• OBL’s assistant on trial in New York for 1998 bombing of U.S. Nairobi embassy

    Yesterday’s jury selection in a Manhattan courtroom brought tears to the eyes of many victims of the 1998 bombing of the U.S. embassy in Nairobi. Khalid al-Fawwaz, alleged assistant to Osama Bin Laden, will stand trial for his part in helping plan the attack and for operating an al-Qaeda media office in London between 1994 and the time of his arrest. Prosecution of those involved in the 1998 attack has been slow, but progress has been made. Six men involved in the bombing were sentenced to life sentences in November 1998, several other participants of the attack have been killed abroad, including Bin Laden, but four remain at large.

  • Europe to tackle Jihadist radicalization in prison

    The problem of prison radicalization is raising complicated questions for lawmakers and security officials across Europe. One problem: Thousands of Europeans have joined Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, and experts say that if apprehended upon returning home, these jihadists will be interned in European jails and continue their mission of radicalizing others, leading to an intensification of the problem of prison radicalization.

  • Belgium terror raids and Paris attacks reveal urgent need for pan-European security

    In the immediate aftermath of major attacks in Paris, counter-terrorism raids in Belgium saw two suspected terrorists killed and another arrested. These incidents have dramatically raised the sense of insecurity across Europe — and they’ve done so at a time when Europe’s security infrastructure is struggling to cope with the threats it faces. European security agencies, both internal and external, must urgently improve their co-operation and co-ordination. After all, Europe’s security challenges know no borders, and they must be dealt with as such. The recent counter-terrorism operations and arrests across Europe show that security agencies are moving toward quicker and sharper preventative action. What they do not demonstrate is that there is yet any seriously coordinated approach to European security. Achieving that is central to reducing the sense of insecurity across Europe at a frightening and dangerous time. But there is little sign Europe is confident about how to do it without undermining the very freedoms it is trying to protect.

  • Paris suing Fox News over false report about Muslim “no-go” zones in city

    Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, said the city would sue Fox News for what she said was the network’s false reporting on the city following the attack on Charlie Hebdo and the kosher grocery store. Hidalgo was referring to assertions by several Fox TV shows’ hosts and guests that there were “no-go zones” in Paris — that is, neighborhoods where non-Muslims and even police would not enter. During one broadcast, Fox News showed a map of Paris on the screen which outlined seven such purportedly no-go zones.

  • EU launches a series of counterterrorism initiatives

    Using Europol, which has new authority to collect information on people who have never been convicted of a criminal offense, the EU is planning to create a more centralized intelligence sharing system which will allow security services to monitor and track suspects throughout the union. EU officials are also looking to improve information sharing with Arab countries.

  • Proposed changes to CFAA, RICO would criminalize cybersecurity research: Critics

    Cybersecurity professionals are concerned that the White House’s proposed changes to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) and the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, could criminalize cybersecurity research. The legislative proposals would make accessing public documents illegal if the documents’ owner would not have approved; create stricter punishments for anyone convicted of a cybercrime; and would allow the government to seize assets connected to cybercrimes. The White House also proposes upgrading hacking to a “racketeering” offense.

  • Islamic fundamentalism is not a marginal phenomenon in Europe

    A comprehensive new comparative study of religious dispositions among European Muslims and Christians finds that between 40 percent and 45 percent of European Muslims have fundamentalist religious ideas. The percentage goes down among the young and among individuals with higher social and economic status. A PEW Research Center study, using the same criteria for fundamentalism, found that Islamic fundamentalists make up slightly more than 30 percent of U.S. Muslims. Only 4 percent of European Christians are fundamentalists. Fundamentalist beliefs among both Muslims and Christians are closely associated with hostility toward other out-groups, including homosexuals, Jews, and Westerners (in the case of Muslims) or Muslims (in the case of Christians) – but violence does not necessarily form part of a fundamentalist ideology (thus, the Jewish Neturei Karta of the Christian Amish are at the same time among the most fundamentalist religiously and the most violence-averse). The research quotes other studies which found that between 10 percent and 15 percent of European Muslims are prepared to use violence to defend their faith, but that the increase in the propensity for violence among Muslim fundamentalists is a relatively recent phenomenon — of the last two or three decades.

  • Kathryn Bigelow and the bogus link between ivory and terrorism

    It is often said that if something is repeated often enough, it becomes accepted as true. This has certainly been the case for the link between terrorism and the poaching of elephants for the ivory trade. As with any illegal activity, it is very difficult to obtain reliable data on the size of the ivory trade, but it is clear that the allegations linking ivory to terrorist groups are exceedingly weak. Those who keep asserting, for example, that Somali terror group al-Shabaab trades in ivory clearly have something to gain from pushing the link between ivory and terrorism beyond the available evidence. However, it is also clear that in the long run it is not only their own credibility that is at risk but that of a whole conservation movement. Conservationists have focused large on messages of doom and gloom that often sound as if holding humanity for ransom if the environmental crisis is not addressed. If we are serious about keeping the public’s trust, we must ensure that we are driven by evidence, not the hype, lest we become the boy who cried wolf.

  • Israeli strike in Syria kills Hezbollah commanders, six Iranian officers

    Israeli helicopter on Sunday fired missiles at a 3-car convoy near the village of Mazrat al-Amal on the outskirts of Quneitra. The convoy was traveling inside Syria, two or three miles from the Israeli border, carrying Jihad Mughniyeh, the son of former Hezbollah military leader Imad Mughniyeh, who was killed by Israel in February 2008. In all, twelve people – six Hezbollah members and six Iranian military commanders and soldiers — were killed in the attack, in addition to Mughnyyeh. They include two Hezbollah officers — field commander Mohammad Issa, who goes by the nom de guerre “Abu Issa,” and Ismail al-Ashhab – and Abu Ali al-Tabtabai, also known as “Abu Ali Reza,” the Iranian Commander in the Syrian Golan Heights.

  • Europeans try counter-radicalization hotlines to combat Islamists’ appeal

    Much attention has been given to Islamic State recruitment efforts targeting Europe’s Muslim population, and now a coalition of private and public sector groups are countering those recruitment efforts with preventative measures. Current counter-radicalization hotlines were launched after European governments effectively used them to de-radicalize neo-Nazis. Despite the success with skinheads, observers note that many hotlines for would-be Islamic terrorists do not seem to be effective, at least not yet.

  • U.S. struggles to counter extremist Islamist narrative and its appeal

    Since the George W. Bush administration, U.S. officials have understood that winning the war on terror would require changing the narrative used by terrorist groups to recruit new followers. In a 2006 report on America’s strategy for combating terrorism, the administration called the war on terror, “both a battle of arms and a battle of ideas.” Today, U.S. officials still find it difficult to counter extremist narratives that have helped terror groups recruit many young Western Muslims to the Middle East.

  • Concerns grow about attacks on rail systems by domestic terrorists

    Between September 2001 and December 2011, at least838 attacks on passenger rail systems have killed more than 1,370 people. As DHS officials focus on assuring the American public that security agencies remain on high alert, last week’s incidents on two of the nation’s major metropolitan rail systems raised more concerns about public safety and preparedness.

  • Insurers thankful for reauthorization of TRIA

    President Barack Obama signed in a six year renewal of Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA) last Tuesday, and workers comp insurers sighed in relief after thirteen days of uncertainty following the expiration of the previous bill at the end of 2014. The insurance marketplace has adopted a “wait and see” approach to TRIA’s expiration, convinced that the negative backlash against Congress for allowing TRIA to expire would have been too great for lawmakers not to renew the law. The industry now goes back to business as usual.

  • Police chiefs, sheriffs in major U.S. cities support immigration executive order

    Twenty-seven chiefs of police and sheriffs from U.S. cities — including Los Angeles, Dallas, Denver, and Washington, D.C.— have joined the Major Cities Chiefs Associationto defend President Barack Obama’s executive order which extends deferred deportation to about five million undocumented immigrants. Many law enforcement officers around the country argue that Obama’s order will improve public safety by allowing many undocumented immigrants to feel secure enough to approach local police. They are more likely to report crime without fear of deportation, police chiefs and sheriffs assert.

  • If you seek to “switch off” encryption, you may as well switch off the whole Internet

    Prime Minister David Cameron has stated that the U.K. government will look at “switching off” some forms of encryption in order to make society safer from terror attacks. This might make a grand statement but it is impossible to implement and extremely technologically naïve. Encryption is a core part of the Internet; its use is increasing every day — Google’s services, including search and e-mail, use encrypted streams, as do Facebook and Twitter and many other widely used sites. Encryption makes it almost impossible for eavesdroppers to read the contents of the traffic. It is the foundation upon which all e-commerce is based. The technical case for switching off encryption is thus simply a non-starter. In fact we are moving in the opposite direction, replacing the old, open Internet with one that incorporates security by design. If you wish to switch off encryption, it will unpick the stitching that holds the Internet together.