Violence and Security

Al-Shabaab Stages Lethal Attack in Unrelenting Islamist Extremist Fight in Somalia

August 26, 2015

The latest lethal car bomb attacks in two Somali cities had all the characteristics of an al-Shabaab operation and underscored the unrelenting fight by the Islamist extremist group to push back against African Union peacekeeping troops and to impose sharia law in Somalia and East Africa.
IS Blows Up More Historic Artifacts in Cultural Cleansing as Part of Jihad

August 26, 2015

Islamic State ("IS") forces blew up a first-century Phoenician temple at the Syrian city of Palmyra, a UNESCO World Heritage site, continuing the extremist Islamists' policies of cultural looting and civilizational cleansing in the process of building a modern-day, global caliphate based in the Levant.
IS Beheading of Syrian Archaeologist Highlights Civilizational and Financial Dimensions of Jihad

August 26, 2015

Islamic State ("IS") militants beheaded a world-renowned Syrian archaeologist because he refused to surrender information about the location of priceless artifacts from the captured Syrian city of Palmyra, a World Heritage site which IS has used for a multi-dimensional jihadi policy that uses civilizational and cultural rapine to fund violence.
Al-Qaeda Endorsement Shows Taliban Commitment to Afghanistan as a Sharia State

August 26, 2015

The recent endorsement of the Taliban's new leader by al-Qaeda's chief in Iraq reveals that the Afghan Islamist organization remains committed to making Afghanistan into southwest Asia's premier sharia state and a haven for global jihadis like those who perpetrated the 9/11 terror attacks.
Egyptian IS Sympathizers Bomb State Buildings

August 26, 2015

Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, the Egyptian affiliate of the Islamic State ("IS") active in the North Sinai area between Egypt and Israel, claimed responsibility for today's car bombing of a state security building and courthouse near Cairo, signaling the militant group's escalation of IS's jihadi tactics aiming to overthrow the al-Sisi government.
IS Builds Slave and Rape Institutions Intrinsic to Jihad for Caliphate

August 14, 2015

Extensive empirical evidence is emerging that details the Islamic State's ("IS") use of Islamic theology to sanction systematic policies and organizational structures for the trafficking and sale of non-Muslim captive females into institutionalized slavery, including the religiously sanctioned rape of pre-pubescent girls, as intrinsic to IS's jihadi expansion of their caliphate.
Returning Jihadis Present Complex Security Threat to Home Countries

August 14, 2015

A newly released think-tank study analyzes the complex security threat of jihadi fighters returning to home countries from Iraq and Syria, suggesting that Western countries must develop nimble, sophisticated policies capable of differentiating short-term terror threats from longer-term social disrupters who facilitate radicalization and activation in Islamist networks.
Sectarian Tensions Intensify Among Kuwaiti Muslims

August 14, 2015

The intensification of sectarian tensions in Kuwait indicates the concerns by Sunnis that Iran is surreptitiously fomenting radicalism among Kuwait's Shiite minority.
NY Court Charges Two Youths with Supporting IS

August 14, 2015

A federal grand jury in New York has brought charge against two young Muslims who were conspiring to detonate a bomb in New York City on behalf of the Islamic State ("IS").
ISIS Chemical Weapons Attacks Reported Against Kurds

August 14, 2015

Growing evidence is emerging that jihadi fighters of the Islamic State ("IS") have used chemical weapons against Kurdish fighters in ISIS's campaign to expand the territory of its caliphate.