18/01/2013 Newsnight


18/01/2013

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These are the lucky ones, survivors of the kidnap and of an ambitious

:00:15.:00:21.

military rescue in The Sahara. won't feel 100% happy until I'm in

:00:21.:00:24.

the UK and see my family. Then I will be happy. But up to 30 are

:00:24.:00:31.

still unaccounted for, a third of them Britons. Today, as kit

:00:31.:00:36.

napeders demanded their ranson, the Prime Minister laid bare the

:00:36.:00:40.

gravity of the threat. We face large and extension terrorist

:00:40.:00:48.

threat from a group of extremists, based in different parts of the

:00:48.:00:54.

world who want to damage our interests and way of life. We will

:00:54.:00:58.

discuss this and how we are prepared to meet it. Europe is

:00:58.:01:04.

trying to tie us up with regulation and the competitive edge we had

:01:04.:01:08.

will be gone. It is 40 years since we had a say on Europe, is it time

:01:08.:01:11.

for the politicians to stop talking and the rest of the country to

:01:11.:01:20.

start. Good evening, the news from Algeria

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is bad tonight, but not, it seems, as bad as the British Government

:01:23.:01:28.

had first believed. The original number of Britons unaccounted for

:01:28.:01:32.

stood at 30 last night t now looks to be closer to ten. After a

:01:32.:01:36.

terrorist take that plunged many of the world's capital's into crisis

:01:36.:01:41.

mode, dozens of foreign nationals still missing or being held at the

:01:41.:01:44.

Saharan gas plant. Today the Algerian Government defended its

:01:44.:01:48.

unilateral military operation, as the true scale of the attempted

:01:48.:01:52.

rescue mission became clear. It claimed 650 hostages had been freed,

:01:52.:01:55.

the vast majority of whom were Algerian. Tonight, as the Prime

:01:55.:01:58.

Minister talked of the growing threat in ungoverned places, we ask

:01:58.:02:05.

how much of this region is in trouble.

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Three days into the crisis at the sprawling gas plant, deep in

:02:11.:02:15.

Algerian desert, it is still hard to piece together the sequence of

:02:15.:02:23.

events. It is not clear if the hostage takers, Katibat

:02:23.:02:28.

Moulathamine were in the main plant or the residential complex. On the

:02:28.:02:31.

first day of the siege they demanded safe passage out with the

:02:31.:02:36.

hostages, the Algerians said no. A hostage were Belfast, who later

:02:36.:02:40.

escaped, phoned journalists, possibly under duress, to say the

:02:40.:02:44.

Algerian army had already opened fire on the complex. The situation

:02:44.:02:48.

is really deteriorating, we have contacted all the respective

:02:48.:02:50.

embassies from different nationalties, to have the military

:02:50.:02:55.

withdrew, the message doesn't seem to be getting through to the

:02:55.:02:58.

military, because just up until recently until ten minutes ago they

:02:58.:03:03.

were firing into the camp. It was yesterday the Algerian Government

:03:03.:03:07.

told Downing Street it had to act immediately. It is not clear what

:03:08.:03:11.

triggered the subsequent assault, either the Algerian army first

:03:11.:03:15.

stormed the residential complex, or the fighting started when the

:03:15.:03:17.

kidnappeders tried to move their hostages, in five jeeps. Their

:03:17.:03:22.

prisoners were bound, gagged, and had explosives round their necks.

:03:22.:03:25.

Certainly those vehicles were attacked by helicopter gunships, it

:03:25.:03:29.

is thought three were destroyed, one blew itself up. Some passengers

:03:29.:03:34.

escaped from the fifth. The remaining militants, and some

:03:34.:03:39.

hostages are now said to be holed up in the main gas treatment plant.

:03:39.:03:43.

With the crisis still unresolved, the Prime Minister made clear today

:03:43.:03:46.

his frustration at the way the Algerian operation began. During

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the course of Thursday morning, the Algerian forces mounted an

:03:50.:03:54.

operation. Mr Speaker, we were not informed of this in advance, I was

:03:54.:03:58.

told by the Algerian Prime Minister while it was taking place. He said

:03:58.:04:01.

that the terrorists had tried to flee, that they judged there to be

:04:01.:04:05.

an immediate threat to the lives of the hostages, and had felt obliged

:04:05.:04:08.

to respond. When I spoke to the Algerian Prime Minister, later last

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night, he told me that this first operation was complete, but this is

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a large and complex site, and they are still pursuing terrorists, and

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possibly some of the hostages in other areas of the site. Algeria's

:04:22.:04:26.

a country where oil and gas facilities have been largely safe

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until now, for the global hydrocarbon industry, this has been

:04:29.:04:35.

a big shock. It did looks a if Algeria was modernising, becoming

:04:35.:04:38.

more stable, some what more secular, and not a place where

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fundamentalism was going to take hold. The companies have been able

:04:42.:04:47.

to work there very successfully. They will now be surprised that

:04:47.:04:51.

this sort of incident can occur there. They will be looking very

:04:51.:04:56.

carefully, and they will be reassessing the balance of risk and

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reward. The industry does not like to put staff at risk, and very

:05:03.:05:08.

rarely does. This suggests there is a new situation in the region.

:05:08.:05:11.

of course, Islamist militants in North Africa don't just threaten

:05:11.:05:16.

western interests and personnel in the region, they pose a terrorist

:05:16.:05:20.

risk to Europe itself. The terrible events of this week have woken us

:05:20.:05:25.

up to a danger long growing, but long underestimated in North Africa.

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The question now, how can the west most effectively engage with the

:05:31.:05:34.

region, economically, diplomatically, militarily, to make

:05:34.:05:44.
:05:44.:05:45.

it safer for its own people and for or is it better for Africans to

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deal with African problems. The region is a patchwork of states,

:05:47.:05:51.

with varying attitudes to the west, and varying degrees of stability.

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In Algeria, where this tragedy has unfolded, the military retains huge

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political power. Its rulers have kept out of the Arab Spring, and

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they have only recently mended relations with France, after a long

:06:03.:06:08.

chill. After years of fighting in Islamist insurgency in the 190s,

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they have shown this week they are still -- 1990s, they have shown

:06:13.:06:17.

this week they are still prepared to act ruthlessly without talking

:06:17.:06:22.

to the west. Libya, freed with the aid of British and French air

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strike, should be the west's most reliable partner in north Africa,

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it has failed to rein in Islamist militias, it can't stem the flow of

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militants or arms across its desert. Mali, now gulfed in the conflict

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that apparently triggered the hostage-taking, was once a

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promising democracy, but a military coup last year provoked chaos,

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America can't help, because it says the new regime is illegal. Nigeria

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should be coming to the rescue, it is spearheading the African force

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meant to bring peace to Mali, its troops are, in reality, badly

:06:56.:07:01.

trained, they are leaving behind another Islamist insurgency in

:07:01.:07:05.

Nigeria theself. But many think military solutions alone won't work.

:07:05.:07:08.

And that it is poverty and bad Government that are fuelling the

:07:08.:07:13.

growth in Islamist militancy. You have to understand what are the

:07:13.:07:17.

security risks we are facing now in The Sahara region of Africa.

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Furthermore, you have to understand that problem has to do with

:07:20.:07:26.

sovereignty. Which is the main issue. Poverty in the sense that

:07:26.:07:31.

people are facing a lot of frustration. There is a lot of food

:07:31.:07:35.

crises, the leadership aren't doing their job. Because of that

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frustration, people are allowing themselves to be involved in all

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sorts of things, including what today is termed "terrorism ".

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Meanwhile, with the hostage crisis still unresolved, Algerian TV

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showed tonight freed prisoners returning home. The gendarmes kept

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us safe and away from the bad guys. REPORTER: How do you feel? I never

:07:59.:08:03.

felt any danger, to be honest. they had criticism of the rescue

:08:03.:08:07.

operation, it wasn't broadcast. But in the days ahead, the rest of the

:08:07.:08:15.

world will be analysing exactly what went wrong. We will speak to

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our diplomatic editor, Mark Urban, who is here now. How much clearer

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are we now about the people behind this and what they are really

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trying to achieve? Even yesterday, some people were still putting this

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in the same category of some of the previous kidnappings, only three or

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six individuals, much smaller in scale, and, of course, the all

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goreian Government had denounced this group -- the Algerian

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Government had denounced this group as cigarette smuggling bed bow wins,

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what is -- Bedouins. What is clearer after the reports emerged

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what happened, is this was conceived as a spectacular, perhaps,

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deliberately to put them on the international Jihadist map. You

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look at the scale of the target they selected. More than 700

:09:04.:09:09.

workers there, even when you win know out the Algerian, and 130

:09:09.:09:13.

foreigners, they went in there with 35 people, on a site covering many

:09:13.:09:16.

miles. How could they really hope to have controlled all those people,

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or got them away from there to some safer place. Perhaps it was always

:09:20.:09:26.

conceived that it might turn into a last stand, a suicide mission.

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longer planning than intervention in Mali would suggest? Quite

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possibly. With these broader aims. The demands made for the release of

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a woman in Pakistan, and the Egyptian cleric held for the past

:09:38.:09:41.

20 years in America over the original attempt to bomb the World

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Trade Center, if you like, Jihadist icons, not people narrowly related

:09:50.:09:58.

to the Sahara or the other people, look to go the wider Jihadist

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movement. Also reports from the freed hostages, that these people

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who went in there, around 35 gunmen were not just Algerian, they came

:10:06.:10:09.

from several different countries, one of them was described of

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speaking French of a standard of someone who had grown newspaper

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France. Evidence too of a wider Jihadist involvement in what they

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tried to do. What do you make of the diplomacy involved in this.

:10:20.:10:24.

Yesterday all the reports coming out suggested that David Cameron

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was pretty angry at the way this had been conducted unilaterally,

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today something much more empathetic to the Algerian

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Government, and much more gentle, in terms it of the criticism.

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Because we're going to be in this for a long time, possibly? Some

:10:41.:10:44.

people are still unaccounted for, there are still believed to be some

:10:44.:10:48.

hostages in the gas plant, it is an on going situation, not time to

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have public recriminations. And I think, perhaps, a more sober

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appreciation of what kind of group that the Algerians actually had to

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deal with. Britain was critical, the Japanese were critical. But

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some other countries have been quite robust in defence of what the

:11:05.:11:08.

Algerians have done. Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State,

:11:08.:11:12.

defending them today, and say let's remember who the terrorists are in

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this situation. The French Interior Minister, also, defending robust

:11:16.:11:19.

action, and urging people not to criticise the Algerians for what

:11:19.:11:23.

they have done. So, they have had quite a bit of support too in this.

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And too early to talk about the sort of lessons learned, but it has

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woken everyone up to this region, hasn't it? It has, because if they

:11:31.:11:37.

are going to go for this sort of spectacular, there are other FA

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sill dotted around the Sahara, from Algeria to Libya. Major facilities,

:11:42.:11:48.

if they are going to take on this kind of target, 98% of Algeria's

:11:48.:11:50.

foreign exchange revenue comes through this industry. They could

:11:50.:11:55.

have a major economic impact, many of the multinationals like BP will

:11:55.:11:59.

have to question the way they operate in the countries. And it

:11:59.:12:03.

has suddenly raised the whole thing several notches up, the

:12:03.:12:07.

international security list of concerns. Thank you very much. To

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discuss the attack and its implications we're joined by Nigel

:12:11.:12:16.

Inkster, a deputy head of MI6, the energy analyst, Rachel Ziemba, and

:12:16.:12:22.

also by Dr Alia Brahimi, who is an expert on North Africa and the

:12:22.:12:25.

Middle East, from the London School of Economics. Welcome to you all.

:12:25.:12:29.

Thank you for coming in. I think one thing that we have all been

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shocked about, was that revelation of the scale. We thought we were

:12:33.:12:39.

talking about 30, 40, 50, and suddenly you get these numbers of

:12:39.:12:44.

Algerian hostages, you know, up to 570 freed, it puts the whole

:12:44.:12:50.

military operation in some kind of context? Yeah, I think that what

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the scale indicates is this has been in the works for quite some

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time. This is something they have pulled out of their pocket in order

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to symbolically chime in with the global Jihadist ideology, the

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French have just entered into Mali. This wasn't hatched as a direct

:13:07.:13:11.

response to the French intervention. But they saw on the wider regional

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landscape and the world stage, this was the right time to try to

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execute such an audacious, and as you indicated, absolutely extensive

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operation. Does that make it clearer in your mind, you probably

:13:28.:13:33.

have sense, from an MI6 perspective, of how an operation like this, to

:13:33.:13:38.

rescue, would be put together. Does that tell us more about why the

:13:38.:13:44.

Algerians went in as they did? think, each of these situations has

:13:44.:13:47.

its own particular characteristics, and it is very difficult to

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generalise what we are looking at here, I think, has already been

:13:50.:13:57.

said. It is a very large area which gives the hostage-taker as lot of

:13:57.:14:06.

leeway to move around. And I think any attempt to deal with a group

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like this, given the circumstances, is going to be very challenges. In

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an ideal world, you would want to constrict these people within clear

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boundaries, you would want to be able to set up some intelligence,

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collection, capabilities to monitor these people, have some sense of

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where they are, where the hostages are, where the areas of risk are.

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In a situation such as we are talking about, it is pretty obvious

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this is going to be very difficult to do at all, much less within a

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very compressed time scale. I guess naturally we are concentrating and

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our thoughts are with the British nationals, and we're talking about

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the foreign nationals, but, from the Algerian perspective, this has

:14:45.:14:50.

been successful, hasn't it, most of them, the vast majority got out?

:14:50.:14:54.

Thus far, yes. Obviously the Algerian security forces, Armed

:14:54.:14:57.

Forces, do not have the kind of specialist training and

:14:57.:15:03.

capabilities that the United States, the UK, France and one or two other

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European nations have. One has to ask ones self how easy it would be

:15:09.:15:17.

for, let's say, the -- one's self, how easy it would be for the

:15:17.:15:20.

British forces the SAS, to do better in this situation, or

:15:20.:15:22.

whether a Special Forces approach would work in this environment.

:15:23.:15:28.

What do you think, could you imagine the Algerian military

:15:28.:15:34.

working side-by-side with Special Forces from other countries?

:15:34.:15:38.

think Algeria definitically historically has jealousy guarded

:15:38.:15:42.

its sovereignty. It also feels it has the necessary expertise to deal

:15:42.:15:45.

with these people, that it has been confronting for many years now, on

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its own terrain. So I think it probably was quite convinced that

:15:52.:15:55.

it was worth actually trying to go it alone in the first instance. I

:15:55.:15:59.

think going forward, that whole relationship is going to have to be

:15:59.:16:03.

reviewed, if indeed foreign personnel are going to remain in

:16:03.:16:07.

Algeria, working in the oil and gas sector, and some of that

:16:07.:16:10.

sovereignty will have to be conceded and whether that will take

:16:10.:16:13.

the form of private security companies, I don't know. But this

:16:13.:16:17.

threat is definitely on the rise. The response has to match it.

:16:17.:16:22.

Rachel Ziemba what will that mean now? Will the multinationals, who

:16:22.:16:25.

are already talking about evacuating their staff to safety

:16:25.:16:29.

want to carry on working in these places? Sure, I think they are

:16:29.:16:32.

already re-thinking, to go back to your previous point on the

:16:32.:16:36.

Algerians looking fairly well out of it t I think on a broader

:16:36.:16:40.

context this is a major hit too, what the overall policy of the

:16:40.:16:44.

Algerian Government has been. Not only in creating and maintaining

:16:44.:16:48.

the security state, but also in putting all of this security effort

:16:48.:16:54.

into the energy sector. The bulk of it. That was what this message was

:16:55.:16:58.

about? It was possibly not about the people first, it was about the

:16:58.:17:02.

site itself, do you think? I think also just the message of that.

:17:02.:17:07.

think to get to the broader point, obviously already the foreign

:17:07.:17:13.

companies are re-thinking what they are -- what their role will be. It

:17:13.:17:16.

is particularly a concern for any future investment that Algeria

:17:16.:17:19.

might want to attract. They are very much trying to get more

:17:19.:17:23.

investment, unconventional fuels. This is just another reason why

:17:23.:17:26.

foreign companies might give Algeria a wide berth, go to places

:17:26.:17:29.

that are easier to operate in on a business environment and security

:17:29.:17:33.

basis. Of course, we have to raise the question, what if there are

:17:33.:17:40.

more takes like this, will this affect supplies. Are these the

:17:40.:17:42.

unintended consequences of the end of the Colonel Gaddafi rule, is

:17:42.:17:48.

this what we didn't know about? I think this is one of the unintended

:17:48.:17:53.

consequences. This whole situation has been brewing for a long time.

:17:53.:17:57.

It has just maintained itself below the radar screen, but all of a

:17:57.:18:02.

sudden this massive influx of former Gaddafi mercenaries, plus

:18:02.:18:08.

their weapons. Plus the money? of course, money. Which is what?

:18:08.:18:13.

Saudi money now? The money from these groups comes from a lot of

:18:13.:18:18.

different sources. Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreg around 2008/09 was

:18:19.:18:23.

in a very powerless state, then they managed to cash in a lot of

:18:23.:18:26.

money from ranson payments from various western Governments, and

:18:26.:18:30.

they were in business again. Since then they have been raising money

:18:30.:18:34.

from various forms of smuggling, continued Rannellssome payments,

:18:34.:18:42.

some degree of outside fansing -- ranson payments, some degree of

:18:42.:18:45.

outside financing. They are quite wealthy. This is the soft

:18:45.:18:48.

underbelly of Europe, the place that will become the breeding

:18:48.:18:52.

ground for militants that we haven't really paid attention to.

:18:52.:18:57.

Is that how you see it? As Nigel said, events have really

:18:57.:19:01.

accelerated, it has all happened very quickly. If it isn't already

:19:01.:19:05.

seen that way, it will come to be seen that way. What you have is not

:19:05.:19:10.

just the fact that the downfall of Gaddafi has had this collateral

:19:10.:19:16.

damage in Mali, but you have these militant groups forming alliances,

:19:16.:19:19.

this growing Jihadi global consciousness among previously

:19:19.:19:23.

localised and ineffectual groups. They are all sort of coming

:19:23.:19:26.

together. That intellectual and ideolgical space has been matched

:19:26.:19:33.

with a ter Toryal space suddenly in northern mal-- territorial space

:19:33.:19:37.

suddenly in northern Mali. There are training camps there, I don't

:19:37.:19:41.

think the French are exaggerating the threat when they say we have to

:19:41.:19:44.

re-think this. It is a very dangerous position. Where does it

:19:44.:19:47.

leave the French position or any western position, if the French

:19:47.:19:50.

have boots on the ground, could this be their Iraq, somewhere they

:19:50.:19:55.

are going to be for a long time? would be hesitant to compare it to

:19:55.:20:00.

any specific other example. I think the issue here is whether it is

:20:00.:20:04.

French, and we are starting to have other NATO members have, if not

:20:04.:20:08.

boots on the glound, but support operations, they -- ground, but

:20:09.:20:13.

support operations, they could get dragged in, the Canadians, the

:20:13.:20:19.

British to some extent. The big issue this is not going to be an

:20:19.:20:23.

easy fight or solved militarily, there will be economic elements to

:20:23.:20:28.

this. This is a point where, speaking especially about for

:20:28.:20:33.

example Algeria and Libya, this is a dynamic where Europe is in a

:20:33.:20:37.

situation where because of the economic situation within Europe,

:20:37.:20:43.

there is even less capacity both militarily, but also from an

:20:43.:20:49.

economic basis. It is much closer, a three-hour flight. Did you hear

:20:49.:20:54.

anything in what David Cameron said today that suggested this is now

:20:54.:21:02.

our focus for military intervention, or at least security? His reference

:21:02.:21:06.

to an existential threat was very interesting. I think it was

:21:07.:21:10.

slightly worrying, in the sense that it is obviously in the

:21:10.:21:14.

interests of these groups, to aggregate up their cause into

:21:14.:21:18.

something that is greater than the sum of the parts. I think we need

:21:18.:21:25.

to be wary about playing this game any more than we need to. Having

:21:25.:21:29.

said that, I think the honest answer is, yes, we probably are

:21:29.:21:32.

going to need to be more involved, I think there is going to be a lot

:21:32.:21:37.

of work needed to be done in capacity building for local

:21:37.:21:41.

regional forces, rather perhaps than direct military involvement by

:21:41.:21:45.

countries like the UK, but there is a lot that can be done that needs

:21:45.:21:50.

to be done to bring local African capabilities up to where they need

:21:50.:21:53.

to be to begin to deal with this threat. This will take a lot of

:21:53.:21:57.

time. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you very much for coming in.

:21:57.:22:01.

Ask people what they want out of Europe, holidays aside, and many

:22:01.:22:04.

will offer you a fairly visceral view. The polls on British

:22:04.:22:07.

membership of the EU have changed little over 40 years, the country

:22:07.:22:10.

roughly splits in half. Tonight we step away from the politicians and

:22:10.:22:14.

ask those who work in health, haulage, small businesses, how the

:22:14.:22:24.

EU rules have changed their lives. 40 years ago this month, we joined

:22:24.:22:28.

what was then called the Common Market. That, of course, has

:22:28.:22:32.

evolved into the EU. It now does far more in our lives than the

:22:32.:22:37.

trading group we signed up to. Each of us has a different story to tell

:22:37.:22:41.

about Europe, but one thing to note from polling evidence, even if the

:22:41.:22:46.

politicians get convulsed by periodic euro-spasams, the public

:22:46.:22:50.

is pretty constant. We have been tracking whether people want to

:22:50.:22:54.

leave Europe or stay in it in the EU, since 1977, what is interesting

:22:54.:22:58.

is that the figures in our latest survey, just at the end of last

:22:58.:23:02.

year, had 48% want to go leave, 44% wanting to stay in. Those figures

:23:02.:23:06.

are very, very close, one or two percentage points away from how

:23:06.:23:10.

people felt in 1977. If you didn't do any polls between that period

:23:10.:23:14.

you would say nothing much had changed. But one thing that has

:23:14.:23:19.

changed, for some people, Europe has made a huge impact on their

:23:20.:23:23.

lives. For junior doctors, for example, the European Working Time

:23:23.:23:27.

Directive has limited their hours, they can only work 48 a week, that

:23:27.:23:30.

includes on-call time. They are understandably keen to keep this

:23:30.:23:34.

protection. I think bringing down doctors' hours has been beneficial,

:23:34.:23:38.

I think people who are tired make mistake, doctors who are tired make

:23:38.:23:41.

mistakes with patients, that is something we have managed to avoid

:23:41.:23:45.

and improve. That has led to patient safety improvements.

:23:45.:23:47.

Ripping up the European Working Time Directive would be a mistake,

:23:47.:23:52.

in your view? I think if we removed EWTD we would have to replace it

:23:52.:23:56.

with something just as important to maintain safety for patients and

:23:57.:24:00.

for doctors. Clearly junior doctors think Europe has been great, but

:24:00.:24:04.

has had been great for the rest of us, for patients, who receive NHS

:24:04.:24:07.

care, for the tax-payers who have to pay for it. There is another

:24:08.:24:12.

view, here at the Royal College of Surgeons, they think it has been a

:24:12.:24:17.

disaster. The problem with the European working time directive for

:24:17.:24:21.

surgical training is the rigid working hours we experience,

:24:21.:24:25.

patients kb can't be followed through in the same way as

:24:25.:24:29.

previously. They are handed over between teams, we think it is a

:24:29.:24:33.

problem for patient safety. We are not getting the same levels of

:24:33.:24:37.

experience by following the patients through their pathway in

:24:37.:24:40.

surgery. Another group keen to see renegotiation of the European

:24:40.:24:45.

regulations is the haulage industry. Foreign lorries fill up their tangs

:24:45.:24:50.

with cheaper diesel bought abroad and undercut British firms. The

:24:50.:24:54.

Government is bringing in a new charge on such lorries, �10 day,

:24:54.:25:01.

because of the EU rules the charge has to go on to British lorries too.

:25:01.:25:06.

It is said they won't lose out because they pay lower excise duty

:25:06.:25:11.

to balance it out. More complexity, the hauliers say �10 is too little

:25:11.:25:16.

to make things fair. They have enough fuel to last all week, and

:25:16.:25:19.

because the rules are relaxed about what they can and can't do inside

:25:19.:25:24.

the UK. They can pick up a load in Manchester take it to Birmingham,

:25:24.:25:29.

pick up one from Birmingham and take it to Cardiff and take it out

:25:29.:25:34.

of the country. They can now work in the UK at far cheaper rates than

:25:34.:25:38.

the UK haulier because they have bought the fuel abroad at 25p a

:25:38.:25:42.

litre less, that is decimating the industry. And whilst there are

:25:42.:25:46.

plenty of businesses who say that Europe has been great for them,

:25:46.:25:51.

with access to half a billion consumers across the continent, for

:25:51.:25:55.

some smaller concerns that trade exclusively in the UK, well, you

:25:55.:26:00.

sometimes get a different story. For me it is an absolute nightmare,

:26:00.:26:03.

when you get more and more legislation. The great thing about

:26:03.:26:07.

running a small business, or relatively small business is that

:26:07.:26:10.

ability to be able to think on your feet and move fast what Europe is

:26:10.:26:14.

doing is trying to tie us up with more legislation, the likes of

:26:14.:26:18.

which will slow us down, and that competitive edge we once had is

:26:18.:26:21.

finished. For me, we don't need another layer of middle management,

:26:21.:26:25.

we have one, we have our politician, we don't need another layer of

:26:25.:26:28.

management, I'm sorry. A little before that the speaker had said,

:26:28.:26:31.

this was before the vote was announced, that he anticipated

:26:31.:26:35.

there would be a good deal of noise and celebration. We entered the

:26:35.:26:38.

Common Market because of a vote in parliament, we stayed in because of

:26:38.:26:43.

a referendum two years later. In about two years time we may have

:26:43.:26:47.

another referendum. But this time, we will have far more experience to

:26:47.:26:56.

vote on. Review is here on BBC Two next.

:26:56.:27:03.

Tonight we're soaked in blood after watching Quentin Tarantino's

:27:03.:27:07.

typically gory Django Unchained, the Vikings have returned to

:27:07.:27:12.

Scotland, this time bringing treasure, it turns out they weren't

:27:12.:27:15.

quite as bloodthirsty as you might have thought. Prime Minister Prime

:27:15.:27:19.

Minister is back on the screens, ready to tackle the coalition. We

:27:19.:27:24.

have tales of teenage trauma on the screen and the page. Join me

:27:24.:27:27.

Natalie Haynes, Denise Mina, and John Sergeant in just a minute.

:27:27.:27:31.

Before we go I will take you through the front pages of

:27:31.:27:41.
:27:41.:27:41.

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 70 seconds

:27:41.:28:51.

That's all from us this evening, we wish you fun in the snow, if that

:28:51.:28:56.

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