Violent Jihad Research Articles

Three reformers against violent jihad

Three reformers against violent jihad

Islamic State Propaganda: Between Social Movement Framing and Subcultural Provocation

ABSTRACT The Islamic State (IS) has become notorious for violent, brutal actions and the presentation of these actions in social and mainstream media. Excessive violence creates a spectacle for the news media. However, IS propaganda also emphasizes its role in state building and its engagement in social and welfare work. This twofold propaganda enables the mobilization of different audiences, but it also sends conflicting messages about the organization. In this article, we study the e-magazine Dabiq, emphasizing its methods of gaining support and attempting to recruit Western participants to violent jihadism. We use theories of social movement and subculture to reveal some of the underlying tensions in IS’s communicative strategies. The analysis first identifies how IS frames its propaganda, attempting to mobilize widespread support. Then, it highlights another dimension of IS’s rhetoric: provocations, the creation of sensationalist spectacles of violence and links to excitement seeking, stardom, and popular culture. We conclude that combining general anti-Western rhetoric and religious imagery with extraordinary depictions of violence has been both a strength and flaw in the organization’s propaganda.

Lack of rule of law as a push factor leading to violent radicalization in the North Caucasus (2002–2015)

ABSTRACTFollowing the collapse of the USSR, a violent jihadist organization called the Caucasus Emirate emerged in Russia, before subsequently splitting up in 2015 when most of its members swore allegiance to the Islamic State. The root causes of violent radicalization are complex but, according to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), there are certain universal “push factors”: perceptions of injustice, human rights violations, lack of rule of law, social-political exclusion and widespread corruption. Since all the factors coincide in the North Caucasus, the hypothesis of this study is that the lack of rule of law has been one of the main push factors leading to violent extremism in the specific case of the Republic of Ingushetia.

Do U.S. Drone Strikes Cause Blowback? Evidence from Pakistan and Beyond

Abstract Many analysts argue that U.S. drone strikes generate blowback: by killing innocent civilians, such strikes radicalize Muslim populations at the local, national, and even transnational levels. This claim, however, is based primarily on anecdotal evidence, unreliable media reports, and advocacy-driven research by human rights groups. Interview and survey data from Pakistan, where, since 2004, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has launched more than 430 drone strikes, show little or no evidence that drone strikes have a significant impact on militant Islamist recruitment either locally or nationally. Rather, the data reveal the importance of factors such as political and economic grievances, the Pakistani state's selective counterterrorism policies, its indiscriminate repression of the local population, and forced recruitment of youth by militant groups. Similarly, trial testimony and accounts of terrorists convicted in the United States, as well as the social science scholarship on Muslim radicalization in the United States and Europe, provide scant evidence that drone strikes are the main cause of militant Islamism. Instead, factors that matter include a transnational Islamic identity's appeal to young immigrants with conflicted identities, state immigration and integration policies that marginalize Muslim communities, the influence of peers and social networks, and online exposure to violent jihadist ideologies within the overall context of U.S. military interventions in Muslim countries.

ISIS and the Sectarian Political Ontology: Radical Islam, Violent Jihadism and the Claims for Revival of the Caliphate

Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) as a radical organisation acquired a massive global appeal by virtue of stretching its ideological influence beyond Arab-centric focus and recruiting followers from across the world. Central to such widespread popularity was the conception of a unified Islamic Ummah which is located in a transnational Islamic State (IS) (Caliphate) that is governed in accordance to the tenets of Islamic law (shari’a). However, at the heart of this idea was a militant sectarian political ontology that distorted the notion of a unified Islamic Ummah. Articulated as a global grand strategy, the cosmopolitan Islamic imagination of the ISIS has been nothing more than a myopic assertion of a fanatic ideology of violence and terrorism. By sustaining such a notion through a forceful imposition of a Kharijite brand of extremism and sectarianism, the ISIS sought to contort the tolerant multifaceted and multilayered fabric of Islam that tends to accommodate diverse ethno-nationalistic, linguistic and racial pluralities and believes in the metaphysical communion of multiple faiths. The aim behind such an endeavour was the elimination of all those whom the ISIS considers as opposed to its ideology which is embedded in a narrow sectarian interpretation of what it designates as pure Islam. The genealogical impulse that lies at the bottom of such an ideology was its grand vision to assume a hegemonic position in the sphere of global jihadi movements.

The ritualization of heritage destruction under the Islamic State

This article develops the conceptual framework of the ritualization of heritage destruction to analyse and interpret the targeting of pre-monotheistic heritage sites and artefacts by the Islamic State. It draws upon anthropological studies of initiation rituals in violent male cults alongside literature on heritage destruction to conduct a systematic analysis of key Islamic State propaganda outlets. The analysis reveals that the heritage destruction wrought by the Islamic State functions as part of a broader process of ritualization that is instrumental in forming bonds between members and ensuring their allegiance. Such rituals serve multiple purposes: they physically and ideologically separate new recruits from existing social norms and laws; they breed a deference to leadership and create a unified identity towards the potentiality of violence; and they situate heritage destruction itself within a complex symbolic kaleidoscope of prescribed actions and specific attire, invoking connections to an imagined past and repeating the actions of their forbearers. The article concludes by noting that such analysis of the ritualization of heritage destruction is not only vital to understanding how groups such as the Islamic State successfully transform ordinary young men into a violent jihadist communitas, but also in further understanding, and responding to, such attacks on heritage sites.

Mapping Today's Jihadi Landscape and Threat

This article examines the current state of the global jihad movement and offers reflections on its likely trajectory in the foreseeable future. It concludes that while the global jihad temporarily has been set back by the relative decline of the Islamic State, the movement overall benefits from al-Qaeda's regeneration; its ongoing ideological appeal; and its structural decentralization. In the next years, the movement likely will continue to evolve from its current bipolar structure toward an increasingly multipolar entity. Furthermore, it argues that the future jihadi movement will contain a large number of jihadi actors whose relationships will span cooperative, competitive, or mixed engagements, with implications for the movement as a whole. The article highlights several challenges for counterterrorism, including dealing with a complex movement structure; radicalization; socio-political disenfranchisement; the counter-response of societies targeted by jihadist violence; and technological changes. The article concludes with an assessment that in the next two to five years, the global jihad will remain a potent, although not an existential, threat.This article is part of a special project conducted by the Foreign Policy Research Institute, titled: “After the Caliphate: Reassessing the Jihadi Threat and Stabilizing the Fertile Crescent,” which includes a book, a thematic issue of Orbis: FPRI's Journal of World Affairs (Summer 2018), and a series of podcasts. Each element of the project can be found here:https://www.fpri.org/research/after-the-caliphate-project/.

Jihadi Rebels in Civil War

In this essay, I decouple violent jihadism from both religion and terrorism and propose an alternative, nonexclusive understanding of jihadi groups as rebel groups engaged in civil wars. Arguing that jihadi groups can be profitably approached as the current species of revolutionary insurgents, I offer a comparison with an older species, the Marxist rebels of the Cold War. I point to a few significant similarities and differences between these two types of revolutionary rebels and draw some key implications, stressing the great challenges facing jihadi rebels in civil wars.

Pilgrimage to Mecca and “Radical” Islam: New trends from Sub-Saharan Africa

ABSTRACTIn sub-Saharan Africa, the pilgrimage to Mecca is an old tradition, and the Holy City has a global impact on the mobility of Muslims and the circulation of Islamic ideas. However, the proportion of sub-Saharan Muslims making the pilgrimage to Mecca has been decreasing, especially from Nigeria, the most populated country on the continent. Indeed, the opportunities to visit Mecca are limited by internal and external constraints that depend on many political, economic, and social factors. As a result, the yearly numbers of pilgrims do not say much about religiosity or the propensity for jihadist violence. In this regard, it is more important to understand from a historical point of view the role of Mecca in the so-called radicalization of Islam in Africa south of the Sahara.

The Concept of Jihad in Islamic Texts: An Analytical Study of Violence between Mainstream Scholars and Extremists

This paper seeks to analyze both the Islamic texts dealing with jihad and the relationship between them and its practice. The desire to promote peace and harmony is based on general Islamic religious purposes, or Maqāṣid al-šarīʿa, of the two interpretations of the extremists and mainstream scholars. Bearing in mind that these texts are believed to be divinely-inspired, the interpretations are, however, human. The said texts have been the subject of two broad interpretational approaches: the orthodox interpretation that is widely accepted by the mainstream and supported by Islamic principles in general, and the interpretations of certain minorities that are rejected by the mainstream. This paper seeks to examine the qualitative research methodology and theological analysis used by contemporary extremists groups of what seems to be textual evidence of “violent jihad” in Islam. The significance of this study is to investigate the appropriate use of interpretations that could be acceptable to mainstream scholars and reflects the real nature of Islamic principles. Subsequently, it concludes that the violence that is manifested in extremist activities is the result of the misinterpretation of some Islamic texts regarding jihad, and that, in contrast, the best modern interpretation of jihad is ğihad al-nafs, which, alongside many other meanings that promote peace, has been declared the correct path by mainstream scholars in their response to the extremists.

The Rise of Pan‐Islamic Terrorism in Africa: A Global Security Challenge

Although the vast majority of Africans are peaceful moderates, radical Islamic ideology that fuels pan‐Islamic terrorism is on the rise in the continent because of factors that can be categorized under push and pull forces. The push forces are conditions that drive people to embrace the ideology of violent jihad. These involve: local backlash against Americanization/globalization; authoritarian/oppressive political systems; lack of basic human rights; youth bulge/high unemployment; corruption/lack of meritocracy, state collapse; and porous borders. The pull factors are the advantages terrorist/jihadi movements have that attract people to their cause. These include: radical Islamic ideology; humanitarian networks; media propaganda; provision of a “purpose and mission”; the lure of martyrdom and influences of Madrassas. I argue these factors create global security challenges: an existential threat to the Westphalian state system; the creation of terror‐safe havens; displacement and mass global migration; massive global civilian casualties; and a conflict resolution conundrum.Related Articles Antwi‐Boateng, Osman. 2015. “.” Politics & Policy 43 (): 754‐784. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/polp.12129/abstract Collins, Stephen D. 2014. “.” Politics & Policy 42 (): 131‐159. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/polp.12061/abstract Kim, Hae S. 2009. “.” Politics & Policy 37 (): 395‐414. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1747-1346.2009.00177.x/abstract Related Media . “Terrorism on African Soil.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v = eXzyLh3vfU8 2013. “Does the Rise of Terrorist Activity in North Africa Pose a Threat to the West?” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v = 0WAJ-IQOkCU 2015. “Terrorism in Africa.” http://www.cnbcafrica.com/video/?bctid = 4629001472001

Regionalization of violent jihadism and beyond: the case of Daesh

Abstract In the early 21st century, violent extremism in general and Islamist violence in particular have been dominated by several jihadist movements that are regionally-based, primarily operate at regional level and have been undergoing the bottom-up regionalization process. All these movements are major combatants in the world!s most intense regional armed conflicts and the lead terrorist actors against non-combatants. All try to build Islamic states in their regions. They are distinct from both peripheral Islamist/separatist insurgencies fought at subnational level and from al-Qaeda as an inherently extraterritorial movement and ideology, with a fully globalized agenda. Against this background, Daesh, or the “Islamic State”, did not emerge as a global phenomenon, but as a regional movement in the Iraq-Syria context, driven by bottom-up regional dynamics and conflicts facilitated by collapse or weakness of states of the region, fueled by sectarianism and catalyzed by external interventions. The key que...

Www.Jihadusa.com: Al Qaeda, the Internet, and Homegrown Terrorism in the United States

The purpose of my paper is to examine the growing trend of al Qaeda and its affiliates, particularly al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’s (AQAP) embrace of recruitment and radicalization of Muslims within the United States. Many experts have discounted the threat of homegrown radicalization and embrace of jihad taking place in the United States given greater assimilation, low poverty rates, and high educational attainment levels in many U.S. Muslim communities relative to those in Europe. However, al Qaeda and AQAP’s recruitment strategy has evolved. The Internet has now become the most important element and allows anyone anywhere access to intermediaries, like-minded individuals via blogs, chatrooms, Facebook, and Twitter, as well as audio and video sermons, messages, and publications. The recruitment strategy has become “bottom-up” comprising messages that compel would be jihadists to view the West as naturally at odds and at war with Islam. The ultimate goal is to force U.S. Muslims to choose sides, according to al Qaeda, you cannot be a good Muslim and embrace the West at the same time. Once you have chosen the path to Islam, the only logical and righteous path is the embrace of violent jihad against the enemies of Islam, the United States. Al Qaeda and AQAP’s recruitment also emphasizes the individual duty of every Muslim to join the global struggle or Ummah, and carry out jihad. By utilizing the Internet, al Qaeda and AQAP hope to allow Muslims in America to identify with and feel the same sense of subjugation and oppression felt by Muslims in Europe and other parts of the world where these factors had left Muslims more susceptible to recruitment. The paper also addresses other like-minded groups that have also embraced these al Qaeda Internet strategies, namely Al-Shabaab. In order to attract recruits from the U.S., the group also markets itself as part of the global universal Muslim struggle, and entices potential recruits via the Internet to embrace the “Ummah consciousness” and thus necessarily jihad against America. The paper will also address counterterrorist strategies aimed at preventing attacks perpetrated by those radicalized and recruited in the Unites States.

‘Swanning back in’? Foreign fighters and the long arm of the state

As foreign fighters have flocked to conflicts in Syria and elsewhere, their home governments have often claimed a right not only to criminalise their doing so, but also to deprive them of the right to return. This article challenges some problematic assumptions about the intersection among political allegiance, extraterritorial jurisdiction and the right of abode. It traces the origins of today’s conventional wisdom to a particular modern experience of state–society relations, including the rise of administrative ambitions that outrun the original bounds of the territorial state. In contrast, it argues for an ‘unbundling’ of state authority, prepolitical membership in society, and cross-border political action. This position would chasten overreaching views about states’ ownership of their citizens, while still leaving other ways to deal with jihadist violence.

Brothers, Believers, Brave Mujahideen: Focusing Attention on the Audience of Violent Jihadist Preachers

ABSTRACTThe exponential growth in the use of the Internet and social media by terrorist actors and violent extremists has generated research interest into terrorism and the Internet. Much of this research is focused on the kinds of messages being spread via the various media platforms that host violent extremist content. This research has yielded significant insights into how organizations such as Al Qaeda and Islamic State craft their messages, the mediums they use to disseminate their messages, and the ways in which they reach their audiences. Yet we are still no closer to understanding why certain messaging appeals to certain people in certain ways and not to others. Within the literature on terrorism and the Internet, the audience—those individuals who receive messages, make meaning from them and then decide whether to act on them—is conspicuously missing. As a result, research into terrorism and the Internet can only hypothesize about the nature and extent of influence that terrorist messages wield. It is often based on an assumption that the violent extremist narrative works like a magic bullet to radicalize audiences already vulnerable and predisposed to becoming violent. Utilizing media theory approaches to studying the audience as an active agent in meaning-making, this article proposes a research framework for developing the current focus on terrorism and the Internet.

The use of crypto-currencies in funding violent jihad

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to look at current discourse on the topic of crypto-currencies, more specifically Bitcoins, and their application to funding acts of terror. The paper clearly establishes the risks posed by this new payment technology and value transfer system to assist in the process of funding, planning and implementing acts of terror. Design/methodology/approach Publications, blogs and sites published and administered by terrorists groups and their supporters are examined to determine their interest in leveraging emerging payment and value transfer systems to facilitate the funding, planning and implementation of terror attacks. Press releases and other publications are also examined to determine whether crypto-currencies have been used by these groups in fund raising, fund transfer or recent terror attacks. Findings Although it is difficult to find concrete evidence of largescale use of Bitcoins and other crypto-currencies by terrorist groups and their supporters, there is strong evidence to suggest that they have been linked to a number of terror attacks in Europe and Indonesia. Supporters of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), jihadists and terrorist organisations are actively looking to and promoting the use of new and emerging technologies, such as Bitcoin, to mitigate some of the risks associated with traditional fund transfer methods. Some websites associated with terrorist organisations have started to collect donations in Bitcoins. Many Bitcoin ATMs and Bitcoin exchanges are located in countries that have seen significant numbers of foreign fighters join ISIS in the Middle East and are also positioned in countries that have seen increased risk of terror attack. These present a significant risk because they allow for the seamless, anonymous transfer of funds to and from terrorist groups and their supporters. The paper highlights the need for further in-depth research into reliable ways to circumvent the current difficulties experienced in differentiating illicit transactions from legitimate ones and establishing reliable means of attribution. Originality/value Using a document published by ISIS, which provides would-be jihadists detailed instructions on how they can get to Syria or Iraq without being detected, a set of models were created showing how this could be achieved using Bitcoins alone. From this scenario, red flag indicators and suspicious behaviour models have been created to determine whether they can be identified during detailed analysis of the Bitcoin blockchain which will be conducted in later stages of research.

“What ISIS Really Wants” Revisited: Religion Matters in Jihadist Violence, but How?

ABSTRACTIn his influential and provocative article on “What ISIS Really Wants,” published in The Atlantic in March 2015, Graeme Wood argued that “the Islamic state is Islamic. Very Islamic.” He also sought to challenge what he diagnosed as a “western bias” among academics and policymakers toward religious ideology, whereby religious doctrines or beliefs are relegated to the status of epiphenomena rather than taken seriously as causal properties in their own right. Wood's article sparked a wider—and still ongoing—debate over the relationship between Islam and jihadist violence. For one side in this debate, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is inexplicable without reference to Islamic scripture; indeed, some commentators and politicians have even argued that it represents the “true” face of Islam; for the other side, ISIS is a hideous distortion of Islam's “true” teachings, and is inexplicable without reference to the wider political circumstances in which it emerged and to which it is a response. This article attempts to forge a middle way between these two polarized viewpoints by arguing that any comprehensive account of ISIS must recognize both its secular and theological bases. More specifically, and drawing on the work of the intellectual historian Quentin Skinner, it argues that Wood's critics, in their understandable but misplaced eagerness to detach Islam from jihadist violence, fail to accord proper causal weight to the legitimizing role of revolutionary Islamic ideas—and the innovating ideologists who develop these—in the commission of this violence.

Jihadist insurgency and the prospects for peace and security

Modern jihadist insurgency movements pose a threat to global peace and security. Modern jihadist insurgencies are not necessarily posing new operational challenges, instead it is the ideology and belief systems justifying the use of violence that we need to understand better. The ideology fuelling modern jihadist insurgencies, motivating the fighters, acting as a tool for recruiting and support is the key strength these groups have and the one area we have yet to adequately address. We must work to better understand this ideology and how it is utilised otherwise the threat from violent jihadist movements may continue for a very long time.

Language, exclusion and violent jihad: are they related?

ABSTRACTThis paper advances the hypothesis that an inability to fully participate in an immigrant parent’s first language as a minority community language, and associated pressures this can put on the individual’s sense of personal identity and self-esteem, can be a contributing factor to the profound alienation that has been implicated in the rise of Islamic extremist violence. Studies of Islamic extremism have sought to identify common factors in the backgrounds of self-styled jihadists; however, they have proved to be a fairly heterogeneous group. One factor that stands out is that, in Europe and North America, the so-called home-grown terrorist is frequently a second- or third-generation immigrant. Education in the majority community language and a desire to assimilate not infrequently lead to an incomplete acquisition, and subsequent attrition of a ‘home’ language. This can separate the second/third-generation immigrant from the minority community, while discrimination forms a barrier to acceptance by the majority community. This paper briefly examines some of the background literature in Applied Linguistics and Counter Terrorism Studies, before turning to sources that tend to support the hypothesis. Finally, a case is made for further study and some possible approaches suggested.

Regionalization of violent jihadism and beyond: the case of Daesh

Regionalization of violent jihadism and beyond: the case of Daesh