Women’s Role in Recruitment for ISIS/Islamist Networks in Pakistan

2018 ◽  
Vol 56 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 79-92
Author(s):  
Imtiaz Gul
Keyword(s):  
Critical Role ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Al Qaeda ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
First Line ◽  
The West ◽  
Male Dominated ◽  
Women's Role

AbstractHistorically, women in Pakistan’s northwestern territories bordering Afghanistan have played a critical role in providing money and men to jihadist organizations such as the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, and “Islamic State in Iraq and Syria” (ISIS). Lack of education, too little exposure and a male-dominated conservative milieu constitute some of the ingredients of support for these outfits. This was true for over three decades and the phenomenon remained restricted to the rural, backward northwestern regions. But since the early 1990s, outfits such as the Al-Hudda Foundation – an exclusively women-focused organization – began serving as the initial hooks for middle- and upper-class women whom the Foundation targets. It brainwashes women into using hijab, and also into believing that they need to forge an alliance against the West and work for an Islamic, Sharia-based state. This advocacy turns many affluent women into religious radicals who can potentially work as the first line of recruits for extremist outfits like Daesh/IS. However small their numbers, these women represent a big threat to the global liberal values of society.

scholarly journals Othering the West in the online Jihadist propaganda magazines Inspire and Dabiq

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nuria Lorenzo-Dus ◽  
Stuart Macdonald
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Al Qaeda ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
The West ◽  
Terrorist Groups ◽  
Discourse Studies ◽  
Approach Working ◽  
Jihadist Terrorism

Abstract This paper examines how the jihadist terrorist groups Al Qaeda and the so-called Islamic State discursively construct ‘the West’ as an alien, aberrant ‘other’ in their respective online propaganda magazines Inspire and Dabiq over a 5 year period (2010–2015). The analysis integrates insights from the field of Terrorism Studies into a Corpus Assisted Discourse Studies approach, working centrally with the notions of othering and conventionalised impoliteness. Our findings reveal not only that othering is a key discursive process in the groups’ online propaganda machinery but that it is discursively realised via homogenisation, suppression (stereotyping) and pejoration strategies. The latter are further examined via the notion of conventional impoliteness. Pointed criticism emerges as the most frequent conventionalised impoliteness strategy in both magazines. Threats, condescension and exclusion strategies are also saliently used, albeit with different relative frequencies within each magazine. The findings show the value of Discourse Analysis to research into (jihadist) terrorism, including the possibility of drawing upon its findings to develop tailored counter-messages to those advanced by (jihadist) terrorist groups.

Comparative Analysis of Terrorists’ Objectives Hierarchies

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 97-114
Author(s):  
Johannes Ulrich Siebert ◽  
Detlof von Winterfeldt
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Al Qaeda ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
The West ◽  
Analysis Methodology ◽  
Intelligence Collection ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Terrorist Groups ◽  
The Relationship

To develop effective counterterrorism strategies, it is important to understand the capabilities and objectives of terrorist groups. Much of the understanding of these groups comes from intelligence collection and analysis of their capabilities. In contrast, the objectives of terrorists are less well understood. In this article, we describe a decision analysis methodology to identify and structure the objectives of terrorists based on the statements and writings of their leaders. This methodology was applied in three case studies, resulting in the three objectives hierarchies of al-Qaeda, Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), and Hezbollah. In this article, we propose a method to compare the three objectives hierarchies, highlight their key differences, and draw conclusions about effective counterterrorism strategies. We find that all three terrorist groups have a wide range of objectives going far beyond the objective of killing and terrorizing people in the non-Muslim world. Among the shared objectives are destroying Israel and expelling Western powers from the Middle East. All three groups share the ambition to become a leader in the Islamic world. Key distinctions are the territorial ambitions of ISIL and Hezbollah versus the large-scale attack objectives of al-Qaeda. Objectives specific to ISIL are the establishment of a caliphate in Iraq and Syria and the re-creation of the power of Sunni Islam. Hezbollah has unique objectives related to the establishment of a Palestine State and to maintain the relationship with and support of Iran and Syria. Al-Qaeda’s objectives remain focused on large-scale attacks in the West. We also note a recent shift to provide support for small-scale attacks in the West by both al-Qaeda and ISIL. Our method can be used for comparing objectives hierarchies of different organizations as well as for comparing objectives hierarchies over time of one organization.

The Impact of Evolving Jihadist Narratives on Radicalisation in the West

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Akil N. Awan
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Terrorist Attacks ◽  
Al Qaeda ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
The West ◽  
Violent Extremism ◽  
Foreign Fighters ◽  
Role Of Religion ◽  
The Impact

This chapter explores the role Jihadist narratives have played in the radicalization of young Muslims in the West towards violent extremism, and how these narratives have changed over the years as Islamic State (ISIS) has trumped Al-Qaeda in becoming the organization of choice for most Western Jihadists today. The chapter explores the biographies of numerous individuals drawn to violent extremism, including those who have travelled abroad as foreign fighters or conducted home grown domestic terrorist attacks. The study finds that radical narratives only have potency when they intersect with structural conditions or the lived experiences that individuals may find themselves in. The chapter explores the role of religion, identity, altruism, and socio-economic marginalization in helping to account for increasing recruitment to Jihadism, suggesting fruitful avenues for Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) measures.

Western Jihadism

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jytte Klausen
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Al Qaeda ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
The West ◽  
Revolutionary Movement ◽  
Historical Approach ◽  
Global Movement ◽  
Islamist Terrorism ◽  
And Control ◽  
Analytical Tools

This book tells the story of how Al Qaeda grew in the West. In compelling detail, Jytte Klausen traces how Islamist revolutionaries exiled in Europe and North America in the 1990s helped create and control the world’s deadliest terrorist movement - and how, after the near-obliteration of the organization in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, they helped to rebuild it. She shows that the diffusion of Islamist terrorism to Europe and North America was driven, not by local grievances of Western Muslims, but by the strategic priorities of the international Salafi-jihadist revolutionary movement. That movement nevertheless adapted to Western repertoires of protest even as it agitated for armed insurrection and religious revivalism in the name of a warped version of Islam. The jihadists—Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, and their many affiliates and associates— also proved to be amazingly resilient. Again and again, the movement recovered from major setbacks. Appealing to disaffected Muslims of immigrant origin and alienated converts to Islam, Jihadist groups continue to recruit new adherents in Europe and North America, street-side in neighborhoods, in jails, and online through increasingly clandestine platforms. Taking a comparative and historical approach, deploying cutting-edge analytical tools, and drawing on her unparalleled database of up to 6,500 Western jihadist extremists and their networks, Klausen has produced the most comprehensive account yet of the origins of Western jihadism and its role in the global movement.

Problems of military-political interaction between the countries of the West and Central Asia at the turn of the XX–XXI centuries

2020 ◽  
pp. 27-33
Author(s):  
Boris G. Koybaev
Keyword(s):  
Central Asia ◽  
The United States ◽  
Military Bases ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
The West ◽  
Regional Environment ◽  
Western Influence ◽  
Central Asian ◽  
Political Interaction ◽  
The Military

Central Asia in recent history is a vast region with five Muslim States-new actors in modern international relations. The countries of Central Asia, having become sovereign States, at the turn of the XX–XXI centuries are trying to peaceful interaction not only with their underdeveloped neighbors, but also with the far-off prosperous West. At the same time, the United States and Western European countries, in their centrosilic ambitions, seek to increase their military and political presence in Central Asia and use the military bases of the region’s States as a springboard for supplying their troops during anti-terrorist and other operations. With the active support of the West, the Central Asian States were accepted as members of the United Nations. For monitoring and exerting diplomatic influence on the regional environment, the administration of the President of the Russian Federation H. W. Bush established U.S. embassies in all Central Asian States. Turkey, a NATO member and secular Islamic state, was used as a lever of indirect Western influence over Central Asian governments, and its model of successful development was presented as an example to follow.

Love and Jihad. Female Trajectories from North Caucasus to the Islamic State

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-151
Author(s):  
Denis Sokolov
Keyword(s):  
Muslim Women ◽  
Al Qaeda ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Armed Groups ◽  
North Caucasus ◽  
The Caucasus ◽  
The North ◽  
Caucasian Women

In the 2000s, Al-Qaeda, represented by the Caucasus Emirate, took over the first Chechen resistance, as well as local Islamist armed groups in Dagestan and other republics of the North Caucasus. However, a decade later, the Islamic State won the competition with Al-Qaeda, by including the involvement of women in its project. Hundreds of Russian-speaking Muslim women followed men to live by the rules of Islam. Some joined their husbands or children. Others travelled to the Islamic State in pursuit of love and romance with future husbands they had met on the internet. Based on exclusive interviews done with women detained in the Roj detention camp in the Kurdish territories in northeastern Syria near the Iraqi border, this article analyzes some of the trajectories that has pushed young North Caucasian women to the Syrian war theater in the name of love.

The New Islamic State

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Farhad Khosrokhavar
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Imagined Community ◽  
The West ◽  
Patriarchal Family ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
The Creation

The creation of the Islamic State in Iraq and Sham (ISIS) changed the nature of jihadism worldwide. For a few years (2014–2017) it exemplified the destructive capacity of jihadism and created a new utopia aimed at restoring the past greatness and glory of the former caliphate. It also attracted tens of thousands of young wannabe combatants of faith (mujahids, those who make jihad) toward Syria and Iraq from more than 100 countries. Its utopia was dual: not only re-creating the caliphate that would spread Islam all over the world but also creating a cohesive, imagined community (the neo-umma) that would restore patriarchal family and put an end to the crisis of modern society through an inflexible interpretation of shari‘a (Islamic laws and commandments). To achieve these goals, ISIS diversified its approach. It focused, in the West, on the rancor of the Muslim migrants’ sons and daughters, on exoticism, and on an imaginary dream world and, in the Middle East, on tribes and the Sunni/Shi‘a divide, particularly in the Iraqi and Syrian societies.

Islamic State: Understanding the Nature of the Beast and Its Funding

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michaela Martin ◽  
Hussein Solomon
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Terrorist Group ◽  
Al Qaeda ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Annual Income ◽  
International Peace ◽  
Holy War ◽  
World Today ◽  
The World ◽  
Peace And Security

The Islamic State (IS) took the global stage in June 2014 and since has become one of the greatest threats to international peace and security. While initially closely affiliated with Al-Qaeda, the IS has proved itself to be a distinct phenomenon of horror—more dangerous than Al-Qaeda. The group essentially established itself in the volatile Middle East, but has infiltrated many parts of the world with the aim of expanding Islam’s Holy War. What certainly makes the IS different from its predecessors is that the group has been labeled the wealthiest terrorist group in the world today. By the fall of 2015, IS generated an annual income of US$2.4 billion. The question for many analysts observing the situation in Syria is: where does the IS gets its money? The aim of this article is to critically observe the nature of IS and its funding requirements and the measures pursued in curtailing the group’s funding.

The Competing Mediations in the Post-Qaddafi Libyan Political Crisis

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-31
Author(s):  
Kasaija Phillip Apuuli
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Al Qaeda ◽  
Political Crisis ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
African Union ◽  
Terrorist Groups ◽  
The United Nations ◽  
Mediation Processes ◽  
The Revolution

Abstract Since the end of the revolution that toppled the rule of Muammar Qaddafi in October 2011, Libya has never known peace. The country descended into civil war with different factions contending for control. In this milieu, the United Nations attempted to mediate an end to the crisis but its efforts have failed to gain traction partly as a result of other mediation initiatives undertaken by several European actors. Sub-regional and continental organizations, including the Arab Maghreb Union (AMU) and the African Union (AU) respectively, that should have taken the lead in the mediation have been absent. Meanwhile, continued fighting has hampered a mediated settlement, and terrorist groups such as the Islamic State (IS) and al-Qaeda have taken advantage of the situation to establish a presence in the country. In the end, rather than ending the crisis, Libya has provided the ground for competing mediation processes which have prolonged the crisis.

Understanding the Islamic State—A Review Essay

2016 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 127-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Byman
Keyword(s):  
Review Essay ◽  
Military Force ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
The West ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Terrorist Threat ◽  
Security Forces ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
Raison D’État ◽  
Foreign Fighters

This article reviews several recent books on the Islamic State in order to understand its goals, motivations, strategy, and vulnerabilities. It argues that the Islamic State's ideology is powerful but also highly instrumental, offering the group legitimacy and recruiting appeal. Raison d'etat often dominates its decisionmaking. The Islamic State's strength is largely a consequence of the policies and weaknesses of its state adversaries. In addition, the group has many weaknesses of its own, notably its brutality, reliance on foreign fighters, and investment in a state as well as its tendency to seek out new enemies. The threat the Islamic State poses is most severe at the local and regional levels. The danger of terrorism to the West is real but mitigated by the Islamic State's continued prioritization of the Muslim world and the heightened focus of Western security forces on the terrorist threat. A high-quality military force could easily defeat Islamic State fighters, but there is no desire to deploy large numbers of Western ground troops, and local forces have repeatedly shown many weaknesses. In the end, containing the Islamic State and making modest rollback efforts may be the best local outcomes.

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