• Islamic State Poised for Comeback, U.S. Defense Officials Report

    By Jeff Seldin

    U.S. defense and intelligence officials say the special forces operation that killed former Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in Syria last October has done little to hinder the terror group. Instead, the Defense Intelligence Agency warns the organization’s command and control structure, as well as many of its clandestine networks remain intact, and recent turmoil in the region due to Turkey’s incursion into northeastern Syria has played to its advantage.

  • Turkey Launches Attacks against Syria, Killing 35 Syrian Soldiers

    Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Monday said that Turkish airstrikes in northwest Syria killed up to thirty-five Syrian soldiers. The Turkish strikes came in retaliation for airstrikes conducted by the Assad regime against Turkish troops deployed inside Syria in the Idlib province. The Assad regime has agreed to Turkish military operations on Syrian soil against the Syrian Kurds, but it is opposed to Turkey’s plan to settle one million Syrian Sunni refugees, now in tent cities in Turkey, in Idlib Province.

  • London's Latest Terror Attack Shows Harsher Punishment Is Needed

    By The Telegraph

    On Sunday, 20-year old Sudesh Amman, who had been released from prison on 22 January after being jailed for terror-related offense, stabbed two people in a south London store before being shot and killed by the police. Amman served less than half his three-year, four-month sentence for terrorism offenses. The security services had concerns about his behavior, including language that suggested he continued to hold extremist views, but he had to be released under current laws. Calls are growing for changing these laws.

  • Terrorists and Technological Innovation

    On 9 October 2019, a terrorist motivated by anti-Semitic beliefs descended on a synagogue in Halle, Germany, where people were observing the Yom Kippur holiday. Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, Colin P. Clarke, and Matt Shear write that Baillet’s use of steel, wood and 3-D-printed plastic components to manufacture three weapons is an example of how violent nonstate actors (VNSAs) adopt new technologies. “As new technologies proliferate, there will invariably be individuals trying to figure out how to use these technologies to kill,” they write.

  • Calls for Review of U.K. Terrorist Sentencing following London Attack

    The London police shot and killed a terrorist who stabbed two people in a store in south London store. The perpetrator was wearing a fake suicide vest. The attacker, identified as 20-year old Sudesh Amman, had been under surveillance by the British counterterrorism unit, and was from prison at the end of January after serving only half of a 3-year and four-month prison sentence for the “possession and distribution of extremist material.”

  • U.S. Says Some Troops to Stay in Africa to Counter Moves by Russia, China

    U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper says the Pentagon does not intend to remove all its forces from Africa, amid concerns from allies that Washington could abandon the continent militarily while China and Russia “aggressively” look to increase their influence and as the extremist threat remains. Esper is carrying out a global troop review meant to find ways to free up more resources to address challenges from China’s military in Asia.

  • ISIS Sleeper Cells Exploit U.S. Pause with Guerrilla Attacks

    Islamic State fighters have staged a series of guerilla attacks in Iraq and Syria during a pause in American and British operations, experts have said. David Rose writes that “ISIS sleeper cells have stepped up ambushes and terror attacks in recent weeks, killing and wounding dozens of soldiers and civilians. The attacks have raised fears that the jihadi group could regroup and recover if western forces leave the region.”

  • How Weapons Smuggled by Turkish Criminals Are Fueling a Deadly Herder-Farmer Conflict in the Sahel

    A criminal gang operating out of Turkey has fueled one of West Africa’s deadliest conflicts by smuggling in vast amounts of high-powered pump action shotguns, a study by arm control experts has found. The gangsters have smuggled thousands of the weapons into Nigeria, where they have ended up being used in the escalating violence between nomadic herders and settled farmers in the country’s north and central belts. Weapons of the same specification have also turned up in Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, and the Central African Republic.

  • Third Reich’s Legacy Tied to Present-Day Xenophobia, Political Intolerance

    Who — or what — is to blame for the xenophobia, political intolerance and radical political parties spreading through Germany and the rest of Europe? A new study shows a major factor is people’s proximity to former Nazi concentration camps.

  • The Changing Face of Burkina Faso’s Terrorist Threat

    By Mahamoudou Savadogo

    Burkina Faso has been experiencing regular attacks led by armed terrorist groups from neighboring countries. Surrounded by six countries, it is the northern part bordering Mali and Niger – particularly the Soum province – that has been most affected. And the security situation is only getting worse. But now the country faces a new terrorist threat. Terrorist groups are also flourishing within its borders.

  • Despite Defeats, the Islamic State Remains Unbroken and Defiant around the World

    By Brian Glyn Williams

    In a series of bloody campaigns from 2014 to 2019, a multinational military coalition drove the Islamic State group, often known as ISIS, out of much of the Iraqi and Syrian territory that the strict militant theocracy had brutally governed. But the Pentagon and the United Nations both estimate that the group still has as many as 30,000 active insurgents in the region. Thousands more IS-aligned fighters are spread across Africa and Asia, from the scrublands of Mali and Niger to the deserts of Iraq and mountains of Afghanistan, to the island jungles of the Philippines.

  • Germany: More than 500 Soldiers Investigated for Ties to Extremist Right-Wing Violent Groups

    The director of Germany’s military intelligence service has confirmed that hundreds of new investigations were launched against soldiers with extremist right-wing leanings and associations. Germany’s elite Special Forces Command, with a disturbingly high number of cases, appears to be a particular hotbed. The director, however, said that there is no “shadow army” of extremists within the Bundeswehr plotting to topple the state authorities.

  • Examining Violent Extremists’ Radicalization, Mobilization, and Reintegration

    The National Institute of Justice recently awarded nearly $1.5 million to START researchers for two new projects examining violent extremists’ radicalization, mobilization, and reintegration. Each project builds off the Profiles of Individual Radicalization in the United States (PIRUS) and associated datasets to educate law enforcement and criminal justice professionals, and provide them with strategies and best practices for terrorism prevention and extremist reintegration in their communities. 

  • In the Terrorism Fight, Trump Has Continued a Key Obama Policy

    By Boaz Dvir

    President Donald Trump has rescinded, reversed or otherwise ended many of former President Barack Obama’s signature policies – but not a prominent one. When it comes to fighting terrorism, the current commander-in-chief has upheld, and even extended, his predecessor’s linchpin strategy: using U.S. military special operations forces and targeted killings on a grand global scale.

  • America Shouldn’t Abandon Its Allies in the Sahel

    In mid-January the leaders of France, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad, and Mauritania met to discuss how to bolster counterterrorism efforts in the Sahel region, where Islamist terrorist activity has been steadily increasing. The background for the summit meeting were reports that the United States was considering reducing its contribution to an involvement in that campaign against Islamist terrorism. “. For the people in the Sahel, a U.S. retreat would leave them even more vulnerable to future terrorist attacks. Simply put, an American withdrawal would be penny-wise, but pound-foolish,” Olivier Rémy-Bel writes.