Religious Extremism

Islamist Groups Expand Online Content Aimed at Recruitment in Latin America

November 02, 2022

Islamist extremist groups are systematically expanding their Spanish-language online content, including ideological and terrorist-technological sites, in a move aimed at influence-building in Latin America, with radicalization and recruitment in the Western Hemisphere part of jihadists' global strategy for expanding "extremisms and terrorism in the West," according to Spain's leading strategic studies tank Elcano Royal Institute.
Iran's Chief Ayatollah Endorses Arrests-Indictments of Protestors as Agents of Enemy Actors

October 26, 2022

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has publicly endorsed the arrest and indictment of protestors demonstrating against the Islamist regime's human rights abuses in the aftermath of the death-in-custody of Iran's morality policy of Mahsa Amini, with the head cleric denouncing demonstrators and those held in custody as "agents of the enemy."
Turkish-Funded Cologne Mosque Broadcasts Prayer Call

October 20, 2022

Germany's largest mosque in the country's fourth-largest city broadcast the Islamic call to prayer for the first time, in a two-year trial agreement between the Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs (DITIB) and the city authorities, in a move heralded by the DITIB General Secretary as a sign of social and religious inclusion for European Muslims and as a possible signal of the politicization of religion by Turkey's Islamist regime, which funds DITIB.
Turkey Uses Scout Camps as Instrument of Political Islamism in France

October 20, 2022

Turkey’s Islamist regime is actively using scouting camps in France as a tool for socio-political mobilization of religion, with the chief imam Ali Erbas of Ankara's Religious Affairs Directorate (Diyanet) recently opening a new scout camp in the large north-central French city of Corbeil Essonnes as part of what he described as a strategy to integrate scouting activities with theological training through the joint activities of the Diyanet, its French branch of the Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs (DITIB), and the Turkish Scouting and Guiding Federation.
Funding for IS Terrorism in North America on Display

October 20, 2022

A former resident of San Diego, CA was sentenced to 20 years in prison after he was convicted of providing personnel and monies to support the jihadist activities of IS in Syria, in a US Justice Department case that turned on cooperation with Canadian authorities' who extradited the Candian citizen for prosecution in the United States and that underscores that support networks for Islamist terrorism extend to North America.
Resurgent IS Uses Terror Tactics to Extract Tax Payments

October 13, 2022

The resurgence and resilience of the Islamic State (IS) as an Islamist terror entity and ongoing international security threat is evident in northeast Syria, where IS cells are using intimidation and targeted violence to extract taxes from small businesses, with forcible taxation under the guise of sharia "oligatory charitable payments" used to support IS military operations against the US-friendly, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
Europe Experiences Challenges with Euro-Islamism’s Origins & Threats as IS Fighters Return

October 12, 2022

The ongoing legal, political, and philosophical-ethical disagreements in European countries about state obligations to accept IS foreign-fighter returnees and families currently held in detention camps in Syria underscores the broader challenges of grappling with the deep-rootedness and expansion of European Islamism-jihadism.
Turkey’s Islamist Regime Highlight‘s Longstanding Religious Nationalism & Xenophobia

October 11, 2022

According to the Middle East Institute, two decades of Islamist government by Turkey’s Islamist AKP (Justice and Development Party) regime have exposed the continuities in the country’s long history of ethnoreligious nationalism that prioritized Sunni Islamic and Turkic identities, combined with xenophobic conspiracy theories, such that current sociopolitical opposition groups continue to use the same toolbox of Islamism, populism, and Turkic hegemony that make it difficult to overcome the current regime’s authoritarianism.
Islamist Gains Portend Human Rights Losses in Kuwait’s Parliamentary Elections

October 11, 2022

Islamist candidates made big gains in the recent Parliamentary elections in Kuwait catalyzed by allegations of corruption against the ruling Al-Sabah family and state failures to diversify the Islamic kingdom’s oil-reliant economy, with inroads by Islamists likely to set back already-stalled legislative efforts to end high rates of femicide and widespread domestic violence against women that continues to be sanctioned by Islamic leaders under the guise of religious values.
Security Experts Predict Islamists as Winner in Burkina Faso Coup

October 10, 2022

International security experts predict that Islamists will be the big winners in the recent military coup in Burkina Faso, based on empirical evidence from coups in neighboring countries in the Sahel region whereby the Al-Qaeda-linked Group to Support Islam and Muslims (GSIM) and the local IS franchise take advantage of political and security instability from regime changes in order to make social inroads against state institutions.