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Begin New Search Topic Counter-terrorism Political Geography South Asia Content Type Journal Article

1. CTC Sentinel: May 2023 Issue

Author:
Paul Cruickshank, Abdul Sayed, Tore Hamming, Colin Clarke, and Mollie Saltskog
Publication Date:
05-2023
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
CTC Sentinel
Institution:
The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
Abstract:
With Pakistan engulfed by political and economic turmoil, the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP)—better known as the Pakistani Taliban—is again growing as a threat. In our feature article, Abdul Sayed and Tore Hamming write: “With the Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan, the TTP has obtained new more sophisticated weapons and relocated fighters from Afghanistan to Pakistan and is now turning its focus back to its war against the Pakistani state. Over the past two years, the group has gone through a series of mergers, strengthened its media and operational activities, moved away from the indiscriminate targeting of civilians in suicide attacks, implemented a range of new internal policies centralizing its organizational structure, and settled on a localized strategy. With a solid organizational foundation and its eyes set on the Pakistani state, the TTP appears ready to follow in the footsteps of the Afghan Taliban and take control of territory in Pakistan’s tribal areas. The Taliban victory in Afghanistan has emboldened and strengthened the TTP. With the Taliban in control of Afghanistan and sympathetic to the TTP, the TTP now enjoys a level of ‘strategic depth’ that is arguably unparalleled in its history.” Our interview is with Robin Simcox, the United Kingdom’s Commissioner for Countering Extremism. He talks about tackling violent and non-violent extremism across the ideological spectrum and the findings of the recent independent review of the United Kingdom’s “Prevent” counter-extremism pillar. Wassim Nasr recounts his journey through Idlib in late April and early May 2023 on a reporting assignment for France24. He met with senior leaders of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, including its leader Abu Muhammad al-Julani, who told him they have definitively turned away from global jihad. In Nasr’s words: “You have a core jihadi group with core leaders saying, ‘OK, we don’t want anything to do with international jihad anymore.’ This is unique. It’s never happened before.” Colin Clarke, Mollie Saltskog, Michaela Millender, and Naureen Fink examine the recent targeting of infrastructure by America’s violent far-right. They write that “the increased focus and attacks on critical infrastructure by far-right extremists has the potential to wreak extensive, multifaceted societal disruption and damage, impacting communications, the economy, mobility, and basic human necessities.”
Topic:
Infrastructure, Taliban, Counter-terrorism, Far Right, Jihad, Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), and Political Extremism
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Afghanistan, United Kingdom, South Asia, Middle East, Syria, North America, and United States of America

2. August 2022 Issue

Author:
Paul Cruickshank, Madeline Field, Andrew Watkins, Don Rassler, and Muhammad Al-'Ubaydi
Publication Date:
08-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
CTC Sentinel
Institution:
The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
Abstract:
One year ago, the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan, raising concerns that they would again provide al-Qa`ida with a safe haven. Soberingly, in the months before his death in a U.S. airstrike at the end of July, al-Qa`ida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was releasing videos encouraging global terror, while living in a salubrious neighborhood of Kabul under the apparent protection of the Haqqani Taliban. This special issue of CTC Sentinel focuses on evolving dynamics relevant to the terrorism threat landscape one year into Taliban rule. In the feature article, Andrew Watkins takes a deep look at the Taliban’s first year in power. He writes: “Until the subtle, almost imperceptible attempts to nudge the needle on controversial issues within the movement gain more momentum, the Taliban’s emphasis on policing public life—and most critically, keeping women out of it—is likely to continue. And given this dynamic, al-Zawahiri’s killing under sanctuary in Kabul may confront the Taliban with a greater obligation to shore up their legitimacy among jihadi circles than to fall in line with international expectations on counterterrorism.” Our interview is with Edmund Fitton-Brown, the outgoing coordinator of the ISIL/Al-Qaida/Taliban Monitoring Team at the United Nations, who argues that a key determinant of the future international terror threat will be the degree to which the Taliban inhibit al-Qa`ida from launching attacks with fingerprints that lead directly back to Afghanistan. Don Rassler and Muhammad al-`Ubaydi evaluate who may be next in line to lead al-Qa`ida. They write: “The decision that al-Qa`ida makes could end up strengthening the group and al-Qa`ida’s status as a global brand. It could also, like someone pulling a loose thread, facilitate a greater unraveling of al-Qa`ida and its network of formally aligned regional affiliate partners.” Tore Hamming and Abdul Sayed assess the evolving threat posed by al-Qa`ida in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), writing, “it appears that with Taliban-run Afghanistan offering it a platform for regional expansion, AQIS is pivoting its focus to other parts of the South Asia region. Having set its eyes particularly on India and the contested Kashmir region, AQIS is currently pushing out targeted propaganda to recruit new operatives and to instigate new insurgencies in the region.” Nishank Motwani looks at the lessons learned for countering violent extremism in Afghanistan based on a survey of how former governing elites saw the violent extremism problem set in Afghanistan before the Taliban takeover.
Topic:
Taliban, Violent Extremism, Counter-terrorism, Al Qaeda, and Ayman al-Zawahiri
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, South Asia, India, and United States of America

3. January 2022 Issue

Author:
Michael Knights, Alex Almeida, Don Rassler, Brian Fishman, and Amira Jadoon
Publication Date:
01-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
CTC Sentinel
Institution:
The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
Abstract:
Notwithstanding a night attack that killed 11 Iraqi soldiers on an army base in the Iraqi province of Diyala earlier this month, the Islamic State is at its lowest ebb in Iraq in many years, according to new data published by Michael Knights and Alex Almeida in this month’s feature article. They write that “a comprehensive analysis of attack metrics shows an insurgency that has deteriorated in both the quality of its operations and overall volume of attack activity, which has fallen to its lowest point since 2003. The Islamic State is increasingly isolated from the population, confined to remote rural backwaters controlled by Iraq’s less effective armed forces and militias, and lacks reach into urban centers.” They note that “the key analytical quandary that emerges from this picture is whether the downtrend marks the onset of an enduring decline for the group, or if the Islamic State is merely lying low while laying the groundwork for its survival as a generational insurgency.” In this month’s interview, Amy Zegart speaks to Brian Fishman and Don Rassler about her soon-to-be published book Spies, Lies, and Algorithms: The History and Future of American Intelligence. In the interview, she calls for the creation in the United States of a dedicated open-source intelligence agency because “OSINT will never get the priority or resources the nation needs without its own agency.” Amira Jadoon, Abdul Sayed, and Andrew Mines assess the threat trajectory of Islamic State Khorasan (ISK) in the wake of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. They assess that “given the absence of multilateral counterterrorism pressure, the Taliban’s limited capacity to govern, and a worsening humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, ISK now finds itself perhaps in the most permissive environment yet to rebuild, rally, and expand.” Drawing on extensive fieldwork, including interviews with bandits and jihadi defectors, James Barnett, Murtala Ahmed Rufa’i, and Abdulaziz Abdulaziz examine the nexus between Nigeria’s bandits and jihadi organizations in northwestern Nigeria. They find that despite widespread fears bandits and jihadis would find common cause, there has been infrequent cooperation between them because they have conflicting approaches in their treatment of local inhabitants and because the more powerful bandits feel they have little to gain from working with the jihadis.
Topic:
Crime, Insurgency, Taliban, Counter-terrorism, and Islamic State
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, Africa, Iraq, South Asia, Middle East, and Nigeria

4. Operation Neptune Spear and the Manhunt (Implications for Pakistan United States Counter Terrorism Synergism 2001-2020)

Author:
Muhammad Iqbal Roy, Abubaqar Khalid, Abdul Rehman, and Farhan Khalid
Publication Date:
12-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Political Studies
Institution:
Department of Political Science, University of the Punjab
Abstract:
The qualitative, descriptive & analytical study emphasis on the US military operation against Osama Bin laden the founder of Al-Qaeda, who was killed on May 1, 2011 in Bilal town compound Abbottabad Pakistan, which was purchased by Abu Ahmad Al-Kuwaiti of $50,000 during 2004-5. The former US president Bill Clinton had announced to arrest Bin Laden either live or dead in 1992. Clinton claimed that “the historic record of America does not confirm that it had even left off its foes. How the US administration stipulated a sum of $ 250 million for various military & intelligence operations to persuade Osama Bin Laden since the US started war on terror against Al-Qaida & its associates as the major culprits of the devastating events of 9/11? The Clinton’s proclamation of killing Osama Bin Laden was practically executed during Obama’s regime on May 1, 2011.The US intelligence & security agencies used Black Hawks, Navy Seals including 79 Commandos and a dog called Cairo. The Operation Neptune Spear imprinted multi-faceted implications on Pakistan’s Socio-Political and economic environment and put its credibility at the stake of trust deficit in the context of Pakistan-United States working relationship fighting against terrorism during 2001-2020. The study examines how Pakistan had to face a severe internal and external criticism and cost along with a serious retaliation of the terrorist activities i.e. suicidal attacks in the post Abbottabad operation scenario?
Topic:
Counter-terrorism, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), DNA, and Osama bin Laden
Political Geography:
Pakistan, South Asia, and United States of America

5. An evaluation of anti-terrorism laws in Pakistan: Lessons from the past and challenges for the future

Author:
Ayesha Jawad
Publication Date:
06-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Security and Defence Quarterly
Institution:
War Studies University
Abstract:
Terrorism has changed the national and international security milieu over the last few years; however, there have been metamorphoses in the phenomenon of defining security in light of new threats of terrorism. This research critically evaluates the anti-terrorism legal regime of Pakistan along with its structural flaws. While vigorous efforts to defeat terrorism have taken place in Pakistan, much needs to be done to achieve de-radicalisation along with identifying and addressing areas of vulnerability. This research moves in three directions: firstly, it looks into the background of extremism in terms of ethnic and sectarian conflicts that led Pakistan to embark on the journey to combat terrorism; secondly, it evaluates how these laws aimed exclusively at countering terrorism have not been as effective as hoped; and thirdly, it offers an in-depth analysis of flaws in the judicial system and analysis of capacity gaps in relation to prosecution of terrorist offences in Pakistan. Lastly, this research makes recommendations for eliminating the causes of institutional and legal inefficiencies that feed and nurture terrorism in Pakistan. The qualitative method is used in this research, which holds that Pakistan needs to make effective structural changes to implement counterterrorism strategies constructively, such as, capacity-building of judiciary and law enforcement agencies, acceptance of innovation in investigation methods, amendments in procedural laws and comprehensive, unambiguous and detailed legislation. Amendments to existing anti-terrorism laws need to be adapted to the changing security trends in the region. In order to combat the high rate of acquittal under these laws, a strong and focused approach is required.
Topic:
Security, International Security, and Counter-terrorism
Political Geography:
Pakistan and South Asia

6. May 2020 Issue

Author:
Eran Benedek, Neil Simon, Michael Knights, Alex Almeida, Mette Mayli Albaek, Puk Damasgard, Mahmoud Shiekh Ibrahim, Troels Kingo, Jens Vithner, and Nakissa Jahanbani
Publication Date:
05-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
CTC Sentinel
Institution:
The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
Abstract:
One painful lesson from the history of terrorism is just how dangerous one single capable international attack planner can be. Little has been written in English about Basil Hassan, a radicalized Danish engineering graduate of Lebanese descent who became one of the most dangerous international attack operatives within the Islamic State. In this issue’s first feature article, Mette Mayli Albæk, Puk Damsgård, Mahmoud Shiekh Ibrahim, Troels Kingo and Jens Vithner build on a two-year investigative report for the Danish public broadcaster DR to provide a detail-rich profile. The authors write: “As the key figure in a drone procurement network that stretched from Europe through Turkey to Syria, [Hassan] was instrumental in furthering the Islamic State’s drone-warfare capabilities. As ‘the Controller’ behind the 2017 Sydney airline plot, he pulled the strings from Syria in directing one of the most ambitious and innovative terrorist plots ever seen.” There are claims Hassan was killed in the second half of 2017, but the authors note that Danish counterterrorism officials are still not certain that he is dead. In our second feature article, Michael Knights and Alex Almeida find that “the Islamic State has recovered from its territorial defeats since 2017 to mount a strong and sustained resurgence as an insurgent force inside Iraq.” Their analysis of attack metrics from the past 18 months paints “a picture of an Islamic State insurgency that has regained its balance, spread out across many more areas, and reclaimed significant tactical proficiency.” The authors write that “now operating at the same levels it achieved in 2012, a number of factors suggest that the Islamic State could further ramp up its rural insurgency in 2020 and 2021. An input of experienced cadres from Syria, a downturn in Iraqi and coalition effectiveness, and now the disruption of a combined COVID and economic crisis will likely all feed into an escalating campaign of attrition against the Iraqi state, military, and tribes.” May 2020 marks the third anniversary of the suicide bombing attack at the Manchester Arena in the United Kingdom. Two brothers from Manchester of Libyan descent, Salman and Hashem Abedi, were responsible for the attack. Following the conviction of Hashem Abedi in a trial that concluded two months ago in the United Kingdom, Eran Benedek and Neil Simon outline what is now known about the genesis of the attack, the brothers’ web of connections in a British-Libyan jihadi nexus, and their links to Islamic State extremists. Finally, Nakissa Jahanbani provides a high-level analysis of attack trends from 2008 to 2019 of Iranian proxies in the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa using several open-source datasets.
Topic:
Terrorism, Counter-terrorism, Islamic State, Jihad, Proxy War, and Aviation
Political Geography:
Africa, Iraq, United Kingdom, South Asia, Middle East, and Libya

7. Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses (CTTA) – Volume 12 Issue 03: COVID-19 and Terrorism

Author:
Raffaello Pantucci, Abdul Basit, Kyler Ong, Nur Aziemah Azman, V. Arianti, and Muh Taufiqurrohman
Publication Date:
04-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Counter Terrorist Trends and Analysis
Institution:
Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
Abstract:
The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has redefined almost all spheres of modern life. While states around the world are redeploying their financial resources, energies and military capabilities to cope with the challenge of the coronavirus, terrorist groups across the ideological spectrum have positioned themselves to exploit the gaps created by these policy re-adjustments. Terrorist groups are milking people’s fears amid confusion and uncertainty to promote their extremist propagandas. The rearrangement of global imperatives will push counter-terrorism and extremism down the priority list of the international community. Anticipating these policy changes, existing counter-terrorism frameworks and alliances should be revisited to devise cost-effective and innovative strategies to ensure continuity of the fight against terrorist groups. With these considerations in mind, this special issue of the Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses (CTTA) features four articles that identify and assess important security risks around COVID-19, given its far-reaching social, economic and geopolitical impact. In the first article, Raffaello Pantucci reasons that COVID-19 will have a deep-seated and prolonged impact across government activity, both in terms of the categorisation of risks, as well as the resources available to tackle other issues. Perceptions of risk around terrorist threats may shift, with states grappling with stark economic, social and political challenges. At the same time, security threats continue to evolve, and may even worsen. According to the author, some of the tools developed to deal with the pandemic can potentially be useful in tracking terrorist threats. However, resource constraints will require states, on a global scale, to think far more dynamically about how to adequately buffer much-needed security blankets both within and beyond their borders. In the second article, Abdul Basit outlines the opportunities and potential implications that COVID-19 has created for terrorist groups across the ideological divide. According to the author, terrorist groups have exploited the virus outbreak to spread racial hatred, doomsday and end-of-times narratives. Among jihadist groups, IS has taken a more totalitarian view of the coronavirus pandemic, while Al-Qaeda (AQ) and the Taliban have used it as a PR exercise to gain political legitimacy. Far-right groups in the West have spun it to promote native nationalism, border restoration and anti-immigration policies. Terrorist groups have increased their social media propaganda to radicalise and recruit vulnerable individuals. At the same time, these groups have urged their supporters to carry out lone-wolf attacks and use the coronavirus as a bioweapon. In the post-COVID-19 world, revisiting existing counter-terrorism frameworks to devise more adaptable and cost-effective strategies would be needed to continue the fight against terrorism. In the next article, V. Arianti and Muh Taufiqurrohman observe that the COVID-19 outbreak has had a varied impact on Indonesia’s security landscape. On the one hand, it has emboldened IS-affiliated Indonesian militant groups to step up calls for attacks, with the government seen as weakened amidst a worsening domestic health crisis. On the other, ongoing indoctrination and recruitment activities of militant groups have also faced disruptions. According to the authors, counter-terrorism strategies will need to be reoriented as circumstances evolve, particularly in dealing with the arrest of militants and the subsequent processes of their prosecution and incarceration. Finally, Kyler Ong and Nur Aziemah Azman examine the calls to action by far-right extremists and the Islamic State (IS), which reveals varying degrees of organisational coherence in the respective movements. According to the authors, such variations influence these two groups’ preferred techniques, tactics and procedures adopted in seeking to exploit the health crisis. For its part, IS has a more organised hierarchical structure, even if it has increasingly granted autonomy to its affiliates to plan and execute attacks. In comparison, the absence of a central authority, or command structure in the far-right, can lead to a fragmentation of interests. These factors invariably create uncertainties in how, when and where extremists of both ilk may seek to operationalise an attack.
Topic:
Security, Government, Health, Terrorism, Counter-terrorism, Al Qaeda, Islamic State, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
South Asia, Indonesia, Southeast Asia, and Global Focus

8. Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses (CTTA) – Volume 12 Issue 01: Annual Threat Assessment

Author:
Ong Keng Yong, Noorita Mohd Noor, Iftekharul Bashar, Muhammad Saiful Alam Shah Bin Sudiman, Nodirbek Soliev, Remy Mahzam, and Amalina Abdul Nasir
Publication Date:
01-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Counter Terrorist Trends and Analysis
Institution:
Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
Abstract:
The January issue provides an overview of terrorist and violent extremist threats in key countries and conflict zones in the Asia-Pacific throughout 2019. Regional specific threats and responses covering Southeast Asia, South Asia, Central Asia, China and the Middle East are assessed. In addition, themes such as the online narratives propagated by global threat groups and counter-ideological dimensions of terrorism and violent extremism are analysed. Globally, despite suffering severe territorial, leadership and organisational losses in 2019, Islamist terror groups Islamic State (IS) and Al Qaeda (AQ) continued to pose the most potent terrorist threat. Early in the year, IS’ territorial reign was ended by American-backed coalition forces, following which its networks became scattered and, in a bid to overcome its physical decimation, more decentralised across the globe. The death of IS’ “Caliph”, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, in October 2019, raised further questions about the group’s continued resiliency. Yet, IS has proved persistent and adaptive. The group’s violent ideology continues to bind its myriad followers across regions. In the aftermath of its territorial and leadership losses, IS’ terror attacks and online offensives have been sustained. The global security landscape was further complicated by the emergence of Right Wing Extremist groups as violent actors on the world stage in 2019. Mass political protests around the world further underscored growing dissatisfaction with the present status quo, amid perceptions that some states are unable to articulate masses’ aspirations and meet their demands. The threat of Islamist terrorism will persist into 2020, especially with escalating geo-political tensions in the Middle East. Overcoming the physical and ideological threat by global militant groups, including far-right extremist groups, will remain very much a work in progress in the year ahead.
Topic:
Security, Terrorism, Counter-terrorism, Al Qaeda, Islamic State, Protests, and Violence
Political Geography:
China, South Asia, Central Asia, Middle East, North Africa, and Southeast Asia

9. May/June 2019 Issue

Author:
Amarnath Amarasingam, Brian Michael Jenkins, Paul Cruickshank, Mitchell D. Silber, Haroro J. Ingram, Craig Whiteside, and Charlie Winter
Publication Date:
06-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
CTC Sentinel
Institution:
The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
Abstract:
The Easter Sunday attacks in Sri Lanka took the terrorism studies community by surprise because there had been no known history of jihadi violence inside the country and very little to indicate that local groups had the wherewithal to carry out such a large-scale coordinated operation. There is much that remains unclear about the links between the Sri Lankan cell and the Islamic State, but nearly 18 years after 9/11, the suicide bombings were a reminder that clandestine terrorist groups can, at any moment, strike in unexpected places and ways. In our cover article, Amarnath Amarasingam, whose research has focused on both Sri Lanka and global terrorism, outlines what is known about the network that carried out the Easter attacks and situates the attacks in the broader context of evolving intercommunal tensions in the country. Brian Michael Jenkins examines the options for dealing with the significant numbers of Islamic State foreign fighters currently detained in Syria, warning that “endless delay” risks creating a serious threat to international security. Our interview is with Vidhya Ramalingam, the co-founder of Moonshot CVE, a company using technology to disrupt and counter violent extremism globally. Mitchell Silber examines how the terrorist threat against Jews in the West has evolved by examining attacks between 2012 and the present day. He notes that “what may be the most striking findings from this case study analysis are that first, Europe has become the focal point of the jihadi terror threat to Jews in the West and second, the United States has become a new, emerging focal point of the extreme right-wing terror threat to Jews in the West.” Last month, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi appeared for the first time on camera since the Islamic State heralded its ‘caliphate’ in Mosul’s al-Nuri mosque five years ago. Haroro Ingram, Craig Whiteside, and Charlie Winter explain how the video underlined the group’s strategic transformation with the Islamic State’s leader now portraying himself as “the guerrilla ‘caliph’ of a global insurgency.”
Topic:
Terrorism, Counter-terrorism, Islamic State, Judaism, and Foreign Fighters
Political Geography:
Europe, South Asia, Middle East, Sri Lanka, Syria, and United States of America

10. Impact of Violent Extremism on Pakistani Youth

Author:
Shabana Fayyaz
Publication Date:
07-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
South Asian Studies
Institution:
Department of Political Science, University of the Punjab
Abstract:
Events following the 9/11 attack have fundamentally changed the political landscape, especially for the Muslim World. A new wave of violent extremism emerged, altering the structure of global world order. Pakistan has suffered impeding consequences following the „global war on terror‟. Currently, Pakistan has been ranked at number five in the Global Terrorism Index of 2017. The magnitude of Pakistan‟s loss is not limited to its economic or political instability, but it has crept into the very fabric of the Pakistani society. The purpose of the paper is to analyze the impact of violent extremism on Pakistani youth.
Topic:
Terrorism, Violent Extremism, Counter-terrorism, Psychology, Youth, and 9/11
Political Geography:
Pakistan, South Asia, and Punjab