Terrorism and Security

Friday 26 October – Saturday 27 October 2007

The events of 11 September 2001 marked the beginning of a new era. Subsequent terrorist attacks in Bali, Beslan, Istanbul, Jakarta, Madrid and London have confirmed the challenge. We should look at how best to counter specific terrorist campaigns, how to develop a stronger and more effective counter-terrorism strategy, and how to address underlying factors which may be fuelling the terrorist threat.

Drugs traders, organised mafias and fanatical religious sects are now augmented by the rise of rogue, failed and failing states. There is an increasing capacity to strike across national boundaries, and a calculated exploitation of improved communications and globalisation in a ‘borderless world.

Sponsors:

FM Global
PricewaterhouseCooper
South East England Development Agency

Guest Speakers:

Sir David Omand GC
As former Director GCHQ (1996-1997) Sir David Omand was involved in reshaping the organisation post Cold War. In 2002 he held the post of UK Security and Intelligence Coordinator, exercising overall direction on behalf of the Prime Minister of the national counter-terrorism strategy.

Douglas Murray
Douglas is a speaker on the dangers and a security threat posed by Islamism, and is head of the social cohesion unit, part of Civitas, the prestigious London think tank. He is very frequently on the radio and TV, especially ‘Question Time’

Boris Volodarsky: Boris
Volodarsky was alone in openly accusing the FSB of poisoning Alexander Litvinenko in the English-language Moscow Times and was a former Soviet military intelligence officer. He is also the author, with Oleg Gordievsky, of the forthcoming ‘KGB: The West Side Story’.

Chief Constable Sara Thornton QPM
Sarah Thornton served as an intelligence officer in the security service before joining the Metropolitan police in 1986, and fifteen years later joined Thames Valley Police running special operations; she is now Chief Constable.

Rt. Hon. John Spellar MP
John Spellar became a Northern Ireland minister in June 2003 and prior to that, spent the 1997 Parliament period at the MoD.

Professor Anthony Glees
Anthony Glees is Director of the Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies and author of: The Stasi Files, on the subject of East Germany’s UK intelligence operations; Spinning the Spies, about Tony Blair’s management of intelligence and security issues in the run-up to invasion of Iraq and, most recently, The Open Side of Secrecy, an analysis of Britain’s intelligence oversight system. His report on UK campus extremism When Students Turn to Terror, written together with Chris Pope, was published by the Social Affairs Unit in October 2005.

Matthew Butterworth
Head of Intelligence, Heathrow will be speaking on ‘Heathrow and the challenge of delivering security’