• Securing U.S. Democracy

    Most of the homeland security architecture built in the past twenty years has been devoted to protecting Americans from an act of international terrorism. Carrie Cordero writes that as a result, Americans are safer than they were twenty years ago from a terrorist attack directed or inspired by foreign groups on U.S. soil. She says, though, that more significantly, the threats to American safety and security have compounded in the past two decades. “These disparate threats and circumstances have challenged the effectiveness of the homeland security enterprise.”

  • Foreign Disinformation Effort Raises Fears of Violence in U.S.

    Foreign intelligence services and global terrorist organizations are engaged in a broad effort to seed the United States with disinformation, and this effort appears to be working, raising new fears of a terrorist attack in the coming weeks, according to a senior DHS official.

  • Female Foreign Terrorist Fighters: Repatriation, Prosecution, and Rehabilitation Challenges

    Following the territorial defeat of ISIS, an estimated 1,840 to 1,912 total female foreign terrorist fighters returned to Western Europe and another 59 returned to the United States. Criminal justice systems have steadily began to treat women as violent extremists, but they have been slower to provide adequate repatriation, rehabilitation, and reintegration support for women seeking to return to their home countries.

  • Antisemitism Disseminated Across Social Media Platforms

    Gab, a self-described “free speech” platform, has a long history as a haven for antisemites, extremists and conspiracy theorists. On Gab, and on Gab’s Twitter account, extremists promote a range of antisemitic tropes, such as Jews having dual loyalty to the U.S. and Israel, that Jews are to blame for the crucifixion of Jesus and that Jews control the U.S. government.

     

  • Hate Speech on Social Media Fueled By Users’ Shared Values, Moral Concerns

    People whose moral beliefs and values align closely with other members of their online communities — including those on social networks Gab and Reddit — are more prone to radicalization, according to new research.

  • The Impact of Drone Warfare on World Order

    Much of the current literature on armed drones focuses on their proliferation across countries, effectiveness against terrorists, and the legal, moral, and ethical impacts of their use. A new collection of essays examines the trade-offs imposed by drone warfare for global order.

  • Consortium to Combat Targeted Crowd Attacks

    Ten universities formed a consortium to combat terrorist and criminal attacks on soft targets such as schools, hospitals, shopping malls and sports stadiums. “The challenges of keeping people safe in soft targets and crowded spaces gets more complicated every day,” said one expert.

  • The Historian’s Approach to Understanding Terrorism

    Too often the United States and its allies find themselves in a counterterrorism policy version of the movie “Groundhog Day,” repeating their past mistakes without end. There are many reasons for these failures, but one is the reluctance of historians to weigh in on contemporary policy debates.

  • How Has COVID-19 Changed the Violent Extremist Landscape?

    Coronavirus has highlighted how anxiety, uncertainty, and the reordering of democratic state-citizen relations can breed susceptibility to violent extremist thinking and action.

  • German Police Investigating Anti-Vax Assassination Plot against German Politician

    A group of conspiracy theorists used Telegram to call for an armed response to Saxony’s state premier Michael Kretschmer’s restrictions on the unvaccinated. The right-wing extremism branch of Saxony’s anti-terror unit is investigating.

  • Israel Completes Wall along Gaza Border

    Israel says the new barrier extends underground and uses high-tech sensors to prevent Hamas fighters from using tunnels to enter Israeli territory.

  • Michigan School Shooting Shows How Violence Can Transition from Online Threats to Real-World Tragedy

    It is, perhaps, easy to look back at the postings of a mass shooter after the event and highlight the red flags that were potentially missed. But how do you know when a young person is writing offensive, threatening or disturbing posts merely to garner attention or to blow off steam, rather than presenting a threat to themselves or others? And at what point in the transition from online threats to real-world harm should concerns by teachers, parents or peers be deemed actionable by law enforcement and other officials?

  • Afghanistan: Taliban Kill, “Disappear” Ex-Officials

    Taliban forces in Afghanistan have summarily executed or forcibly disappeared more than 100 former police and intelligence officers in just four provinces since taking over the country on 15 August 2021. The Taliban leadership has directed members of surrendering security force units to register to receive a letter guaranteeing their safety. However, Taliban forces have used these screenings to detain and summarily execute or forcibly disappear people within days after they register, leaving their bodies for their relatives or communities to find.

  • Former Islamic State Member Found Guilty of Genocide in German Court

    A German court has found a former Islamic State member guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity for the 2015 killing of a 5-year-old girl, sentencing him to life in prison. The Frankfurt case is the first in the world to decide whether a former member of the Islamic State group played a role in the attempted genocide of the Yazidi religious group.

  • Sines v. Kessler: Reckoning and Weaponization

    On 23 November 2021, a jury returned guilty verdicts against the organizers of the deadly 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. But while the trial put the defendants’ bigotry, antisemitism and racism on full display, it also provided them a stage to share their bigotry and hate with a large, captive audience, while aggressively harassing their critics.