• Experts Shed Light on Preventing Violence

    As the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence at CU Boulder turns 30, its founder and current director share thoughts on the center’s legacy.

  • Rise of Precision Agriculture Exposes Food System to New Threats

    Farmers are adopting precision agriculture, using data collected by GPS, satellite imagery, internet-connected sensors and other technologies to farm more efficiently. These practices could help increase crop yields and reduce costs, but the technology behind the practices is creating opportunities for extremists, terrorists and adversarial governments to attack farming machinery, with the aim of disrupting food production.

  • Do Targeted Killings Weaken Terrorist Groups?

    Targeted operations by U.S. forces have eliminated notorious leaders of armed extremist groups, al-Qaeda’s Ayman al-Zawahiri the latest among them. But how much they disrupt these terrorist organizations is questionable.

  • FBI: Al-Qaida Determined to Strike at US Despite Leader's Killing

    The FBI remains worried about the potential for a large-scale attack planned or inspired by al-Qaida despite the killing of its top leader in a U.S. drone strike in Afghanistan last weekend. Ayman Al-Zawahiri, who took over as al-Qaida leader after Osama bin Laden was killed in a U.S. raid in 2011, was on the FBI’s Most Wanted List with a $25 million reward for his capture.

  • Ayman al-Zawahri’s Killing, Kits Impact on al-Qaida, and U.S. Counterterrorism?

    The American withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021 prompted questions over whether the U.S. could keep pressure on al-Qaida, ISIS-K and other militants in the country. U.S. officials explained that an “over-the-horizon” strategy would allow the U.S. to deal with problems that emerged, but many experts disagreed. The debate over capabilities continues, but for those who doubted whether the U.S. still had the desire to go after key terrorists in Afghanistan, the killing of al-Zawahri gives a clear answer.

  • What Zawahiri’s Killing Means for al-Qaeda

    Ayman al-Zawahiri leaves behind a robust network of strategically aligned but tactically independent al-Qaeda affiliates operating in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.

  • U.S. Kills Al-Qaida Leader Aymen al-Zawahiri

    In a rare counterterrorism operation over the weekend, U.S. forces killed top al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, who was deputy to the terror group’s founder, Osama bin Laden, when they orchestrated the September 2001 attacks against the U.S.

  • There Is a Lot of Antisemitic Hate Speech on Social Media – and Algorithms Are Partly to Blame

    Antisemitic incidents have shown a sharp rise in the United States. There were 2,717 incidents in 2021. This represents an increase of 34% over 2020. In Europe, the European Commission found a sevenfold increase in antisemitic postings across French language accounts, and an over thirteenfold increase in antisemitic comments within German channels during the pandemic. Contemporary antisemitism manifests itself in various forms such as GIFs, memes, vlogs, comments and reactions such as likes and dislikes on the platforms. The continuous exposure to antisemitic content at a young age, scholars say, can lead to both normalization of the content and radicalization of the Tik-Tok viewer.

  • Alarming Trend Toward Political Violence

    A new report reveals alarming trends in attitudes toward violence, including political violence, in the United States. The survey is the first of its kind to explore the participants’ personal willingness to engage in specific political violence scenarios.

  • Does Germany's Special Network to Prevent Islamist Extremists' Attacks Work?

    Political and religious extremism has long been seen as a threat to democracy in Germany. The Counter Terrorism Center is where agencies and police network to prevent Islamist extremist attacks. Is it effective?

  • New Tool Helps Distinguish Different Psychological Traits of Violent Extremists

    Researchers have developed and validated a new tool known as the Extremist Archetypes Scale to help distinguish different psychological traits found among people engaged in violent extremism. Dimensions of extremist archetypes include “adventurer”, “drifter” and “misfit”, among others.

  • Calls Rise in Congress to Designate Russia a State Sponsor of Terrorism

    As Russian attacks on civilian sites are reported on a near-daily basis, pressure is mounting on the Biden administration to officially designate Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism.

  • 2021: More than 400 Were Convicted of Terrorism Offenses in EU Countries

    EUROPOL the other day published the European Union Terrorism Situation and Trend Report 2022 (TE-SAT). It provides the most comprehensive and up-to-date intelligence picture on terrorism in the European Union. In 2021, European courts convicted 423 individuals for  terrorist offenses, while EU law enforcement authorities arrested 388 suspects for terrorism-related offenses.

  • U.K. Parliamentary Report: “Threat from Extreme Right-Wing Terrorism on an Upward Trajectory”

    “The threat from Extreme Right-Wing Terrorism is on an upward trajectory, populated by an increasing number of young people and driven by the internet,” said Julian Lewis, MP, the chairman of the U.K. Parliament Intelligence and Security Committee. The committee has just released a detailed report on the threat of terrorism in the United Kingdom.

  • Is There a Link Between Mental Health and Mass Shootings?

    There have already been more than 300 mass shootings in the United States this year—the latest at a 4th of July parade in the Highland Park suburb of Chicago. That shooting left seven dead, including both parents of a 2-year old toddler, and dozens injured – among them an 8-year old with a severed spinal cord, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down for the rest of his life. As the United States reckons with these increasingly common public massacres, many blame mental illness as the fundamental cause. The reality, however, is that people with mental illness account for a very small proportion of perpetrators of mass shootings in the United States, says one expert.