Thesis Chapters by Weeda Mehran
Journal of Small Wars and Insurgencies, 2020
In its magazine, Sunnat-e Khola, Tahrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) called upon women to rise becaus... more In its magazine, Sunnat-e Khola, Tahrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) called upon women to rise because the 'Time of Martyrdom has come'. This research addresses questions surrounding how women are framed in jihadi rhetoric and what roles they play within these frames. Using a mixed-methods approach, we analysed sixty-eight jihadi magazines by Islamic State (ISIS), TTP, Al Qaeda, and Taliban, generating 3,417 codes which were further sorted into relevant contextual categories. These data were analysed through the lenses of social movement framing theory, which highlight the nuances and fine-grain differences among the aforementioned jihadi extremist groups in how women are depicted and how women's agency within these groups is constructed. A significant finding of this paper is that Al Qaeda and ISIS often show opposite trends in how they depict women within diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational framings. Furthermore, while the TTP has a higher proclivity to follow similar patterns to ISIS, the Taliban shares more similarities with Al Qaeda than any other group. For example, both ISIS and TTP are more likely than the Taliban and Al Qaeda to encourage women to do hijra and join jihad.
Texas National Security Review , 2019
On April 29, 2019, the leader of the Islamic State (ISIL), Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, for the first ti... more On April 29, 2019, the leader of the Islamic State (ISIL), Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, for the first time in five years appeared in a video published by ISIL’s media wing, al-Furqan.107 The 18-minute video, in which Baghdadi is “seated cross-legged on a flowered mattress,”108 sparked discussions about the future threat posed by ISIL. The group had recently incurred a significant loss of territory — going from controlling 88,000 square kilometers in Iraq and Syria to controlling no territory at all.109 While many journalists described the setting of the video in passing, the Afghan media posed the million-dollar question: “Aren’t those pillows and mattress in the Afghani style?” At its height in 2015, the Islamic State announced the establishment of a new branch — the Islamic State in Khorasan (IS-K) — which included Afghanistan, Pakistan, all of Central Asia, Iran, and parts of Russia and India.
Papers by Weeda Mehran
Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression, Jan 7, 2024
Small Wars & Insurgencies, Nov 26, 2023
Cambridge Scholars Press eBooks, Jun 1, 2006
The Political Quarterly, 2023
Studies in Conflict & Terrorism
Studies in Conflict & Terrorism
Videos showing the Taliban on battlefields, flaunting weapons and ammunition, military capabiliti... more Videos showing the Taliban on battlefields, flaunting weapons and ammunition, military capabilities and conquests by the group, or depicting suffering and casualties constitute a significant compon...
Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression
Small Wars & Insurgencies, 2020
In its magazine, Sunnat-e Khola, Tahrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) called upon women to rise becaus... more In its magazine, Sunnat-e Khola, Tahrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) called upon women to rise because the 'Time of Martyrdom has come'. This research addresses questions surrounding how women are framed in jihadi rhetoric and what roles they play within these frames. Using a mixed-methods approach, we analysed sixty-eight jihadi magazines by Islamic State (ISIS), TTP, Al Qaeda, and Taliban, generating 3,417 codes which were further sorted into relevant contextual categories. These data were analysed through the lenses of social movement framing theory, which highlight the nuances and fine-grain differences among the aforementioned jihadi extremist groups in how women are depicted and how women's agency within these groups is constructed. A significant finding of this paper is that Al Qaeda and ISIS often show opposite trends in how they depict women within diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational framings. Furthermore, while the TTP has a higher proclivity to follow similar patterns to ISIS, the Taliban shares more similarities with Al Qaeda than any other group. For example, both ISIS and TTP are more likely than the Taliban and Al Qaeda to encourage women to do hijra and join jihad.
SAIS Review of International Affairs, 2020
Abstract:In 2001, following the Taliban’s ousting from Afghanistan, the United States signed the ... more Abstract:In 2001, following the Taliban’s ousting from Afghanistan, the United States signed the Bonn Agreement directly with an Afghan delegation. Nineteen years later, in a bid to end the longest war in American history, the Trump administration signed the “Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan” with the Taliban, this time circumventing any direct involvement from the Afghan government. Is the US-Taliban deal a major diplomatic solution to a protracted conflict that signifies the importance of diplomatic solutions to military action? Or is it a war-failed and diplomacy-bound-to-fail scenario? This paper analyzes the issues and challenges facing the peace process in Afghanistan, with a focus on the diplomatic efforts by the United States.
Journal of Peacebuilding & Development, 2018
An indispensable part of the liberal peacebuilding package is rebuilding effective and meritocrat... more An indispensable part of the liberal peacebuilding package is rebuilding effective and meritocratic administrative structures. This paper analyses building state institutions in Afghanistan with a focus on the role of warlords in the process. The findings are based on in-depth interviews conducted from 2012 to 2016 in five different provinces of Afghanistan. The paper uses neopatrimonialism as an analytical framework to shed light on our understanding of warlords’ influence on building state institutions in a war-torn country such as Afghanistan. The paper argues that warlords have played a major role in the formation of neopatrimonialism in the country, a system that has proven pervasive, flexible and resistant to change. Additionally, this paper contends that neopatrimonial networks centred on warlords have been relatively effective in delivering services to those within the network while excluding others, nonetheless creating enough legitimacy and support to survive. Overall, thi...
Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 2021
Videos showing the Taliban on battlefields, flaunting weapons and ammunition, military capabiliti... more Videos showing the Taliban on battlefields, flaunting weapons and ammunition, military capabilities and conquests by the group, or depicting suffering and casualties constitute a significant compon...
Online Terrorist Propaganda, Recruitment, and Radicalization, 2019
Throughout history and across different cultures, militant groups have used children as spies, in... more Throughout history and across different cultures, militant groups have used children as spies, informants, soldiers and for various other propaganda purposes. (Honwana 2011) Not much has changed with the passage of time. The use of children by ISIS is a modern-day continuation of these trends. However, what sets ISIS apart from other terrorist groups (e.g. the Taliban, Boko Haram, Al Shabab, and Al Qaeda) is the fact that ISIS has not only been training children at a large scale, but has also used children extensively for its propaganda campaign. This paper analyses ISIS videos featuring children through the analytical framework of the "spectacle of violence" literature and illustrates that depiction of children as actors and performers of ultra-violence in a theatrical scene, is a visual rhetoric of humiliation and a counter-narrative that juxtaposes the inversion of roles of children and adults.
In this research, we conduct a systematic comparative analysis of 366 stories extracted from Engl... more In this research, we conduct a systematic comparative analysis of 366 stories extracted from English-language magazines by ISIS, Al Qaeda, Tehrik-e Taliban of Pakistan (TTP) and the Taliban. We emp...
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Thesis Chapters by Weeda Mehran
Papers by Weeda Mehran
ammunition, military capabilities and conquests by the group, or
depicting suffering and casualties constitute a significant component
of the Taliban’s media campaign alongside magazines, images, and
taranas (anashid/vocalization). The extant literature on the Taliban’s
propaganda material primarily focuses on online texts, night letters,
and magazines, while less scholarly attention has been paid to their
videos. This paper first identifies and analyzes the pre-dominant
themes in a sample of 90 videos and then investigates the use of
multimodal techniques and visual and sonic forms across a subset of
226 segments within these videos. The five predominant strategic
themes identified in the Taliban videos were martyrdom, military training,
military conquest, oppression and suffering, and public relations
(e.g. distribution of aid to local populations, engaging with local communities).
The findings point to differential use of sonic and visual
forms and multimodal techniques across these five themes, pointing
to strategic decisions made by the group in choosing particular techniques
and forms to amplify specific strategic themes.