Topic: 2025 – Reducing Recruitment Capabilities of Terrorist Groups
Country: Bahrain
Delegate Name: Neel Grover
Terrorism is a quickly changing and growing threat that defies national borders, destabilizing governments and the communities within. The Kingdom of Bahrain views the disruption of recruitment capabilities as the most vital form of the counter-terrorism, recognizing that fixing the threat requires a comprehensive strategy that addresses security, financial, and social factors. Violent extremism can only be defeated by dealing with both the enabling factors, poor education and lack of opportunity; and the means of delivery, especially the misuse of digital media. Bahrain remains committed to working actively with the United Nations, the Global Counter Terrorism Forum, and its regional partners to dismantle terrorist networks.
Bahrain emphasizes that the most effective strategy for disrupting recruitment is to deny terrorist groups the ability to exploit legitimate grievances of communities. While terrorist narratives usually attempt to manipulate issues like economic hardship or community isolation, the main driver of extremism remains the deliberate distortion of religious and political ideologies. One fix is to create more opportunities. Bahrain leads national initiatives that prioritizes youth employment and entrepreneurship to ensure that young people are able to find a constructive purpose with themselves. Bahrain advocates for more investment in the development of projects in vulnerable states, especially international investment.
The education system serves as one of the most important ways to prevent indoctrination of young people. Bahrain affirms that schools must be invested in and used to prevent assimilation into radical and violent ideals. Curriculums must not only promote academic substance, but also strengthen a national identity. Bahrain’s Ma’an program is a successful model for combining civic and moral education into schools. The fight against terrorism is also a community effort, and empowering local and religious leaders to act as ideological grounders can help. Using trusted voices is also vital for getting rid of extremist ideology at a base level, especially of those from internationally backed groups.
Social media has also become a primary method of recruitment, allowing terrorist groups access to communities worldwide. This requires legislative action and international intelligence communication. The focus of legislative efforts should be on achieving a balance that protects digital freedom while regulating and removing media that supports terrorist recruitment. The speed of online radicalization requires an equal speed in response. Bahrain advocated for real-time intelligence sharing between security and law enforcement agencies, especially with the finding and dismantling of terrorist financing channels. Social media companies need to have the moral responsibility to regulate the content distributed on their platforms, detecting and automatically removing recruitment advertisements before they become widespread.
