Combating Terrorism Center (28 results)

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Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. This study argues that the spread of violent extremism cannot be fully understood as an ideological or social phenomenon, but must be viewed as a process that integrates the two forces in a coevolutionary manner. The same forces that make an ideology appealing to some aggrieved group of people are not necessarily the same factors that promote its transfer through social networks of self-interested human beings.As a result, radicalization inexorably intertwines social and ideological forces in systemic fashion. The coevolutionary nature of the social and ideological spheres presents a unique challenge and is one of the reasons that rigorous efforts to identify a radical or terrorist profile have not yielded significant return. Efforts to develop an archetype often focuses on individual traits, but it may be that profiles based on social and ideological behavior need to be considered simultaneously in developing a theory that is actionable for counter-terrorism practitioners.Key insights from the theoretical and empirical discussions that follow provide new insights into the social patterns of violent extremists over time, which are important to understanding radicalization.The analysis of domestic terrorism data shows that, to date, there is little evidence of lone wolf jihadists. There are very few people who progress to violent action in isolation, and those that do so are often motivated by other forces such as mental health issues or other political grievances. Many radicals have a history of social contact or reaching out to develop relationships with like-minded individuals.Social relationships follow a nonlinear pattern. They are increasingly important in the early stages of radicalization and peak when people accept a violent doctrine. Developing new relationships becomes less important once individuals come to adopt radical beliefs. The empirical analysis suggests that the search for external validation of radical ideas is most important in the early stages of an individual's radicalization and declines in importance once the barriers to entry are overcome.There is also a nonlinear relationship observed in the data analyzed here between social ties and ideological affinity, whereby those primed for affinity through exposure to radical ideas in early schooling have as many close social ties as those with completely secular schooling. Individuals in between these two extremes averaged fewer close connections, which challenges conventional wisdom about ideological predisposition and social relationships.The importance of self-serving extremism has not been well recognized. Individualswho recruit others gain social status for their efforts, meaning that the spread ofextremism may be just as much a function of self-interest as ideological fervor. This hasimportant implications understanding and countering violent extremism.The growth of radical groups is a self-organizing process driven by aggregation ofindividual behavior, where the entry catalyst into an extremist cell most likely takes theform of someone who recruits one, two or three other participants. This self-organization produces cells that have many close-knit people, or can easily accessothers, meaning that such groups are well suited to facilitation and monitoring. Bycontrast, such cells are much less likely to have many gatekeepers or brokers whooperate between cliques. This item is printed on demand. Shipping may be from our UK warehouse or from our Australian or US warehouses, depending on stock availability.

Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. This study looks at the interrelationship between illicit activity in the economic and political arenas. It offers a different perspective on the global illicit marketplace and the connectivity between crime and terror through examining the relationships of those who produce and profit from fear for financial or political purposes. Looking across a range of illicit activities that include terrorism, the illegal narcotics trade, organized crime, human smuggling and political corruption, the network analysis includes 2,700 individuals linked by 15,000 relationships spanning 122 countries. Conventional wisdom suggests that criminal-terrorist connectivity is a phenomenon found in failed and economically poor states. This argument relies on four assumptions: (1) poor economic conditions drive people into the illicit sectors; (2) criminal and terrorist actors are more likely to thrive in environments with weak governments and poverty; (3) because it is easy for terrorist and criminals to cooperate, they will; (4) governmental and illicit actors are adversaries. The results of this study suggest that there is good reason to question each of these assumptions and in turn to revisit the fundamental empirical data relating to and explanations of crime-terror connectivity. This large-scale data analysis, in some ways the first of its kind, offers a number of conclusions: The criminals and terrorists are largely subsumed (98%) in a single network as opposed to operating in numerous smaller networks. Connectivity among actors within the illicit marketplace is relatively high. This should not be construed to say that the network is a cohesive organizational entity. The phenomenon observed and documented here is a self-organizing complex system built through social connections from the bottom up.By most measures of connectivity, terrorists are more central than almost all other types of criminals, second only to narcotics smugglers. The transnational nature of terrorist actors allows them to link disparate criminal groups.It does not appear that terrorists are shunned based on social norms or fear of inviting retribution from law enforcement, as many criminals seem willing to interact with terrorists. An empirical analysis of the network shows that 46% of terrorists' connections are linked to actors involved in activities other than terrorism, while those involved in other illicit activities link to terrorists 35% of the time. Almost half of those in the network were not directly identified as being criminals or terrorists but were suspected for involvement in illicit activities. The prominence of these peripheral actors may reflect the importance of operating across the licit and the illicit spheres.The conventional wisdom that explains crime-terror connectivity as a product of failed or economically poor states is challenged here. Just because it is easy for criminals and terrorists to work together does not necessarily explain why they would. Three additional explanations are considered: the comparative advantage among criminals and terrorists in capable states, state sponsorship to augment state weaknesses and revolutionary state behavior.Generally speaking, connectivity between terrorists and criminals is highest in resource-rich countries that have little incentive to support substate actors(comparative advantage theory) and resource-poor countries that are incentivized to support criminal or terrorist groups (augment state capabilities theory). This item is printed on demand. Shipping may be from our UK warehouse or from our Australian or US warehouses, depending on stock availability.

Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. With both secular and Islamic governments, Southeast Asia is often portrayed as a representative model of progressive Islam, while also suffering longstanding Muslim separatist conflicts. The region has been the target of numerous terrorist attacks over the past decade, but the character and motivation for these attacks varies widely. Many of these attacks are rooted in national or regional ethnic struggles, but others reflect the grander Salafi-Jihadi ambition of building a regional or global caliphate. A significant component of future discord and collaboration in the region is tied the nature of the populations' grievances and the trajectory of radical Islam. This report addresses the diffusion of jihadist thought in Southeast Asia, in the hope that understanding past and present jihadist trends in the region help minimize threats in the future. This report shows that the differences among nations, groups, and grievances in Southeast Asia generate a complex patchwork that does not fit into a neat paradigm. There are important characteristics that distinguish the threats faced by each country in the region, as well as important interconnections that tie them together. Some countries in the region (such as the Philippines and Thailand) face local ethno-nationalist Islamic insurgencies rooted in colonial policies. The minority groups involved in these struggles fight for separation or autonomy from the existing political regimes that they perceive to be guilty of imposing discriminatory policies. Jihadi ideology is largely irrelevant to these conflicts, playing a minimal role in recruiting and morale building if it is present at all. The affective impact of these local, ethno-nationalist conflicts, however, has regional consequences. Radical Islamist elements in other Southeast Asian nations (such as Malaysia and Indonesia) use these insurgencies to rally support for the Islamist agenda and radicalize those sympathetic to the plight of Muslim minorities elsewhere. In some cases, fundamentalists unleash their aggression against the foreign governments in the region opposing insurgent forces (i.e. Indonesian fighters in the Philippines). More often, however, these radicalized groups target their own government or global interests within their country in an attempt to further their cause of extremist interpretations of Islam and sharia jurisprudence. Jihadist literature is more prominent in these environments than those with longstanding ethno-nationalist grievances. Given the roots and motivations of different groups, this discrepancy is not surprising, but the fluid nature of the Southeast Asian political landscape complicates any attempt to simplify or categorize grievances. Extensive ties among certain radical groups suggest that there is a great deal of ideological cross-fertilization, though they manifest in unique ways due to the significant differences among the extremist elements in different countries. The remainder of this introduction highlights several convergent and divergent forces among the countries and groups within the region to set the stage for the detailed case studies that follow. The volume is largely organized along geographic lines, with chapters examining the influence of jihadist thinking in Indonesia, Malaysia, The Philippines, and Thailand. Each chapter outlines the ideological roots of key insurgent and terrorist groups, as well as the jihadi influence on these groups given personal relationships and jihadist literature translated into local languages. The final chapter looks at an increasingly important distribution platform for jihadist ideas now and for the future, the Internet, examining some of the major websites in various languages in an attempt to shed some light on ideological characteristics of jihadis in Southeast Asia. This item is printed on demand. Shipping may be from our UK warehouse or from our Australian or US warehouses, depending on stock availability.

Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. This work is a study of over 900 biographies of the deceased militants of Lashkar e Taiba (LeT), a Pakistani militant group that has waged a campaign of asymmetric warfare against Indian security forces and civilians in the contested region of Kashmir for over two decades, as well as other parts of India more recently. Although LeT had a storied history on the eve of its high-profile November 2008 terrorist assault on the Indian city of Mumbai, that particular event and the case of American LeT operative David Headley (who conducted the reconnaissance for the attack) thrust the organization and the evolving threat it poses to regional security and Western interests into broader international consciousness. That attack, coupled with LeT's recruitment of Westerners and linkages to a number of other international terror plots over the past decade, have heightened concerns that the group's interests and operational priorities are no longer just regional, but that they are also becoming (or have already become) global. This has led to a proliferation of interest in LeT and a desire to learn more about the group's behavior and how it operates outside of the South Asia region.Instead of evaluating evidence of the group's internationalism, as many recent studies have attempted to do, this study is more foundational in focus. It is predicated on the assumption that LeT's local activity and infrastructure are and will remain the key source of its strength, even if the group decides to become more active in the international arena. By leveraging biographical information extracted from four Urdu language publications produced by LeT from 1994 to 2007 and statistical information released by the government of Pakistan, this study aims to provide baseline data about LeT's local recruits, the nature of the time they spend with the group and how these dynamics have changed over time. Specific emphasis is placed on providing insights into the following four research questions:1) What is the general background of LeT's local fighters?2) How and from where are these fighters recruited?3) What level of training do these fighters have and where were they trained?4) Where exactly do LeT's fighters die? This item is printed on demand. Shipping may be from our UK warehouse or from our Australian or US warehouses, depending on stock availability.

Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. This report consists of three chapters and a concluding section. The opening chapter is an account of Harun's journey as an al-Qa`ida operative as he presents himself; it is also a discussion of the merits and shortcomings of the manuscript in providing reliable information about al-Qa`ida's activities. The remaining parts of the report focus on two aspects that feature prominently in Harun's account of al-Qa`ida: the first pertains to al-Qa`ida's ideology and the second to its organizational structure.With respect to ideology, which is discussed in chapter two, the report explores Harun's insight into al-Qa`ida's worldview to show how its ideology is meant to be consumed by its members who were schooled in its training camps and are close to its senior leaders; how its pragmatic approach to religious interpretation and rejection of regionalism, ethnocentrism and sectarianism led to its strategic success of attracting recruits from different regions and theological persuasions and turning them into "jihadis without borders," as Harun describes himself and his fellow al-Qa`ida members; and why takfiris, those jihadis who are inflexible in their interpretation of religion and rush to declare fellow Muslims to be unbelievers, are a liability to al-Qa`ida and to jihadism broadly.Harun's contention that al-Qa`ida's ideology is pragmatic and inclusive of Sunni Muslims espousing different theological orientations is corroborated by documents believed to be internal to al-Qa`ida, which are available in the Harmony Program-a database consisting of declassified captured battlefield documents. These documents reveal that it is not religiosity that defines al-Qa`ida's ideology; rather it is militancy that is the central tenet of its worldview. It is no secret that al-Qa`ida's resources did not go into building mosques and religious centers, but into building military training camps, financially supporting its members and their families, and funding terrorist activities and operations.Understanding al-Qa`ida's ideology is instructive in the context of studying radicalization and the role of religion therein. Some studies of jihadism confuse religion with religiosity and go on to suggest a causal link between religiosity and militancy when militants invoke religion to justify their actions. There is of course a link between religion and religiosity, but it should not be forgotten that prior to the emergence of the nation-state, religions served as the language of politics and religiosity was not an essential criterion for rulers. A link may also exist between religiosity and militancy. However, studies of religious militants show that Islam does not have a monopoly on inspiring militancy, and studies of terrorism suggest that there is much more to the inner workings of terrorist groups than ideology. This item is printed on demand. Shipping may be from our UK warehouse or from our Australian or US warehouses, depending on stock availability.