Latest Articles about Terrorism
Al-Shabaab Recruitment from Kenyan Universities Alarms Officials
Al-Shabaab, the Somalia-based Islamist militant organization, is still actively recruiting from neighboring Kenya even as the group suffers major setbacks in southern Somalia. Underpinning the group’s notable success in recruitment is the radicalization and indoctrination of young men in order to prepare them for the... MORE
Unrest in Northern Afghanistan Heralds Regional Threats
By carrying out the biggest offensive in 14 years in previously peaceful northern Afghanistan, the Taliban is once again threatening Afghan stability and the survival of the country’s current political system. This offensive heralds the return of fugitive Central Asian and Russian jihadists to their... MORE
Russia Decides Who the Terrorists Are
At the end of 2015, an unnamed Kremlin official announced that Moscow was now sharing intelligence about the Islamic State with the Afghan Taliban, even though the Taliban remains on the Russian list of terrorist organizations. Predictably the Taliban denied the assertion (Russianews.net, December 26,... MORE
Attack in Dagestan Undermines Claims That Republic Is Stable
On December 29, unidentified individuals carried out an attack at the Naryn-Kala fortress, a well-known tourist site in Derbent, Dagestan, killing a Russian border guard officer and injuring 11 other people (Lifenews.ru, December 30, 2015). The slain border guard officer was identified as Semyon Sporyshev.... MORE
Italy’s Lady Jihad: Maria Gulia Sergio of the Islamic State
The Islamic State has drawn an overwhelming number of female followers, who play a key role in recruiting other female volunteers, promoting the organization’s propaganda online and even engaging in combat operations. This contradicts perceptions that women are less prone to partake in violent Islamist... MORE
Aman Abdurrahman: Indonesia’s Most Influential Extremist
Aman Abdurrahman has become arguably the most influential extremist ideologue in Indonesia today. A former Salafist preacher, Abdurrahman has become the foremost promoter of the Islamic State in Indonesia from his cell in the country’s so-called “super-maximum security” prison. His reputation among local Islamic State... MORE
Burhan Muzafar Wani: The Viral Poster Boy of Kashmir Jihad
Hizbul Mujahideen’s (HM) newly recruited commander, Burhan-ud-Din Muzaffar Wani, has taken Kashmir’s militant landscape by storm by using his social media skills and guns. One of his recent photographs featured the 21-year-old commander surrounded by at least ten other militants of roughly the same age... MORE
A Post-Mortem Analysis of Wisam al-Zubaidi: The Leader of the Islamic State in Libya
In November 2015, sources in the Pentagon suggested that the United States killed the leader of the Islamic State in Libya, Wisam al-Zubaidi (a.k.a. Abu Nabil al-Anbari). According to American sources cited by Jeune Afrique, al-Anbari was killed in an airstrike carried out by F-15... MORE
Islamic State and West Africa
2015 marked the year when “Boko Haram” evolved from an ostensibly domestic-rooted and globally unaffiliated militant group into a “Province” in the Islamic State’s global structure. This transition was formalized on March 7, 2015, when “Boko Haram” leader Abubakr Shekau pledged baya’a, or allegiance, to... MORE
Europe’s Jihadist Pipeline to Syria
As previous papers have outlined, the Islamic State poses a range of different threats to different people. One is a more or less conventional threat to the state structure in the Middle East. The other is an unconventional threat to countries further afield, including in... MORE