• World violence reaches new all-time high

    The just-published 2016 Global Peace Index shows that the world would be growing more peaceful if it were not for the growing violence of Middle East conflicts. More than 100,000 people were killed in conflicts in 2014, up from almost 20,000 in 2008. Syria, with about 67,000 such deaths in 2014, accounted for most of that increase. The economic cost of violence in 2015 was $13.6 trillion, or 13.3 percent of global GDP — which is about 11 times the size of global foreign direct investment.

  • France unveils app to alert people to terror attacks

    Euro 2016 soccer tournament begins on Friday, and as part of the massive security operation undertaken to secure the ten millions spectators who will be watching the games from 10 June to 10 July, the French government has created a smartphone app designed to send warnings directly to people’s phones in the event of a bombing, shooting, or other disaster.

  • Revelations about U.K. special forces in Syria require debate on U.K. role: MPs

    British MPs say that the Ministry of Defense’s refusal to comment on ground operations by Special Forces in Syria means it is not possible to hold an informed debate about U.K. role in Syria. The Times reported that elite U.K. soldiers had crossed into southern Syria to support opposition forces fighting ISIS militants close to the border with Jordan.

  • Last surviving 9/11 search-and-rescue dog dies, receives hero's send-off

    The last surviving search and rescue dog who worked at Ground Zero following the 9/11 terrorist attacks died on Monday. Bretagne, a 16-year-old golden retriever, was put down at Fairfield Animal Hospital in Cypress, Texas. As Bretagne slowly walked into the hospital, she was saluted by representatives of state agencies who came to pay their respects.

  • Captured Hamas operative: Terror tunnel network extends across Gaza

    Hamas fighters can travel underground throughout the entirety of the Gaza Strip using the terror group’s tunnel network, according to a Hamas operative who was captured last month after he crossed illegally into Israel from Gaza. Palestinians in Gaza have recently expressed fears that Hamas tunnels built in or near civilian areas are putting non-combatants at risk of being hurt by Israeli strikes.

  • Revisiting the relationship between hate crime and terrorism

    New research from START examines the link between hate crime (bias-motivated crime) and terrorism at the county level, focusing on far-right extremism in the United States and pulling data from the U.S. Extremist Crime Database (ECDB) and the Global Terrorism Database (GTD). Among other things, the research has found that counties experiencing increases in one type of bias-motivated or extremist violence are likely to see significant increases in other types of extremist activity.

  • Three Somali Americans convicted for planning to join ISIS in Syria

    In a landmark federal court case in Minnesota, three young Somali American men who planned to join ISIS in Syria, have been convicted of conspiracy to commit murder overseas. Each could face life in prison after they were convicted of the most serious charges. In all, the federal government has indicted ten Somali American men in relation to the conspiracy, which was uncovered by a sprawling FBI counterterrorism investigation.

  • Euro 2016 security fears heightened as Frenchman arrested in Ukraine

    The Euro 2016, the European soccer championship tournament, opens this coming Friday amid growing security concerns. The Ukrainian security agency, the SBU, announced over the weekend that it had arrested a Frenchman who had in his possession a massive arsenal of weapons he had purchased in the Ukraine. The French media report that he was apparently not planning to target any Euro 2016 events. Rather, his idea was to attack other targets, exploiting the fact that thousands of security personnel would be diverted from their usual routines.

  • Inside ISIS' looted antiquities trade

    By Fiona Rose-Greenland

    For excavators – archaeologists, but also looters like the Islamic State, or ISIS – the opportunity for discovery in modern Iraq and Syria is dazzling. Everyone seems to agree that ISIS is digging up and selling archaeological artifacts to make money. But no one seems to agree on how much money it’s actually making from its illegal antiquities trade: amounts have ranged from $4 million to $7 billion. Patchy data and methodological challenges do not fully explain why $7 billion fell to $4 million in public discussions about the ISIS antiquities trade. While market mystique and over-the-top plot lines are fine for Hollywood films and adventure novels, it’s no way to understand terrorist finance, and without that understanding we are unlikely to arrive at genuine and lasting solutions.

  • Iran still leading terrorism-sponsoring state: U.S.

    Last Thursday the Department of State released the 2015 Country Reports on Terrorism. The report is provided to Congress each year and covers developments in countries in which acts of terrorism occurred, countries which are state sponsors of terrorism, and countries determined by the Secretary to be of particular national security interest.

  • U.S. adversaries use measures short of war to advance their strategic goals

    Since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, Russia, China, and Iran have successfully exploited or stretched U.S. thresholds for war in order to further their strategic goals and undermine U.S. interests. The United States will have to address the problems of foreign intervention and threats short of war if it is to prevent further erosion of its global influence by its competitors, RAND researchers say.

  • Kurdish forces fight to retake Syria's “Little London”

    Defense Secretary Ashton Carter on Thursday said that ISIS fighters have used the northern Syrian city of Manbij as a base to plan attacks against the West. U.S. Special Forces have joined Kurdish fighters in surrounding the militants’ stronghold. Manbij has earned the name “Little London” because of the many Britons who have made it their homes after joining ISIS.

  • Britain’s exit from the EU would necessitate review of British defense posture: Expert

    A new report states that a U.K. decision to leave the EU would be as significant a shift in U.K. national strategy, as the decision in the late 1960s to withdraw from bases East of Suez and,. As a result, the decision to leave the EU would necessitate a new Strategic Defense and Security Review (SDSR).

  • Terrorist or criminal? New software uses face analysis to find out

    Pulling a poker face means betraying no visible emotion, so that opponents cannot tell what you are really thinking. But a Tel Aviv startup’s face-profiling technology recently proved fairly accurate at predicting which four players were most likely to beat out forty-six other contenders in an amateur poker tournament. The company say that its technology, which analyzes faces shown in photos and videos and classifies them according to fifteen parameters predictive of personality traits and types, can help identify terrorists.

  • Nigeria has failed to stamp out Boko Haram in Buhari’s first year in power

    When Muhammadu Buhari — a former general and, for a year-and-a-half in the early 1980s, the military ruler of Ngeria — was sworn in as Nigeria’s president on 29 May 2015, he promised to “stamp out” Boko Haram within twelve months. Security analysts note that despite some progress, he has failed to do so. Critics of Buhari say that while Boko Haram has been pushed back and has lost large swaths of territory it used to control, Buhari’s heavy-handed approach to unrest or dissent of any kind in Nigeria has created more problems.