• 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.

  • 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.

  • Belgian police raids operational Islamist terror cells in four cities

    The Belgian federal police yesterday raided a residential building in Verviers, a town of about 60,000 residents seventy-five miles east of Brussels, located between Liège and the Belgium-German border, killing two suspected terrorists and seriously injuring a third. Eric Van der Sypt, a spokesman for the office of Belgian federal prosecutor, said a terrorist outrage may only have been hours away: “This operation stopped a major terrorist attack from taking place. You could say a second potential Paris has been averted,” he said. At the same time that the raid on the house in Verviers was unfolding, special police units carried out at least a dozen raids elsewhere in Belgium in what was a coordinated operations. They focused on neighborhoods which are predominantly populated by Muslim immigrants in at least four districts in and around Brussels, with explosives reportedly found in the western Brussels area of Anderlecht.

     

  • A first: PA, PLO on trial in New York for supporting terrorism

    On Tuesday, a New York federal court opened a trialwhich will decide whether the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) should be held responsible for seven shootings and bombings that killed thirty-three people and wounded more than 450, some of them Americans, in Jerusalem between 2002 and 2004. The lawsuit was launched in 2004 by victims and families of victims, and was filed under the Antiterrorism Act of 1991. It seeks up to $1 billion from the PA and the PLO.

  • Understanding Muhammad: we need a more informed approach

    In any terrorist attack by Muslim extremists perpetrated in the name of Islam — such as the recent Charlie Hebdo atrocity — discussions about the Prophet Muhammad, his life, and his teachings come to the fore in Western societies. From the “prophet of peace” to a kind of terrorist antichrist, ideas about who Muhammad was and what he means vary among both Muslims and non-Muslims. There is no similarity between al-Qaeda’s interpretation of Muhammad and the Muhammad of a Sufi Muslim. But how much of this discussion is relevant to understanding the motivations behind Islamic extremism? How can the West understand Muhammad impartially, and what is Muslims’ relationship with Muhammad?

  • What drives killers like the Ottawa or Paris attackers?

    Zehaf-Bibeau, the Islamist convert who recently killed a Canadian military reservist on duty in Ottawa, Canada, represents a type of attacker rarely discussed — a person so obsessed with an overvalued idea that it defines their identity and leads them to commit violence without regard for the consequences. Although it appears that the assailants in Paris had more ties with terrorist organizations, the individuals still fit the description of people acting on overvalued ideas.