In the late summer of 2014, the international community watched helplessly as Islamic State (IS) unleashed widespread human rights abuses against civilians across Syria and Iraq, with little standing in…
News reports circulated last week that Israeli warplanes had bombed targets in Syria, leading to widespread fears of yet another knot in an already nightmarishly tangled conflict. This is not the first…
On December 2, 2014, gunmen from the militant Islamist group al-Shabaab crept into a labourers’ camp in Mandera in Kenya and killed 36 people. In the same all-too-familiar modus operandi seen in the same…
Governments around the world are trying to come to terms with the fact that their nationals – and young people in particular – are leaving to join extremist groups such as Islamic State. In response, ministers…
The well-known US security expert, Brian Jenkins, famously declared in 1974, that “terrorism is theatre”. And over the last few weeks, the brutal videotaped beheadings of British and American hostages…
With Islamic State’s advance in Iraq and Syria gripping the world’s attention, al-Qaeda has been left on the sidelines. That all changed on September 4, as al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri released a 55-minute…
British support for opposition groups fighting against the Assad regime in Syria has waned considerably since the summer of 2013, with the increasing prominence of more radicalised Islamic organisations…
Concern is again mounting about the radicalisation of young British Muslims, with the news that up to 500 may be fighting in Syria. But despite the gravity of the issue, the public discussion of it is…
For some time now, speculation has raged over the number of young British Muslims travelling to Syria and Iraq with the intention of fighting in the ongoing conflicts there. At the high end, Birmingham-area…
This week Twitter began suspending accounts related to ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham). This follows an ISIS fighter reportedly posting the photo of the head of a decapitated Iraqi police major…
There are three candidates running in Syria’s presidential election: the incumbent, Bashar al-Assad and two challengers, Maher Hajjar and Hassan al-Nouri. In reality there is only one, Assad. The other…
This week saw the convictions of two men at opposite ends of the process of radicalisation – one convicted for radicalising others, the other for being radicalised himself. In the United States, a court…
To date, approximately 500 jihadi fighters in Syria have come from France, making it the leading European supplier of insurgents to the Syrian conflict. In response, the French authorities have adopted…
David Cameron’s new taskforce to combat extremism met on Monday to address what Tony Blair calls a “problem within Islam” that he blames for the terror plots which have caused such distress and given rise…
The influence of globally available jihadist propaganda on the web is well established. But we know less about how and to what extent word-of-mouth and other more local channels of communication contribute…
The received wisdom is that the Tsarnaev brothers launched their attack on the Boston Marathon to advance the cause of their fellow Chechens. But is this correct? Two notable Chechens are absent from the…
In Syria, the optimism which accompanied the Arab Spring uprising has faded into the reality of a bloody sectarian civil war. Recent media reports have highlighted the involvement of foreign fighters in…
This week marks the tenth anniversary of the 2002 Bali bombings. Although more than 120 Australian civilians have been killed by terrorists overseas since 2000, and the embassies in Jakarta, Iraq and Phnom…
As we approach the tenth anniversary of the Bali bombings, public discussions of terrorism are likely to focus on the jihadist threat. Australian governments have been correct to consider jihadism the…
The past few days have seen a flurry of prognostications on al-Qaeda and its future. While each argument spars over whether al-Qaeda is on the ropes or resurgent, they miss a vital segment of analysis…