ISIS: an essential reading collection

[davidbfpo]

Jason Burke's column after Brussels has the headline 'The tyranny of Isis terrorism will not always be with us. But history shows that a new militant threat will emerge' and sub-titled:

Is this now the new normal? In the capitals of the west, should we simply get used to living with routine fear? Jason Burke sees cause for hope in a weakening of Isis, but cautions that Islamic militancy does not begin nor end with that group’s savagery. He traces the shifts in extreme factions and twisted ideologies, and ponders how terror might next mutate

Link:http://www.theguardian.com/commentis...eat-what-next?

[davidbfpo]

An article via CBC from a Belgian SME on terrorism and ISIS. A key passage:

"What they really want … is the clash of civilizations," he says. Revenge for what ISIS claims the West has done to Iraq and Syria. And the more ground ISIS loses there, the more the group lusts for bloodshed in Europe.

Then a "lesson learnt":

He points to the Brussels suicide bombers Ibrahim and Khalid El Bakraoui as prime examples. "They weren't known as radicals. They were known as hardened criminals. The police were using two lists. The list of people you should be looking for because they are known for radical Islam, and the other list, people known for violent crimes. But they didn't cross-reference them. Nobody actually had any idea that they had to look on the other list."
He says the allure of criminals for ISIS is significant. They have useful connections to weapons, money laundering, fake IDs, safe houses. And, crucially, they aren't as hard to convince to engage in violence.

Link:http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/brussel...dism-1.3529884

[davidbfpo]

A summary of this week's two-day conference @ Kings College London, hosted by ICSR, on ISIS in Europe, with a variety of SME:

The ICSR event was divided into four panels of experts who discussed ISIS as an organization, its online presence, and the state of research on this 'fourth wave' of militant jihadism in Europe and beyond.

Link:https://gem.godaddy.com/p/154e78?fe=...ab264d28e853b3

[davidbfpo]

Nada Bakos, an ex-CIA analyst and highly regarded by a some here, was interviewed in May 2016, which I missed and caught today via Twitter; yes after Mr Trump's claim ISIS was created by "not the usual suspects":http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/nada-bakos-how-zarqawi-went-from-thug-to-isis-founder/?

Fascinating.

[davidbfpo]

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