Al Qaeda Research Articles

Identity and Ideology through the Frames of Al Qaeda and Islamic State

ABSTRACT This study employs frame theory tools to describe the identity and ideology of Al Qaeda (AQ) and the Islamic State (IS). The aim is to identify elements that make the two groups’ mobilization effective. The article utilizes the concept of identity fields, to explore how the two groups divide in-group and out-group identities in protagonists, antagonists, and audiences and the concept of core framing tasks to examine how their ideology materializes in diagnoses, prognoses, and calls to arms. The results indicate that AQ frames its identity as the protector of Muslims from the evil West and IS as the sole legitimate religious authority guiding Muslims to true Islam. AQ and IS prioritize and contextualize their ideological frames differently, despite both adhering to the same ideology, namely Salafism-Jihadism. AQ mobilization tends to rely more on political frames whereas IS framing is almost exclusively religious. Both groups, however, appropriate political and religious frames already extant in the minds of Muslim audiences in order to mobilize potential adherents.

THE SHORT AND MEDIUMTERM IMPACT OF AL QA’IDA ISLAMIST’S ATTACKS ON THE U.S.A., SINCE SEPTEMBER 11, 2001

September 11, 2001, when Islamists affiliated with the terrorist organization Al Qaeda attacked iconic buildings in the United States, marked a turning point in recent human history. The impact of these attacks goes far beyond other contemporary events, which triggered major geopolitical processes, such as the 1956 Suez Crisis or the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran. If initially humanity was in a state of shock, seeing how the superpower of the moment seems paralyzed by the aggression of a little-known enemy, later, security measures and geopolitical dynamics overturned not only the life of the Earth’s population until then, but also paradigms, strategic concepts, political behaviors. This article aims to analyze how the attack orchestrated by Salafist fanatics in Al Qaeda has transformed and continues to transform society and global geopolitical dynamics.

"Al Qaeda’s Algerian Strategy: Attempts to Co-opt the Hirak and Rehabilitate the Salafi-Jihadi Image"

The Algerian Hirak is a popular non-violent protest movement pursuing systemic change in Algeria that has pressured the Algerian government for political transition since 16 February 2019. While the Hirak repudiates violent actors, al-Qaeda, a Salafi-jihadist organisation, has attempted to engage the movement through propaganda by utilizing a unique approach to its commentary on the Hirak. Drawing from Algeria's historical memory of French colonialism and the Algerian Civil War, al-Qaeda sought to gain support from Hirak protestors, foster violent government overthrow, and entrench themselves in the local social structure. This research paper examines al-Qaeda commentary on the Hirak through qualitative content analysis and identifies shifts in propaganda messaging. The research also seeks to contribute towards a gap in the literature by addressing a not commonly discussed subject matter within terrorism studies and providing grounding for future case studies exploring similar themes.

The Afghanistan War and Jus Post Bellum

How should we think about justice at war’s end (jus post bellum) in the case of Afghanistan in 2022 and beyond? The basic principles of jus post bellum include order, justice, and conciliation; and there have been numerous policy attempts to realize these principles since the fall of the Taliban and flight of al Qaeda in December 2001. With the precipitous abandonment of Afghanistan by the Biden Administration and other allies in 2021, we have a sober opportunity to reflect on three periods of jus post bellum efforts: an initial humanitarian and human security phase (2002–2005); the surprising resilience of the Taliban and efforts at some sort of national grand bargain circa the 10-year mark (2009–2012); and now a future based upon Western withdrawal and the re-emerging dominance of the Taliban.

QAnon as Religious Terrorism

While the horrific scenes of the invasion and occupation of the US Capitol building played out on television, I happened to be doing a radio interview for my recent book on religious terrorism (Juergensmeyer 2020). The reporter asked if there were similarities between the Trump-incited rioters and the terrorists I have studied. I quickly responded “yes.” It is true that the reasons for religious-inspired insurrections around the world are specific to their contexts—supporters of al Qaeda are not the same as militant Buddhists in Myanmar. Yet there are some striking similarities among the cosmic battles imagined in the apocalyptic scenarios that propel movements of religious of religious violence. This includes ISIS, Christian militia groups, Jewish extremists, and Hindu and Sikh militants. They all bear some common characteristics, and QAnon shares many similarities with them. To begin with, QAnon bears some relationship to religion. To be sure, the conspiracy theory at the heart of QAnon belief is this-worldly. It includes the notion that there is a secret design among liberal politicians and media figures to take over the world for their evil purposes, among which is ritual leeching the blood of innocent children for empowerment.

Andrew Junker. Becoming Activists in Global China: Social Movements in the Chinese Diaspora. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2019. x, 230 pp. Hardcover $99.99, ISBN 978-1-108-48299-8.

Andrew Junker. Becoming Activists in Global China: Social Movements in the Chinese Diaspora. New York: Cambridge University Press, . x,  pp. Hardcover $., ISBN ----. In her seminal book The Cult as a Social Problem (New York: Routledge, ), leading British sociologist of religion Eileen Barker juxtaposed Falun Gong with the early Christians, Muslims, and Methodists, as well as the Church of Scientology, the Nation of Islam, and Al Qaida to problematize the social construction of “wrong” or “bad” religions versus “true” and “good” religions. She notes that all the abovementioned groups have been seen as a threat to their own followers and the social well-being at certain points in time. Yet, some have been able to establish themselves and grow into wellrespected religions, while others are perpetually labeled as “cults” and face severe persecutions. Their different fates are the result of both primary and secondary social constructions that involve the practitioners themselves, the anti-cult coalitions, as well as the social scientists who take a scholarly interest in them. Indeed, these alternative or deviant religious groups often attract substantial media and scholarly attention. Through their portrayal in the media, religious cults and sects present a host of social problems, ranging from advocating heretical beliefs, being involving in child abuse or sexual scandals, engaging in illicit activities, exercising mind control techniques, and instigating anti-government political agendas. In contrast, embracing the principle of value neutrality, many social scientists are reluctant to associate the negative connotations with the members of these religious groups, as they tend to be dehumanizing. They adopted the term “new religious movements” (NRMs) to replace “cults” in the study of nonmajority religious groups that are in tension with the wider society, especially those that emerged after the end of the Second World War in a presumed secular rational society. Although there is considerable debate on what constitutes NRMs exactly, the term has taken a strong foothold in the sociology of religion and set the tone for research on a wide range of phenomena that loosely fall under the banner of NRMs. The lasting interest among sociologists in NRMs is not only a response to the return of religion to the public square since the s, but also creates links between the sociological study of religion and other areas of social sciences. Review©  by University of Hawai‘i Press Andrew Junker’s book Becoming Activists in Global China: Social Movements in the Chinese Diaspora is an exemplar work that combines a sociological analysis of NRMs with a study of social movements and contentious politics, through a close comparison of Falun Gong and the Overseas Democracy Movement, or Minyun—two of the most visible Chinese diaspora social movements in the reform era. While the title of Junker’s book makes no reference to NRMs in general, nor to Falun Gong in particular, the majority of his research revolves around Falun Gong, an “evil cult” that has been banned in China since  but sustains an influence in the global Chinese diaspora much larger than its membership entails. The decision to publish the book under the current title, instead of another title Making Activists in Global China: Transnational Mobilization in Falun Gong and the Chinese Democracy Movement, may be a tactic to avoid unwanted attention. It is also evident that framing the study as a comparative analysis of social movements rather than a study of Falun Gong per se distinguishes Junker’s work from the sizable literature on Falun Gong that has emerged over the past two decades, which rarely speaks to the literature on Chinese sectarian groups and pays no attention to the “progressive” or “protodemocratic ” characteristics of Falun Gong mobilization. Indeed, the ingenuity of Junker’s work primarily lies in its focus on the “social movement-ness” of Falun Gong. Emerging during the qigong boom in China that began in the s and lasted until , Falun Gong was founded in  by Li Hongzhi, an ordinary person from the northeastern city of Changchun. Combining qigong exercises with ideas borrowed from Buddhism, Taoism, and New Age sources, Falun Gong was able to garner millions of followers in just four years, and became one of the largest and most popular Qigong groups by...

INDEXING AND AMERICAN PRESIDENCY: PAKISTANI MUSLIM SOCIETY ON THE FRONT-PAGES OF MAINSTREAM U.S. NEWSPAPERS

Mr. Joe Biden quoting a saying from Prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H.), vows to lift the Muslim ban from day one in the Oval office. This study shows how the U.S. mainstream liberal and the conservative printed press gave Pakistan and Pakistani society coverage in the first year of Biden's Vice Presidency under President Obama when the U.S. military interests were high in the South Asian region. Employing thematic analysis with indexing theory, the study analyzes three leading U.S. dailies from January 2009 to January 2010. The study finds media frames, issues, and sources that confirm the practical implementation of indexing theory in American news reporting on crucial foreign policy issues. About Pakistan Muslim society, the U.S. media conclude that terrorism is in the “DNA” of Pakistani people, and militants will take over Pakistan and its nuclear bomb. This study adds to the indexing theory, propaganda, political, international, and strategic communication literature. Key Words: Islamic extremism, Sharia law, Pakistani nuclear bomb, al Qaeda, Vice President Joe Biden, American print media, War on Terror, Indexing, Liberal, Conservative.

Why rebels rely on terrorists: The persistence of the Taliban-al-Qaeda battlefield coalition in Afghanistan

ABSTRACT Why do some rebels form persistent battlefield coalitions with terrorist groups? I argue three factors are likely to condition whether the benefits of doing so outweigh the costs: 1) potential rivalry among coalition members’ political agendas, 2) the military, organizational, and political value terrorists can bring to the collective, and 3) the degree to which local partnerships are institutionalized or reinforced through threats of intra-coalitional violence. Analyzing previously classified and captured primary source documents, I examine the Taliban’s persistence in forming battlefield coalitions with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan (1979 – present) and find significant empirical support for the argument.

The Significance Role of Community Engagement and Soft Power in Countering Boko Haram in Sub-Saharan Africa

The Boko Haram group in the Nigerian and Lake Chad Basin has gained immense sympathy in the region, appearing to mount political challenges against corruption and social and economic inequalities. Security experts did not anticipate that the group would become violent based on its past actions. However, researchers recently have revealed that the group has had transnational connections to other terrorist groups, such as Al-Shabaab in the Horn of Africa, and Al Qaeda, which have influenced its propensity for violence. This research attempts to understand Boko Haram by examining data supplied by research, documents, and reports from numerous groups. The method implemented here entails a historical approach, including observation, a way by which the historian aims to determine the soundness of observational reports conducted by previous investigators. This research utilizes a historical methodology that requires exploring, documenting, evaluating, and interpreting past occurrences to discover indications that aid in understanding historical and present activities and to a significant but limited extent for projecting the future. This study examines the origin of Boko Haram and speculates as to its future by concentrating on why the group primarily thrives in some parts of Nigeria and the Lake Chad region. It also looks at responses to security challenges from American, Nigerian, and neighboring governments. Additionally, it looks at the use of community engagement and soft power as a possible means to mitigate violence in the region. Finally, the document identifies implications for the group's continued existence and stability in the area based on data analysis. This research also offers policy recommendations for the United States, Nigeria, and the surrounding countries that could minimize the threats of Boko Haram.

The Jihadi Current and the Lay Thinking: A “Re-Anchorage” Process Hypothesis

The Jihadi-salafist doctrine which is at the Islamist terrorism origin that affects several countries since the emergence of Al Qaeda in the late 80's, gave birth to the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham/Levant (ISIS/ISIL) established as a Caliphate in 2014. Despite the ISIS official military defeat in 2019, the Jihadi-Salafist current - whose history goes back a long way, is currently behind a number of attacks whether collective or individual, claimed by known organizations or committed in isolation. In our perspective, we try to apprehend the attraction power of the Jihadi narrative issue taking the Theory of Social Representations as a paradigmatic framework. This implies that we dont consider the Jihadi current membership as the manifestation of a deviation from normality or optimal rationality, but as the expression of a certain common sense resonance. More precisely, and taking the case of the Tunisian context, the success of the Jihadi narrative is explained by its effectiveness as an interpretive grid and as a guide for action, making it possible to re-anchor a reality lacking in meaning. This hypothesis of a re-anchoring implies that anchoring as described by Moscovici as one of the two processes at the origin of the social representations formation (with the objectification process), could be not only as a familiarization of the strange by inserting it in an already known pre-existing frame, but by substituting to the frame itself, a new one, in order to be able to insert familiar objects which would have lost their sense precisely because of the old frame itself. This hypothesis could offer a theoretical and heuristic perspective allowing the anchoring process to be conceived as a circular and non-definitive process.

Easter Sunday Bombings and Jihad in Sri Lanka

2019 Easter Sunday bombings in Sri Lanka by Islamist radicals poses a level of complexity that could challenge conventional thinking about radicalization and the spread of influence of groups like Al Qaeda, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and the Muslim Brotherhood, in many fundamental respects. At a very basic level, it defies common understanding of the emergence of Islamist radicalism in Sri Lanka – a country ravaged by extremist violence in other forms perpetrated by groups like JVP and the LTTE for example, which are mostly secular in character. In this context, jihadism in Sri Lanka introduces a new dynamic - utilitarian and pragmatic - where groups, cutting across their ideological and political divides, come together to achieve common goals. 
 
 Ability of the groups like ISIS and Muslim Brotherhood to recruit and deploy local Muslims in Sri Lanka to attack Western targets and attract global attention testify to the potency and resiliency of the ideology. [1]

AL QAEDA’S RADICAL IDEOLOGY

The purpose of the essay is to illustrate the Ideological aspect of al Qaeda that constitutes the pillar of the organisation based on distinct interpretation of Quran and biased understanding of the meaning of Jihad. The functional method of al Qaeda is not simplistic or unsystematic, aimed at particular target or focused or specific country or region. The creation of such transnational organisation couldn’t have been revealed without political Ideology with its manifesto and the mechanism to spread its messages all over the world. It will not be correct to put al Qaeda among the category of the classical terror groups as I have shown in the essay as a comparison. Moreover, it is not similar to any categories of political Islam movements; since the distinction between Jihad and waging war has always been differentiated in the context of Political Islam. Whereas al Qaeda declares enemies in the house of Islam as well to countries, people and Institutions differ with their own created ideology. This distorted ideology has spread all over the world and become an enemy to Islam itself, which harmed the reputation of Islam as a religion. Attention on the ideologic context of al Qaeda hasn’t been researched well, unknown to majority of the experts. Instead, the attention at most has been put on its ground actions, security concerns and counter terrorism.

AL QAEDA’S RADICAL IDEOLOGY

The purpose of the essay is to illustrate the Ideological aspect of al Qaeda that constitutes the pillar of the organisation based on distinct interpretation of Quran and biased understanding of the meaning of Jihad. The functional method of al Qaeda is not simplistic or unsystematic, aimed at particular target or focused or specific country or region. The creation of such transnational organisation couldn’t have been revealed without political Ideology with its manifesto and the mechanism to spread its messages all over the world. It will not be correct to put al Qaeda among the category of the classical terror groups as I have shown in the essay as a comparison. Moreover, it is not similar to any categories of political Islam movements; since the distinction between Jihad and waging war has always been differentiated in the context of Political Islam. Whereas al Qaeda declares enemies in the house of Islam as well to countries, people and Institutions differ with their own created ideology. This distorted ideology has spread all over the world and become an enemy to Islam itself, which harmed the reputation of Islam as a religion. Attention on the ideologic context of al Qaeda hasn’t been researched well, unknown to majority of the experts. Instead, the attention at most has been put on its ground actions, security concerns and counter terrorism.

Gary R. Bunt, Hashtag Islam: How Cyber-Islamic Environments Are Transforming Religious Authority

Reviewed by: Hashtag Islam: How Cyber-Islamic Environments Are Transforming Religious Authority by Gary R. Bunt Sahar Khamis Gary R. Bunt, Hashtag Islam: How Cyber-Islamic Environments Are Transforming Religious Authority (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2018) The question of religious authority in Islam, commonly referred to as “who speaks for Islam,” has been receiving more attention and added visibility in recent years due to a variety of factors, including the fact that more diasporic Muslim communities are intermingling with the fabric of new societies and, thus, contributing to accelerating processes of cross-cultural inoculation and cross-intellectual fertilization. Additionally, there is the fast growing, and swiftly expanding, new realm of digitalization of religion in the age of cyberspace, which opens the door for new voices to be heard in the field of ijtihad (re-interpretation of Islamic religious scriptures). This means inviting a plethora of new views and readings of Islamic religious texts, some of which are coming from outside traditional religious establishments,1 which opens the floodgates for an amalgamation of both positive effects and negative consequences as indicated in some of the scholarly publications on this topic.2 [End Page 113] Gary R. Bunt is one of the pioneers in the field of digital Islam and has been writing extensively over the last two decades about how interactions in cyberspace have been reshaping and redefining modern Muslim societies.3 In his book, which consists of six chapters, Bunt takes us on an insightful exploration into this ever-changing realm of Islamic interactions in cyberspace with a special focus on how and why such interactions have been reshaping religious authority in the Muslim world. He unpacks the far-reaching implications and new dynamics of this phenomenon, arguing that “digital content has become a key part of expressions of contemporary Islam in many contexts, in terms of the ways in which faith, command, and control are manifest across complex systems of Muslim beliefs” (1). He pays special attention to the myriad ways cyber-Islamic environments (CIEs), a term which he coined, “has resulted in some cases in a reconfiguration of understandings of models of religious authority and the dissemination of Islamic knowledge” (4). Bunt delves deep into this evolving phenomenon, with all its hybridity, nuances, complexities, and even its paradoxes, contradictions, and contrasts, as it manifests itself across different spatial and temporal contexts. He attends particularly to the rich and vibrant period between 2009 and 2017, which witnessed a number of significant events, including the eruption of the Arab Spring movements in the Arab region in 2011; the escalation of tensions in several conflict zones, such as Palestine, Iraq, and Syria; the displacement of Syrian and Iraqi refugees; and the increased visibility and heightened impact of extremist and radicalized groups, such as Al Qaeda and ISIS, to mention only a few. Bunt skillfully explains how these geopolitical shifts are accompanied, and sometimes even fueled, by parallel transitions in the realm of religious authority in the Muslim world, thanks to the increased digitalization of Islam and the prevalence of CIEs. He argues that one of the ways this phenomenon manifests itself is through the crossovers between the realms of formal and informal—as well as traditional and modern—forms of religious authority, which, in turn, open the door for a plethora of multifaceted and multilayered tensions, struggles, and push-and-pull mechanisms. In tackling these crossovers, he steers away from painting one universal image with a broad brush. He differentiates across countries ranging from Pakistan and Iran to Syria and Indonesia, as well as across generations ranging from the older and more orthodox traditional scholars to the younger, more [End Page 114] liberal, and more technologically-savvy newcomers to the field of fatwa (Islamic religious advice) online. In avoiding the temptation to generalize using a “one size fits all” description of modern Muslim societies, both online and offline, he also explores the overlaps and divergences between Sunni and Shi’a Islam, in addition to the “crossovers between religious and political discourses” (74). He explains how these “religio-political discourses” are both a cause and a consequence of a cacophony of different voices and discourses in cyberspace. In discussing...

Long overdue: Biden was right to pull US troops out of Afghanistan

Both former President Donald Trump and current U.S. President Joseph Biden were right to command the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. On August 15, the capital of Afghanistan, Kabul, was left in chaos. The world was shocked as revitalized Taliban soldiers overran Afghan security forces and subsequently captured the presidential palace. From Washington to Brussels, governments struggled to make sense of the events unfolding in Afghanistan. After all, just more than a month earlier, on July 8, U.S. President Joe Biden insisted that the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan was not inevitable. The assumption then was that the Afghan government and its military leadership had the capacity and the will to hold off the advancing Taliban forces. As has become subsequently clear, the U.S. policy underestimated the impact of corruption in the country, overestimated the Afghan military’s ability to defend the country. Leadership misjudged the Taliban’s ability to win back the hearts and minds of its people in the countryside and to successfully recruit enough young men to sustain the fight against U.S. forces. The questions everyone is now asking are: What went wrong? Was America’s longest war justified? Was the withdrawal warranted, despite the manner in which it was executed? Did America achieve any of its objectives in Afghanistan? Will Afghanistan, under Taliban rule, allow al Qaeda and other extremist groups to use the country – a crossroads of Central and South Asia – as a base for international terrorist attacks?

Illusion of the Oracle:

Abstract
 The familiar face of empires is external intervention as opposed to local culture. We follow Michel Onfray's thesis about the oracular illusion when one more individual or country tries to avoid the fulfillment of a nefarious prediction, which materializes as a catastrophe. Algeria conquered in 1830 was incorporated into French territory. In 1954 the FLN rebelled, and in 1961, General Charles de Gaulle negotiated the independence of Algeria, causing the disastrous departure of 750,000 French settlers and the death of French supporters. From 1962 to 2021, the withdrawals of imperial powers from their colonies, France from Algeria, the United States in Afghanistan, resulted in catastrophes and uncertainties. The imperial power of the United States aimed to defeat its bipolar antagonist, the USSR when it invaded Afghanistan. They conducted an inconsequential policy to beat their rival, arming and financing the Taliban's victorious resistance, the freedom fighters. The oracular illusion led the United States to support the future antagonist, Islamic fundamentalism, destined for the world caliphate. After the departure of the USSR, American power despised the Taliban, who harbored al Qaeda, leading to 9/11. In 2001 the United States invaded Afghanistan and abandoned it after 20 years of war without the precaution of obtaining plans or safeguards for the government in Kabul. After the disastrous retreat, the victorious Taliban demonstrated, like the FLN in Algeria, the fulfillment of the oracular illusion.

AL QAEDA AND HYPERTERRORISM – THE SUCCESSFUL EMERGENCE OF BINLADENISM AT GLOBAL LEVEL

September 11, 2001 can be interpreted as a t0 (zero time) for the studies on terrorism, because that was the moment when the shift from classical terrorism to hyperterrorism occurred. The emergence of hyperterrorism at global level via Al Qaeda was successful owing to very well defined strategies and tactics, which were put into practice under Osama bin Laden's coordination. The in-depth knowledge of the strategies and tactics of a complex enemy, who practices Islamic fundamentalist terrorism, constitutes a starting point in elaborating antiterrorist strategies adapted to the dynamism of the international security environment.

Still the absent friend? The European Union’s global counter-terrorism role after twenty years

ABSTRACT Over a decade ago, it was claimed that the EU was an “absent friend” in foreign policy counter-terrorism. Much has changed since then, however. Al Qaeda and Islamic State are shadows of what they were. The contribution of this article is to re-evaluate and offer a theoretically-informed account of the development of the EU’s global counter-terrorism role, drawing on collective securitisation. We advance two arguments here. Firstly, EU global counter-terrorism activity has occurred, grown, and become routinised due to terrorist threats and attacks, institutional developments, and interactions with interlocutors. Secondly, the characterisation of the EU as an “absent friend” is unsustainable in 2021. While the EU remains secondary to its member states in many ways, it has developed tools of its own that have enhanced its capabilities in external counter-terrorism.

Rethinking Pathways of Transnational Jihad: Evidence from Lebanese ISIS Recruits

Why do some individuals leave everything behind to join extremist organizations abroad? The literature on foreign fighters has grown impressively and yielded important insights in recent years. Three problems persist, however: (1) scholarship grounded in empirical fieldwork remains uncommon. This deficit reflects the scarcity of micro-level data based on individual profiles of jihadi recruits; (2) the studies available overwhelmingly center on Western jihadists even though the majority of foreign fighters who join groups such as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) or al Qaeda hail from Arab countries; (3) an artificial rivalry between different explanatory approaches has produced an inconclusive picture of the determinants of radicalization. In this article, I reconsider the various pathways for transnational Jihadi recruitment by drawing upon a unique dataset pertaining to seventy Lebanese militants. I selectively combine elements from multiple perspectives to ponder the pathways of ISIS recruits, but my conclusions can be modified to apply to other circumstances.

A THREAT ASSESSMENT OF BIOTERRORISM FROM AL-QAIDA TO ISLAMIC STATE

The paper will focus on explaining the nature, extent and evolution of terrorism through the role of Chemical, Biological, Radiological and nuclear weapons (CBRN) such as Bio-Chemical Weapons (BCWs). It will further discuss the role of religious terrorist organizations, such as Al Qaeda and ISIS/Deash in re-defining terrorism in contemporary era by acquiring BCWs. Moreover, it will underscore the lethality and level of threat posed by BCW’s when employed by the non-state actors. Additionally, it will highlight various motivating factors including political, religious, and psychological which can act as a driving force for the terrorists and non-state actors to use BCWs. Lastly, it will suggest that a change in the means and methods of terrorism predominantly comprising of BCWs as a weapon of choice for the terrorists is on the cards and it is likely remaining the feature of international politics in the days and years to come if the international treaty regime on BCWS does not adequately address the phenomenon of non-state actors. Keywords: Terrorist Organizations, Bio-Chemical Weapons, Al Qaeda, Islamic State, Rational Actors, Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, Chemical Weapon Convention, CBRN.