OUR PICKSEra of Transparent Warfare Beckons | Fear of Russia’s Digital Warmongering | Lab-Leak Hypothesis Science, and more
· A New Era of Transparent Warfare Beckons
· The Lab-Leak Hypothesis Made It Harder for Scientists to Seek the Truth
· The Islamic State’s Leader Died This Month. What Type of Leader Might Come Next?
· Yazidis Want Big Tech Held to Account Over ISIS Atrocities
· Nelson Far-Right Fanatic Who Had Terror Handbook Jailed
· Canada’s First Convicted Terrorist Deemed Too Dangerous for Parole
· Partnerships, Proactive Approach Needed to Close Port Cybersecurity Gaps
· Justice Department Announces First Director of National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team
· Companies Have a Lot to Fear from Russia’s Digital Warmongering
A New Era of Transparent Warfare Beckons (Economist)
Russia’s maneuvers are a coming-out party for open-source intelligence.
The Lab-Leak Hypothesis Made It Harder for Scientists to Seek the Truth (Stephan Lewandowsky, Peter Jacobs, and Stuart Neil, Scientific American)
Virus origin stories have always been prone to conspiracy theories. COVID disinformation has threatened research—and lives
The Islamic State’s Leader Died This Month. What Type of Leader Might Come Next? (Tricia L. Bacon and Elizabeth Grimm, Washington Post)
This month, a U.S. Special Forces mission targeted Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, the leader of the Islamic State. Al-Qurayshi reportedly detonated explosives during the raid, killing himself and members of his family. His death follows previous U.S. raids that killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. But what type of leader was al-Qurayshi — and what type of leader might succeed him? Our research explains why these questions are critical when trying to gauge the impact on a terrorist group after its leader has died. Our forthcoming book studying terrorist leadership types, “Terror in Transition: Leadership and Succession in Terrorist Organizations,” suggests that al-Qurayshi meets the criteria of a “figurehead,” a silent type of leader who did not actively lead the Islamic State. Al-Qurayshi became leader of the Islamic State in 2019 as a relative unknown. He operated in hiding, apparently out of fear of the kind of counterterrorism action that killed al-Baghdadi, his predecessor. The open-source information to date suggests al-Qurayshi did not drive his organization’s tactics, its ways of gathering resources or its mission. He was largely an absentee leader who relied on others to steer the group.
