The Handala Hacker Group is as a sophisticated and advanced cyber-attack group, tied to Iran's Ministry of Intelligence. Handala allows Iran to conduct information warfare against Israel and the Iranian opposition, joining Iran's existing roster of offensive cyber strike units. Beginning in 2023, Handala conducted numerous cyber-attacks, primarily against targets in Israel, with several incidents also reported in the United States and Europe. Targets included healthcare facilities, information technology, electronics, education, government and defense. While other state-operated hackers (such as those known to operate in Russia, North Korea, Syria, China and elsewhere), are clandestine and almost invisible, Handala operates openly, following a released plan, exposing and taking responsibility for each of their achievements. This mode of operating openly allows researchers to study the strategies and tactics used by these types of cyber attackers. This study's research question is to what extent does the Handala hacking group engage in cyberterrorism as opposed to using hacking primarily as a tool of psychological warfare? The study is based on a database of publicly available content associated with the Handala hacker group. We applied a qualitative content analysis of posts by the Handala hacker group, employing natural language processing (NLP) analysis in Google Colab in order to identify patterns and trends in the data, while relying on inductive manual coding. The findings indicate that Handala's activity focuses more on psychological warfare than on damaging the systems they have penetrated.
After the military defeat of the Islamic State (IS) in the Middle East, the primary activity of this terrorist organization has shifted to African countries. Similar to al-Qaeda, from which it originally emerged, IS has in recent years aimed at establishing cooperation or incorporating African Islamist extremist movements under its own brand. Currently, the majority of originally insurgent Islamist movements in Africa (at least formally) fall under the franchise of either of the two aforementioned global jihadist terrorist organizations. The article focuses on three case studies-Al-Shabaab in Somalia, Boko Haram in Nigeria, and Ahl al-Sunna wa al-Jama'ah in Mozambique-and analyses possible changes in the strategies of these Islamist insurgent movements after they began cooperating with international terrorist organizations. The article also examines the counterinsurgency strategies of these countries' state actors and focuses on possible changes in their approaches toward the insurgent movements reflecting their respective shifts in strategy.
This study qualitatively examined factors shaping disengagement from violent extremism. Fifteen former extremists participated in interviews about their experiences of radicalization, engagement, and disengagement, The current study focused on factors that motivated leaving. Four push factors emerged: (1) social and interpersonal repercussions, (2) personal risks and consequences, (3) intra-group conflict, and (4) cognitive shift related to ideology and morality. Three pull factors were also identified: (1) humanizing experiences with diverse individuals/out-group members, (2) social support, and (3) life changes and new priorities/opportunities. The findings improve our understanding of the psychosocial and contextual factors that motivate individuals to leave extremist organizations.
Fire has long been recognized as holding a wealth of symbolism across disciplinary contexts. However, its symbolic role in political violence has yet to be evaluated. This theoretical contribution explores a range of contexts in which fire is employed as a figurative or literal device in acts and threats of political violence. Through an evaluation of nine instances across a variety of extremist ideologies, we identify six thematic messages conveyed with and through invocations of fire: fire as threat; fire as destruction; fire as protest; fire as sacrifice; fire as restoration; and fire as performance. We argue that evaluating the ubiquity of fire symbolism across extremist ideologies has the potential to contribute to a more nuanced understanding of extremist messaging. By considering the symbolic value in the means as well as the ends of political violence, we can better understand how such acts constitute "bloody theater".
This study examines the factors predicting perceived paramilitary influence in Northern Ireland more than 25 years after the Belfast-Good Friday Agreement. Drawing on data from the 2024 Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey (N = 1,199), our analysis reveals that perceptions of paramilitary control are primarily associated with urban residence, heightened subjective insecurity, and younger age cohorts, rather than traditional sectarian identities or political affiliations. Specifically, urban residents were six times more likely to perceive paramilitary influence, while respondents feeling unsafe in their neighborhoods showed elevated odds of reporting such control. Younger adults (18-44 years) were significantly more likely than older cohorts to perceive paramilitary presence, suggesting generational differences in exposure to contemporary forms of coercion. These findings indicate a qualitative shift in paramilitary activity from conflict-era political violence to localized criminal governance embedded in everyday insecurity. Theoretically, the study contributes to scholarship on social embeddedness in post-conflict societies, demonstrating how (erstwhile) armed actors sustain authority through local networks and informal control mechanisms long after formal decommissioning of weapons. The Northern Ireland case illustrates that formal peace does not eliminate coercive actors; rather, it signals their transformation into subtler, socially embedded forms of informal governance.
