• New Zealand, France leading an effort to ban terrorists from social media

    New Zealand and France will host a meeting with technology companies and world leaders to develop a strategy to block terrorists from social media. The meeting comes in the wake of the March shootings at two mosques in Christchurch.

  • White supremacists use social media aid, abet terror

    Before carrying out mass shooting attacks in Pittsburgh and New Zealand, white supremacist terrorists Robert Bowers and Brenton Tarrant frequented fringe social networking sites which, according to a new study, serve as echo chambers for the most virulent forms of anti-Semitism and racism, and active recruiting grounds for potential terrorists.

  • IS claims responsibility for deadly Sri Lanka blasts

    The Islamic State group said Tuesday, without providing evidence, that it was responsible for a series of blasts in Sri Lanka that killed more than 300 people and injured hundreds of others on Easter Sunday. Also Tuesday, Sri Lanka’s state minister of defense told parliament that those who carried out the attacks did so in retaliation for attacks at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand last month.

  • Sri Lanka attacks: government’s social media ban may hide the truth about what is happening

    Sri Lanka has temporarily banned social media and messaging apps in the wake of the coordinated Easter Sunday attacks on churches and hotels across the country, which killed at least 290 people. The ban is ostensibly to stop the spread of misinformation – but in Sri Lanka Facebook and social media platforms generally have created a positive space for public conversation that did not exist before. Shutting down social media, leaving its citizens reliant on state messaging and a weak and beaten down form of journalism, the government now risks preventing Sri Lankans from finding out the truth about what is happening in their fragile and delicately balanced country.

  • Nearly 300 killed, 500 injured in Easter Sunday attacks on churches, hotels in Sri Lanka

    In the worst wave of terrorist violence in Sri Lanka in ten years, a series of blasts on Sunday have hit churches and hotels in and near the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo. The nearly simultaneous blasts targeted churches during Easter services and hotels frequented by foreign guests. Sri Lankan officials said 290 people, including at least 27 foreigners, had been killed in the blasts in Colombo and elsewhere. More than 500 more have been injured.

  • Sri Lanka attacks among the deadliest terrorist attacks since 9/11

    The Sunday attacks in Sri Lanka – nearly 300 killed and more than 500 injured — places the bombings on a par with other high-casualty terrorist atrocities since September 11, the single deadliest terrorist attack in history, in which 2,977 people were killed.

  • The first lone-wolf terrorist

    Muharem Kurbegovic is considered the first “lone-wolf” terrorist. He was born in Sarajevo in 1943 and immigrated to the United States in 1967 to pursue a career in engineering. In 1973 he launched a series of bombing in and around Los Angeles. What especially alarmed the authorities was his interest in building chemical weapons, including nerve-gas munitions, to use in his planned attacks:

  • Analyzing lone-actor terrorism in context

    Assessing and managing the risk of lone-actor terrorism is a challenge, as events around the world continue to show. Noémie Bouhana of the Department of Security and Crime Science at University College London suggests a shift in focus from “who and why” to “who and where.” This approach is captured in the S5 framework, which builds on the findings of PRIME, an international project led by Bouhana and funded by the European Commission to understand and counter lone-actor terrorism.

  • UN calls for repatriation of IS wives, children in Syria

    The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is calling on countries to repatriate thousands of wives and children of Islamic State militants in Syria, who are living in dire conditions in the al-Hol camp in al-Hasakeh governorate in northeast Syria.

  • Exposure to mass violence on the media leads to cycle of distress

    The more people watch, listen or scroll through hours of news coverage of events such as terrorist attacks, the more likely they are to develop stress symptoms that in turn increase their media consumption during the next mass violence event, according to a nationwide study.

  • Social media networks aid, abet white supremacist terrorism: Study

    A new study reveals how fringe social media sites such as Gab, 4 Chan and 8chan act like virtual “round-the-clock white supremacist rallies” where hateful notions of Jews and other minorities are openly espoused and closely associated with violence as a solution.

  • Israeli air strike destroys Iranian missile production, storage facility in Syria

    Satellite images released Sunday by ImageSat International (ISI) showed the impact of an airstrike, blamed on Israel, on a missile base in Syria on Saturday evening that reportedly killed Iranian personnel. Israeli analysts say that recent Israeli air strikes in Syria probably would not have passed without public Russian comment had Israel and Russia not reached an understanding designed to reduce possible friction and improve early warning between Israeli and Russian armed forces operating in Syria.

  • U.K. citizens prohibited from traveling to, remaining in designated terrorist areas

    British Home Secretary Sajid Javid said that British citizens who travel to overseas terrorism areas will face up to ten years in jail under new laws, which come into effect today. The legislation targets potential foreign fighters, and making it a punishable offense to enter or remain in a “designated area.”

  • German police raids Hamas-linked charities

    The German police have staged raids across Germany, targeting charities which provide support to the Palestinian Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip. The United States, Israel, and the EU regard Hamas a terrorist organization.

  • Islamic State: the “caliphate” is off the map for now, but will evolve in dangerous ways

    The so-called Islamic State (IS) recently lost its last remnant of territory in Syria, but observers were quick to remind the world that the war against the organization is far from over. IS is now expected to evolve, but with its defeat on the ground in Syria and Iraq, IS and its offshoots will have a more limited capacity for recruitment, indoctrination and growth.