Page 39 - Cyber Terrorism and Extremism as Threat to Critical Infrastructure Protection

DENIS ČALETA, SARA PERKOVIĆ: EXTREMISM AND RADICALIZATION IN THE EUROPEAN ENVIRONMENT – SECURITY CHALLENGES
OF RETURN FOREIGN FIGHTERS

• Intense regional and international efforts to criminalize foreign fighters and returnees;
• Increased fighting in conflict zones from which it is harder to step away;
• Decreased number of individuals from the region who want to fight in Syria and Iraq.

Although it seems unlikely, because of their internal political instabilities and different politi-
cal and economic situations, the states of the Western Balkans have managed to deal with
returning foreign fighters better than Western countries. “All the states of the Western Bal-
kan countries have adopted strategic documents detailing the measures and procedures of
states and overall social community in the fight against terrorism and violent extremism”
(Ogrizović, 2018, e-source). Here a major role has been played by the Republic of Slovenia,
where the need “to eliminate further duplications and overlapping in countering terrorism and
violent extremism activities in the Western Balkans, has led Slovenia into the development
of the Integrative and Complementary Approach to Counter-Terrorism and Violent Extrem-
ism in the Western Balkans in 2014... It is based on a joint list of priorities prepared on the
basis of the actual needs of the Western Balkan countries identified in close cooperation with
national authorities and with all relevant regional and international actors active in the region
(altogether 52 partners) by utilising a “bottom-up” approach regarding the coordination of ac-
tivities of these actors on the one hand, and by using a combined “bottom-up” and “top-down”
approach in the process of needs identification” (Kozmelj, 2018, p. 34).

The fight against terrorism and securing safety is one of the most important tasks that the
countries of the region must carry out, and all in different ways. “Cooperation and concerted
action against the threat posed by violent extremism and terrorism is of key importance for
success. International partners should not allow themselves to use this sensitive field of policy
for a competition and elbowing for publicity and political advantages reflected in overlapping,
duplication and investment in non-priorities, which will not be accepted by the community
of donors in this difficult global economic situation... The security threats in the countries of
the region are increasingly changing their national dimensions into international and trans-
forming their nature from single type of criminal threat into horizontally interlinked criminal
phenomena” (Kozmelj, 2018, p. 36).

The Government of the Republic of Kosovo has stated that it is very important to pay atten-
tion to the entire region because of the risk of radicalization. They say that movement between
the borders of the countries of the Western Balkans is very fluid, and that because of that,
recruitment is simplified. They highlight the parts of Kosovo, North Macedonia, Albania and
the Sandžak region of Serbia which have mostly Muslim citizens living there.

“The role of the legislature and the judiciary is also important in the process of preventing
violent extremism and terrorism, by passing stricter laws that criminalize activities related
to terrorism and other extremist activities (incitement, recruitment, organizing, financing of
terrorism and terrorist activities, illegal possession of weapons, trafficking of people, ille-
gal crossings of the state border, forgery of travel and identity documents, going to foreign
fronts). Laws sanctioning such activities have been enacted in all the countries of the Western
Balkans region, especially when it comes to sanctioning departures to foreign battlefields and
accessing foreign armed formations subject to a multi-year prison sentence, in order for such
legal measures to show effectiveness and a positive result in prevention. Violent extremism
and terrorism must be strictly enforced, and must not get into a situation, as shown by the
cases from the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in which people who participated in
the conflicts in Syria and Iraq on the side of terrorist Islamist formations redeemed their in-

39