Violence and Security

IS Calls for Jihadi Attacks on Christian Targets in Europe

December 30, 2016

Islamic State (IS) propaganda outlets are urging their followers to perpetrate terror strikes on soft targets across Europe over the Christmas and New Year holidays, encouraging assaults using symbolic imagery of jihadi fighters with guns and knives attacking representations of Santa Claus, reindeer, and Christmas trees.
Iranian Citizen Paramilitary Forces Build Regional Shiite Influence

December 30, 2016

Iran has integrated the Basij corps, a citizen paramilitary organization established to safeguard the country's Islamic revolution by using repressive domestic security tactics, into the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as the military-propaganda vanguard of Iranian Shiite jihadism in the Middle East and around the world.
IS Runs Organ and Slave Trade out of Turkey

December 30, 2016

According to evidence from security and human rights experts, Turkey has become a platform for Islamic State (IS) operatives running robust networks to finance Islamist jihadi activities by trading in human organs and trafficking of human beings.
Debates on Returning Jihadis Intensify in Tunisia

December 30, 2016

The arrest by Tunisian authorities of three men with suspected Islamic State sympathies and ties to the perpetrator of the Berlin Christmas market terror attack has provoked renewed public demonstrations in Tunisia demanding that the government develop a clear policy to deal with returning jihadis who have fought in Islamist wars stretching from Libya to Syria.
Berlin Attack Highlights Radicalization Issues in Migration Crisis

December 30, 2016

The narrative of the Islamic State follower who perpetrated the recent Berlin Christmas market terrorist attack raises troubling policy questions about how EU authorities can deal effectively with the threat of jihadist violence associated with massive forced migration into Europe's asylum and free movement system.
US Terror Financing Report Raises Red Flags

December 28, 2016

A report by the US House of Representatives terrorism financing task force has revealed multiple vulnerabilities in US intelligence sharing and banking and financial regulatory mechanisms for combating the global criminal activities that fund radical Islamist threats to America.
Berlin Christmas Attack Is Consistent with IS Tactical Shift

December 21, 2016

Claims by the Islamic State (IS) of responsibility for the deadly truck attack on a Christmas market in Berlin are consistent with the Islamist terror group's shift in jihadi focus and tactics, with the caliphate propaganda machine encouraging followers to perpetrate vehicular and knife attacks against soft civilian targets in Europe and America.
Germany Threatens Websites with "Hate Speech" Sanctions

December 20, 2016

The Guardian reports that German Justice Minister Heiko Maas has warned social media websites and search engines that if they do not step up the deletion of "illegal hate speech" on their platforms, the German Government will push legislation substantially increasing fines for inaction and requiring them to set up mechanisms to clamp down on such speech.
Sunni Islamists Set Fire to Aleppo Evacuation Buses

December 20, 2016

Sunni extremists affiliated with al-Qaeda forces burned the buses intended to remove civilian non-combatants from Aleppo rather than allow Shiite Muslims to be brought to safety as part of the negotiated evacuation.
Jihadi Sites Celebrate Russian Ambassador's Assassination

December 20, 2016

Jihadi media sites worldwide, celebrating the murder in Ankara of Russia's Ambassador to Turkey by an assailant who shouted Islamist slogans and gave an Islamist hand signal, are inciting more terror revenge killings for the defeat of Islamic State (IS) and Islamist opposition forces by the al Assad dictatorship in Syria.