord, Lord Garden, referred. If any message comes out of that, particularly from the new president in Iran, it is the necessity to talk. That point was made with his usual eloquence by Prince Hassan of Jordan on the ““Today”” programme this morning. I suppose that we are experiencing the close association of a faith with so many acts of terrorism. One immediately thinks of Islam, but we must not forget that the conflicts in Northern Ireland over the past 35 years owe to their origins nominally—I repeat ““nominally””—different interpretations of Christianity. However, I hope that the violence in that area is behind us and, sadly, it is Islam that is associated with so many acts of terrorism in the 21st century. It is essential that a dialogue with moderate factions of Islam is maximised. Such forums may well not be easy to identify, since moderate Islam does not necessarily follow national boundaries. I would welcome an assurance from the Minister that such dialogues are being pursued by Her Majesty’s Government as a matter of urgency. Perhaps I may add one further thought. In conversations with nationals of Muslim countries one is constantly made aware of the place that the Palestinian problem occupies in their thinking—often transcending national considerations. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Patel of Blackburn, will not mind me referring to a conversation I had with him shortly after 9/11, when Afghanistan was very much on the scene. He said that your average Muslim in Pakistan, or, indeed India, would regard the priorities of Afghanistan as 10 per cent, but of the Middle East, particularly Palestine, of 90 per cent. I have never forgotten that. It should be a constant reminder to us all of how central that problem is and what an impediment it is to reconciliation with responsible and statesmanlike Islam. We in this House know only too well of the history of   the Prevention of Terrorism Act earlier this year. That marathon led to an undertaking to appoint an independent reviewer, the publication of a draft counter-terrorism Bill and the beginning of pre-legislative scrutiny. We on these Benches are pleased that the new counter-terrorism Bill will follow the existing legislation seamlessly—one hopes, in 2006. My party has four priorities in the fight against global terrorism and so many of those have been covered tonight. The first is that terrorism and extremism must be confronted whenever they appear; secondly, that action must be taken against rogue states that are the breeding grounds for international terrorism; and thirdly, Britain must be ready to take pre-emptive military action as a last resort. The noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, emphasised the contribution that our Armed Forces have played in Afghanistan. One is so proud of the military action they take and the civil relations that they are so expert at following with. No other country on day five of the Iraq operation could play football against the locals and manage to get soundly beaten. Fourthly, taking up a point made by many speakers, we must avoid a clash of civilisations. We must not give the disaffected Muslims whom Al-Qaeda attempts to recruit the impression that we are their implacable enemy. Just as we must confront the terrorists, we must deepen our exchange of ideas with the rest of the Islamic world. This Question asked the Minister what place this subject would occupy at the G8 summit. Perhaps he can give us an indication of that.