Article: Right-wing Terrorism in the 21st Century: The National Socialist Underground and the history of terror from the far right in Germany by Daniel Koehler (Routledge, 2017) and Understanding Deradicalization: Methods, tools and programs for countering violent extremism by Daniel Koehler (Routledge, 2017)
In the struggle against ISIS and the so-called Islamic State, the United States and its allies continue to achieve significant military victories, as evidenced by the ongoing efforts to liberate the city of Mosul in Iraq. What happens next with the returning or migrating foreign fighters and with whatever remains of ISIS’ influence in the digital battle space where up to this point it has been winning? Evidence of the group inspiring, remotely recruiting and directing attacks in Europe and elsewhere, and its continued ability to attract foreign fighters to the actual battlefield makes it clear that ISIS may be losing the ground war in Syria and Iraq but winning in the other areas, especially in the digital battle space. The authors highlight the importance of creating compelling counter-narratives and products that compete with the prolific ISIS online campaigns.
This paper set out to explore whether the Syrian Conflict has impacted security issues outside its borders, in particular in Europe. With a wide range of challenges related to the conflict, now in its sixth year, issues such as the rise of ISIS and the refugee crisis in Europe have been linked to political destabilization on the continent and within the EU. By looking at data presented by the Global Terrorism Database and the United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR), this study set out to observe any patterns in Islamic terrorist activity and numbers of refugees in Europe during the period 2006 to 2015. Academic reports based on empirical studies as well as media reports were also analyzed to further the research and allow for in-depth assessment of the issue as a whole.
The U.S. has been battling ISIS and its forerunners for over two decades; however, ISIS continues to endure and expand. While described as a death cult by some political leaders and other key stakeholders, this assertion received little consideration in the scholarly literature. The purpose of this study was to ascertain whether ISIS satisfied the criteria of an apocalyptic Islamic cult through the application of a historical qualitative research design and meta-analysis. Based on the results, the null hypothesis that ISIS does not satisfy the criteria of an apocalyptic Islamic cult was rejected, and the hypothesis that ISIS satisfies the criteria of an apocalyptic Islamic cult was accepted. This outcome has significant implications regarding U.S. policy and how practitioners develop effective strategies to neutralize the threat.
Since the beginning of the current millennium, Boko Haram has terrorised the residents of Northern Nigeria with devastating and high profile campaigns resuming in 2010. First responders struggle to cope with planning for and responding to the aftermath of these attacks. This paper describes analysis that can help emergency services pre-empt the geography and magnitude of susceptibility to attacks and the potential of the terrorists to generate severe attacks. The data used for the study were five years of terrorist activities. Results suggest that the efficiency of Boko Haram is not necessarily random and that attacks are generally well calculated to hit communities with disproportionate concentrations of vulnerable residents. The analysis is the first attempt to examine how a spatial segmentation framework might offer insight and intelligence towards understanding the configuration of terrorism for operational response.
This is a review of a book entitled Reintegrating Extremists: Deradicalisation and Desistance by Dr Sarah V. Marsden. It examines the reintegration and ‘deradicalisation’ of former prisoners or those considered ‘at risk’ of involvement in extremism in the UK. The book leverages criminological theory and empirical findings that result in analysis that argues that reintegration is a more appropriate framework than ‘deradicalisation,’ and proposes mechanisms by which individuals can be supported to move away from extremism. It is unreservedly recommended for both scholars and practitioners.
This is a review of the book Islamic State: Rewriting History by Michael Griffin. It provides a chronological account of the organization’s emergence and the role that external global actors had on its development. In addition it examines ISIS’ use of media and the possible effects of its expansion on regional relations.
Whilst the interest of memory scholars in political violence and more specifically in terrorism is not novel, there appears to be a certain urgency to reflect upon memories of terrorist violence in collective, European immaginarium. By questioning how to deal with these memories and how the process of remembrance of the victims of terrorism will pave its way into a European memory culture, this article analyses spontaneous memorialization of the victims of terrorist attacks in Brussels (2016).
Certain threats, such as terrorism tend to have a low probability of affecting us directly, yet reminders of them (such as media news) are striking. Could individuals with particular personality traits find them distractive from the usual priorities in daily decision-making? This study explored the putative effects of media-driven terrorism threat, on two economic preferences (risk aversion and delay discounting) - using a sample reasonably closely representative of a modern Western city. Participants (N = 78) higher on impulsivity showed lower risk-seeking under terrorism threat. Discussed are directions for further research and the implications for media coverage of terrorist threat.
Abstract: Do women chief executives experience more terrorist activity during their time in office? We are interested in exploring this question given the rise in the study of gender and conflict. We argue that women leaders experience higher levels of terrorist violence due to gender perceptions. Women leaders are perceived as conflict averse. Concomitantly, women leaders who respond forcibly against terrorist agitation run the risk of domestic political costs and possibly additional terrorist recruitment as a result of policies that deviate from gender norms. This political catch-22 results in a higher frequency of terrorist violence. We examine this relationship on instances of domestic terrorism from 1980-2011. The results confirm that women leaders experience terrorist violence more frequently.
Water critical infrastructure is considered one of the most important CI on a global basis. Water CI has been consistently targeted across history since 3000 BC, with a significant increase in those attacks documented in the early 2010s. The aim of this paper is to review security and dependencies of water CI in relation to terrorism or adverse human intervention. In particular, the paper analyses water as a ‘soft’ target, and provides an insight into terrorist attack planning and perceived threat levels. Keywords: Water critical infrastructure; security; terrorist attack; dependency; water contamination
The fundraising efforts of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) have impressed academics, journalists, and government officials alike. The literature has thus far explored the methods via which ISIS acquire funds and transfer their proceeds across international borders. This article aims to expand upon these entries by analysing the failures of EU and US policy to counter terrorist financing since the 9/11 attacks, particularly with regards to the inability of both entities to adjust to digital transfer methods. The value of military operations will also be discussed within the context of halting the Islamic State’s fundraising capabilities.
The growing sense of insecurity in the Western world due to home-grown Islamist terrorism prompts further research on the topic. Based on previous literature, the current paper attempts to determine whether factors can be identified which contribute to Western individuals joining Islamic extremist organizations and engaging in terrorist behavior in the West. Four factors are discussed: While extensive scientific literature supports the view that identity crises and relative deprivation play a crucial role in turning Western individuals to terrorism, evidence on the role of personal characteristics and empathy, on the other hand, is still too scarce to allow any clear scientific judgment.
The Islamic State’s ambitious goals have led to the organization obtaining a large amount of costs. However, the Islamic State does not have adequate revenue streams to maintain these expenditures. This paper compares the Islamic State’s costs and revenue streams with two similar organizations, Hizballah and Al Qaeda. The comparison will explain that the Islamic State’s revenue streams are not as efficient and diversified as Hizballah and Al Qaeda’s revenue streams have historically been. As a result of inefficient and unvaried revenue streams, the Islamic State will be forced to structurally change.
This essay provides reviews of the following books: Daniel Byman, Al-Qaida, The Islamic State, and the Global Jihadist Movement: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015) Patrick Cockburn, The Jihadis return: ISIS and the New Sunni Uprising (New York: Or Books, 2014) Jessica Stern and J. M. Berger, ISIS: The State of Terror (London: William Collins, 2015) Fawaz A. Gerges, ISIS: A History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016) William McCants, The ISIS Apocalypse: The History, Strategy, and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State (New York: St Martin’s Press, 2015) Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassan, ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror (New York: Regan Arts, 2015)
Given the evidence pointing to religiosity and gender as strong predictors of risk aversion, the recruitment of women into extremist organizations seems contradictory. This article is intended to help solve the puzzle of female behavior in terrorist groups by adding some nuance to the discussion: it is not religiosity itself that influences people’s willingness to take risks, but their perception of god’s expectations about them. This is illustrated here with an analysis of ISIS’s magazine Dar al-Islam and the evolution of their messages, from portraying a god that wants submission to a god that needs women’s active participation in battle.
This proposed article investigates the emergency management implications of a terrorist attack directly planned and executed by ISIL in the United States. To do so, we operationalize the Department of Homeland Security’s National Preparedness Goal (NPG) to demonstrate how ISIL-directed attacks might stress national preparedness Core Capabilities. In so doing, we provide a proof of concept, demonstrating how viewing the ISIL threat through an emergency preparedness lens can help better benchmark existing national preparedness activities and policies against emerging threats.
Terrorism is costly and unlikely to survive any selection process that favors behaviors with higher payoffs. Our evolutionary game model and agent based computer simulations show that group benefits offset the within-group behavioral selection against terrorism. Only those displaying the fittest strategy choices will thrive and multiply. By increasing the number of alliances and the size of their membership, terror groups can contribute to their longevity. Fitness reducing strategies fail to pass on to the new generation. We conclude that costly terror campaigns may reduce popular support among terror organizations’ potential constituency and thus, hasten the demise of terror groups.
The case of the Syrian Electronic Army (SEA) offers the chance to study a counter response to the cyber activism of the Arab Spring. Research methods featured an adapted method of snowball sampling. The main technical finding of the study placed the SEA within two degrees of separation from a senior politician within the Assad regime. The core conclusion of the paper is the definition of a ‘close enough’ relationship between the SEA and the Assad regime, defined as distant enough to preserve plausible deniability but close enough to ensure the strategic alignment of the SEA to state policy goals.
The Provisional IRA has often been characterized as a hierarchical terrorist group, particularly by proponents of the ‘new’ terrorist concept’. However, this does not adequately describe the reality of decision-making within the Provisional IRA. From the very beginning, important operational choices were made by PIRA volunteers at local level, without significant input from the senior leaders of the group. Despite a series of organizational reforms that were designed to reign in local volunteers, the leadership of the Provisional IRA was often unable to exercise effective command and control over rank-and-file members of the group.
