This article was originally published by the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism – The Hague. Introduction The last stronghold of the Islamic State, the Syrian town of Baghouz, fell to a coalition of Kurdish and Arab soldiers (backed by American, French, and British commandos) in March 2019. Following the collapse of ISIS’s “caliphate,” there are still significant […]
This article was originally published by the Foreign Policy Research Institute. The Islamic State’s attacks in Paris in November 2015 and Brussels in March 2016 demonstrated ISIS’s reach from the heart of its “caliphate” in the Middle East to major European capitals. Foreign fighters from France and Belgium consistently proved themselves as capable members, as they have […]
This article was originally published by South China Morning Post. Nearly one year after the fall of Baghouz, the last remaining stronghold in the territorial caliphate of Islamic State (Isis), there is still widespread uncertainty about the fate of hundreds of foreign fighters from Southeast Asia. More than 1,000 people from the Philippines, Indonesia and […]
This article was originally published by Lawfare. The authors appreciate the support of the Canadian Department of National Defence, which provided them a Targeted Engagement Grant to fund the research that forms the backbone of this article. The technical study from which this article is adapted, which was co-authored with David Jones of the Edmonton-based […]
This article was originally published by The National Interest. Greece has been dubbed the “soft underbelly” of the European Union for terrorists looking to infiltrate the continent. The Islamic State’s territorial caliphate was crushed nearly a year ago when the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS liberated Baghouz, the militant group’s last sliver of territory in Syria. […]
Despite the austere environments in which violent non-state actors (VNSAs) often operate, they rely heavily on modern technologies in their operations. As new technologies emerge, or old technologies change and improve, VNSAs may attempt to adopt them to enhance their operations or expand the range of their activities. Adoption of new technologies is driven by […]
This article was originally published by Foreign Affairs. In its 2018 National Defense Strategy, the Trump administration announced that “inter-state strategic competition, not terrorism,” is the United States’ main national security challenge. The world’s oldest global jihadist group, al Qaeda, seems to have similar priorities. Although the group has not produced a strategic document on […]
This article was originally published by the Long War Journal. Following a series of macabre murders of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s political opponents abroad in the 1980s and 1990s, observers have long believed that the country abandoned its practice of extraterritorial assassination of Iranian citizens. But incidents in three different European countries, which European […]
Shortly after sunrise on July 31, soldiers at a military checkpoint outside Lamitan City in the Philippines’ Basilan province were hailed over to inspect a white 10-seat van suspected of bearing an improvised explosive device. Moments later, the bomb in the vehicle detonated, killing at least 10 people. Among the dead were four civilians, including women […]
The years following the 9/11 attacks and preceding the Arab Spring marked a period of tumult for al-Qaeda. The jihadist organization lost a number of key commanders after the United States invaded Afghanistan, including several involved in planning operations outside the region. Though al-Qaeda did prepare a credible large-scale plot against commercial aviation in August […]