• European jihadists and the new crime-terror nexus

    A new study of European jihadists and the increasing convergence between criminal and jihadist milieus, challenges long-held assumptions about radicalization, recruitment, and how to counter terrorism. The presence of former criminals in terrorist groups is neither new nor unprecedented. But with ISIS and the ongoing mobilization of European jihadists, the phenomenon has become more pronounced, more visible, and more relevant to the ways in which jihadist groups operate. In many European countries, the majority of jihadist foreign fighters are former criminals.

  • Report finds strong link between strength of states’ gun laws and rates of gun violence

    A new report has found a strong correlation between the strength of state gun laws and levels of gun violence. The report, which analyzes ten specific indicators of gun violence in all fifty states, found that the ten states with the weakest gun laws collectively have levels of gun violence that are more than three times higher than the ten states with the strongest gun laws. The ten states with the weakest gun laws collectively have three times more gun violence than the ten states with the strongest gun laws.

  • As ISIS loses ground in Syria and Iraq, its propaganda output sharply declines

    Relentless air and ground attacks by the U.S.-led coalition have been inflicting increasing pain on ISIS – from killing more than 50,000 ISIS fighters, decimating the organization’s leadership, and forcing it to abandon vast swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria. A new study found that another victim of ISIS’s accumulating defeats has been the organization’s vaunted propaganda machine. The Islamist group’s propaganda specialist shave been producing only a small number of videos and images compared to their prodigious output two years ago.

  • Securing a future for Middle East minorities after ISIS

    A recent report from the U.N. Human Rights Council sheds some light on both the scale and the nature of the genocide, which was ignored by the international community for far too long. The campaign against the Yazidis was launched by ISIS over two years ago, in Aug. 2014, when its forces began an assault upon the Yazidi villages in Sinjar, a district in the northern Iraqi province of Nineveh.

  • Texas moves to end legal battle over Syrian refugees

    A week after the state officially withdrew from the nation’s refugee resettlement program, Texas has moved to end its legal battle over Syrian refugees. In a short, three-page motion, Texas on Friday asked the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals to dismiss the state’s appeal of a federal judge’s June decision that threw out the state’s case after finding Texas did not have grounds to sue the federal government over the resettlement of refugees within its borders.

  • ISIS caliphate continues shrink, flow of foreign fighters dries up

    Territory controlled by the Islamic State shrunk by 16 percent in the first nine months of 2016. In 2015, the Islamic State’s caliphate shrunk from 90,800 km2 to 78,000 km2, a net loss of 14 percent. In the first nine months of 2016, that territory shrunk again by a further 16 percent. As of 3 October 2016, the Islamic State controls roughly 65,500 km2 in Iraq and Syria, which is roughly the size of Sri Lanka. The flow of foreign fighters to ISIS has dried up as the Islamist organization continues to lose ground.

  • ISIS caliphate continues shrink, flow of foreign fighters drying up

    Territory controlled by the Islamic State shrunk by 16 percent in the first nine months of 2016. In 2015, the Islamic State’s caliphate shrunk from 90,800 km2 to 78,000 km2, a net loss of 14 percent. In the first nine months of 2016, that territory shrunk again by a further 16 percent. As of 3 October 2016, the Islamic State controls roughly 65,500 km2 in Iraq and Syria, which is roughly the size of Sri Lanka. The flow of foreign fighters to ISIS has dried up as the Islamist organization continues to lose ground.

  • ISIS foreign recruits better educated than their average countryman: Report

    A new World Bank study found that contrary to popular notions, recruits to ISIS are better educated than their average countryman. Moreover, those offering to become suicide bombers ranked on average in the more educated group. The report is based on an analysis of 22,000 leaked ISIS documents obtained by German intelligence. The documents include questionnaires of each would-be recruit. The questionnaires contain information on 3,803 foreign recruits who joined the terrorist group between 2013 and 2014.

  • ISIS foreign recruits better educated than their average countryman: Report

    A new World Bank study found that contrary to popular notions, recruits to ISIS are better educated than their average countryman. Moreover, those offering to become suicide bombers ranked on average in the more educated group. The report is based on an analysis of 22,000 leaked ISIS documents obtained by German intelligence. The documents include questionnaires of each would-be recruit. The questionnaires contain information on 3,803 foreign recruits who joined the terrorist group between 2013 and 2014.

  • Taking stock of the House’s actions to address the threat of Islamist terror

    The House Homeland Security Committee says that we should to take stock of the “work the House of Representatives has done and continues to do to address the persistent threat we face from radical Islamist terrorists.” The House has passed dozens of bills aimed at bolstering U.S. efforts to fight terror at home and abroad, and the House Homeland Security Committee will “continue to lead the charge to do more to protect our homeland and our allies.”

  • Taking stock of the House’s actions to address the threat of radical Islamist terror

    The House Homeland Security Committee says that we should to take stock of the “work the House of Representatives has done and continues to do to address the persistent threat we face from radical Islamist terrorists.” The House has passed dozens of bills aimed at bolstering U.S. efforts to fight terror at home and abroad, and the House Homeland Security Committee will “continue to lead the charge to do more to protect our homeland and our allies.”

  • Former British topless model arrested for links to ISIS

    Former British topless model, 27, arrested for communicating with ISIS recruiters and distributing violent ISIS propaganda videos on social networks. He contact was a British citizens calling himself Abu Usamah al-Britani, a known ISIS recruiter operating out of Syria. Terrorism experts say his “specialty” is trying to persuade young Western women to come to Syria to marry jihadist fighters.

  • Former British topless model arrested for links to ISIS

    Former British topless model, 27, arrested for communicating with ISIS recruiters and distributing violent ISIS propaganda videos on social networks. He contact was a British citizens calling himself Abu Usamah al-Britani, a known ISIS recruiter operating out of Syria. Terrorism experts say his “specialty” is trying to persuade young Western women to come to Syria to marry jihadist fighters.

  • U.S.: UN should investigate war crimes committed by Russia, Syria in Aleppo

    U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said that the military campaign by Russia and Syria against civilians in Aleppo amounts to a war crime, and that the UN must launch a war crime investigation into the two countries’ actions. Military analysts noted that the Russian and Syrian campaign aims not only to kill civilians directly by dropping barrel bombs on Sunni neighborhood. Assad and his Russian allies deliberately increase the death toll by using bunker-busting munitions systematically to destroy the city’s civilian infrastructure — hospitals, clinics, water treatment facilities, and power stations. The analysts say that Assad’s ultimate goal is to make life in the city impossible, thus forcing hundreds of thousands of Sunnis to flee, making it easier for his Alawite and Shi’a forces to control the city once they recapture it from the rebels.

  • Clown threats may be unnerving, but they are not terrorism

    The fear of clowns has been around for decades, perpetuated by Stephen King’s 1986 novel “It” as well as dozens of TV shows and movies. But what previously was an underlying nervousness recently has mushroomed into a more immediate threat as a result of media reports of clowns approaching or appearing to threaten children. Some have called the incidents “clown terrorism,” but a terrorism expert says that despite the growing sense of fear, it is important to avoid calling the threats and attacks acts of terrorism.