Violence and Security

French Report: Deradicalization Program Is a Failure

February 28, 2017

A cross-party task force of the French Senate has characterized the government's program to deradicalize homegrown jihadists as a "total failure," calling for an overhaul of the methodology, costs, and assessment tools intended to address the causes of French radical Islamists perpetrating terrorists attacks in the country and going to Syria to join the Islamic State.
EU Parliament Rule Censors "Hate Speech"

February 27, 2017

The AP reports that some EU politicians and press representatives are warning of the censorship risks involved in a recently passed European Parliament rule permitting the body's President to cut off live broadcasts of Members who use "hate speech" and to impose a fine for violations.
UN Calls for "Media Literacy" to Counter Extremism

February 23, 2017

Participating in a recent panel at UN headquarters in New York, officials of the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the UN Alliance of Civilizations argued for the importance of "media and information literacy" in preventing radicalization and outbreaks of "violent extremism."
IS Vows to Eliminate Coptic Christians

February 22, 2017

A new video from the Islamic State (IS) commits the jihadi group to exterminating all of Egypt's Coptic Orthodox Christians, who are described as infidels and agents of "the West against Muslim nations."
IS Prisoner Reports on Rapes, Sexual Enslavement

February 22, 2017

Reuters reports that an Islamic State (IS) militant currently in captivity with Iraqi Kurdish authorities has detailed the "normalcy" of mass rape and sexual enslavement of Yazidis and other minorities in the territories controlled by the caliphate militants.
FATF Identifies Innovations to Fight Islamist Extremism

February 21, 2017

The recent Paris meetings of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an intergovernmental body that develops policies to combat criminal finance of terrorism, identified the need for improved strategic partnerships among financial regulators and tech innovators to reduce funding flows to global Islamist extremists groups and activities.
Gulf States Fail to Fight Islamist Terror Financing

February 21, 2017

The US Justice Department has singled out the Kingdoms of Qatar and Kuwait, which have positioned themselves as strategic partners with the US in combating global Islamist terrorism, for their continuing negligence in prosecuting and convicting al-Qaeda and other jihadi financiers operating with near impunity in the territories of the two Gulf regimes.
IS Caliphate Faces Financial Woes

February 20, 2017

According to a new study by British think tank International Center for the Study of Radicalization and accounting group Ernst & Young, core territorial losses of and financial constraints on the Islamic State (IS) are generating a shift in the caliphate's "business model" to fund its jihadi operations.
Pakistan Violence Signals Strength of Jihadi Networks

February 20, 2017

The last week of lethal Islamist attacks on government sites and a Sufi religious shrine in Pakistan signals the rising strength of collaborative Pakistani and Afghan jihadis groups, with deep ties to Pakistan's military-intelligence apparatus, working to establish sharia states throughout a region of crucial geopolitical importance for counterterrorism efforts.
IS Ratchets Up Activities in AfPak Region

February 17, 2017

An Islamic State (IS) lethal suicide bombing attack against a famous Sufi shrine in Pakistan signaled the group's campaign to target religious groups considered heretical by the Sunni Muslim militants and marked the ongoing deterioration in the security environment of the geopolitically volatile Afghanistan-Pakistan (AfPak) region of Southwest Asia.