Islamic Terrorism Research Articles

In the Shackles of Instability: Challenges of Operation Barkhane in the G5 Sahel Countries

Suffering from a multidimensional crisis, the Sahel has morphed into the new center of terror. In the past few years, it has become one of the most hazardous places in the world, which has negatively transformed the fragile states of the Western-African region. Emerging as a novel security policy challenge, the G5 Sahel countries – namely Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger – have found themselves stuck in a quagmire of different deep-rooted human security issues, which have placed their populations in a vicious circle of closely intertwined problems. Various influences threaten not just the security of residents and foreign actors but also the security of neighboring states. Different regional and international actors are trying to solve this complex crisis with varying levels of success. In this environment, in the shackles of instability, the presence of jihadist terrorist organizations and the operations of different rebel armed forces independent from governments pose a growing threat by making Sahelian life a living hell. This paper aims to discuss the challenges and effectiveness of Operation Barkhane, the terminating counter-terrorism operation led by the French, which has started its strategical transformation by merging into the European initiative known as the Takuba Task Force. Under President Emmanuel Macron, France remains the most important actor in the international community. In close alliance and cooperation with the African leaders and military forces of the five countries involved, they have been fighting terrorism within the confines of Operation Barkhane since 2014. Until recently 5,100 French soldiers have been deployed. They risk their lives every day in an incredibly hostile and constantly changing field where either they or the jihadists are under fire. Even though this operation has become an essential part of providing security in these countries, French participation remains controversial: despite their willingness to help, heavily armed French soldiers are not the most popular throughout the region. The importance of the topic speaks for itself because the transformation of the operation and the withdrawal of half of the French troops may have a drastic impact on the future of the Sahel.

The Impacts of Organizational Structure on Salafi-Jihadist Terrorist Groups in Africa

Africa has become a haven for jihadist terrorist organizations that run the gamut from local groups fighting to avenge political and economic grievances to splinter groups affiliated with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) or al-Qaeda. Jihadist gr

The inclusion of women in jihad: gendered practices of legitimation in Islamic State recruitment propaganda

ABSTRACT Although jihadist terrorist organisations envisage a society divided according to strict gender roles, they have increasingly turned to women in pursuit of their goals. This is a double-edged sword for jihadist groups: while recruitment of women increases the pool of activists, the discrepancy between their patriarchal beliefs and women’s enlistment may have implications for their legitimacy. How jihadists address this dilemma in their appeals to women, however, has received little attention to date. Integrating literature on recruitment and legitimacy, this article looks at the case of ISIS from a gender lens to explore how the group reconciled its recruitment of women with its patriarchal ideology. A critical discourse analysis of the group’s publications between 2015 and 2017 reveals three gendered narratives that ISIS has used to substantiate its recruitment of women. These narratives depict women as builders of the Ummah, representatives of Islam, and guardians of the Caliphate. In all constructs, it is argued, women are assigned agency, with their violent agency specifically developing over time. The legitimation attempts of ISIS provide insight into the growing appeal to enlist women by patriarchal terrorist organisations, their ability to rationalise this, and the potentially refutable claims to counter this trend.

Law enforcement and academic studies in Italy and the United States: a comparison

ABSTRACT The article highlights the principal themes addressed in recent Italian and American historical studies of law enforcement, as well as proposals for removing major social obstacles such as discrimination in the police and the policing of social protest, Islamic terrorism and organized crime or the excessive use of force by law enforcement agencies against the citizenship. An introduction to historical studies on the origins of local law enforcement in the United States is followed by a description of the concept of policing, namely the interaction between police and citizens, a subject addressed by most American criminologists, sociologists and historians. On the other hand, Italian jurists and historians have preferred to focus on the history of the Italian state police (Polizia di Stato) or on the national gendarmerie (Arma dei Carabinieri), and to highlight the primarily the critical times of Fascism and the so-called ‘Years of Lead’. The police function to counter crime, but to do so, they adapt themselves to the kind of crime being prosecuted. A comparative overview of the main issues addressed in the two historiographies illustrates how after the 9/11 attacks law enforcement evolved in both the United States and Italy specifically to fight Islamic terrorism, and how new special units have been formed to counter crimes such as drug trafficking and Mafia rackets. But structural changes in local and state law enforcement work are also connected with changes in the authority of the state, suggesting that historians need to explore more closely the connections between security bodies, citizens and social control.

Willingness to sacrifice among convicted Islamist terrorists versus violent gang members and other criminals

Is terrorism just another form of criminal activity, as many nations’ justice systems assume? We offer an initial answer using face-to-face interviews and structured surveys in thirty-five Spanish prisons. Recent theories of extreme sacrifice inform this direct observational and comparative study. Islamist terrorists display levels of self-sacrifice for their primary reference group similar to that of Latino gangs, but greater willingness to sacrifice for primary values than other inmates (non-radical Muslims, Latino gangs, and delinquent bands). This disposition is motivated by stronger perceived injustice, discrimination, and a visceral commitment to such values (risk/radicalization factors). Nevertheless, state authorities, prison staff, and families are (protective/de-radicalization) factors apt to reduce willingness to sacrifice and keep foreign fighters, now being released in large numbers, from returning to terrorism.

Dominant predictors of violent versus non-violent terrorist roles among US Muslim converts

ABSTRACT Terrorism is a diverse form of violence, and terrorists are also diverse in terms of their characteristics, motivations for participating, and the roles they take within terrorism. Though terrorism studies have mostly focused on developing broad theories of why people participate in terrorism in general, some scholars have advocated for research that tests specific, contextually bound hypotheses and a disaggregation of terrorism by its roles. This study explores which variables most strongly predict violent (i.e. active planning/commission of terrorist violence) versus non-violent (i.e. passive support) involvement in Islamist terrorism among US Muslim converts (N = 131). After rigorously coding open-source data, a dominance analysis indicated that three variables (out of hundreds) were the dominant predictors of whether a subject took on a violent versus non-violent role (V/N-V), accounting for 25% of variance in V/N-V. Subjects who had owned and/or trained with a weapon, were domestic (versus international) terrorists, and had publicly declared their extremist beliefs were significantly more likely to plan or perpetrate terrorist violence, whereas variables related to radicalization, socialization, and socio-demographics had no impact on V/N-V. These results reinforce that terrorism is not monolithic and that understanding antecedent and operational behaviors may hold the most utility for preventing terrorist violence.

Afghanistan, regional powers and non‐traditional security threats and challenges

AbstractIn February 2020, the United States (US) and the Taliban signed a peace deal in Doha, Qatar which stipulated US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan by 1 May 2021. The Biden administration extended the deadline to 11 September 2021. The Doha agreement does not augur peace and stability in Afghanistan with the country predicted to suffer from protracted violence and even a civil war. The instability in Afghanistan will also cascade into the neighbourhood and beyond and lead to non‐traditional threats/challenges. In the new millennium, while Russia, Iran and some Central Asian countries have borne the brunt of the narcotics trade emanating from Afghanistan, these countries along with India, China and Pakistan have also suffered from increase in terrorist attacks due to an unstable Afghanistan. Human migration has also negatively impacted the socio‐economic and political milieu of Pakistan and Iran. This special section assesses the non‐traditional security challenges/threats such as transnational Islamic fundamentalist terrorism, drugs/narcotics trade and human migration in the region and beyond posed by increasing instability and protracted violence in Afghanistan as a consequence of US withdrawal, and discusses the role (or the lack) of international and regional organizations and country initiatives in providing solutions to overcome or mitigate these problems.

Western Sahara: deep differences over conflict settlement

The conflict in Western Sahara has been going on for thirty-five years, and neither side has won. The parties to the conflict are in an all-or-nothing logic regarding the outcome of this conflict: Morocco preaches the autonomy of the Sahara as the part of the kingdom, and the Algerians and Saharans from the Frente Polisario waives the demands for autonomy. However, in the absence of a clear victory of one of the participants, the political solution need necessarily include a compromise reflecting the balance of power. In an effort to pacify and develop a region that could become a haven for Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Washington, Paris and Madrid could support the new Representative of the Secretary-General in finding a solution that could satisfy all parties, giving this result aspects of compromise. Nevertheless, they will have to take into account both the Saharans as a whole and the geostrategic balance of the region. This article discusses the problems of decolonization and interethnic conflicts. This conflict concentrates the opposition of several geopolitical blocs in one place. On the one hand, he opposes two regional powers: Morocco and Algeria. On the other hand, it opposes two blocs consisting of Morocco and Western countries, against Algeria, a traditional ally of Russia, and large African countries such as Nigeria. This article highlights the inadequacy of international organizations. The issue of stabilizing the situation in Western Sahara is even more important today in the context of Islamic terrorism in the Sahel. Terrorism is spreading in economically and politically unstable countries. The question of the independence of Western Sahara or its integration as an autonomous territory within Morocco must be resolved before terrorism intervenes in Sahari affairs.

Witnessing “imperfect victims”

ABSTRACTAfter the 9/11 attacks, Pakistan's military government unleashed a program of extrajudicial detentions to surveil and track down “Islamic terrorists.” These men are known as the “missing” or “disappeared” persons in the movement mobilized by their families to protest the abductions. Ethnographic research with the families of “missing persons” in Pakistan, however, involves working with people whom I call “imperfect victims”—that is, persons who do not easily fit the subject position of those occupying the “suffering slot.” Such imperfect victims often rely on nonnormative ethics of grief and sacrifice to help them make sense of violence stemming from larger political‐economic structures of power. An ethnography of imperfect victims responds to calls for going beyond the “suffering subject” in anthropology. It does so by questioning the humanitarian assumption in anthropology that suffering is a common, apolitical ground for all humanity and that a politics of solidarity can be built on the suffering of others. [witnessing, suffering subject, ethnography, human rights, disappearances, missing persons, Pakistan, South Asia]

Adolescents Engaged in Radicalisation and Terrorism: A Dimensional and Categorical Assessment.

Since 2010 and the founding of the Islamic State, the radicalisation phenomenon in Europe has involved more adolescents and converts to Islam than in previous Islamist terrorist group movements (e.g., Al-Qaeda). In most cases, these adolescents are “homegrown terrorists,” a challenging difference, as they are in confrontation with their home and societal environment. As a new and emerging phenomenon, radicalisation leads to many questions. Are empathic capacities altered? Are they presenting psychiatric pathologies or suicidal tendencies that explain why they put themselves in serious dangers? Are they just young delinquents who simply met a radical ideology? In January 2018, by special Justice Department authorisation, we contacted all minors (N = 31) convicted in France for “criminal association to commit terrorism.” We assessed several sociodemographic, clinical and psychological variables, including empathy and suicidality, in half of them (N = 15) and compared them with 101 teenagers convicted for non-terrorist delinquency who were placed in Closed Educational Centres (CEC). The results show that adolescents engaged in radicalisation and terrorism do not have a significant prevalence of psychiatric disorders, suicidal tendencies or lack of empathy. It also appears that they have different psychological profiles than delinquent adolescents. “Radicalised” adolescents show better intellectual skills, insight capacities and coping strategies. In addition, the manifestation of their difficulties is less externalised than adolescents from the CEC, having committed very few delinquent acts.

Tweeting terrorism: Vernacular conceptions of Muslims and terror in the wake of the Manchester Bombing on Twitter

ABSTRACT Both vernacular security studies and critical terrorism studies (CTS) offer constructivist analyses of security couched in understandings of security speak. However, neither adequately take account of the ways in which social media presents important opportunities for greater insight into how terrorism is constructed. This study analyses tweets posted after the 2017 Manchester bombing, exploring how jihadist terror attacks are constructed on social media. To do this, we combine social network analysis, as a sampling method, with discourse analysis. The study finds that Twitter provides a platform for diverse terrorism discourses to be expressed and contested. This indicates a literate lay audience within post-attack narratives, self-aware of dominant social constructions of “Muslim terrorism”. Indeed, it suggests an audience that, on Twitter, is hardly only audience but seeks to speak security itself. Insights are gleaned with respect to depicting, defending, and critiquing Muslims, constructing what it means to be a terrorist, portrayals of victimhood, and how terror events feed into broader critiques of “political correctness” and “liberal” politics. Therefore, the analysis also provides further insights into the portrayal and (self-)positioning of Muslims in the wake of a jihadist attack and nuances accounts of Muslims’ securitisation qua terror.

Эволюция феномена терроризма в Италии

European security today faces new challenges that are not directly related to military force. Among them, first of all, is the threat of terrorism, which has both internal and external dimensions. The article is devoted to the study of the phenomenon of terrorism in the European Union on the example of Italy. The author analyses four types of this threat posed by terrorists according to their political motivation: separatism, left- and right-wing domestic political terrorism, and Islamist terrorism. Italian law distinguishes between the concepts of terrorism, radicalism and subversion. According to the 2015 law, terrorism is defined as conduct that, by its nature or context, may cause serious harm to a country or an international organization. It is aimed at intimidating the population or forcing the State or international organizations to commit or refuse to commit any action. The evolution of the phenomenon of terrorism in Italy is of particular interest because it reflects both general and specific features of the terrorist threat in Europe. From the late 1960s to the 1970s and until the beginning of the 1980s, Italian society had been facing the most brutal manifestations of terrorism. During this period, terrorism evolved from ideological far-right extremism to ultra-left revolutionary extremism, which turns to violence against the State and its servants, calling for a communist transformation of society. By the end of the 1980s, the terrorist threat in Italy had been significantly reduced. The decline in terrorist activity in the 1980s is explained, in addition to the increased effectiveness of the intelligence services and the police, by the decline in political activity in Italy after the upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s. The author draws attention to one of the paradoxes of Islamist terrorism in Italy. Despite the fact that Italy bears the main flow of migration waves that can carry the threat of terrorism to Europe, the country has so far been spared from the large-scale threat of such kind. The example of Italy is also important because today the country’s leadership is the most effective in counterterrorism in comparison with other EU states.

Operation «Barkhan»: An inglorious end?

In June 2021, French President Emmanuel Macron announced the forthcoming withdrawal of troops from the states of the Sahel and termination of Operation «Barkhan». It was initiated in 2014 towards to battle with Islamic terrorism in Africa. The theater of war has spread to the five states of the Sahel - Mali, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad. The actions of the expeditionary force were not successful. The presence of French troops in the region caused growing discontent among Africans. It became obvious that they were not here to fight terrorism, but to protect French interests in West Africa. Military-political crisis 2020-2021 in Mali, the removal of President I.B. Keita from power in this country has changed the attitude of the French towards what is happening in the Sahel. E.Macron was unable to attract the EU countries to participate actively in hostilities against Islamists and separatists in West Africa. In the context of the crisis caused by the COVD-19 pandemic, the growth of protest actions of the «yellow vests», criticism of his policy from political opponents, the French president decided to withdraw troops from the Sahel. In addition, Macron sends a signal to the leaders of the countries belonging to the military-political alliance G5 Sahel: you hold on to power as long as you rely on French bayonets. Finally, he hopes to boost his rating on the eve of the election in 2022.

Islamic terrorism in Mozambique and the role of the United States

The author explores the origins of the current Islamist insurgency in the northern province of Mozambique Cabo Delgado and the factors that enabled it to develop: a local traditional Islamic leadership out of touch with the interests of younger Muslims; an economic and social deprivation in the North of Mozambique amid a wealth of natural resources; the corruption and an ineffective local governance. The current and potential assistance to Mozambique”s flagging counterterrorism efforts on the part of African states – SADC’s members and USA are also reviewed though Washington while supporting SADC’s military operations limited itself until recently to periodical participation of the US special forces in the training of Mozambican security detachments to fight local jihadists.

Queering Iranian Diasporic Cyberspace, Critiquing the Conditions of Belonging

Queering Iranian Diasporic Cyberspace, Critiquing the Conditions of Belonging

Bangladeshi Support for Domestic Islamist Terrorism: Insights from a Novel Survey

Bangladeshi Support for Domestic Islamist Terrorism: Insights from a Novel Survey

Нелегальная миграция: вызов для Великобритании (февраль 2020 – июль 2021 г.)

The article is devoted to the problem of the rapid growth of number of illegal migrants smuggled into the United Kingdom after the end of its exit from the European Union (Brexit, 31 December 2020) – during the transition period (1 February – 31 December 2020) and in the first part of 2021. The topic of illegal migration into the UK during its withdrawal from the EU (Brexit, 29 March 2017–31 December 2020) is considered in the article to the extent that it helps to highlight the different facets of the main subject of the research. Scrutinizing the genesis of the problem of illegal migration in the United Kingdom from 2003 to 2021, the article shows that the rapid rise of the migrants’ smugglings across the English Channel in small boats in 2020 – the first part of 2021 has become the challenge for the country. The termination of Great Britain’s membership in the European Union and the COVID 19 pandemic are regarded as the main reasons for it. The author enumerates actions made by the Boris Johnson’s cabinet which aimed at creating new legal framework for readmission of illegal migrants by the EU countries after the end of the transition period. The article pays attention to the strengthening of Anglo-French boarder cooperation as a way to cope with the transfer of illegal migrants to the UK. The creation of new British immigration law after the transition period is seen as a method of struggling with gangs of smugglers and as a means to curb rising influx of illegal migrants. The article considers the dependence of public and social security from tackling of illegal immigration as a source of the Islamist terrorism activity in the country. The author answers the question about the perspectives of the migrant transfer to Great Britain in the nearest future.

Postures of Disbelief: Secularism and Postcolonialism in Tabish Khair's How to Fight Islamist Terror from the Missionary Position

:In this essay I explore the place of secularism in Tabish Khair's novel, How to Fight Islamist Terror from the Missionary Position. More specifically, I argue that the novel's narrator, a secular Muslim academic in Denmark, harbors a particular kind of secularism that is explicitly hostile to Islam, a hostility that is borne, in large part, from anxieties about terrorism and xenophobia. The narrator's version of secularism, however, raises the question of how secularism and postcolonialism encounter one another. The novel itself generates a critique of the narrator's secularism, suggesting that it impairs his ability to achieve the kind of Saidian secular criticism that would recognize Islam (and religion in general) as a central factor of the postcolonial intellectuals that secular academics purport to re-voice and empower.

The Impact of Islamist Terrorism on Africa's Informal Economy: Kenya, Compared with Ghana and Senegal

The Impact of Islamist Terrorism on Africa's Informal Economy: Kenya, Compared with Ghana and Senegal

Russia and the Rise of Islamic Terrorism in Sub-Saharan Africa

Russia and the Rise of Islamic Terrorism in Sub-Saharan Africa