convergence

Fighting Networks with Networks
Police of Afghanistan to collect intelligence, target drug traffickers, and disrupt processing
operations and trafficking networks. INL is also working to tackle the culture of impunity
and expand access to the state justice sector by increasing gender justice capacity, reducing
corruption, and building public demand for rule of law and individual legal rights.
Indonesia. Indonesia is a strategic partner of the United States with growing regional
and global influence. It is also home to the terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah and has been the
target of several deadly terrorist attacks over the past decade. Since the start of INL assistance
in 2000, the government of Indonesia has embraced institutional reform of its law enforcement
organizations and criminal justice system. The continued development of an effective civilian
police force and support of prosecutorial and judicial reform will ensure that Jakarta remains
a key partner with Washington in combating transnational crime and terrorism. For example,
INL continues to work closely and successfully with the national police. The first police units
that responded to the July 2009 attacks on the Marriot and Ritz Carlton hotels in Jakarta
were trained through INL programs. The unit that ultimately brought down the mastermind
behind those bombings, Noordin Top, was also trained by and worked closely with the United
States for many years. Noordin had ties to Jemaah Islamiyah as well as to al Qaeda.
International Law Enforcement Academies. INL reinforces these bilateral programs and
others through a worldwide network of International Law Enforcement Academies (ILEAs),
which provide training for local and regional law enforcement officials to combat international
drug trafficking, criminality, and terrorism. Serving four regions—Europe, Africa, South
America, and Asia—the ILEAs help protect American citizens and business by improving
law enforcement at the source, buttressing democratic governance through the rule of law,
enhancing the functioning of free markets through improved legislation and law enforcement,
and increasing social, political, and economic stability.
Converging Public-Private Partnerships to Fight Converging Threats
It is vital that the international law enforcement community begin to think creatively in examining
threat linkages. Even as the capability of the United States and its partners to disrupt
illicit networks develops, criminals are constantly adapting their practices to avoid detection.
The problem is too large for any one government to solve. It requires a net-centric approach at
the bilateral, subregional, regional, and global levels based on information-sharing and coordination
to break the financial strength of criminal and terrorist networks, disrupt illicit trafficking
networks, defeat transnational criminal and terrorist organizations, fight government
corruption, strengthen the rule of law, and bolster judicial and security systems.
Effective public-private partnerships are the key to achieving a whole-of-society response
to crime. The United States is reaching out directly to the international business community
and the general public to drive home the fact that nations and individuals share a common
enemy in transnational organized crime and have a stake in addressing it.
Strategic public-private partnerships are key for one obvious reason: the overwhelming
majority of industries and businesses are privately owned. Far more often than not, it is the
private sector that first encounters intrusions, theft, extortion, and other forms of organized
criminal disturbance. Over 90 percent of the world’s information technology infrastructure
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