The inside Story of the British Suicide Bomber of Ramadi
A superb IMHO article on radicalisation in London, that appeared on Professor Landis blog on Syria, last week:http://www.joshualandis.com/blog/the...y-tam-hussein/
The author's opening summary:
Quote:
This is the back story of Abu Musa al-Britani, a young British suicide bomber who blew himself up in Iraq. He grew up in Ladbroke Grove, the area that I worked and grew up in as a youth worker. We also went to the same school. My essay seeks to answer the question as to why such a popular young man went to Iraq when he had planned a trip to Spain two weeks earlier. What compelled him to go, it also seeks to explain why the like of him and Jihadi John came from the same area. What are the factors that lead to their choices?
It is clear that neither foreign policy nor ideology are solely responsible for motivating European youth to go on Jihad. My essay argues that the reason many of these men went to Syria and join specifically ISIS is due to the subtle interplay between religion, foreign policy and gang culture and modernism.
Curiously his neighbourhood was:
Quote:
a stones throw away from David Cameron’s Notting Hill
Needless to say this thread will be merged one day into the main thread on radicalisation:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=7188
Dealing with extremism in UK prisons
The UK has had considerable experience with convicted terrorists, mainly during 'The Troubles' in Northern Ireland, so it is hard to understand that the system has been criticised by an official report as inadequate. This report, the public version, may be of interest:
Quote:
This summary provides an overview of the review led by Ian Acheson into Islamist extremism in prisons, probation and youth justice, namely its context, key findings and principal recommendations.
Link:https://www.gov.uk/government/public...-youth-justice
A different point of view by the Gatestone Institute (US-based, conservative), neat title 'Prisons: Harvard for Radicals':https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/8...-radical-islam
Criminal Pasts, Terrorist Futures
An ICSR report released today; the full title being 'Criminal Pasts, Terrorist Futures: European Jihadists and the New Crime-Terror Nexus'. From their summary:
Quote:
In many European countries, the majority of jihadist foreign fighters are former criminals.
The purpose of this new report is to describe the nature and dynamics of the crime-terror nexus, and understand what it means. To do so, a multi-lingual team of ICSR researchers compiled a database containing the profiles of 79 recent European jihadists with criminal pasts.
What we have found is not the merging of criminals and terrorists as organisations but of their social networks, environments, or milieus. Criminal and terrorist groups have come to recruit from the same pool of people, creating (often unintended) synergies and overlaps that have consequences for how individuals radicalise and operate. This is what we call the new crime-terror nexus.
Link to press release:https://gem.godaddy.com/p/e167d8?fe=1&pact=57646-134827918-8754577104-181c025174f51fc63dd05d9
57a46010a02cbe5ee
One press report:http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...-a7352271.html
Listening to Criminal Pasts, Terrorist Futures
Just found that one of the authors of the above ICSR report, Peter Neumann, spoke recently @ IISS, London and there is a podcast (just over 1hr):http://www.iiss.org/en/events/events...-jihadist-c84e
An extremist in the family
A mother's story about her son who suddenly left for ISIS and died later. In a joint BBC-PBS report she tells:
Quote:
..the truth about her son’s secret life and death.
Links:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/...4-96cec7824254 and http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/son-j...form=hootsuite
There are subtle differences in the two reports.
4 Short Video Clips by Formers
Four short video clips where ex-radicals give their stories: three British and one German; three Muslims and one fascist.
One of them, Shahid Butt, I know slightly, as a former Jihadist radical, with a very mixed history; with history in Bosnia and Yemen. His voyage away took years. His video is available on YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ph3wfvVk01c or the main website of ConnectFutures (linked below).
There are several online references to his story; this one is fair and in one place points out his account about the Yemen is contested:https://themodernthesis.wordpress.co...-to-extremism/
ConnectFutures is a small, Birmingham based company, led by two women and their website states:
Quote:
Our Formers project aims to tell the stories of four former extremists in their own words. These include a mixture of both former ‘Islamist’ as well as former ‘far-right’ violent extremists.
Link:http://connectfutures.org/formers/
The missing link between terrorism and sex
An Australian story reporting on the work by a US academic in Australia for a year, Valerie M. Hudson and with a provocative title on April Fool's day no less:http://www.smh.com.au/world/the-miss...28-gv871a.html
It starts with:
Quote:
What makes it easier to recruit young men into terrorist groups? Lack of employment opportunities, alienation and disenfranchisement are sometimes cited. But what if we've been missing something fundamental all along?What if we were ignoring sex?
A group of researchers have found a causal relationship between the rising trajectory of "brideprice" (similar to a dowry but paid by the prospective groom to the family of the bride) and the ease of recruitment into insurgent groups, in groundbreaking research that is soon to be published in the Harvard-based journal International Security."For example, the sole surviving terrorist from the Mumbai attack of several years ago admitted his father urged him to join the group so that he and his brothers could afford to marry...
U.S. Increasingly Concerned About Nexus of Terror, Criminal Networks
U.S. Increasingly Concerned About Nexus of Terror, Criminal Networks
Entry Excerpt:
--------
Read the full post and make any comments at the SWJ Blog.
This forum is a feed only and is closed to user comments.
Identifying Vulnerability to Radicalisation
A new, 94 pgs Henry Jackson Society (UK) report and the full title is 'Spotting the Signs: Identifying Vulnerability to Radicalisation Among Students', albeit from a very small sample.
Sadly topical after the Manchester bombing, as the bomber enrolled at a local university, then dropped out and funding his activity - in part - from a student loan to study another year.
From the summary the author explains:
Quote:
examining the cases of 29 students who travelled, or attempted to travel, to work with extremist groups or fight for armed Islamist groups in Syria and Iraq. Through profiling and analysis of the cases it aims to provide a supportive tool to assist with understanding how indications of radicalisation, or vulnerability to radicalisation, manifest in real cases.
Short of time? Try the two page infographic:http://henryjacksonsociety.org/wp-co...c-revise-1.pdf
Link to the report:http://henryjacksonsociety.org/wp-co...rs-Project.pdf
They are different: extemists and gangs
A pointer to research on 'Gang members, domestic extremists vastly different, says first study to compare the two', with a number of links. It opens with:
Quote:
Domestic extremists tend to be much older, better educated, more affluent, more religious, and are more likely to be white than street gang members, according to a sweeping new
University of Colorado Boulder study that systematically compares the groups for the first time. The study, funded by the U.S. Department of Justice and published in the journal
Justice Quarterly, also found that contrary to popular belief, U.S. gang members seldom go on to become radicalized and commit acts of terrorism.
Link:http://www.start.umd.edu/news/gang-members-domestic-extremists-vastly-different-says-first-study-compare-two#
Inside al Qaeda: Living and working with terrorists
Quote:
In his first interview, an FBI undercover operative tells Scott Pelley how he infiltrated al Qaeda and thwarted potential terror attacks planned for New York and Toronto
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/inside-...th-terrorists/
Another resource to plunder
Peter Neumann of ICSR @ Kings College is a SME on this topic and a few weeks ago OSCE published a report he prepared for them. He explains in the summary what it contains:
Quote:
This report provides a summary of my findings. It seeks to (1) define key concepts and major dynamics; (2) evaluate the OSCE’s current and future role; and (3) identify areas of good practice, with particular emphasis on preventing and countering processes of violent radicalisation.
Link to summary:http://icsr.info/2017/09/icsr-insigh...s-osce-report/
Not read though. The full title is Countering Violent Extremism and Radicalisation that Lead to Terrorism: Ideas, Recommendations, and Good Practices from the OSCE Region.
Patterns of Disengagement from Violent Extremism
The full title of a book chapter is: 'Patterns of Disengagement from Violent Extremism: A Stocktaking of Current Knowledge and Implications for Counterterrorism' and added here as there is a free, lengthy bibliography for reference.
Link:https://link.springer.com/chapter/10...319-65566-6_10
Anatomy of terror: What makes normal people become extremists?
Thanks to a "lurker" for the pointer to this New Scientist article, in August 2017; it is a good overview, even if most of the experts cited are Americans, like Atran, Sageman and Crenshaw.
Link:https://www.newscientist.com/article...ts/#bx313907B1