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A small, young woman walking into
a cell of 80 male prisoners is not a
common sight. But Jolene Jerard
(pictured) is not your average young
woman.
“I was visiting a prison in Afghanistan
and the chief guard said ‘go into any
cell you want’. So I went into a cell
of perhaps 80 or 90 prisoners and
starting talking to them when he came
in and said; ‘no, no, you need to leave
now.’” She had chosen a cell bulging at
the seams with rapists and murderers.
The terrorists were next door. “No
wonder they seemed so friendly.”
She is an expert in terrorism groups
around the world and based at
Singapore think tank and policy
institute, the International Centre
For Political Violence and Terrorism
Research (ICPVTR). With a mix of
insight, occasionally gruesome
detail and colourful anecdotes, her
comprehensive knowledge shows that
there is far more to the current terrorist
threat than you might think from
mainstream media coverage.
That insight is sought after around the
world. Transport is as vulnerable as
buildings and a number of measures
are being brought to bear.
Terrorism; are we
reading it right?
“Al Qaeda were known to be planning
to use cargo planes to transport
explosives before 9/11,” she says. Al
Qaeda “has not gone away”, and is
keen to keep the ground it has, yet
she points out that ISIS is different
because it gains territory first and
imposes ideology later, the opposite of
Al Qaeda.
Three emerging trends
Jerard sees three main trends that
characterise the terrorism threat. First,
terrorist recruitment has moved away
from static website information and
clandestine personal contacts to the
more rapidly evolving and accessible
world of social media. You no longer
need to know a terrorist to use their
tools of the trade.
Second, the number of terrorist groups
has exploded in recent years. There
is now a loose network of affiliated
groups, covering many countries and
languages. So the threat could come
from anywhere, local or international.
Much of the material they use is in
languages other than Arabic, including
English, and far higher quality than
the rough hand drawn sketches we
Nigel Parry caught up with global terrorism expert Jolene Jerard at a recent logistics and freight
forwarder’s conference in New Zealand. She had some interesting things to say on what is both
a big challenge geo-politically, but also for a secure global supply chain.
may have seen on TV news reports in
years gone by. Jerard says we need to
be aware of, “the growing threat from
home grown groups, including sleeper
cells and lone wolves.”
Although on the face of it Al Qaeda and
ISIS may seem at loggerheads, they
can still cooperate when it suits them.
“When security forces network it is a
good thing. When terrorists network it
is a bad thing.”
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Logistics Business Magazine | September 2015
SUPPLY CHAIN SECURITY