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Militia Extremists, Kicked Off Facebook Again, Are Regaining Comfort in Public View
When journalists sounded alarm bells in early May 2024 that more than 100 extremist militia groups had been organizing and communicating on Facebook, it wasn’t the first time militias had garnered attention for their online activities. As a scholar of militias, I’ve seen extremists get kicked off Facebook before.
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Student Anger Over the Vietnam War Erupted into Violence in the ’60s − a Terrorism Expert Explores Whether the Same Could Happen Today
I am a former senior U.S. government counterterrorism official and scholar of national security and terrorism. The wave of recent pro-Palestinian, student-led protests reminds me of another tense era in the U.S. that was also prompted by U.S. engagement in a foreign war – the Vietnam War in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
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Extremist Communities Continue to Rely on YouTube for Hosting, but Most Videos Are Viewed Off-Site, Research Finds
After the 2016 U.S. presidential election, YouTube was so criticized for radicalizing users by recommending increasingly extremist and fringe content that it changed its recommendation algorithm. Research four years later found that while extremist content remained on YouTube, subscriptions and external referrals drove disaffected users to extremist content rather than the recommendation algorithm.
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Lack of Operational Control at Northern Border Poses National Security Threats
The northern border largely has been unmanned and understaffed for decades as federal reports issue conflicting conclusions about how much, or how little, operational control exists. All this while a greatest number of terrorist watch list individuals being apprehended at northern border.
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Israel’s Invasion of Rafah Will Not Eliminate Hamas or End the War. So, What Is Benjamin Netanyahu’s Plan?
The longer the war has dragged on, the more it has highlighted that Israel, which has been under Netanyahu’s almost continuous rule since 2009, has no long-term strategy for living side-by-side with its Palestinian neighbors. Even if a ceasefire could be agreed to, Netanyahu’s government hasn’t articulated a plan for the “day after”. Already, this lack of a plan is creating a dangerous power vacuum in northern Gaza that has been filled by gangs, clans and criminals.
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Terrorist Watch List Apprehensions at Northern Border Continue to Break Records
The number of known or suspected terrorists (KSTs) apprehended at the northern border in the first six months of fiscal 2024 continue to outpace those apprehended at the southwest border.
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The Manufactured Crisis of Migrant Terrorists at the Border
Politicians and pundits have given rise to a flood of rhetoric about terrorists exploiting border chaos to harm Americans. But exaggerated threats of terrorists crossing the southern border lead to costly, disproportionate policy decisions.
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On the Horizon: The Future of the Jihadi Movement
Factors of continuity, such as anti-regime grievances, the appeal of religious ideology, and the ability to hurt, are likely to maintain jihadism as a viable resistance ideology. Jihadism is still a powerful force and is making inroads in various regions, and a more modest jihadi strategy with a regional focus is offering jihadis a new path forward, but also suggests that a sustainable jihadi success would require moderation that is simply antithetical to the nature of the ideology.
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Vitriolic Reactions to Arouri's Killing Highlight His Importance to the Iranian Regime’s “Axis of Resistance”
The death on 2 January 2024 of Saleh Al-Arouri, a leading Hamas financier and military leader, resulted in threats of retribution against Israel by Hamas, Hezbollah and other regional proxies of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
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Improving the Security of Soft Targets and Crowded Places
Attacks on soft targets and crowded places (ST-CPs) represent a significant challenge. How can prevention, protection, and response and recovery investments reduce the risk of casualties from attacks on ST-CPs?
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From Dearborn to NYC, Quds Day Protesters Praise Terrorists, Denounce the U.S. and Call for the Destruction of Israel
Over the weekend of April 5, 2024, anti-Israel activists in the US and around the world marked Al Quds Day (“Jerusalem Day”) with protests and other events against Zionism and the state of Israel. This annual event, originally conceived by the leader of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, serves as a platform for support for terrorism and other violence against Israel and regularly includes virulent antisemitic and anti-Zionist rhetoric.
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Berkeley Dean Erwin Chemerinsky Responds to Antisemitic Incident
Last week, law students supporting Palestinians in Gaza disrupted a dinner Dean Chemerinsky and his wife were holding in their home for first-year students. The disrupting law students insisted they had First Amendment right to disrupt the dinner.
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FBI Fears 'Coordinated Attack' on U.S. Homeland
A surge of confidence by supporters of the Islamic State terror group — reflected in a series of online threats against Europe combined with its deadly attack on a concert hall in Russia — is giving security officials in the United States cause for concern.
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IS Growing Stronger in Syria
Slowly but surely, the Islamic State terror group seems to be regaining its footing in Syria, launching new and brazen attacks against forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Intelligence estimates put the number of Islamic State fighters in Syria and Iraq at about 2,500 — more than double estimates from late January. And a series of new studies is only adding to the concern.
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Domestic Violent Extremists’ Threat to U.S. Nuclear Facilities
Nuclear security in the U.S. has historically understood threat as “other,” – for example, foreign states or terrorists — leaving practitioners, facilities, and physical protection systems vulnerable to threats from within. There is a need for an urgent change to the nuclear security norms and understanding of threat to include not only foreign agents, but also domestic violent extremist groups and homegrown violent ideologies, is needed to strengthen the resiliency and effectiveness of the national nuclear security regime.
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The long view
What Does Netflix’s Drama “Adolescence” Tell Us About Incels and the Manosphere?
While Netflix’s psychological crime drama ‘Adolescence’ is a work of fiction, its themes offer insight into the very real and troubling rise of the incel and manosphere culture online.