Violence and Security

IS Recalibrates Strategy Around Global Cloud of Jihadis

June 29, 2017

Transatlantic security experts are warning that the Islamic State (IS) is shifting its jihad strategy away from the core caliphate territories of Iraq and Syria to the "Western heartland" of the US and Europe, cultivating a "global cloud" of aspirant Islamists who will perpetrate high-casualty terror attacks on soft targets in urban areas.
Video Shows IS Brainwashing Children as Islamist Fighters

June 29, 2017

A newly released propaganda video of the Islamic State (IS) shows graphic footage of psychological terror tactics, brutality, and violent punishment, to further the systematic indoctrination of children as "cub" fighters into the Islamist caliphate war machine.
Criminals, Islamists Combine to Threaten Shipping Routes

June 29, 2017

The integration of criminal networks with globalizing Islamist radical networks in the sea lanes of Southeast Asia has catalyzed a major spike in piracy and a sharp deterioration in the maritime security environment of two-thirds of the world's shipping activities.
Boko Haram Targets Higher Education in Nigeria

June 29, 2017

Boko Haram, the extremist Islamist group whose name means "Western education is forbidden," launched a series of suicide attacks against the university in the country's major northeastern city of Maiduguri, prompting local state officials to begin digging a trench around the university as a deterrent to further jihadi operations.
Islamist Radicals Advance as Afghan State Fails

June 29, 2017

The creeping advance of Taliban forces and the steady expansion of an Islamic State presence in geopolitically important Afghanistan is intensifying the debate among US policymakers and local commentators about the efficacy of military versus political solutions to the legitimacy and capacity failures of the Afghan state.
Germany Targets Dozens over "Hate Speech" Postings

June 28, 2017

AP reports that German law enforcement authorities recently targeted 36 people in the country with home searches, questioning, and unspecified "further measures" over online postings the authorities deemed to be "hate speech."
Attempted Attack on Grand Mosque Shakes Saudi Regime

June 27, 2017

Saudi Arabia's Islamist theocratic regime views a foiled suicide bombing attack on the Grand Mosque in Mecca during Ramadan as part of multiple efforts by extremist Islamist groups to overthrow the Wahhabi regime because of its cooperation with the Western anti-Islamic State coalition.
Hezbollah Leader Warns Israel of United Islamist Front

June 23, 2017

In the context of rising tensions between Israel and the Lebanese Shiite militant movement Hezbollah, the Islamist group's leader warned that a united front of Iran-backed Shiite Islamist states and movements from the Mideast to Southwest Asia would commit to a war against Israel.
IS Destroys Mosul Mosque in Battle over Caliphate

June 23, 2017

Using a scorched-earth policy in their battle with US and Iraqi forces for control over the Islamic State (IS) capital of Mosul, IS fighters destroyed the city's most famous mosque and blamed US airstrikes for its annihilation.
UN Agent Denies Security Implications of Migration

June 22, 2017

In an address to a recent UN conference that serves as a consultation on a global migration pact to be agreed in 2018, UN Special Representative for International Migration Louise Arbour highlighted the UN's broad treatment of "irregular migration" as an unqualified benefit to host societies and called for the expansion of legal avenues toward migration.