Islamic Terrorism Research Articles

How we went from 9/11 to lone actors

ABSTRACT Since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks by al Qaeda on the United States, the terrorist threat has evolved. Two decades on, the world continues to worry about violent Islamist terrorist attacks, though now the threat picture seems dominated by lone actor plots which often seem disconnected from any major terrorist group. This article seeks to understand how we got to where we are today by tracing a line through the threat that has been seen over the past twenty years to understand how the threat and response interact with each other. It also seeks to cast a light on how the lone actor threat became the dominant part of the threat picture in large parts of the west.

Islamophobia among Muslims in Indonesia

Islamophobia has its long historical roots. Nonetheless, religiously motivated terrorism and the use of the name “Islam” by terrorist organizations such as the Islamic State (IS) may have amplified Islamophobia. Islamophobia has caused violence against Muslims in several stages and contexts. This study was held to investigate whether Islamophobia could also happen among Muslims in the largest Muslim population, Indonesia, as the majority Muslims avoid being associated with Islamist terrorists. Using quantitative method of analysis, the study formulated the Islamophobia Scale (IMOS) and involved 509 participants. The findings show that 92% of Muslims in Indonesia do not demonstrate any sign of Islamophobia. Nonetheless, 7.67% shows prejudice, fear, and rejection toward certain Islamic symbols, religious traditions, and Muslims with distinguished appearance which may be associated with terrorists’ outfits.

Religiosity and attitudes toward muslim immigrants in the context of a terrorist attack

Research on religiosity and attitudes toward immigrants is inconclusive, while it has repeatedly been reported that Islamist terrorist attacks lead to anti-immigrant attitudes. In this context, it remains unclear how these aspects interact, especially, since we can assume that religion plays an important role in light of an attack by an extremist religious group like ISIS: How does an Islamist terrorist attack moderate the relationship between religiosity and attitudes toward immigrants? The present study, therefore, analyses the relationship between religiosity and attitudes toward Muslim immigrants before and after the ‘Charlie Hebdo Attack’. It builds on the Uncertainty-Identity-Theory and the Religious Coping Literature. Analyses of European Social Survey (ESS) data reveal that the relationship varies over time: Religiosity does not predict the attitudes before the attack. Immediately after the attack, more religious individuals are less accepting. Lastly, with temporal distance, greater religiosity makes liberal attitudes more likely.

Terror and Crime: Anatomy of an Austrian Jihadist Prison Cohort.

Between 2014 and 2018 there was an unprecedented wave of jihadist terrorist activity in Austria that was mostly related to the "Islamic state." Meanwhile, many individuals have been or are gradually being released from prison. While many were able to disengage, two prevented and sentenced foreign fighters planned attacks in Vienna, one of them succeeded. In order to better understand this type of perpetrator, files of a cohort of 56 convicted jihadist terrorist offenders were analyzed. Half of this cohort were foreign fighters or attempted to become foreign fighters, while others contributed for instance by spreading propaganda, recruiting and assuming leadership. Additionally, a focus group with probation officers and an interview were conducted. The results shed light on various sociodemographic variables showing that there was not one specific profile. Rather, the cohort appeared to be very diverse, being comprised of all genders, age groups and socioeconomic backgrounds. Furthermore, a considerable crime-terror nexus was found. Thirty percent of the cohort had had a criminal past before their engagement in violent extremism. A fifth of the cohort had a prison experience before the arrest for the terrorist offense. The criminal offenses of the cohort were typical for the general population of probation clients which backs the notion that many terrorist offenders belonged to the same population and had switched from "traditional" crime to terrorism.

Libertà di religione e sicurezza. Il test del terrorismo

Freedom of Religion and Security. The Test of Terrorism
 ABSTRACT: The relationship between the rights of freedom, including that of religion, and security has always been controversial and currently even more because of the fear, perceived even when not real as in Italy, of the jihadist terrorism, to which there is a risk of sacrificing the freedom to profess and propagate the Islamic religion. This essay tests the Italian jurisprudence in this regard and argues the need for balancing so that the security requirements are guaranteed by the counter-limit of the supreme principles of the Constitution and in particular by the human dignity.
 SOMMARIO: 1. Paura - 2. Sicurezza - 3. Libertà - 4. Terrorismo - 5. Bilanciamento.

The Empirical Determinants of Violent Nonstate Actor Drone Adoption

Commercial drone advancements have enabled terrorists with crude airpower, challenging states’ aerial dominance. Today, many groups skillfully use drones for propaganda generation, surveillance and reconnaissance, command and control, and attacks. Despite their obvious value, there is wide variation in adoption begging questions about who is using drones and why. Prominent in practitioner and security provider circles, academics are just skimming the surface of this important phenomenon. The small existing literature suggests that violent nonstate actor drone use is little more than Iran-sponsored jihadist terrorists with territory in the Middle East. Using an original data set on characteristics across 998 armed nonstate groups from 1995 to 2019, we explore the empirical determinants of drone adoption. Although Iran-sponsorship is a significant factor, we find that network affiliations are the strongest predictors of adopting a drone program. We also demonstrate that groups with more intensive attack profiles and narco groups are more likely to pursue unmanned aerial systems. Our study provides the first quantitative probe of the drivers of armed nonstate drone use, putting academic assertions and policy prescriptions on firmer empirical ground.

Decolonial approaches to laïcité as a mode to re-think contemporary Islamophobia

ABSTRACT Over the last decade, we have witnessed the reinforcement of laïcité as a mode of governance, which increasingly focuses on France’s Muslim citizens. However, rather than argue that the reinforcement of laïcité is a response to a series of Islamist terror attacks since 2015 this article will consider the historical formations of political secularism in modern France and argue that we should take more seriously the historical and conceptual relationship between laïcité and coloniality. The first part of the article will problematize three ideal-type conceptualizations of laïcité from a decolonial perspective. The second part of the article will consider the historical contexts, which have influenced contemporary understandings of laïcité by examining broader processes of colonization and secularization during the 19th century. This approach recognizes that the history of laïcité as a socio-political process predates its juridical expression in the law of 1905 which separated the state and the churches. Finally, in part three, I will outline some ways in which a decolonized conceptualization of laïcité can be an illuminating analytical tool in relation to Islamophobia and political conflicts surrounding the emergence of Muslim and anti-racist feminism via a discussion of the association Lallab.

Islam, media framing and Islamophobia in the US press, before and after the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack

ABSTRACT On 7 January 2015, brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi, armed with Kalashnikovs, entered the headquarters of the Paris-based satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, and opened fire, killing 12 people and injuring 11 more. It would later emerge that the brothers – both native Frenchmen born to Algerian parents – belonged to the Islamist terrorist group, al Qaeda. The attack, which targeted a Western magazine, attracted tremendous international news coverage, provoking a widespread debate over issues relating to free speech, immigration (even though both attackers were born in France) and integration. There has been less discussion of the news framing of the attack by Western media outlets, and to what degree that news framing may have been biased or Islamophobic. In this study, it is our goal to understand how media framing may have been affected by this attack, and to what degree such framing is Islamophobic. To that end, we have operationalised the Runnymede framework of Islamophobia using the content analysis software Nvivo, in order to identify and better understand manifestations of Islamophobia in the mainstream press. Specifically, we analyse the news framing of Islam in the headlines of two US daily newspapers, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

News Media and the Public Discourse on Terrorism in Aotearoa New Zealand

This article explores the news media’s contribution to the evolving public discourse on terrorism in Aotearoa New Zealand. Employing a critical theory framework, it focuses on the construction of responses to terrorism through an analysis of two media texts related to the Christchurch terrorist attack, namely, “The end of our innocence” by Stuff and “This Is Us” by Radio New Zealand. The analysis demonstrates that, while the dominant media discourse had previously reduced discussions of terrorism to Islamic terrorism, the Christchurch attack created space for an alternative perspective. Moreover, the Muslim community in New Zealand has utilised news media to reject conventional thinking on terrorism. The analysis also suggests that the construction of a new, more meaningful public understanding of terrorism is possible if a wider range of authoritative speakers participate in the evolving public discourse of terrorism and if various social actors are given the opportunity to represent themselves.

RUSSIAN TERRORISM ̶ A REAL DANGER TO EUROPEAN SECURITY

Today, amid the imperial dream, in a context where Russia is in the midst of a territorial war (the one in Ukraine) carried out with hybrid means, coupled with a recent history of Russian terrorist attacks of several types, the question of an imminent danger to the security of the democratic European region may be raised. Thus, the analysis starts from the hypothesis that Europe is facing a new terrorist danger promoted by Russia, developed against the background of actions to destabilise the democratic order through hybrid warfare, with great risk to regional security. In this regard, the purpose of the article is to identify Russia’s terrorist potential at present. Its subsumed objectives are to analyse the three growing dangers that build Russia’s terrorist potential. The first threat is the turbulent history of terrorism in this country. The second danger relates to the existence of a military group that has carried out several terrorist actions outside Russian territory, the Wagner group. The third danger is the activation of Islamist terrorism in Ukraine, by enlisting in the Russian army and training radicalized fighters from Muslim countries under Russian rule. The main research method is documentation. Studies, press articles and statistics on the subject were analysed, on the basis of which conclusions were drawn.

Ubuntu: Applying a Southern Theoretical Paradigm to Counter Youth Radicalization

Abstract As societal and community institutions, schools operate within certain worldviews. These worldviews impact the aims and objectives of schooling and therefore influence the culture of the school and classroom, not to mention the content of the curriculum and teacher practices. In this paper I consider the “traditional” African worldview of Ubuntu as a framework or a foundation for schooling and education to combat the alienation and discrimination faced by many students in the schools in Western countries which are pushing neo-liberal objectives but that lead them to violence and increasingly, to radicalization. I look at the recent phenomenon of radicalization that makes societies and nations unsafe, and some of the push and pull factors that are increasingly attracting some students in the contemporary world to extremist actions. While the threat of Islamic terrorism seems to have subsided, the threats from extreme right-wing nationalist and alt-right groups is increasing at a fast pace (Ghosh et al, 2016a; Eger and Valdex, 2014; Fadel, 2019; Jones, 2018). I contrast the concept of Ubuntu with Western values of humanism and analyze the core values of the Ubuntu worldview in pedagogical practices. I conclude that present punitive measures are ineffective in preventing radicalization which poses a security threat to all nations, but that schooling has an important role to play in combating this phenomenon through a worldview that is not only humanistic but different in its very understanding of what a human being is and therefore, in preventing schools from alienating individuals and groups.

Spotlight: Kam Copeland

Spotlight:Kam Copeland TreaAndrea M. Russworm Kam Copeland is a PhD candidate in Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Southern California and Dissertation Fellow in African and African Diaspora Studies at Boston College. Currently, he is writing his dissertation, "Muhammad Gazes: Islam, Blackness, and Resistance Cinema in the US," a representational history of Black American Muslims in cinema. This project also explores how Black Muslims have developed alternative gazes and liberatory cinematic practices to resist dominant framings of Muslimness in US media. Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. Kam Copeland. Photograph courtesy of Kam Copeland. TreaAndrea M. Russworm: What are some of the consistent stories and insights among texts that are central to your research on media representations of US Black American Muslims? Kam Copeland: The first chapter of my dissertation focuses on The Hate That Hate Produced (WNTA-TV, 1959), a television documentary by Louis Lomax and Mike Wallace about the growth of Black Nationalism that aired in New York. With a primary emphasis on the Nation of Islam (NOI)—which the broadcast refers to as "the Black Muslims"—The Hate That Hate Produced [End Page 8] represents Black Muslimness as theologically inferior and politically menacing to white Western society. I argue that this broadcast produced the trope of the Black Muslim fanatic—a combination of the cinematic caricatures of the Black brute and the Muslim terrorist—via the white hegemonic gaze. Nevertheless, that trope was rejected by a Black radical gaze that reimagined revolutionaries who critiqued white supremacy and US empire (such as Malcolm X) as Third World heroes. After the death of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, new Black public affairs television programs—such as Black Journal (NET/PBS, 1968–1977), Soul! (WNDT, 1968–1973), and Say Brother (WGBH, 1968–1997)—adopted the latter approach to reject the hegemonic gaze's representation of Black Muslimness. The image of the fanatic and the Third World hero is a dichotomy that I trace from the airing of The Hate That Hate Produced to contemporary representations. Russworm: I know your work also argues for considering media through the rubric of the cinematic. What's so generative for you about this approach? Copeland: In centering Black gazes, I focus on collective viewing practices. For example, St. Clair Bourne's documentary The Nation of Common Sense (1970), which aired on the television program Black Journal and profiled the day-to-day lives of Muslims in the NOI, was shown to audiences at banquets and other events hosted by mosques throughout the country. This allowed Muslim audiences to engage in a unified viewing experience, as though watching films at a cinema, while expressing melodic sounds of approval in line with the call-and-response traditions that exist in spiritual expressions throughout the African diaspora. I am also interested in how scholars such as Kara Keeling conceptualize various forms of the moving image, using the rubric of the cinematic to challenge dominant understandings of race, class, and gender.1 While my research and teaching interests focus on Black religion and media, this approach provides me with a framework that emphasizes collective struggle and helps me explore how theologies of Black liberation are mapped onto cinematic experiences and practices. Russworm: Tell us about a film that invites connections about race and religion and also prioritizes a Black cinematic gaze. Copeland: A chapter of my dissertation centers home videos produced in the late 1970s by the El Rukns (formerly known as the Blackstone Rangers), a Chicago-based street organization. While serving a prison sentence, Blackstone Ranger co-founder Jeff Fort embraced Islam and became known as Abdul Malik Ka'bah; he would also change the name of his organization to El Rukn. Although they would eventually embrace Sunni Islam, the El Rukns were initially affiliated with the Moorish Science Temple of America (MSTA), a Muslim movement that arose during the Great Migration in the early twentieth century. In the late 1970s, the El Rukns would host parties at their mosque, or headquarters. Affectionately referred to as "The Fort," it was located at 3947 South Drexel Blvd. in an edifice formerly known as the Oakland Square Theatre. Two home videos...

Governance and counter-terrorism: Engaging moderate and non-violent extremist movements in combatting jihadist-linked terrorism

The increasing involvement of communities in counter-terrorism in the UK and Egypt in the 90s and the early years of the new millennium signals a shift from government to governance in these two countries. This article is an exploration of some of the key governance-related challenges and opportunities in involving mainstream and non-violent extremist Islamic movements in combating jihadist-linked terrorism. We discuss the complexity of engaging communities and moderate and non-violent extremist movements, emphasizing the importance of engaging communities in combating jihadist terrorism. We explore some key Islamist movements from an historical and ideological perspective and look at the involvement of these movements in violence and its prevention. We argue that UK policies in that respect have developed out of ideas of psychological and community resilience. Examples are drawn from the practical involvement of communities, including members of ‘moderate’ and of non-violent ‘extremist’ movements in combating terrorism.

Challenging the Global Cultural Conflict Narrative: An Automated Content Analysis on How Perpetrator Identity Shapes Worldwide News Coverage of Islamist and Right-Wing Terror Attacks

Recent terrorist attacks such as the Christchurch mosque attacks in 2019 renew the discussion of whether right-wing attacks are reported less negatively than Islamist attacks. To clarify this point, our study is the first to combine the selection of media inside and outside the West with a distinction between Islamist and right-wing attacks. We compare coverage given to thirty-two right-wing and forty Islamist attacks from 2015 to 2019 in nine Western and eight non-Western English-language media outlets, tapping the differential use of the “terrorist/terrorism” label and textual sentiment. Both (many) Western and (some) non-Western media use this label more frequently in the coverage of Islamist attacks. Importantly, public diplomacy channels from non-Western countries such as China Daily and Sputnik also demonstrate this pattern. Delegitimizing Islamist attacks more than right-wing attacks thus cannot be explained as merely a Western phenomenon alone. We point to alternative explanations and call for greater standardization of coverage across Islamist and right-wing attacks.

Introducing the Jihadi Plots in Europe Dataset (JPED)

The article introduces a new dataset on terrorist attack activity by jihadis in Western Europe. The dataset was built over nearly two decades at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment. It records not only attacks that were launched, but also plots that were foiled by counterterrorism. The rationale behind the dataset is that analyses based on launched attacks may misrepresent the scale and nature of terrorism. The article shows that if we were to measure the jihadi threat to Europe by attacks only we would miss out on 58.2% of the total attack activity. We also show that while attack data signify a trend towards small attacks by individuals, these data hide the fact that terror networks persist in plotting big attacks that get foiled. We discuss how analyses based on attacks only may distort comparative analyses of different types of terrorists across countries, as well as causal analyses of terrorism drivers. By including foiled plots we gain a fuller picture of terrorism. The Jihadi Plots in Europe Dataset allows the gauging of different aspects of the threat from Al-Qaida and Islamic State in Europe. The dataset documents when and where terror plots occur, whether or not they result in attacks, and different types of information about perpetrators and how they operate. The Dataset offers a reliable overview of jihadi terrorism in Europe for research and policy.

Islamist terrorism and the status of women

We investigate the effect of Islamist terrorist activity on women's legal position in society, using data for 171 countries between 1970 and 2016. To identify causal effects, we exploit the prevalence of Islamist terrorism in neighboring countries as an exogenous source of variation, arguing that regional terrorism affects local terrorism through contagion effects. We show that increased activity by Islamist terrorist groups is linked to lower legal status of women. By contrast, we find that neither Islam per se nor other types of terrorism have comparable effects. This reinforces the notion that Islamist terrorism is singularly interested and effective in weakening women's rights. Our results are consistent with a rational-economic model of terrorism, where Islamist terrorists purposefully use violence to maximize political utility, while governments make concessions that constrain the role of women because the costs of compliance are lower than the harm from continued Islamist terrorism.

See something, say something? The role of online self-disclosure on fear of terror among young social media users

Given that terrorism is omnipresent on social media, it is imperative to study how seeing terror content online is related to individuals’ attitudes, behaviors, and emotions. This study investigates how exposure to terrorism on social media associates with terror-related online self-disclosure and how self-disclosure, in turn, relates to fear of terrorism. A quota-based survey of young social media users (16- to 25-year-olds; N = 864) in Germany revealed that exposure to Islamist and far-right terrorism is related to higher online self-disclosure. Political ideology moderated the relationship between exposure to far-right terrorism and online self-disclosure, but not when exposed to Islamist terrorism. Attitudinal differentiation was negatively associated with self-disclosure. Additionally, we found an interaction effect of exposure to Islamist terrorism and attitudinal differentiation on self-disclosure. Finally, the results showed that online self-disclosure was positively related to fear of terrorism. By and large, our findings highlight the relevance of social media for the levels of fear.

WHERE IS TERRORISM GOING AND ARE CANADIAN AGENCIES PREPARED TO CONFRONT IT?

On November 22, 2022, Mr. Phil Gurski, President and Chief Executive Officer of Borealis Threat and Risk Consulting Ltd., presented on Disruption and National Security. The presentation was followed by a question-and-answer period with questions from the audience and CASIS Vancouver executives. The key points discussed were the difficulties of the current definition of Ideologically Motivated Violent Extremist groups (IMVE), as well as the need for Canada’s security agencies to shift focus from IMVE back to Islamist terrorist organizations. Mr. Gurski also discussed the importance of maintaining public trust through oversight and improved communication with the public, as well as improving technology and understanding context when assessing data sourced from social media platforms. Received: 2022-12-05Revised: 2022-12-28

Discrimination and sorting in the real estate market: Evidence from terrorist attacks and mosques

I evaluate the impact of Islamist terrorist attacks, taken as exogenous shocks which may change individual perceptions towards Middle Easterners and Muslims, on the real-estate market. Using detailed property-level transactions data, I find that US property prices immediately near mosques fell by 5% in the two years following 9/11. I find little evidence of changes in the number of transactions, but an increase of up to 30% in the fraction of Middle Eastern and North African households locating near mosques, indicating increased ethnic and religious sorting from 9/11. Additional evidence suggests that price decreases across areas are in line with increased prejudice.

The Syrian War in Russia’s Intensifying Discourse Against the Unipolar World

This essay examines fi ve possible reasons for Russia’s military involvement in the Syrian War. These reasons under consideration are an anti-terror policy, resistance to the unipolarity, domestic populism, overcoming Russia’s isolation after Crimea crisis, and defence of the B. Assad government. I conclude that only the anti-terror and anti-unipolar world motivations were relevant and merged into a single cognitive framework that is prone to launching Syrian military operation. Other factors, such as a paradigmatic shift of the image of the post-unipolar world, as well as overcon fi dence in air force and artillery, also con fi rm that the Syrian War cognitively prepared Russia for its future military operation in Ukraine. Russian policymakers became convinced that the unipolar world was coming to an end. In the case of Syria (2015), the ill-fated US-led anti-terror operations intensi fi ed Islamic terrorism, which created an existential threat for Russia. In the case of Ukraine (2022), the United States, whose grip on world hegemony they believed was on the decline, was trying to use Ukraine as a bridgehead for military aggression against Russia. This study is a result of an extensive survey of the relevant literature and my own expert interviews conducted in Moscow in March 2020.