If you passed Jolene Jerard on the street, you would have no idea she is a sought after worldwide expert on the threat that terrorism poses around the globe. Put her in front of an audience with a powerful slide show at her hands, and you are left in no doubt.
From think tank and policy institute, the International Centre For Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR), Jolene Jerard was certainly a very different presenter from the usual at the Customs Brokers and Freight Forwarders conference in Wellington.
She was at the CBAFF (Customs Brokers and Freight Forwarders Federation of New Zealand) conference to give insights into the evolving terrorism threat. That subject should be interesting enough, and her attendance was punctuated with a high level security meeting in the capital and a series of media interviews. The logistics link is the evolving threats and changing security environment in the global trade networks that New Zealand depends upon.
“Al Qaeda were known to be planning to use cargo planes to transport explosives before 9/11,” she says.
“I was visiting a prison in Afghanistan and the chief guard said 'go into any cell you want."
What also made the logistics managers sit up and take notice was her gritty and sometimes shocking slides, mixed with the sort of anecdotes you would never expect to hear at a freight event.
“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 recalls. Apparently, she was among the rapists and murderers, the terrorists were next door. “No wonder they seemed so friendly,” she quips.
She has command of her subject as well as courage in field research. While Al Qaeda has not gone away and is keen to keep the ground it has, ISIS is different mainly because it seeks to gain territory first and them impose ideology rather than the other way round.
“There are currently three main trends we see,” she says. The first is that terrorist recruitment is changing and social media is to blame. Nowadays, you don't need to know a terrorist to become one.
The second is that you cannot concentrate on one organisation any more. There is now a loose network of affiliated groups, covering many countries and a variety of languages. Indeed much of the material they use is now in English for example.
These groups seem quite happy to cooperate when it suits them. As Jerard says; “When security forces network it is a good thing. When terrorists network it is a bad thing.”
“It’s a never ending race.”
The third issue is returning fighters. There are some much publicised instances of western country residents running off to join ISIS and at some point they may sneak home again.
Movement of terrorist materials is addressed by a number of cargo screening and certification regimes, but as Scott McCorquodale, Manager Australia & New Zealand at Cargo Community Network comments; “It’s a never ending race.”
New Zealand Customs has developed the Safe Exports Scheme, designed to give exporters greater certainty at international borders by minimising customs delays. This was in response to increased checks post 9/11 and there are plans to expand to more than the USA, according to Bill Perry, Deputy Controller Operations at NZ Customs. IATA has also recently implemented the Secure Freight programme, allowing cargo to be secured once rather than checked every time it is handled.
“If you’re checking everything, it adds a huge amount of cost,” says Catherine Beard, Executive Director at Export NZ, part of Business NZ. She praises the New Zealand Customs work; “They were very pro-active, looking at how to keep our goods flowing,” she says.
The border can be a choke point, but Beard points out that; “We haven’t had it [security screening] raised by the membership as an issue.” Being part of the Safe Exports Scheme is important and “Companies take their reputation very seriously.”
Rosemarie Dawson, Executive Director at CBAFF backs that up by saying; “Security is vital for the supply chain to assure access to NZ trading partners and members are committed to ensuring the supply chain is secure.”
With over 80% of international air cargo carried in the belly of passenger planes, security screening is a significant issue for bodies such as IATA and regions including Europe and the US. Indeed increased requirements have recently lead to a diplomatic stoush between Russia and the EU.
The task is getting bigger according to McCorquodale. “Trade is increasing. There’s more product being moved around the world by more people.”
He says the focus is concentrated on the main threats and in his view the chief one is postal services. “You are more likely to get a bomb in a parcel of shoes than a shipment form Apple.”
However, Jolene Jerard cautions that every day that there is no incident can increase the risk. This is due to what she terms 'security fatigue'. “Our minds are so inundated with being told to be vigilant. And no attacks is a good thing. But sometimes you get bored, it opens the doors.”
Threats don't stand still either, she adds; “An important feature of terrorist groups is their ability to evolve. We need to recalculate our response - there are gaping holes.”
One example she gives is explosive disguised as copier toner and bomb electronics as a printer circuit board. It was intelligence rather than cargo screening that stopped the threat.
The response from security minded governments around the world may be to tighten up on screening. We may sleep safer in our beds, but will this come at the expense of slower and more costly exports in the future?
As R. Gil Kerlikowske, US Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection said in March; “Trade and travel facilitation, balanced with our strong commitment to seamless border security, make our mission incredibly complex.”
Nigel Parry attended the CBAFF Conference 2015
in Wellington as a media delegate,
article first published in FTD June 2015
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