• Concerns About Extremists Targeting U.S. Power Stations

    Attacks on four power stations in Washington State over the weekend added to concerns of a possible nationwide campaign by far-right extremists to stir fears and spark civil conflict. Violent extremists “have developed credible, specific plans to attack electricity infrastructure since at least 2020, identifying the electric grid as a particularly attractive target given its interdependency with other infrastructure sectors,” the DHS said in a January.

  • U.S. Saw Increase in Domestic Terror Threats in 2022

    The sweeping police raids in Germany earlier this month which nabbed 25 members of a far-right group who were plotting to topple the government and replace it with a Kaiser, highlighted the shifting and increasingly complex landscape facing Western countries in 2022 and, counterterrorism officials say, for years to come.

  • Terrorist Recruitment Now Happens Mainly Online – Which Makes Offenders Easier to Catch

    It is notoriously difficult to work out how and why someone becomes a terrorism risk. But in our research, we’ve started to identify important patterns when it comes to different journeys into extremist offending. Most notably, we’ve found that in recent years, people who go on to be convicted of terrorist offenses are far more likely to have been radicalized online – without any offline interactions at all – than was the case in the past.

  • Public-Facing Counter-Terrorism Strategic Communication Campaigns

    The Situational Threat and Response Signals (STARS) project responds to the challenge of how to communicate effectively with the public about terrorism risks and threats in an increasingly complex and fragmented information environment.

  • US Arrests 1988 Lockerbie Passenger Jet Bombing Suspect

    A Libyan intelligence operative suspected of making the bomb that blew up a U.S. passenger jet over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988 has been arrested by the FBI and is being extradited to the United States to stand trial.

  • Oath Keepers Leaders Were Found Guilty, but the Threat of Antigovernment Extremism Remains

    With Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes convicted of seditious conspiracy, the group he founded is at a crossroads. Sam Jackson writes that the conviction is creating disarray in the group’s ranks, but that other so-called Patriot movements might benefit, and that the overall cause will remain strong.

  • Threats to Jewish Institutions on the Rise

    Incidents of antisemitism targeting Jewish institutions remain at historic levels in the United States, jumping 61 percent from 2020 to 2021. There has also been an uptick in threats to Jewish community and religious spaces, including synagogues, JCCs and Jewish day schools.

  • More Suspects Sought in Foiled German Coup Plot

    Police are searching for more people connected to the far-right Reichsbürger movement after Germany-wide raids revealed the advanced scale of a plot to overthrow the government.

  • What Is the Reichsbürger Movement Accused of Trying to Overthrow the German Government?

    Police have arrested 25 people of the Reichsbürger movement, accusing them of planning to overthrow the German government in a series of raids across the country. Reichsbürger adherents have been stopped from attempting violent action before, but this latest incident and its alleged members have caused greater concern.

  • Major Global Security Challenges

    What are the major threats the world is facing? Researchers highlight five such threats: The growing role of disinformation; attacks on the idea of democracy; environmental challenges; economic instability; and terrorism – both domestic and foreign.

  • Countering Terrorism and Violent Extremism Beyond the Sandpit

    Many counterterrorism experts and observers have long said that one of the key failings of the post-9/11 era was a lack of a cohesive, overarching strategic concept. Research indicates that short-term operational and tactical planning can dominate policy and security risk management at the expense of future scenario planning.

  • A Growing Threat: Deliberate, Simultaneous Release of Pandemic Viruses Across Travel Hubs

    COVID-19 demonstrated how the world is clearly vulnerable to the introduction of a single pandemic virus with a comparatively low case fatality rate. The deliberate and simultaneous release of many pandemic viruses across travel hubs could threaten the stability of civilization. Current trends suggest that within a decade, tens of thousands of skilled individuals will be able to access the information required for them single-handedly to cause new pandemics.

  • Afghan Government to Blame for Rapid Collapse: U.S. Auditor Report

    A report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), which examined the U.S. investment in the conflict-torn nation, blames Afghanistan’s internationally supported, now-defunct government for failing to recognize that the United States intended to withdraw from the country, one of several factors contributing to its rapid collapse in August 2021 before the Taliban seized power.

  • Greatest Terrorism Threat to U.S.: Racially Motivated, Anti-Government, Anti-Authority, Domestic Violent Extremists Radicalized Online -- FBI

    “The greatest terrorism threat to our Homeland is posed by lone actors or small cells who typically radicalize to violence online and look to attack soft targets with easily accessible weapons,” FBI Director Christopher Wray told Lawmakers. “We see these threats manifested within both Domestic Violent Extremists (“DVEs”) and Homegrown Violent Extremists (“HVEs”), two distinct threats, both of which are located primarily in the United States and typically radicalize and mobilize to violence on their own.”

  • Survey Reveals Worrying Trend in Conspiracy Theories That Deny Terrorist Attacks Ever Happened

    As a study my team and I conducted highlights, frightening proportions of the public believe in conspiracy theories that doubt the truth of reported events, even terrorist attacks. In our findings, one in seven respondents believed victims of the May 2017 Manchester Arena bombing were not really victims at all, but “crisis actors” – essentially, that they were brought in to pretend to be victims of an attack to manipulate public opinion. We also found that one in 20 were convinced the attack in Manchester and the 7/7 bombings in London in 2005 were “hoaxes”.