Following the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, DC, there has been an increasing interest among scholars, students, and the interested public to study and learn about the Islamist-oriented ...terrorist organizations called Jihadi Salafi Groups (JSGs). Considering that these organizations emerged in highly fragile states, S. Yaqub Ibrahimi asks: how and why is state fragility linked to the emergence of JSGs? Ibrahimi bases his study on three events: the establishment of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan in 1998, the rise of Islamic State in the post-Saddam Hussein Iraq, and the failed al-Qaeda effort to establish a base in Saudi Arabia in 2003. These case studies contain major aspects and features of the rise of JSGs and, together, explain the contribution of state fragility to the process of the formation and expansion of these terrorist organizations. International Security in a World of Fragile States stands out as a pivotal work on the interconnection between the root causes of JSGs and state fragility conditions and their amalgamated role in the formation and evolution of these organizations. It contributes to IR and international security debates by developing a comprehensive but readily understandable narrative of the rise of JSGs in Islamic countries, and examining them in an analytical framework in which their root causes are categorized on individual, group, and international levels.
Following a period close to fifteen years of fighting the extremist terrorist group Al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the United States (US) is faced with diverse security threats from affiliates ...of Al Qaeda in Africa. This study explores the extent of Al Qaeda’s presence in Africa, security threat and policy implications to the US. A qualitative methodology through document analysis and informed by the interpretivist research paradigm was employed. With Al Qaeda’s continued growth, there could be nuclear terrorism, arms and drug trafficking among other threats. Policy recommendations are given for the United States of America.
Recently, the Somali diaspora has found itself at the centre of heightened security concerns surrounding the proliferation of international terrorist networks and their recruitment strategies. These ...concerns have reached new levels since the absorption of al-Shabaab into al-Qaeda in 2012. Based on a qualitative analysis of interviews with 118 members of Canada's largest Somali community, this article draws upon narrative criminology to reverse the 'why they joined' question that serves as the predicate for much recent radicalization scholarship, and instead explores, 'why they would never join'. We encounter Somali-Canadians equipping themselves with sophisticated counternarratives that vitiate the enticements of al-Shabaab. Particularly, notions of 'coolness', 'trickery' and 'religious perversion' mediate participants' perceptions of al-Shabaab and enable a self-empowering rejection of its recruitment narratives. In particular, we find resonances between the narratives of non-recruits and 'bogeyman' narratives that exist commonly in many cultures. The efficacy of these narratives for resilience is three-fold, positioning the recruiters as odious agents, recruits as weak-minded dupes and our participants as knowledgeable storytellers who can forewarn others against recruitment to al-Shabaab.
What challenges do newly appointed terrorist leaders face? The paper proposes four primary needs all new leaders consider, including acceptance by the organization's members, assuming control, ...maintaining organizational coherence and unity, and overcoming counterterrorism pressures. The magnitude of each challenge may differ depending on the predecessor's character, the organization's institutionalization level, the group's ideological and strategic coherence, the availability of material resources, and communal support. This analytical framework is then used to assist the paper's second objective: understanding how Ayman al-Zawahiri, who succeeded bin Laden, negotiated these challenges and the tradeoffs he made. Shifts in Al Qaeda's operational environment required al-Zawahiri to confront challenges more complex than his predecessor had faced, even as he had fewer tools to solve them. Facing authority crisis, magnified by the incoherence between Al Qaeda's central leadership and its branches and Al Qaeda's inability to control its branches, al-Zawahiri increased decentralization, embraced affiliates' local focus, promoted efforts to raise Al Qaeda's local appeal, and sought to reduce U.S. interest in targeting the group. He kept Al Qaeda alive, but saw its stature shrink significantly.
Abstract
What is the relationship between revolution and terrorism? Much of the time, terrorism and revolution are taken to be distinct forms of political contention. This article argues that, to the ...contrary, their relationship is much closer than is often imagined. We show that a range of contemporary terrorist groups contain revolutionary elements: they seek to capture and hold territory, and see themselves as part of movements where the goal is to transform international as well as domestic orders. This provides two points of distinction: first, between ‘order-maintaining’ and ‘order-transforming’ goals; and second, between ‘minimalist’ and ‘maximalist’ tactics. The result is a taxonomy of different types of ‘revolutionary terrorism’. This analytic is used to dig deeper into the parameters of revolutionary terrorism, using militant Salafism as an example of a maximalist, order-transforming movement. A focus on transnational, order-transforming revolutionary terrorism generates a range of insights into the violent strategies, international dynamics and organizational forms used by Islamic State, al-Qaeda and related groups. The resulting research agenda, the article concludes, is rich in possibilities.
This paper’s main goal was to assess, based on the analyses carried out, if Osama bin Laden’s wives enjoyed a special status within Al-Qaeda as a result of their husband’s rank and status. In other ...words, this paper examined if it is justifiable to infer the occurrence of exceptionalism or a detachment from religiously and socially predefined gender limitations, thanks to being married to the leader. The main methods used to examine this hypothesis were historical and content analysis, which provided verified premises, and the deductive method, which allowed for the construction of a sound argument that addresses the paper’s research question. This paper’s conclusion is not unequivocal.
Since September 11, Al Qaeda has been portrayed as an Islamist front united in armed struggle, or jihad, against the Christian West. However, as the historian and commentator Fawaz A. Gerges argues, ...the reality is rather different. In fact, Al Qaeda represents a minority within the jihadist movement, and its strategies have been criticized and opposed by religious nationalists among the jihadis, who prefer to concentrate on changing the Muslim world rather than taking the fight global. Based on primary field research, the author unravels the story of the jihadist movement and explores its philosophies, its structure, the rifts and tensions that split its ranks, and why some members, like Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri, favored international over local strategies in taking the war to the West. Gerges asks where the jihadist movement is going, and whether it can be transformed into a non-violent, socio-political force.
This article assesses the strengths, weaknesses, and gaps in the discipline of counterterrorism studies since al-Qaeda’s catastrophic attacks against the United States on 9/11 along 10 dimensions: ...defining terrorism, group and lone actor typologies, causes of terrorism, terrorist psychologies, radicalization and recruitment, organizational dynamics, modus operandi, incident chronology databases, forecasting and predicting terrorism, and countering terrorism.
This article, with the benefit of hindsight, analyzes the accuracy (and inaccuracy) of my February 2001 article in the American Behavioral Scientist seeking to answer, “what is the future of ...terrorism?” I discovered that Shakespeare had it right, “The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars, But in ourselves if we are underlings.” There are two major factors that produce and sustain international terrorism—state sponsorship of individuals and groups that carry out terrorist acts and the actions of nation states that create an aggrieved class that is inspired to use violence to try to achieve political objectives or simply to avenge a perceived wrong. The conclusion reached in 2001 remains valid—Prevention and preparation can pay important dividends in deterring terrorism. But a government’s response must be tempered with reason and prudence. Security and law enforcement policies must reflect the values and the vision that protect and uphold freedom.
Qualitative interviews were conducted with nine members of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and Al‐Qaeda currently incarcerated in Kuwait's Central Prison. The semistructured interviews ...attempted to understand psychosocial factors in Kuwait that contributed to their decision to join extremist organizations. Interviews were analyzed using Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) and the emergent themes identified the following core themes explaining their involvement: (1) religious identity development; (2) personal connections; (3) propaganda; (4) defense of Islam; and (5) social marginalization. Participants described a process whereby their religion became a central part of their personal identity. As their religious identity developed, they became involved in Islamic organizations where they met people involved with ISIS or Al‐Qaeda. These social connections exposed them to jihadi propaganda which, in addition to increased military conflict in the Middle East, crystallized their beliefs that Islam is under attack, and they were religiously obligated to defend it. The results also identified societal factors that increased the probability of engaging in terrorism including relatively low levels of education, coming from low socioeconomic groups in Kuwait, and feeling socially marginalized by broader Kuwaiti society.
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