The Islamic State Threat to European and North American Security (original) (raw)
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The Islamic State Threat to Western Homeland Security
" Likewise we renew our call to the muwahhidin in Europe and the disbelieving West and elsewhere, to target the crusaders in their own lands and wherever they are found. We will argue before Allah against any Muslim who has the ability to shed a single drop of crusader blood but does not do so, whether with an explosive device, a bullet, a knife, a car, a rock, or even a boot or a fist. " 1 Late IS Spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani " .
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Jihadist Insurgencies: the Synergy between Failure and Resilience
The essay explores the connections between extremism, failure and resilience in three sections. First, it examines the forces that lead to jihadist failure and resilience. Second, it employs case studies linking failure and resilience to regenerative waves of jihadi violence. Third, it argues that when jihadists form a nascent state its extremism often invites destructive external intervention. It concludes that takfirism and extremist violence paradoxically generate destructive and regenerative forces.
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The Jihadist Threat to Europe: From Al Qaeda to the Islamic State
International Journal of Political Science, 2019
The article explores the radicalization of the Post 9-11 jihadist movement by comparing the far enemy strategy of Al Qaeda and the Islamic State. Progressively the jihadist movement has pursued a total war strategy that fuses near, far and sectarian enemies. Unlike Al Qaeda the Islamic State has pursued a Eurocentric far enemy strategy driven by sectarian animus toward Europe's Christian and secular traditions
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Islamic Regression, Jihadist Frustration and Takfirist Hyper Violence
This paper examines jihadism’s radicalized evolution in three stages. First, it discusses its takfirist political and religious foundations. Second, it analyses specific intra-jihadi debates that propelled more extremist visions. Third, it examines the social and political forces contributing to this ideological trajectory. The essay concludes the Islamic State’s takfirist, apocalyptic vision and caliphate centric strategy reflects these trends.
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Digital Jihad: Online Communication and Violent Extremism (Ed.) [2019]
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The internet offers tremendous opportunities for violent extremists across the ideological spectrum and at a global level. In addition to propaganda, digital technologies have transformed the dynamics of radical mobilisation, recruitment and participation. Even though the jihadist threat has seemingly declined in the West, the danger exists of the internet being an environment where radical messages can survive and even prosper. Against this background, this ISPI report investigates the current landscape of jihadist online communication, including original empirical analysis. Specific attention is also placed on potential measures and initiatives to address the threat of online violent extremism. The volume aims to present important points for reflection on the phenomenon in the West (including Italy) and beyond.
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Islamic State Challenge in Egypt and Libya
The paper looks at ISIS campaigns in Egypt and Libya and the evolution of the caliphate's wilayat or provinces policy. It argues that both countries offer IS opportunities for expansion, but the growth of IS' Egyptian and Libyan wilayats is likely to be limited by multiple adversaries. Ultimately the success of IS's wilayat policy is dependent upon its Iraqi-Syrian base to withstand the international military campaign aimed at degrading and destroying its organization,
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Superpower Hybrid Warfare in Syria
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The article looks at American, Russian and Iranian use of hybrid warfare in Syria noting patters of cooperation and conflict.
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This dissertation is part of a larger effort to understand rebel political orders and provides both a conceptual framework for analysing local jihadist governance and an in-depth analysis of the governance functions performed by the Islamic State in Libya (ISL). ISL ruled through a combination of coercion and patronage, but was not able to sustain its Libyan provinces due to shortcomings in all three governance realms: its inability to co-opt or outfight all rival factions, an alienation of the population induced by the group’s brutality, and a failure to provide necessary services to residents. Most of all, it was ISL’s parasitic mode of governance embedded in a foreign ideology that was the decisive blow to the group’s performance. Nevertheless, ISL demonstrated its ability to reshuffle the jihadist milieu and to set up a limited, yet functioning, authority in a theatre outside of Syria and Iraq, which carried the possibility for permanence.
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