EDITOR’S COLUMN
The Centre for the Study of Terrorism staged its Third Annual Conference on 17-18 October 2008 in London. As many of you are aware CFSOT began its activities in May 2006 and was formally inaugurated at the London Muslim Centre in October 2006. Over the past thirty months the Centre has successfully engaged in a variety of activities, of which the production of Islamism Digest has been the most sustained and consistent. CFSOT’s Third Annual Conference presented an impressive range of speakers from around the world to London. Sadly Dr. Ghairat Baheer (former senior Afghan Hezb-e-Eslami official and prisoner at secret American detention centres for six years) was unable to join us due to a delay in getting his visa.
The Third Annual Conference was an opportunity to display CFSOT’s evolving discourse, and the positive reception bestowed on this discourse by a wideranging group of people, including academics, journalists, community leaders, political and social activists and diplomats. Themed “Terrorism: Alternative Global Perspectives”, the Third Annual Conference advanced alternative definitions, narratives and solutions in the context of a critical appraisal of the international system as a whole. Indeed, there was widespread consensus at the Conference that absent radical changes to key global institutions, and a simultaneous change in foreign policy by the leading powers in the world, the terrorism menace will continue to escalate.
A detailed report on the Third Annual Conference appears in this issue. Moreover, two of the papers delivered at the Conference are included in this edition of Islamism Digest. Professor Robert Crane, former U.S. national security advisor and a leading Muslim intellectual in the United States, writes about the complex geopolitics of the strategic Caucasus region, especially in light of the recent Russia-Georgia War. Professor Crane argues that geopolitical equilibrium in the Caucasus region can help de-escalate terrorism-inducing tensions in the region and beyond. Meanwhile Dr. Daud Abdullah, Deputy Secretary-General of the Muslim Council of Britain, senior researcher at the Palestinian Return Centre and a trustee of CFSOT, distinguishes between liberation struggle and terrorism in the context of occupied Palestine.
Finally, this edition of Islamism Digest features an article on the U.S. State Department’s list of “state sponsors of terrorism”. This article is the first in a long series which aims to critically appraise the various terrorism lists maintained by the United States, the European Union and key sovereign nations of the EU.
MAHAN ABEDIN
MANAGING EDITOR
