• Exposing the Propaganda of the Christchurch Terrorist

    The terrorist who murdered 51 people in two Christchurch mosques sent out a raft of propaganda at the time of the attacks which deliberately masked his real views and plans, according to a new University of Auckland study.

  • Sept. 11 Victims’ Lawsuit Against Saudi Government Can Go to Trial, Judge Rules

    Information uncovered by plaintiffs has already undermined the FBI’s conclusion that two U.S.-based Saudi officials “unwittingly” helped al-Qaida hijackers after they arrived in America.

  • Tehran’s Homeland Option: Terror Pathways for Iran to Strike in the United States

    The 12-day Iran war may be over, but the threat of Iranian reprisal attacks now looms large, and will for the foreseeable future.In addition to attacking U.S. targets around the world, Iranian operatives or their agents could also attempt to carry out attacks inside the United States, leveraging what U.S. counterterrorism officials have describe as a “homeland option” developed over years.

  • Active Clubs Aare White Supremacy’s New, Dangerous Frontier

    Small local organizations called Active Clubs have spread widely across the U.S. and internationally, using fitness as a cover for a much more alarming mission. These groups are a new and harder-to-detect form of white supremacist organizing that merges extremist ideology with fitness and combat sports culture.

  • What Does Netflix’s Drama “Adolescence” Tell Us About Incels and the Manosphere?

    While Netflix’s psychological crime drama ‘Adolescence’ is a work of fiction, its themes offer insight into the very real and troubling rise of the incel and manosphere culture online.

  • In-Group Perceptions Play Key Role in Driving Political Extremism: Study

    Reducing the rising tide of political extremism –and violence –in the United States and beyond may require a rethinking of how we understand the forces that drive polarization. Believing your own side holds extreme views - even if it doesn’t - makes political violence more likely, researchers say.

  • Filtered Data Stops Openly Available AI Models from Performing Dangerous Tasks

    Researchers have reported a major advance in safeguarding open-weight language models. By filtering out potentially harmful knowledge during training, the researchers were able to build models that resist subsequent malicious updates – especially valuable in sensitive domains such as biothreat research.

  • As AI Worsens WMD Threat, Australia Must Lead Response

    When dealing with AI-enabled CBRN threats, we cannot afford to wait until the first catastrophic incident occurs. AI companies have acknowledged that frontier models have capabilities that, without adequate safeguards, could enable novices to create biological and chemical weapons.

  • Moving Targets: Implications of the Russo-Ukrainian War for Drone Terrorism

    Small and commercially available drones in the hands of violent extremists pose a rapidly growing terrorist threat. This threat hasimplications for global counterterrorism, especially when considering the psychological impact, scalability, and low operational risk of drone attacks.

  • The Quiet War: What’s Fueling Israel’s Surge of Settler Violence – and the Lack of State Response

    Since Oct. 7, 2023, as Israel’s war against Hamas drags on in the Gaza Strip, a quieter but escalating war has unfolded in the West Bank between Israelis and Palestinians. The Jewish settlers’ campaign is not merely a result of rising tension between the settlers and their Palestinian neighbors amid the Gaza conflict. Rather, it is fueled by a confluence of ideological fervor, opportunism and far-right Israelis’ political vision for the region.

  • How Male Grievance Fuels Radicalization and Extremist Violence

    Social extremism is evolving in reach and form. While traditional racial supremacy ideologies remain, contemporary movements are now often fueled by something more personal and emotionally resonant: male grievance.

  • Lessons From the Ledger

    The United States and Canada recently began designating drug cartels and other transnational criminal organizations as terrorist groups, in part to use counterterrorism tools against these organizations. Jessica Davis writes that some “counterterrorist financing tools might yield some results against cartels. But here, the lessons of decades of counterterrorist financing will need to be applied for maximum disruptive effect.”

  • The Psychosocial Imperative of Food Security Preparedness

    The dust has barely settled on the 2025 Australian federal election and the returning government has already reaffirmed its commitment to delivering a national food security strategy. But unless we address the psychological and cultural barriers that shape Australians’ perceptions of food security, even the most technically sound strategies will fail to achieve their intended effect.

  • Terrorgram Block Is a Welcome Step Towards Countering Violent Extremism

    Terrorgram has been linked to lone-actor attacks in Slovakia, Turkey, Brazil and the United States. Its listing places it among the likes of Hamas, Islamic State, and violent white supremacist groups such as Sonnenkrieg Division and The Base.

  • Brazil’s Dangerous Flirtation with Counterterrorism

    The main conversation about terrorism in Brazil is focused on mistaken efforts to label criminal groups as terrorists. This is dangerous, as the term “terrorism” contains within it a power to dress state repression as a proportionate response to emergency. Brazil should not adopt the term “ counterterrorism,” and all that it implies and permits, to address the very serious – but very separate – problem of organized crime.