Latest in Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS)
Newly released documents provide additional insights about Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's successor as leader of the Islamic State.
Best practices drawn from three decades of research on disarmament, demobilization and reintegration.
Since a local insurgent group declared its affiliation with the Islamic State, its attacks have increased in frequency and intensity.
On Wednesday, June 24, 2020, at 11:00 a.m., the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Intelligence and Counterterrorism will hold a hearing on the threat from the Islamic State and Al Qaeda. The committee will hear testimony from Michael Morrell, the former acting director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and Amb. Tina Kaidanow, the former State Department coordinator for counterterrorism.
A review of Darryl Li’s The Universal Enemy: Jihad, Empire, and the Challenge of Solidarity (Stanford University Press, 2019).
More than 10,000 European women and children affiliated with Islamic State fighters remain in local custody in northeastern Syria. So far, European governments have been reluctant to take large-scale action.
What will happen to the foreign fighters who traveled to Iraq and Syria to combat the Islamic State?
Editor’s Note: Mozambique has a small terrorism problem, but the government’s response threatens to make it a big one. Hilary Matfess of Yale University and Alexander Noyes of RAND Corp. contend that Mozambique is overreacting to the danger with a heavy-handed crackdown that is inflaming tension while doing little to disrupt the most radical elements there. Indeed, they argue that Mozambique risks following the path of Nigeria, where a ham-fisted government response to a radical sect led to a surge in support for the group that became Boko Haram.
Editor’s Note: The Islamic State’s crimes against women are well known, but it has also managed to appeal to women to join the fight directly or otherwise support the group. Too often, however, governments fail to recognize this risk. Kiriloi Ingram of the University of Queensland draws on her fieldwork in the Philippines to argue that governments and civil society groups need to do a far better job of recognizing the dangers women can pose while also empowering them to help counter violent extremism.
Daniel Byman
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Editor’s Note: In recent years, so-called homegrown violent extremists (HVEs) have eclipsed returned foreign fighters and other sources of terrorism. National Defense University’s Kim Cragin assesses the HVE threat and finds that, contrary to popular opinion, Western security agencies are disrupting many HVE plots and otherwise doing well against this potentially dangerous threat.
Daniel Byman
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