Search: “Islamic State”

Did you ever have one of those days where in a matter of minutes you were exposed to things that when you compared them turned out to be polar opposites?  I had one of those days today. I had traveled from The Hague to Utrecht in the Netherlands to meet with a university professor.  I […]

We in the West think highly of democracy and for good reason.  As Winston Churchill once said: “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.”  It is not that bad of course and democracy remains the best current option we have for ensuring freedom and security.  We like it so much […]

We are getting all too used to this.  A man (usually, but very occasionally a woman) walks into a theatre/school/office/restaurant with a weapon that has no place other than a war zone and kills dozens.  Sandy Hook. Aurora.  Columbine High School.  San Bernardino. Now Orlando.  More mass shootings in the US than there were days […]

One of the more interesting – and controversial – topics that came up at the Wilton Park conference on religion and radicalisation last month was the news that the UK is revisiting its counter terrorism strategy to include rules on how to deal with extremism that is not necessarily violent.  We have been inured to […]

I must admit I am getting tired of seeing nation states repeat the same mistakes they made previously in counter terrorism policy.   I suppose the only saving grace is that the officials making these errors are sometimes not the same ones who made the errors initially, but can’t they learn from previous ill-considered policies? […]

Like in most fields of study, terrorism analysis has made great contributions to our understanding of this violent phenomenon.  Whether it is in-depth examinations of the ideology or longitudinal data on whether or not de-radicalisation programmes work, we are better off than we would be in the absence of this knowledge. Unfortunately, however, terrorism analysis […]

I see that Saudi Arabia and 33 other Islamic nations have created an anti-terrorism coalition with an operational headquarters to be established in the Saudi capital, Riyadh (see story here).  The coalition will reportedly fight terrorists in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Egypt and Afghanistan. Three cheers for the Saudis and their allies, right?  On the one hand, […]

Terrorism eats up a lot of our time as citizens and news consumers.  IS.  AQ.  Boko Haram.  Hizballah.  Hindu extremists.  Anti-abortion extremists.  Boy, things have really changed since I was a kid.  Sure there was the odd story about a hijacked airplane and the Troubles in Ireland, but it wasn’t a daily occurrence (maybe it […]

We can’t seem to get away from the whole mental illness/terrorism nexus.  Popular wisdom still maintains that people who engage in acts of terrorism must have some form of mental disturbance.  This argument is being put forward yet again in the case of the Chatanooga shooter, as he was allegedly depressed at some point in […]

A couple of years ago, I remember reading an article in the Wall Street Journal in which the phenomenon of “lawfare” was featured.  Lawfare occurs when a person misuses the legal system to intimidate others from criticising him/her and threatens to bring personal liability action.  The term was applied to a number of scenarios: when […]