• The rise of a cyberterror community is on the horizon

    A social psychologist who is also a cybersecurity experts says that the rise of a cyber terror community is on the horizon. The researcher believes that this new community may be the logical next step in the development of our digital world. “The magnitude of potential damage for a cyberattack is remarkable, and the number of targets for a cyber terrorist attack is amazingly large,” he said. “The chance of getting caught are very small, and some of the resources to complete the crime are very easy to obtain — not to mention the potential for getting away with it is very high.”

  • North African Islamist terrorists dig up Nazi mines for use in IEDs

    ISIS and its affiliate organization in North Africa have found a new source for munition materials: Digging up old landmines from the Second World War and using them to fashion IEDs for terrorist attacks. The retreating German forces under the command of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel buried about seventeen million landmines under the surface in western Egypt and north-east Libya.

  • Hundreds of U.K. teenagers still want to fight in ISIS ranks in Syria

    Kadiza Sultana, a 17-year old Briton who traveled to Syria in February 2015 to join ISIS, was killed two weeks ago by a Russian airstrike on Raqqa, the informal capital of ISIS. Still, experts say that hundreds of British teenage girls are keen on joining ISIS. This reality has raised questions about the effectiveness of the British government’s approach to counter-radicalism.

  • Reducing terrorist recruitment by countering terrorist narratives

    Recruiters for violent extremist groups, just like screenwriters and marketers, use storytelling techniques to craft their messages. Analyzing those narratives and producing counter-narratives may be one way to cut the success of terrorist recruitment, according to researchers. “No matter what the context is — whether it’s terrorism or health communication or organizational communication — the principles of persuasion all operate the same,” say a researcher.

  • ISIS ranks in Syria, Iraq “decimated,” with only 15,000 fighters left: U.S. commander

    The number of ISIS fighters in Iraq and Syria has been substantially reduced by an effective U.S.-led military campaigns, leaving as few as 15,000 militants to fight, a senior U.S. commander said. Not only has the estimated number of ISIS fighters shrunk from earlier estimates of between 19,000 and 25,000, but the U.S. commander said that the quality of ISIS fighters has decreased. “The enemy is in retreat on all fronts,” Lieutenant General Sean MacFarland said.

  • Patterns of ISIS-related terrorism, 2002-2015

    Between 2002 and 2015, more than 4,900 terrorist attacks were carried out by groups or organizations affiliated with ISIS. These attacks caused more than 33,000 deaths and 41,000 injuries. These attacks represented 13 percent of all terrorist attacks worldwide and, 26 percent of all deaths, and 28 percent of all injuries due to terrorism during the same time period.

  • Germany to search refugees' phones to establish identity, spot suspicious connections

    German interior minister Thomas de Maizière will next week announce a new German anti-terror steps, which, among other things, will require refugees and asylum-seekers arriving in Germany without a passport to surrender their smartphones – and all the passwords and security pin numbers associated with the phones – so German security agencies could check the owners’ social media accounts. The security services in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and the Netherlands already routinely examine refugees’ mobile phones to establish a refugee’s identity.

  • Food crisis in northeast Nigeria drives youth to radicalize, join Boko Haram: UN

    Urgent action is needed to provide farming and livelihood support to 385,000 people in parts of Nigeria’s northeast where food insecurity is rampant, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said. The UN agency noted that more than three million people are affected by acute food insecurity in Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa States. Failure to rebuild the rural economy will translate into lack of employment opportunities with possible harmful consequences including youth radicalization and enrolment into armed groups, resulting in continued civil unrest.

  • French girl, 16, to face charges for plotting a terrorist attack

    A judge in France has agreed with the prosecution that a 16-year-old French girl should face preliminary terrorism charges for supporting ISIS and trying to plot a terrorist attack. The Paris prosecutor’s office said on Monday that the girl was using an encrypted social media app to spread calls by ISIS to the organization’s followers in France to commit violent acts.

  • Swedish charismatic church to drop Bibles from drones over ISIS-controlled areas in Iraq

    A Sweden-based evangelical church has announced it would airdrop thousands of copies of the Bible onto areas of Iraq controlled by the Islamist ISIS. The church said it was part of an effort to “pass the hope and love of the Christian gospel” to people living under ISIS control. The church said the air drops were not a provocation, but was rather motivated by “unfailing and never-ending love” for all people.

  • Ahmadinejad demands Obama stop terror victims from collecting $2 billion court settlement

    Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sent a letter to President Barack Obama telling him to “quickly fix” a Supreme Court ruling allowing terror victims to collect $2 billion from frozen Iranian assets. The Supreme Court ruled 6–2 in April that 1,300 American victims of Iranian terror and their families were entitled to collect $2 billion in frozen funds, which are currently held in trust pending the final disposition of the lawsuits.

  • Former Bangladesh MP sentenced to death over 1971 war crimes

    Sakhawat Hossain, a former member of parliament from the Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami party, was earlier today (Wednesday) sentenced to death by a special tribunal for commanding a paramilitary Islamist unit which killed, raped, and tortured unarmed civilians during the 1971 civil war in Bangladesh – then called East Pakistan. Jamaat-e-Islami, East Pakistan’s largest Islamist party, openly opposed secession from Pakistan and campaigned for continued Pakistani rule over East Pakistan. A few thousands members of Jamaat-e-Islami formed armed militias – trained and equipped by the Pakistani military – and fought along the Pakistani soldiers against fellow East Pakistanis.

  • Expert: Hezbollah’s storage of missiles in civilian areas will make next war “catastrophic”

    The next war between Israel and Hezbollah “will be catastrophic” because the Iran-backed terror organization has stationed its military assets inside “built-up population centers in cities, towns and villages” in Lebanon, says an expert. In 2006 Hezbollah only had around 12,000 rockets and missiles at its disposal. It is now believed to have more than 110,000. Some analysts estimate that Hezbollah’s rocket and missile arsenal is greater than that of all twenty-seven non-U.S. NATO nations combined.

  • Brother-in-law of Charlie Hebdo killer arrested for trying to join ISIS

    The brother-in-law of one of the gunmen who attacked the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris in January 2015 has been detailed in Turkey, and deported to Bulgaria, on suspicion that he was trying to join ISIS in Syria. Mourad Hamyd was first arrested in January 2015 on suspicion that he was the getaway driver for the Kouachi brothers, who carried out the attack.

  • French Muslims propose tax on halal food to fund mosques, fight radicalization

    Anouar Kbibech, president of the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM), an influential group representing French Muslims, has proposed a tax on halal food to fund mosques and fight radicalization in France. The proposal was part of a broader counter-radicalization plan by French Muslims, a plan which also calls for the establishment of a new foundation which would help reduce the dependence of French mosques on foreign benefactors.