Al Jazeera English’s ‘UpFront’ – ex-MI6 chief Richard Barrett on ISIL

The former head of counterterrorism for MI6, Richard Barrett, speaks with Al Jazeera English’s Mehdi Hasan in the wake of the Paris attacks:

Says France-US anti-ISIL alliance with Russia and Assad isn’t a “viable coalition” because “the thing is much more complicated than that.”

Argues more bombs will “absolutely not” defeat ISIL and will "make [France] more of a target”.

Points to “very, very clear link” between the invasion of Iraq and the rise of ISIL

Believes the struggle with ISIL will be “generational”: “I don’t think it’s going to be defeated any time soon.”

(Washington D.C. – 19th, November, 2015) – In a wide-ranging and exclusive interview with Al Jazeera English’s flagship current affairs show, ‘UpFront’, Richard Barrett, former Director of Global Counter Terrorism Operations for MI6, says a potential France-US anti-ISIL alliance with Russia and Assad is a flawed strategy.

“The thing is much more complicated than that,” Barrett told ‘UpFront’ host Mehdi Hasan. “You cannot necessarily bring all the enemies of ISIS together and say, well, that is a viable coalition,” he added.

Barrett, who also served as head of the UN’s Monitoring Team on Al Qaeda and the Taliban between 2004 and 2013, believes defeating ISIL will require a war of ideas.

“It is possible to think that you could go in there and you could just knock them out, you could weaken them so much that they would just have to go underground,” he said. “But the idea that ISIL thrives on, the idea behind ISIL, I don’t think’s going to be defeated any time soon at all, that requires much more work and a much longer term, much more generational type struggle.”

According to the former senior MI6 intelligence officer and UN director, the ongoing strategy of continued airstrikes against ISIL forces will “absolutely not” eliminate them. “There’s actually no point in destroying it,” Barrett said, urging a political resolution to the Syrian conflict. “Because even if you managed to destroy the Islamic State with bombs, what’s going to take its place? At the moment, there is nothing to take its place.”

The intensification of French air strikes on Raqqa, while understandable from a political perspective and as a response to the Paris attacks, “inevitably… will make [France] probably more of a target, if that’s possible”. Air strikes, argued Barrett, are “certainly not going to be something that stops the Islamic State trying to attack in France and whether it will reduce its capability to do so, I’m not sure either.”

In the interview, the former MI6 official also suggested that the objective of the Paris attacks was to polarise societies. “The whole point of terrorism I believe, particularly the form we’re seeing in Syria, is to force people off the fence, you have to take sides. You’re either with those people or you’re with us. And that polarisation of society is a very important element of the Islamic State strategy,” Barrett told ‘UpFront’.

When asked if the invasion and occupation of Iraq could be linked to the rise of ISIL, Barrett acknowledged: “There’s a very, very clear link.”  For Barrett, “there’s a clear linear progression” from Al Qaeda in Iraq to ISIL.

This interview with Richard Barrett will be available online at: www.aljazeera.com/upfront from 19.30GMT onwards this Friday.

*ENDS*

NOTES FOR EDITORS:

Please credit Al Jazeera English and ‘UpFront’ if you plan to use any quotes from this interview with Richard Barrett.

This interview with Richard Barrett will be available online at: www.aljazeera.com/upfront from 19.30GMT, Friday 20th November, onwards. Please add this link to your online copy if quotes are used.

UpFront, hosted by Mehdi Hasan, broadcasts this Friday 20th at 19.30 GMT. 

A new series of UpFront will return early in the new year.

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