• Secret campaign of mass hangings and extermination at Syria’s Saydnaya Prison

    A chilling new report by Amnesty International exposes the Syrian government’s calculated campaign of extrajudicial executions by mass hangings at Saydnaya Prison. Between 2011 and 2015, every week and often twice a week, groups of up to 50 people were taken out of their prison cells and hanged to death. In five years, as many as 13,000 people, most of them civilians believed to be opposed to the government, were hanged in secret at Saydnaya.

  • Remote-controlled terrorism

    On Saturday the New York Times published an analysis of what it calls “remote controlled” terrorism, or individuals coached in terror tactics online and from afar. These individuals are not “lone wolves,” bur rather terror agents trained and guided by terrorist organizations employing “virtual plotters” and “cyber planners” who keep in near constant contact with the individuals carrying out the actual terror plot. These terrorists are micromanaged in every decision, right down to the bullets they use to carry out their violence.

  • How political science helps combat terrorism

    Richard Nielsen, an MIT expert on Islamic terrorism, estimates that about 10 percent of Muslim clerics on the Internet are jihadists. “I don’t know if this number should strike readers as high or low; it’s higher than I expected,” he says. The question he tackles is the internet changing the nature of religious authority in Islam? “The problem of modern jihadism is rooted in an ongoing crisis of Islamic authority brought about by the rise of media — first print, then cassette tapes, and now the online Fatwa Bank.” He adds that data show that the odds of dying violently are lower now than they’ve ever been. “This isn’t to say that terrorism isn’t a problem, but we should keep the true level of threat posed by terrorism in perspective.”

  • The growing role of Indonesian women in Islamist extremist terrorism

    The arrest of two Indonesian women as would-be suicide bombers shows how their desire for action coincided with the decision of ISIS leaders in Syria that in emergency conditions, women could be tactically deployed in jihad operations. A new study looks at how the role of women in Indonesian extremist organizations has evolved over the last four decades.

  • Should we really be so afraid of a nuclear North Korea?

    The common thinking is that North Korea’s nuclear program poses a threat to global peace and diverts economic resources from an impoverished population. North Korean leaders are depicted in the Western media as a cabal of madmen who won’t be satisfied until Washington, Seoul, or some other enemy city is turned into a “sea of fire.” But it also pays to consider what sounds like a perverse question: could a North Korean bomb actually benefit both the country’s people and the world at large? As far as Pyongyang is concerned, its militaristic strategy has worked: It has kept the Kim government internally stable, the population dependent on the government, and the country’s enemies at bay. Accepting the country’s nuclear status, rather than trying to head it off with sanctions and threats, could bring it back to the diplomatic bargaining table.

  • House ends rule preventing mentally ill people from buying guns

    The House voted 235-180 to allow mentally ill people to buy and own guns. Lawmakers overturned a regulation which went into effect last year – and which affected about 75,000 people – which required the Social Security Administration to relay names of Social Security recipients diagnosed with mental health conditions, such as extreme anxiety and schizophrenia, and who are considered incapable of managing their own affairs. The names of these individuals were added to a database of citizens who are ineligible to purchase a firearm.

  • Dual-use sciene, technological innovation

    Scientific research can change our lives for the better, but it also presents risks – either through deliberate misuse or accident. Think about studying deadly pathogens; that’s how we can learn how to successfully ward them off, but it can be a safety issue too, as when CDC workers were exposed to anthrax in 2014 after an incomplete laboratory procedure left spores of the bacterium alive. Making decisions about the security implications of science and technology can be complicated. That’s why scientists and policymakers need clarity on the dual-use distinction to help consider our options.

  • Trump loosens sanctions on Russian intelligence agency which helped his 2016 campaign

    The Trump administration has loosened sanctions imposed by Barack Obama on Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), one of the two Russian government intelligence agencies which actively interfered in the U.S. 2016 presidential campaign in order to help Trump win. The loosening of the sanctions would make it easier for American companies to do business with the FSB, which is the successor of the KGB.

  • NATO must more firmly counter Russia's cyber-weaponry: U.K defense minister

    NATO must begin to compete on the cyber-battlefield to counter Russian hacking aimed at undermining democracy in the United States and Western Europe, the British defense secretary, Sir Michael Fallon, has said in a speech earlier today (Thursday, 2 February) at St. Andrews University, one of the main centers for Russian studies in the United Kingdom. In his harshest and most pointed criticism yet of Russia, he accused Moscow of targeting the United States, France, Germany, Holland, Bulgaria, and Montenegro.

  • Report: German intelligence believes Iran tested nuclear-capable cruise missile

    In addition to a ballistic missile test that Iran itself revealed, Germany believes that Iran also test-fired a Sumar cruise missile, which could have a range of 2,000-3,000 kilometers (1,250-1,875 miles) and could reach Germany at its maximum capability. In its test, the Sumar successfully traveled 600 kilometers (375 miles), a little less than half the distance to Israel.

  • Hunting hackers: An ethical hacker explains how to track down the bad guys

    When a cyberattack occurs, ethical hackers are called in to be digital detectives. In a certain sense, they are like regular police detectives on TV. They have to search computer systems to find ways an intruder might have come in – a digital door or window left unlocked, perhaps. They look for evidence an attacker left of entry, like an electronic footprint in the dirt. And they try to determine what might have been copied or taken. But how do people track down hackers, figuring out what they have done and who they are? What’s involved, and who does this sort of work? The answer is that ethical hackers like me dig deep into digital systems, examining files logging users’ activity and deconstructing malicious software. We often team up with intelligence, legal and business experts, who bring outside expertise to add context for what we can find in the electronic record. But when the attack is more advanced, coordinated across multiple media platforms and leveraging skillful social engineering over years, it’s likely a government-sponsored effort, making arrests unlikely. That’s what happened when Russia hacked the U.S. presidential election. Diplomatic sanctions are an option. But pointing fingers between world superpowers is always a dangerous game.

  • U.S. warns Iran about ballistic missile test

    Michael Flynn, President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, said the administration is putting Iran “on notice” after Iran tested a ballistic missile, in what may be a violation of a UN resolution. Flynn told reporters that the Trump administration “condemns such actions by Iran that undermine security, prosperity and stability throughout and beyond the Middle East that puts American lives at risk.”

  • JCCs across U.S. targeted by bomb threats for third time in January

    At least seventeen Jewish community centers across the United States received bomb threats on Tuesday, the third time this month that a wave of JCCs has received such threats on the same day. Among the JCCs targeted were those in Boulder, Colo.; Albany and Syracuse, N.Y.; West Orange, N.J.; Milwaukee, San Diego, and Salt Lake City.

  • Travel ban has “scant national security justification”: Terrorism expert

    One of the leading authorities on Jihadist terrorism warns that while the travel ban, which was announced by the Trump administration on Friday, has “scant national security justification,” it does have serious negative consequences for U.S. national security, and for its ability effectively to combat Islamist terrorism.

  • Of immigrants and terrorists (updated)

    If you were an ISIS operative in Raqqa plotting to launch a terrorist attack in the United States, and you proposed to your bosses to use the U.S. immigration system to infiltrate terrorists into the United States, they would summarily execute you for rank incompetence. Use the U.S. immigration system, with all its vetting and with a waiting time measure in years (if you are accepted!) to launch a terrorist operation? Any competent terrorist would choose the Visa Waiver Program (VWP) to enter the United States: There are enough ISIS followers in the thirty-eight VWP countries, and using the VWP is not only quicker: It is a sure thing. You will make it into the United States in hours or days, and without a hassle — not years, as is the case with the immigration route (for which a typical young would-be terrorist may not be eligible in any event).