Religion and Terrorism

Kulisy bliskiej współpracy komunistycznych służb z międzynarodowymi ugrupowaniami terrorystycznymi przez wiele lat należały do najpilniej strzeżonych sekretów PRL. Radykałowie z Bliskiego Wschodu oraz skrajnie lewicowi ekstremiści z Europy Zachodniej traktowali Polskę jako sprawdzonego sojusznika i bezpieczną przystań, gdzie można było skutecznie ukrywać się przed agentami służb zachodnich i w spokoju przygotowywać kolejne zamachy. Dzięki tajnym układom z peerelowskimi służbami cywilnymi i wojskowymi, terroryści czuli się w Polsce bezpiecznie. Omijali procedury wizowe, przysyłali rannych bojowników na odpoczynek, otrzymywali stypendia, otwierali własne firmy, handlowali bronią, a na nielegalnych interesach z państwowymi przedsiębiorstwami zarabiali miliony dolarów. Abu Nidal, Monzer Al-Kassar, Abu Dawud i Abu Abbas to tylko niektórzy z czołówki najgroźniejszych światowych terrorystów ostatniej dekady zimnej wojny, którzy nie tylko korzystali z gościny peerelowskich służb, ale traktowali Polskę jako ważne ogniwo przestępczej działalności. Dzięki drobiazgowym poszukiwaniom archiwalnym Autorowi udało się zrekonstruować najważniejsze siatki terrorystyczne operujące na terenie komunistycznej Polski oraz naświetlić okoliczności ich sekretnych powiązań z funkcjonariuszami aparatu bezpieczeństwa PRL.
https://ksiegarnia.pwn.pl/Zabojcze-uklady,713077485,p.html

Since, the incident of 9/11, the identity of the Muslims across the globe have gone through serious misrepresentations by the western media. This paper provides the insights that how the Muslims have been treated as suspected ones by the westerns. The loyalties of the Muslims were suspected and doubted in America in response to the incident of 9/11. Muslims were victimized on account of their negatively perceived identity. In-Home Boy the Muslim immigrants consistently attempt to re-write and negotiate their identity in response to their misrepresentations of identity. For thematic analysis, theoretical insights have been taken from Almond’s The New Orientalists: Postmodern Representations of Islam from Foucault to Baudrillard. The textual analysis of the novel reveals that the Muslims in the western world were already suspected due to the orientalist mind-set of the American society but the incident of 9/11 aggravated this situation in practical social settings. Naqvi speaks for th...

Twenty years after the 9/11 attacks, stereotypes that associate Muslims with terrorism go far beyond depictions in newspapers and television. Recent research raises the alarm about rampant Islamophobia in digital spaces, particularly far-right groups’ use of disinformation and other manipulation tactics to vilify Muslims and their faith.

Molte agenzie, siti e giornali, italiani ed esteri, hanno annunciato nelle scorse ore la cattura del leader dello Stato Islamico. L'attuale leader del califfato è Amir Mohammed Abdul Rahman al-Mawla al-Salbi, califfo con il nome di Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi.

Italian Futurism praised violence as a means of leaving behind imitations of the past in order to project itself most efficiently into the future.
ISIS overcomes the postmodern, pessimistic futurism of “cyberpunk” and links itself to the optimistic attitude that was common in Italian Futurism in the early twentieth century. ISIS returns to modernism. Cyberpunk stands for the exhaustion of the industrial economy while Italian Futurism is the origin of an optimistic kind of Science Fiction.

United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism report extensively quotes ISIS Defectors Interview Project which I conducted together with my colleague Anne Speckhard.

I am happy to share once again our project report and UN_CTED's analysis on the phenomenon of foreign fighters.

The title of the report is: Enhancing the Understanding of the Foreign Terrorist Fighters Phenomenon in Syria (please see page 20) They also cited our article several times.

Link: http://www.un.org/en/counterterrorism/assets/img/Report_Final_20170727.pdf

Our article and report about the project at the perspectives on terrorism: Eyewitness Accounts from Recent Defectors from Islamic State: Why They Joined, What They Saw, Why They Quit

https://www.academia.edu/19788498/Eyewitness_Accounts_from_Recent_Defectors_from_Islamic_State_Why_They_Joined_What_They_Saw_Why_They_Quit

There is no room for any ambivalence or doubt and with a professional no nonsense approach reminds of the way the modern age looks at life in general and religion in particular.  There is a clinical precision to everything including human relationships and no scope for a second chance.  Like in a corporate culture, there is always a target and a deadline to be met.  If there are ambiguities, doubts or uncertainties, then your performance is not optimum and you will be flushed out of the system.  The sheer simplicity of a God as a father as a comforter, as a protector is lost to the corporatization of religion.  Human history shows that religion does become militant when it comes into an existential conflict with another religion or any other subversive authority.  But when religion is distances God from man and builds Him up as one who is happy to see his children sacrifice and suffer just to show their love for him, things become a little more difficult.

VOLUME 158 TERRORISMO ISLAMICO E dIRITTO pEnALE PUBBLICAZIONI DELLA UNIVERSITÀ DI PAVIA FACOLTÀ DI GIURISPRUDENZA STUDI NELLE SCIENZE GIURIDICHE E SOCIALI NUOVA SERIE 132. -Cinzia Gamba -Domande senza risposta. Studi sulla modificazione della domanda nel processo civile. 2008. 133. -FranCo mosConi -Scritti di diritto internazionale privato e penale. In due tomi. 2009. 134. -EmanuEla FuGazza -Diritto, istituzioni e giustizia in un comune dell'Italia padana. 2009. 135. -Giulia rossolillo -Identità personale e diritto internazionale privato. 2009. 136. -Giuditta matuCCi -Tutela dell'affidamento e disposizioni transitorie. 2009.

In October 2017 the Jihadist movement in Cabo Delgado, which calls itself Al Sabha, committed its first terrorist action. Initially its resources and capacity were limited, but in recent times it has become more sophisticated in its weapons and strategy. Although estimates vary, in three years they have caused some 2,000 deaths, thousands of wounded and 400,000 displaced persons. Al Sabha's ties to the Islamic state have been accredited under the name "Islamic State's Central African Province (ISCAP), and its claim to establish Islamic law in the territory has been expressed explicitly. The porosity of the border with Tanzania and the impact on South Africa have led to fears of the regional spread of terrorism.

A book review for the RAND Corporation publication Terrorism, Violence and Insurgency Report that examines history's biggest pre-9/11 terrorist attack and offers recommendations that, if implemented, would have made 9/11 almost impossible to execute as reported.

The 'They are the Enemy, so Beware of Them' film series began with the release of the first video instalment in January 2012 during a period when Al-Shabaab was facing severe political, financial, and military pressures due to a renewed series of offensives by AMISOM, SFG, and allied Somali militia forces. However, the first video instalment included footage of the confession of an accused spy, Ahmed Kisi, which was originally broadcast in early February 2011 in a trial run of Al-Shabaab's terrestrial television station, the Al-Kataib News Channel, which stopped broadcasting after the group's withdrawal from Mogadishu in August 2011. In the footage, Kisi confessed to working for the CIA. He was later publicly executed by Al-Shabaab in the Huriwa district in northeastern Mogadishu. In a 2 February 2011 statement from Al-Shabaab, Kisi, a former member of the Somali Salafist Al-I'tisaam group that eventually became critical of Al-Shabaab, was accused of working for the CIA since 2004. Later video instalments included lengthy narrative confessions from other Somalis arrested by the Amniyyat and accused of spying for the group's enemies, including the CIA and the French intelligence services, the Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (DGSE). In the third instalment, for example, a young Somali man, Muhammad Gele Abdullah, "confessed" to guiding French commando forces to the town of Buulo-Mareer in a failed attempt in January 2013 to rescue Denis Allex, who the DGSE had sent in 2009 to train Somali government forces and who was captured by Al-Shabaab in July of that year.

The purpose of the film series and other videotaped 'confessions' and written and photographic
reports from Al-Shabaab's media apparatus about alleged spies is to both warn current or potential spies working against the group and to broadcast an image to the group's enemies of an organisation that, although having suffered significant urban territorial losses, remains a both formidable and capable force, especially in terms of internal security and intelligence. Although reports and the production of written, audio, and audio-visual media focusing on spies has
increased since Spring 2011 as Al-Shabaab began to suffer major battlefield setbacks, the militant group has long been concerned about the dangers posed by domestic spies, particularly during periods of territorial upheaval.

http://www.janes.com/

Stressing that the pronoun "I" picks out one and only one person in the world (i.e., me), I argue against Hunt (and other like-minded Rand commentators) that the supposed "hard case" of destructive people who do not care for their own lives poses no special difficulty for rational egoism. I conclude that the proper response to a terse objection like "What about suicide bombers?" is the equally terse assertion "But I don't want to get blown up."

After conquering large swaths of Syria and Iraq, the IS undertook an aggressive sectarian campaign in which they not only enacted horrific violence against the Shia people, but also damaged or destroyed several key Shia mosques and shrines. Drawing on Social Movement Theory (SMT), this article analyzes the response by various Shia nonstate actors—militia leaders, religious clergymen, populist preachers, and seminal poets. It argues that they used the IS threat to Shia holy sites to develop and deploy a mobilization frame that has come to be referred to as the “shrine protection narrative.” The article also documents the manifold consequences of the shrine protection narrative: it underpinned a mass recruitment drive that saw tens of thousands enlist; it legitimized foreign Shia militias to enter the conflicts in both Syria and Iraq; it justified the formation of entirely new militias who declared the centrality of shrine protection to their mandate; and it mobilized them to enact political violence. In doing so, this article extends existing studies of SMT to demonstrate that “sacred spaces”—and particularly the need to protect religious sites from specific threats—can serve as a powerful mobilization frame towards political violence.

This article addresses the problem of international law enforcement within the War on Cyberterrorism. Hybrid conflicts have replaced the traditional ones, and new threats have emerged in cyberspace, which has become a virtual battlefield. Cyber threats-cybercrimes, cyberterrorism, cyberwarfare-are a major concern for Western governments, especially for the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The international community has begun to consider cyberattacks as a form of terrorism, to which the same measures apply. Because the term "terrorism" is ambiguous and legaly undefined, there is no consensus on a definition of the derivative term "cyberterrorism", which is left to the unilateral interpretations of states. Pretending to consider the cyberspace domain as traditional domains, and claiming to apply IHL for the sole purpose of lawfully using armed forces in contrast to cyberterrorism is a stretch. This paper addresses the question of whether or not current laws of war and international humanitarian law apply to cyber domain, and gives some recommendations on how to tackle this issue.

We employ regression analysis of 2017 survey data from 4,067 Bangladeshis to exposit the lineaments of individual support for domestic Islamist violence. Our dependent variables derive from measures of public support for the stated goals and violent means of three Bangladeshi Islamist terrorist groups. Our study variables include participation in communal Friday prayer; indexed measures of other pietic practices; preferences for Shari'a and secularism; and gender. We include several well-established control variables. We find that participation in communal Friday prayers significantly correlates with diminished support for militant groups' while having no effect upon support for their violent means. In four (of ten) models, we find that respondents who view Shari'a as being coterminous with scriptural literalism and harsh physical punishments are significantly more likely to support the groups' goals. Finally, we find women to be consistently more likely to support the goals and means of the militant groups.

Hasina in her very first question-answer session in the ninth parliament on January 28, 2009, unequivocally stated that “whenever action is taken against militants, it is described as an attack on Islam. But it is not right. The militants have no religion and operate beyond boundaries. Tough actions must be taken against militants as they act against humanity and religion.” Her firm approach has continued to date.  Consequently, it is expected that the recent surge in acts of terrorism will not last; normalcy will be restored sooner rather than later so long as the Government avoids a lackadaisical approach. On the contrary, any compromise at this juncture will prove detrimental to Bangladesh’s long-term security environment.

This chapter examines how the Arab Spring was gradually sectarianized, leading to the emergence of much more rigid and puritanical sect-based identities and inter-communal conflicts across the Middle East and extending even further outside of the region and across the Muslim-majority world.  Using the social movement theory concept of ‘framing,’ it considers how the various political and armed actors involved in the Syrian civil war and the conflict in Iraq, including regional actors such as the Iranian government, Hizbullah, Sunni and Salafi actors in the Arab Gulf states, and Sunni rebel and other militant jihadi organizations such as Jabhat al-Nusra/Jabhat Fath al-Sham, Islamic State, Jaysh al-Islam, and Ahrar al-Sham, have drawn on competing historical narratives and memory in combination with contemporary events to produce a thoroughly modern but also selectively ‘historicised’ social mobilization narrative meant to encourage activism from their target audiences.  The ways in which clashing historical memory and narratives are deployed in regional conflicts, which constitutes a form of re-fighting the past in the present, are analyzed.  Specific historical references, such as the invocation of Shi‘i legendary heroes of Karbala such as Abu al-Fadl al-Abbas, which are today deployed as rhetorical weapons in geopolitical contests over power and political dominance, are also considered in detail.

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/jihadism-transformed-9780190650292?cc=us&lang=en&#

This study analyzes the political reasons that allowed the Islamic State to expand successfully in Syria and Iraq, by enabling to ‘franchise’ worldwide, and the role of the regional governments in this issue. The essay provides a different explanation from the classic approach of the “clash of civilizations” theorized by Samuel P. Huntington, ascribing responsibility for the growth and expansion of the Islamic State to the complex framework of geopolitical alliances within the Muslim civilization and the Arab world. The paper highlights the attempt by Turkey to establish itself as a regional power and guidance of the Islamic world, by resurrecting the Caliphate, and, based on this, explains the contrast with the Islamic State, which goal is the foundation of a globalized Caliphate. The plans of the Turkish President Erdoğan for a Great Turkey, allied with Egypt, have foundered with the coup that ousted the Muslim Brotherhood from power. The study relates the connection of Ankara with the Kurds, regarding the management of the crisis in Syria and Iraq, and the Turkish liaison with regional powers (Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Israel) and other powers (Russia, Cina and USA).

“Rivoluzionario professionista” convertito all’Islam, Carlos ha dedicato la sua vita combattendo “per la liberazione del mondo dallo sfruttamento imperialista e della Palestina dall’occupazione sionista”. Le armi gli “sono state imposte dalle circostanze, determinate dalla violenza stessa del nemico”, e il “terrorismo” è una fatalità imposta “dal rapporto di forze cui nessun resistente, musulmano o meno, può sfuggire, poiché è di fronte a un nemico potentissimo, senza freni né limiti in arroganza e ambizione di conquista”. Il terrorismo “è l’arma dei poveri”, “un’arma di prima scelta per ristabilire una parvenza di equilibrio contro la sproporzione dei mezzi di informazione, il cui monopolio assoluto è del nemico”, ovvero degli americani. In questo libro autobiografico commentato da Marco Marsili, Ilič Ramírez Sánchez ricostruisce le tappe della carriera che ne ha fatto il terrorista più famoso e ricercato nel mondo, dai primi attentati degli anni ‘70, all’amicizia con Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein e Mùammar Gheddafi, fino all’arresto avvenuto in Sudan nel ’94. Carlos svela la verità sugli attentati dell’11 settembre, e spiega, con una lucida analisi, la strategia statunitense della “guerra preventiva”, motivata dalla necessità di mantenere il controllo sul prezzo del petrolio, scambiato sui mercati internazionali in dollari. Una feroce critica ai media occidentali, al capitalismo, al consumismo, all’Onu, e alla sinistra occidentale, accusata di essersi adagiata “sugli allori della borghesia convertendosi al liberalismo californiano”.

ABSTRACT
Syria, due to its history, is a multi-religious society which when given independence had each religious group clawing for power over the others. This political unrest that lasted for decades, when aided by the Arab Spring and successive military use on the citizens, incited the majority religious group into a civil war. This Crisis has attracted external parties who view the civil war as an opportunity to fulfil their religious or political goals, parties like the Islamic State (IS). Religious Extremism is the problem this study aims to tackle; how it is caused and how it motivates people into committing mass atrocities. There are not many works that look into the factors that causes the Syrian Crisis and attempts to find those similarities in the Nigerian context, this Study aims to add to that field. The Study investigated the causes of Religious extremism in order to discover how to tackle it before it becomes a crisis.
This study utilized Qualitative Research Methodology. This study used news reports, journal articles, and online articles. The Study utilizes mostly electronic materials in order to have a current look into the situation in Syria.
In the conduction of this research, it was found that Religious Extremism is rarely the cause but a tool used to justify or incite people into committing atrocities.
Religious Extremism is caused by factors which theological, cultural, psychological and political. The Islamic State’s activities are governed by a religious ideology which aims to establish an Islamic Caliphate governed by Sharia law. The Study recommended the reduction of religious identity salience by political and social leaders by preventing the use of religion in order to gain approval for political actions, this can be done through education and international movements for change.
Word Count – 295 Words

Key words: Religion, Extremism, Religious Extremism, Islamic State, Syria.

The declassification of the archives of the Polish Military Intelligence services (Zarząd II Sztabu Generalnego Wojska Polskiego) proved that this institution had maintained secret relations with some Middle Eastern terrorist organizations during the Cold War period. In my paper, I describe the ties between the Polish Military Intelligence, Abu Nidal’s Organization (ANO), and Monzer Al-Kassar’s group. Their mutual contacts were based on different agendas, among whose those linked to international politics and arms trade were of utmost importance. The members of ANO received scholarships to Polish universities, and could conduct business there. Their company – „S.A.S. Investments Trading Company” was located in Warsaw and was used by the Polish government as arms dealers. Thanks to good relations between ANO and chronologically: the regimes in Iraq, Syria and Libya, those dictatorships were interested in signing contracts to purchase Polish military equipment. ANO got commissions from executed contracts and it was one of their major profits, which later was spent on various terrorist purposes. The chief of ANO network in Poland – Samir Najmeddin – had very good relations with the Polish staff from the Central Engineering Board (Cenzin) – a state company responsible for export of Polish weapons and military advisors. This institution was secretly controlled by the Military Intelligence and Counterintelligence services. ANO was also used as a provider of embargo goods for Polish secret services. That is why the members of Abu Nidal group were “untouchable” in Poland. Despite the fact that civilian services tried to put them under surveillance, the military services supported and protected terrorists. The relations with Monzer Al-Kassar’s group were based on economic grounds. During the 80s, he was one of the biggest arms dealers in the world. Together with Samir Najmeddin from ANO, they were the most important individual brokers for Cenzin. Kassar’s influence and connections with many Middle Eastern governments was so significant for the Polish government, that Cenzin established a joint-venture company with him. Two Poles delegated to work with Kassar’s associates were undercover Polish Military Intelligence officers. “Alkastronic” company operated in Vienna from 1983 to 1985. The company was responsible for illegal arms trade and even took part in “Iran-Contras” affaire. Kassar’s group was also involved in terrorist activity, but it was not a problem for the Polish Military Intelligence. In my paper I describe the dynamics of the secret relations between Polish Military services and ANO and Kassar’s group in the 80’s, I demonstrate how Americans pressured the Polish government to break off contacts with the businessmen terrorists and, finally, I attempt to answer the question why Polish secret services agreed to cooperate with terrorist organizations and who was the main beneficiary of this collaboration.

Since 2018 criticism of China’s human rights record has intensified and China’s government has been challenged in the international court of public opinion with respect to its mass detention of Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim ethnic minorities in Xinjiang. After initial denial of the very existence of ‘re-education camps’, China’s leadership changed tack and admitted it had built ‘vocational education and training centers’ (‘VET centers’) for them. The purpose of these was said to be ‘de-radicalization’ of those suspected of being influenced by ‘extremists thinking’ and training them in Chinese language, legal knowledge (including patriotism) and occupational skills. This was said to foster the economic development of the region while eradicating the socio-cultural basis for ‘[ethnonational] separatism, [religious] extremism and terrorism’. Yet among Western observers these official claims were widely dismissed as a thin veneer of forced political indoctrination and even ‘cultural genocide’ (Roberts 2020). Compounded by other pertinent topics, such as Sino-U.S. frictions, protests in Hong Kong, COVID-19 etc., it is fair to say that the Chinese government faces a veritable crisis of its international image (Jacob 2020; Silver, Devlin & Huang 2020; UHRP 2020: 12).
In response to this crisis, the government has taken a range of countermeasures to mitigate the fallout, manage its image and, if possible, create a counternarrative that casts China in a more positive light. One of the forums in which this contestation over meaning-making has played out most directly and prominently is the video-sharing platform YouTube. Though blocking it for domestic users, China’s government is, ironically, making highly active use of this platform to advance its messages globally. This paper focusses on the role played by Chinese state media – exemplified by China Global Television Network (CGTN) and New China TV (Xinhua) – in this contest. Our hypothesis is that China has stepped up its game in three main ways: First, it has intensified the propagation of its messages in quantitative terms to counter the international image crisis created by Xinjiang-related criticism. Second, the content of its messaging has become more varied as it has intentionally tried to link Xinjiang policies with international terrorism, but at the same time, also use it for a more general critique of ‘Western double standards’ and promotion of its own perspectives on human rights. Third, and most intriguingly, it has used innovative and creative ways of reporting to generate higher impact and more trustworthiness. CGTN/CCTV has long copied the style of CNN, BBC, Al-Jazeera and other international news networks to stake out its own ground in terms of content. But more recently, China’s media products have become even more variegated, trying to make full use of social media to disseminate its messages.
Our primary data consists of all CGTN and Xinhua videos relating to Xinjiang posted on YouTube from the start of 2018 through September 2020.  In total, the sample contains more than six hundred files of varying length. Inspired by Vergani and Zuev (2011), we use a mixed-methods approach for analysis. First, we present a quantitative overview based on content analysis to outline the general trends of Chinese state media strategies on Xinjiang as found on YouTube. Second, we employ discourse analysis (Keller 2011) for a more in-depth examination outlining the main features of the discursive strategy adopted by Chinese state media in this case. Thus, our study contributes to an understanding of China’s crisis management – which can be compared to other crises such as the on-going COVID-19 pandemic. It also sheds light on China’s participation in media globalization more generally as well as on the specific representations and constructions of China’s Xinjiang policies and issues. It shows how the channels adopt Western (primarily American) media formats and discourses to frame their policy agenda in terms familiar to the target audience, while bandwagoning on the current fragmentation and politicization of news media in an era in which the terms ‘fake news’ and ‘alternative facts’ have  become everyday accusations. But first, we discuss the internationalization of China’s state media influence more broadly.

Terrorism by an Islamist group known as Boko Haram has been raging in Nigeria since 2009 and has spilled over into neighboring countries of Cameroon, Chad and Niger. Consequently, two million people have been displaced, 100,000 lives lost and properties worth N3.2 trillion ($9 billion) destroyed in the three-worst hit northeastern states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe. The Federal Government has been collaborating with the international community in the counter-terrorism, gaining huge successes including the rescuing of nearly 200 of the 276 Chibok schoolgirls kidnapped in 2014 and dislodging the terrorists from their base in the infamous Sambisa Forest. However, the Government’s militarized approach toward the counter-terrorism has been critiqued in the literature, with suggestions for a multi-dimensional approach. This book recommends a research approach and proposes the Adoption and Use of Cyber Technology by Terror Groups Model (AUCTTGM). The model is expected to explain and predict factors determining terror groups’ cyber technology usage to threaten the peace and spread annihilative extremist propaganda in society as well as proffer clues to the ways of ending terrorism for good.

The fight that Europe and the West must wage against jihadist terrorism will take some time, but if we live up to our values of integration and democracy, we will come out of it soon. As Giovanni Falcone, the Italian judge killed by the Mafia, once said about the Mafia: " It is a human phenomenon, and as all human phenomena has a start and an evolution, it will have also an end ". Jihadis have been using Twitter at least since 2010, with the Shabaab joining the site in December 2011, but never before to this extent. One early adapter of Twitter, the Afghan Taliban, began to establish their social media presence in December 2010, through which they issued brief bulletins about their actions and alerts for forthcoming communiqués. Many of the most prominent jihadi groups have followed the same path, including the Shabaab al-Mujahideen, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). The content of these Twitter accounts has tended to closely mirror material released to jihadi forums. For example, the Afghan Taliban may post the text of a communiqué to their website, to a jihadi forum, and to the Twitter account of one of their spokesmen. Mirroring jihadi groups, elements of the online jihadi community have also migrated to social media sites, with prominent forums such as Shumukh al-Islam and Ansar al-Mujahideen English Forum creating Twitter accounts to publicise notable releases and discussions. Concurrently, many individual jihadis and jihadi supporters have joined Twitter, enthusiastically circulating propaganda among themselves and promoting it to potential recruits. Yet, the benefits conferred by social networking come with a substantial cost: social networking platforms can sow great confusion if known official accounts are deleted and re-established or if there are multiple accounts claiming to represent a specific jihadi group. In order to reach the new official accounts, followers must be able to distinguish 70 the legitimate social media accounts of jihadi groups from non-authenticated users, which is a level of ambiguity that is not found on jihadi forums.

Turkey’s journey towards one-man rule and a new political system without checks and balances turned a new corner with the disputed national referendum on 16 April 2017. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan won new powers from voters, which confirmed his consistent efforts over years to transform Turkey from a secular Western democratic country into a political Islamist and authoritarian police state. Erdogan once said that democracy, for him, is not the objective but rather a tool, comparing it to a bus within a journey. “Once I get to my stop, I will get off.” Apparently, after highly controversial elections, Erdogan has arrived at his stop, and he has gotten off the democracy bus. Many scholars agree that the secular Republic of Turkey as it has been known does not exist anymore, and it is not coming back under the Erdogan dicta.

As a consequence, the West now has to deal with a political Islamist police state with a large portion of radicalised citizens. The priorities should be set to assist and help the people suffering in Turkey at the hands of Erdogan’s regime, many guilty of nothing more than not supporting the status quo. The West, when dealing with Erdogan, should seriously consider extending their support to the people suffering inside Turkey. Europe has ample leverage against Erdogan, including travel sanctions against individual members of the Turkish government, economic sanctions, refusal to sell arms, and politically pressuring the Erdogan regime. All these tools should be considered to assist the suffering Turks in the name of humanity and for the future bilateral and peaceful relationship between Turkey and Europe after Erdogan’s departure. European countries should also consider taking the allegations against the Turkish president listed in this article to the International Criminal Court at The Hague for the crimes against humanity. Europe must prioritise a sincere approach in order to neutralise threats coming from the Erdogan regime and his supporters and extend their hands to the brave citizens who did not accept becoming part of Erdogan’s dicta. While many Turkish citizens have found refuge in Europe, thousands are still being tortured, raped and even killed in Turkey. The world must find a way to stop this misery before it becomes a tragic loss of life reminiscent of the worst crimes in world history.

http://www.orient-online.com/

http://www.orient-online.com/issues/ORIENT-III/2017

The so-called Islamic State and the (slow but steady) Radicalisation of Turkey. Available from:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318066367_The_so-called_Islamic_State_and_the_slow_but_steady_Radicalisation_of_Turkey [accessed Jul 5, 2017].

This report reviews and categorizes the enormous corpus of knowledge produced by American academic and policy institutions about U.S. relations with the Middle East and other Islamic actors in the international arena. The report identifies five epistemic communities – conservatives, neoconservatives, realists, liberals and the left – and analyzes their discourses and policy recommendations. Finally, the policies that these epistemic communities recommended are evaluated and assessed. The author recommends a mixed-paradigmatic approach that will not only make the United States more effective in the Middle East but also underscore its continuing relevance to the security and the stability of the region and the global order.

IS INDIAN STATE PROXYING FOR THE HINDUTVA PROJECT OF MILITARIZATION OF THE MAJORITY COMMUNITY?
LINK FOR HINDI VERSION:
https://www.academia.edu/43175302/%E0%A4%95_%E0%A4%AF%E0%A4%BE_%E0%A4%AD%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%B0%E0%A4%A4%E0%A5%80%E0%A4%AF_%E0%A4%B0%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%9C_%E0%A4%AF_%E0%A4%B9%E0%A4%BF%E0%A4%A8_%E0%A4%A6%E0%A5%81%E0%A4%93%E0%A4%82_%E0%A4%95%E0%A5%87_%E0%A4%B8%E0%A5%88%E0%A4%A8_%E0%A4%AF%E0%A5%80%E0%A4%95%E0%A4%B0%E0%A4%A3_%E0%A4%95%E0%A5%80_%E0%A4%96_%E0%A4%A4%E0%A4%B0%E0%A4%A8%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%95_%E0%A4%B9%E0%A4%BF%E0%A4%A8_%E0%A4%A6%E0%A5%81%E0%A4%A4_%E0%A4%B5%E0%A4%B5%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%A6%E0%A5%80_%E0%A4%AF%E0%A5%8B%E0%A4%9C%E0%A4%A8%E0%A4%BE_%E0%A4%95%E0%A4%BE_%E0%A4%AE%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%B0_%E0%A4%97_%E0%A4%AA_%E0%A4%B0%E0%A4%B6%E0%A4%B8_%E0%A4%A4_%E0%A4%95%E0%A4%B0_%E0%A4%B0%E0%A4%B9%E0%A4%BE_%E0%A4%B9%E0%A5%88

Link for some of S. Islam's writings in English, Hindi, Urdu, Marathi, Malayalam, Kannada, Bengali, Punjabi, Gujarati and video interviews/debates:
http://du-in.academia.edu/ShamsulIslam
Facebook: shamsul
Twitter: @shamsforjustice
http://shamsforpeace.blogspot.com/
Email: [email protected]

This report focuses on the case of Greece, where the phenomenon of radicalisation has been present throughout the period from the mid-1970s. Greece displays one of the most persistent problems of terrorism in Europe, raising anew the question of why extremist and revolutionary organisations continue to emerge and be active in democracies. Since the 2010, right wing and left wing extremism and radicalisation have intensified, especially in the context of a deepening social and economic crisis. The report provides a background study on radicalisation in Greece and the various forms that it takes, as a basis to bridge existing knowledge gaps on the subject. It provides and overview of past and current radicalisation trends. The national background study aims to first, identify and assess the legal and institutional responses to the processes of radicalisation that may lead to acts of violence and second, to review and analyse trends (ideas, actors, actions, motivations and root causes) in three strands of radicalisation (right and left wing, Islamist radicalisation and football hooliganism).

The aim of this article is not to directly engage with this literature but to point to the hermeneutical limits of the critique of mainstream Sunnism vis-à-vis the Salafi-jihadist interpretations with particular reference to the literature produced by the proponents of the IS. The main argument the article makes is that by subscribing to what will be termed a “Salafi worldview,” mainstream Sunnism shares many interpretationally crucial epistemological and methodological mechanisms with those adopted by the proponents of the ideology behind the IS. As such mainstream Sunnism has strong hermeneutical limits that do not allow it to be in a position to mount an interpretationally effective rebuttal of many beliefs and practices Salafi-jihadists resort to including those pertaining to apostasy, enslavement, and gender-related issues.

Deze lezing is gehouden op 18 september 2016 voor de Oecumenische Streekgemeente (OSG) Kortenhoef, in het kader van het jaarthema "angst en vertrouwen". In deze lezing doe ik aan de hand van het leven en de ervaringen van Petrus een poging om dit thema op een constructieve wijze te verbinden aan de theologie. Iets wat vandaag de dag een grote relevantie in zich draagt, omdat het publieke accent van godsdienst meer en meer dreigt te komen liggen op haar (mogelijke) verband tot angst, dreiging en terreur.
In deze lezing toon ik aan dat wat de christelijke theologie betreft, 'angst' altijd ingebed en ingekaderd is in 'vertrouwen.'

For the past year and a half, al-Shabaab has continued to take advantage of the ongoing political and security turmoil between Somalia’s federal government, regional state administrations, and other powerful social groups, including the country’s clans and sub-clans and minority groups. Militarily, the jihadi-insurgent group retains significant capabilities to launch a range of attacks targeting both military and “soft” targets, including major suicide-vehicle bombings inside the most secure areas of the country such as central Mogadishu. In 2017, the group also overran a number of African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) and Somali government military bases and forcefully reasserted itself in the northern Puntland region. Meanwhile, the Islamic State in Somalia, al-Shabaab’s main jihadi competitor, continues to lag behind it in terms of numbers, military capabilities, and media reach, though there are recent signs that the Islamic State-Somalia has been able to penetrate more deeply into the Afgooye area to the west of the capital and outside of its Puntland base.

Recent media reports have speculated on an impending declaration of an Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) caliphate in Southeast Asia. Such an eventuality poses a grave threat to the pluralistic landscape of Southeast Asian societies. Surveys over the past few years have worryingly indicated a rise in the level of extremist tendencies among Southeast Asian Muslims, albeit these tendencies are still at a comparatively low level. The internalization since the 1970s of the Wahhabi brand of Salafism among Southeast Asian Muslims is the major factor behind this apparent shift towards a more radical worldview. The relatively low level of concern over rising Islamist extremism among Indonesian and Malaysian Muslims indicates a worrying institutionalization of radical interpretations of Islam in the general Islamic landscape of both countries. Countering Salafization is rendered difficult by the fact that influential Muslim personalities and elements within Muslim-majority states have themselves embraced aspects of Wahhabism. Between Wahhabism and ISIS, which is but its violent manifestation, lies a short and slippery slope.

While there have been many scholarly inquiries about the sources of
support for terrorism among Muslim publics, to date, scholars have
generally not asked whether or not gender predicts support for
Islamist militancy. Instead, most scholars and officials assume that
“men of military age” are the most important segment of interest.
Instead, gender is usually treated as a “control variable” rather than a
“study variable,” reflecting the paucity of interest in this subject. This
is likely an important scholarly and policy-analytic oversight. Many
terrorist groups have women’s wings and women-oriented publications
and other outreach programs because they understand the
important role that mothers, wives, and sisters play in a male family
member’s decision to take up arms with a terrorist group. In some
conflicts, women also join as combatants. In this paper, we seek to
address these scholarly lacunae by examining gender-wise support
for two militant groups based in and operating from Pakistan: the
Afghan Taliban, which has no female outreach program, and the
sectarian Sipha-e-Sahaba-e-Pakistan, which does. We leverage a dataset
drawn from a relatively large national survey of Pakistanis collected
in 2011 to model support for these groups using gender as an
independent variable along with other demographic and control
variables. We find that females are significantly more likely to support
the sectarian group with a women’s outreach-wing. In contrast, there
is no significant gender effect on support for the Afghan Taliban. We
argue, from these results, that gender deserves more attention in
understanding who supports and participates in Islamist militancy.

Terrorism is designed to attract attention to the terrorist's cause and to spread fear and anxiety among wide circles of the targeted population. This paper provides information about the ways terrorists are using the Internet. The threat of terrorism is real and significant. As the Internet became a major arena for modern terrorists, we need to understand how modern terrorism operates and devise appropriate methods to forestall such activities.

The intent of this chapter is to re-imagine and apply the term " civil disobedience " to the cyber domain. The full extent of how it can apply will be analyzed in a framework of the evolutionary rights of protest. Traditional civil disobedience is a " performance " via visual and physical mediums, while cyber disobedience is essentially a digital performance with difficulty in attributing true ownership of the act. This is an interesting antithesis to the physical protestor, who uses strategic visibility, threat of arrest, and popular backlash against state behavior as vital aspects of the disobedience. These variables are noticeably absent in cyber disobedience.

During the onslaught of the Islamic caliphate on Kobanî, Syria, media outlets across the globe broadcast pictures of brave and often unveiled Kurdish women fighting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), a quintessentially male force of destruction. The images of women fighting Islamist male aggressors aroused outrage, admiration, and pity among observers. But had all Kurdish fighters been male or had women fought for ISIS, viewers might have reacted differently. To examine some of the most widely disseminated gendered pictures and videos of the Syrian uprising in the media, this article draws on Mohja Kahf’s three categories, which typify how Muslim women, Arab women, or both are perceived by the Anglophone reading and viewing public: the first is victims; the second, escapees; and the third, pawns of patriarchy and male power. While this typology helps in examining gendered images of the Syrian uprising, it also obscures the socioeconomic realities on the ground.

United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism) report dedicated more than a page about our "ISIS Defectors Interview" project.

The title of the report is: Enhancing the Understanding of the Foreign Terrorist Fighters Phenomenon in Syria (please see page 20) They also cited our article several times.

Link: http://www.un.org/en/counterterrorism/assets/img/Report_Final_20170727.pdf


Link to our article at the perspectives on terrorism: Eyewitness Accounts from Recent Defectors from Islamic State: Why They Joined, What They Saw, Why They Quit
https://www.academia.edu/19788498/Eyewitness_Accounts_from_Recent_Defectors_from_Islamic_State_Why_They_Joined_What_They_Saw_Why_They_Quit

The Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham has been a hot topic in the past year. However, the media is overwhelmingly putting the emphasis on the brutality of the group and leaves the emergence of ISIS unexplained. This paper seeks to systematize the available information and to shed some light on the Islamic State, providing a possible explanation of the emergence of the group and hopefully initiating an academic debate. From the conceptualization to the theorization, ISIS is difficult to assess -it is a designated terrorist organization, but it does not behave like one; it is new but it not a 'new' war; and it is a 'state' but it is not a state. After exploring various conceptualizations of the Islamic State and employs a number of theories, this paper finally manages to provide an answer to the question: What explains the emergence of ISIS? 5.3. The New Base of Jihad: From an Insurgent Group to a 'Pseudo-State' 31 6. Conclusion 35

Dābiq is an electronic magazine (e-zine) utilising strategic utopianism and savagery messages supported by exemplary leadership, eschatology, and current events reports. This project analyses narrative themes present within Dābiq and how relevant and prevalent these themes are across issues. The project applies Thematic Network Analysis of the first six issues of Dābiq, laying foundations for understanding ISIL’s culture and counter-narrative development. It argues present terminology and first generation research constrain understanding of ISIL’s cultural specifics. This project establishes that rhetoric within Dābiq contains both political and religious narratives. Finally, this project establishes that ‘Exemplary Leadership’ theme dominates ISIL’s Dābiq rhetoric.