International Jihadist Research Articles

Radykalizacja kobiet do terroryzmu w ISIS

The aim of this article is to explain the processes that influence women's involvement in terrorist activities in the ranks of international jihadist organizations. Although the activity of women in terrorist groups has been visible for many years, there is a need to recognize gender dynamics in the process of radicalization. This article contains theoretical aspects related to the presentation of the concept of radicalization and the recruitment stage resulting from this process, which is a necessary element. Moreover, indications of the radicalization of women's attitudes and behavior were demonstrated, including individual factors, factors attracting and pushing them to participate in a terrorist attack.

The New ‘Other’: Islamic Radicalisation and De-Radicalisation in Sri Lanka

One of the key terms to understand the nature of violence and conflicts world over is ‘radicalisation’. Sri Lanka’s case is instructive in understanding the various dimensions of Islamic radicalisation and de-radicalisation, especially in South Asia. Though a small state, Sri Lanka has witnessed three radical movements, the latest being Islamic that got manifested in deadly Easter attacks of April 2019. Eco-space for Islamic radicalisation existed in the island for decades, but the rise of ultra-Sinhala-Buddhist nationalism post the end of Eelam War IV acted as a breaking point. The underlying context is perceived as the feeling of insecurity projected by hardline Sinhala-Buddhist elements. In due course, the primary ‘other’ shifted from Tamils to Sri Lankan Muslims. Apart from inter-communal dissonance, international jihadist network also fostered radicalisation process in the island’s Muslim community. Political instability due to co-habitation issues between the then president and the prime minister was a perfect distraction from the core security and development issues. In response to the violent manifestation of radicalisation, de-radicalisation measures by the successive Sri Lankan governments were mostly military in nature. Socio-economic and political components of Islamic de-radicalisation are at the incipient stage, if not totally missing. The article suggests wide-ranging measures to address the issue of radicalisation in the island state.

La Françafrique est-elle chose du passé? La joute française au Sahel: implications et désillusions

The French army is entrenching itself in the sahel region since 2014, claiming a near victory over the multitude of armed groups operating in the region. The french implication relies heavily on special operation units waging a movement war against the so-called "terror groups". But what are the true natures of those groups? Such armed groups are actually far from being the archetype of international Jihadist organisations that the french government claims they are fighting. Paris Meanwhile, by fighting in those countries is actually entrenching itself geographically for its own geopolitical gains rather than pursuing humanistic goals. By supporting unrepresentative governments and relying on heavy military presence in the Sahel, the French governemnt is actually helping recruitment among those armed groups and is uncontiously helping their creations.

Countering Violent Extremism in Sub‐Saharan Africa: What Policy Makers Need to Know

This essay addresses recurring and growing inaccurate reports from political officials as well as counter‐terrorism analysts and journalists that the Sahara‐Sahel group Boko Haram is a defeated entity. Notwithstanding concerted efforts to rout the movement, Boko Haram and its network of jihadists have expanded. Crucial misunderstandings surrounding what fostered and sustains the phenomenon—as well as a general naivety regarding the organization's flexibility to adapt to attract combatants, financial support, and weaponry beyond Nigeria's borders—have made performing basic adequate risk assessments overwhelmingly challenging. Policy makers and CVE (Countering Violent Extremism) practitioners would be wise to recognize that not only has Boko Haram morphed but its growing affiliates also terrorize increased territory. The threat of militant Islam in the Sahara‐Sahel, therefore, has not been contained as some would have us believe. Rather, Muslim extremism has become entangled and more complex not only in Africa but across the Muslim world. When jihadists in one territory have taken a beating, surviving fighters have simply relocated to other geographies accompanied by connections for capital and munitions. In this way, Boko Haram—the fulcrum of violent Islam in the Sahara‐Sahel—has become, over time, an international jihadist actor.

Why do pastoralists in Mali join jihadist groups? A political ecological explanation

ABSTRACTSince 2015 jihadist groups have taken control of the Mopti region in central Mali. We ask how such a radical development has been possible in a country previously praised as a bulwark against radical Islam in Africa. While the dominant literature on the crisis in Mali has focused on how global political economic developments and international jihadist thinking and organisation relate to national dynamics, we take a materialist political ecology approach to explain the current situation. By focusing on the micro-politics of two land-use conflicts and how these conflicts are affected by the jihadist expansion, we seek to explain peasant (or pastoral) logics behind joining these armed groups. In particular, pastoralists seem to support the jihadist takeover, because of an anti-state, anti-elite and pro-pastoral jihadist discourse, because they have become increasingly fatigued by and disgruntled with a predatory and corrupt state, and because the development model imposed by the state and international donors has not responded to pastoral priorities. Rent-seeking by government officials has been especially intense in relation to conflicts over pastoral land, environmental management and the fight against desertification. This happened while the international community continued to praise Mali as a model of African democracy.

ISIS and Al-Qaeda as Strategies and Political Imaginaries in Africa: A Comparison between Boko Haram and Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb

By analysing Boko Haram and Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, this article argues that ascriptions to international jihadist brands are linked to local movements’ political economy and geopolitical imaginaries, and, therefore, driven more by contingent strategic considerations rather than by ideological motives. Consequently, three sets of evidence are discussed, by drawing also on fieldwork conducted in Mali and Niger from 2013 to 2016: the discourses of these actors; their political economies; their use of political violence. In conclusion, we analyse the ‘territorialised-deterritorialised cleavage’ and argue that this has greater heuristic value to understand African ‘jihadisms’ than existing categorisations of political violence.

Rooted in Poverty?: The Political Economy of Terrorism in Xinjiang

AbstractIt has been one of the most debated puzzles in the study of political economy of terrorism whether economic development can curb terrorism. In Xinjiang, a multi-ethnic region in West China, it is widely believed that higher income levels can decrease the likelihood of terrorism conducted by Uyghur separatists or Islamic extremists. However, the county-level data for the year of 2013 show that better economic performance may not work as is expected. Instead, empirical evidence indicates that income is positively associated with the probability of terrorist attacks, and the effect is statistically significant. Projects that are aimed at boosting local economic growth result in a flood of migrants, and the local Uyghurs are disadvantaged in the employment market. Consequently, economic grievances will be generated. Some, but not all, Uyghurs have a shared motivation to resist, but tight social control in the region constrains the form of resistance, in the sense that neither mass protests nor armed rebellion are feasible. Terrorist attacks that come at a lower cost become a preferable choice. In addition to economic grievances and tight control, external factors also help to boost terrorist activities in Xinjiang, but more empirical and field research is needed before we could clarify how external factors, such as the international jihadist movement, interact with local conditions and result in terrorism in the region.

Competition among Violent Islamist Extremists

The jihadist threat emanating from the Middle East has transformed dramatically in the past five years due to unprecedented levels of sociopolitical instability. While the region and much of the world around it previously faced a threat dominated by al-Qaeda, developments in the heart of the Middle East since 2014 have given birth to a new and more dangerous dynamic—two international jihadist movements competing to outdo each other on an increasingly brutal and complex world stage. In recent years, al-Qaeda has undergone a consequential strategic evolution: increasingly autonomous affiliates have begun to adopt a patient, long-game approach to operations, while ISIS has sought to attain rapid results. As two divergent models of jihad develop, different threats result, with the one universal factor being the exploitation of political failure, failing states, and sociopolitical instability to further extremist narratives. It is now more important than ever to develop tailor-made policies designed not just to combat jihadism itself but to ameliorate underlying conditions that have allowed it to thrive.

North Caucasian foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq: assessing the threat of returnees to the Russian Federation

ABSTRACTThis article looks into the dangers posed by the return of the North Caucasus militants in Syria and Iraq to the security of the Russian Federation. The article first divides the recruitment of North Caucasian foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq into two distinct waves. I argue that the first wave of North Caucasus foreign fighters (2011–2013) chose Syria because they could not fight in the North Caucasus. By contrast, the second wave (2014–2016) openly decided not to fight in their own region, preferring to join an international jihadist front. I then build on the literature about the impact of foreign fighters on domestic insurgencies to analyse the potential impact of these returnees on the regional insurgency in the North Caucasus. I identify four factors conditioning the motivations to return and returnee impact on domestic insurgency: a favourable context for return, an existing network in the region, resonance of the militants’ ideology with the local population, and the will to return to the region. I argue that the greater threat will come from the field commanders from the Second Chechen war exiled in Syria, rather than the more numerous second wave foreign fighters integrated into ISIS.

Army of darkness: The jihadist training system in Pakistan and Afghanistan, 1996–2001

The current Islamic State in Iraq and Syria displays both Taliban and al Qaeda-like characteristics. We can expect IS to host international jihadists in the same way the Taliban did between 1996 and 2001. This study depicts the jihadist training and support network established in Afghanistan during those years prior to its dismantlement and exploitation by Operation ENDURING FREEDOM. Up to now this system was understood only in the abstract but with newly available information, the scope and scale of the international jihadist project in Afghanistan can be unveiled.

International terrorism as a force of homogenization? A constructivist approach to understanding cross-national threat perceptions and responses

Has the emergence of international jihadist terrorism led to common threat perceptions and responses in Europe? The article argues that the homogenization thesis is based around a misguided functionalist notion of a single ‘optimal response’ to an alleged new and potentially catastrophic kind of threat with uniform consequences for all ‘Western’ countries. Drawing on insights from different bodies of literature, the article elaborates a theoretical framework to understand variations in threat perceptions vis-à-vis international terrorism and enrich the socio-linguistic securitization approach of Barry Buzan, Ole Wæver and Jaap de Wilde (Security: a new framework for analysis, London: Lynne Reinner, 1998). The article then empirically examines the rise and fall of threat perceptions among selected European publics between 2000 and 2008. Threat perceptions did converge in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, but soon afterward started diverging. The article considers the reasons for this finding as well as the implication for the evolution of counter-terrorist policies in the European Union.

Blood and rage: a cultural history of terrorism

A far-reaching history of terrorism across the world, from its beginnings to the modern day, from the highly acclaimed author of 'Sacred Causes' and 'Earthly Powers'. The paperback edition will be updated to cover recent events - including the recent terror attacks in Mumbai in November 2008 and the continued military clash in Gaza in early 2009. Basing his study on a wide range of sources and key players from the world of terrorism, Burleigh explains and defines the meaning of terrorism and marks its progression from its hard-to-trace beginnings to the modern day. Burleigh takes us from the origins of terrorism in the Irish Republican Brotherhood - the precursors of the IRA - on to look at Tsarist Russia, where the 'intelligentsia' launched attacks on organs of state, and left-wing fighting against 'Fascism' and 'Nazism' in the 1970s and 1980s in western Germany and Italy. But such nationalist terrrorism has in turn been eclipsed by international jihadist violence, largely driven by widespread resentment of the successful societes of the West. Burleigh explores the background and the milieu of people engaged in careers of political violence, and examines their various mindsets as revealed by their actions rather than their words. He makes clear that the West has considerable resources to comprehend and combat terrorism and shows how history enables us to see how terrrorism can be effectively contained and countered - if only by avoiding some of the major mistakes of the past. An unrivalled study that sheds an insightful new light on a plight that threatens to affect the world at large for many years to come, 'Blood and Rage' establishes Michael Burleigh as one of the most original, learned and important historians of our time.

The Rise of Islamist Extremism in Kabardino-Balkariya

Abstract: This article examines the expansion of Russia's emerging Chechen-led revolutionary Islamist terrorist network into the central-western North Caucasian republic of Kabardino-Balkariya (the Republic of Kabardino-Balkaria or KBR), which in many ways is the geopolitical and ethnopolitical gateway to the western North Caucasus. The network's expansion into the region demonstrates the ability of Chechen-based Islamism to travel across geography and ethnicity among Russia's Muslims. This article argues for a comprehensive, multicausal explanation of communal mobilization that includes international, institutional, and economic factors in addition to communal-political ones, especially in cases of extremist terrorist groups, such as those in Russia's growing revolutionary Islamist network. It also shows that in Russia, as elsewhere, the international jihadist movement, inspired and funded by al Qaeda, has made some progress in coopting local nationalist movements among Muslim peoples to the Islamist cause. Key words: Chechnya, jihad, Kabardino-Balkariya, Islamism, terrorism ********** Russia's ongoing Chechen war and President Vladimir Putin's antifederalist, antidemocratic recentralizing counterrevolution are leading to the radical re-Islamization of some of Russia's Muslims and the formation of a geographically expansive, ethnically diverse, flexibly organized terrorist Islamist network across Russia, not unlike the al Qaeda model on the international level. If earlier the Islamist network of combat jamaats was limited first to the eastern North Caucasus--Chechnya, then Dagestan and Ingushetiya--it has recently spread to the western North Caucasus, dominated by the Circassian (or Adygei) groups. The emergence of Islamist cells, jamaats, or a full-fledged network node in the KBR, would not only reflect on the jihadist movement's geographical reach, but also on its potential multiethnic, pan-Caucasus and pan-Islamic appeal. The appearance of Islamism in the KBR seems to confirm that frustrated ethnonationalist aspirations under certain conditions can transmogrify into Islamic nationalism or revolutionary Islamist jihadism. The Immediate Causes of Communalism and Islamist Mobilization under Putin Watershed historical turns and processes, such as war, revolution, and other forms of regime transformation, have multiple causes. They are simply too large and multifaceted to be explained by one or two causes. Long-term historical, cultural, and structural causes mix with intermediate and immediate tipping or precipitating causes to produce major events. Putting aside historical (past conflict between the parties) and cultural (tendencies toward authoritarianism, expansion, and violence among the parties) structural causes, there are at least six intermediate and immediate causes of rising communalism (the drive for isolation and self-determination based on ethnic, national, linguistic, religious, or regional identity communities), Islamic nationalism, and Islamist terrorism in Russia. First and foremost, the festering Chechnya quagmire and the penetration of international Islamist terrorists through the Chechen movement are fomenting Islamist mobilization, revolution, and war throughout many Muslim-populated regions of Russia. The ongoing Chechen war is facilitating the international Islamists' deeper infiltration into Russia by justifying radicalism in some Muslims' eyes and extending the influence of Islamists beyond Chechnya. In the new war, both sides have attained an inhumane scale of atrocity. On the Russian side, the indiscriminate use of force at the start of the war was succeeded by more precise, but still often criminal, security sweeps, involving the seizure and murder of many thousands of innocent Chechens. On the Chechen side, there have been small-scale and unprecedented large-scale terrorist attacks, including suicide bombings and hospital and school sieges, targeting innocent citizens, including schoolchildren. …

Challenge and response: Canada's intelligence community and the war on terrorism

The terrorist attacks of September 11th catapulted Canada's intelligence community to the forefront of our national security effort. Faced with the danger of international Jihadist terrorism, Canada's intelligence community could no longer remain in an essentially reactive mode. Rather, they were impelled to shift gears to become active hunters after their quarry. The article describes the evolving governance structure of Canada's Security and Intelligence Community, culminating in the organizational changes implemented by the new Martin Government after December 2003. It then assesses the terrorist threat to Canada, setting out the presence of major terrorist networks and cells, including al‐Qaeda and its affiliates, and their known activities and objectives. There follows an examination of the roles of each of the components of Canada's intelligence community, CSIS, CSE, the RCMP, FINTRAC, OCIPEP, and specialized departmental units in dealing with the terrorist threat. Consideration is also given to the new legislative armoury provided by the Anti‐Terrorism Act of 2001 and supporting regulations. Since international intelligence relations play a significant part in Canada's counter‐terrorism effort, the article sets out the various inter‐governmental and bilateral arrangements through which intelligence sharing and operational cooperation take place. The concluding section addresses the challenges faced by democracies in combating international terrorism, including the need for accountability, transparency and public education consistent with the requirements of operational secrecy, in order to build up public confidence in Canada's emergent National Security Policy.