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21. December 2021 Issue

Author:
Matthew Kriner, Jon Lewis, Seth Loertscher, Connor Ingleson, and James Garrison
Publication Date:
12-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
CTC Sentinel
Institution:
The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
Abstract:
It has been almost a year since the events of January 6 shook the United States. In this month’s feature article, Matthew Kriner and Jon Lewis profile the Oath Keepers, an extreme far-right, anti-government group that allegedly played a key role in the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. They write: “Since its inception in 2009, the group has used a warped sense of patriotism, loose enforcement of laws surrounding paramilitary activity, and America’s founding revolutionary spirit to justify anti-government mobilization. It consistently walked the edge of political violence before taking part in the January 6 insurrection. While the group claims to be ‘guardians of the republic,’ its principal target is the government itself—particularly entities representing perceived federal government overreach and vectors for tyrannical forces to suppress Americans’ natural rights.” With concern still high over the threat posed by the violent far-right in the United States and other parts of the world, H.E. Upchurch outlines the evolution of the “skull mask” neo-fascist network. Upchurch writes: “The backbone of the ‘skull mask’ transnational neo-fascist accelerationist network—whose nodes include terror groups such as Atomwaffen, the Base, and Feuerkrieg Division—is a group of organizations that grew out of Iron March, a neo-fascist web forum that was active from 2011 to 2017. The history of the Iron March network shows that violent extremist movements can develop from online communities even in the absence of a territorial base and without regular in-person contact between members.” This month’s interview is with Brigadier Rob Stephenson, deputy commander of NATO Special Operations Headquarters. Finally, Sofia Koller and Alexander Schiele examine the criminal justice approach to prosecuting women who left Germany during the last 10 years to join terrorist organizations in Syria and Iraq, including the Islamic State, and returned. They write: “Germany is one of the only countries that has successfully utilized aspects of international law to legally prove membership in a terrorist organization, especially in the case of returned women. It might provide a useful model for other countries in developing more effective prosecution of returnee cases in their respective legal systems.”
Topic:
NATO, Violent Extremism, Counter-terrorism, Women, Islamic State, Fascism, Far Right, January 6, and Oath Keepers
Political Geography:
Europe, Germany, North America, and United States of America

22. THE END OF THE WAR ON TERROR

Author:
Navin Bapat
Publication Date:
08-2021
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Political Violence @ A Glance
Abstract:
On August 15, 2021, almost twenty years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Taliban recaptured Afghanistan from the American-supported government led by Ashraf Ghani. Afghans pushed to get on American transport planes to evacuate, conjuring images of the US evacuation of Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War. Others, afraid of Taliban retaliation, turned to social media to plea for help. Meanwhile, in Kabul, militants paraded in front of the evacuated US embassy, signifying the Taliban’s total victory.
Topic:
Taliban, Al Qaeda, Islamic State, 9/11, War on Terror, Vietnam War, COVID-19, Joe Biden, Ashraf Ghani, and Hamid Karzai
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, and United States of America

23. WHY THE “TERRORIST” LABEL HELPS SOME GROUPS AND HURTS OTHERS

Author:
Rebecca Best
Publication Date:
09-2021
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Political Violence @ A Glance
Abstract:
Does adding a terrorist group to the US State Department’s Foreign Terrorist Organization list reduce its violence? Since 1997, the US State Department has maintained a list of designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO), or foreign organizations that use terrorism and threaten US nationals or US national security. The United States has designated a wide array of terrorist organizations and groups—including Hamas, FARC, and ISIL–Khorasan—but has refrained from using the designation for others. For example, the United States never designated the Taliban an FTO. Why not?
Topic:
Terrorism, Taliban, Islamic State, 9/11, Boko Haram, Hamas, Uyghurs, FARC, Haqqani Network, Khorasan Group, Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, and Tamil Tigers
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Afghanistan, China, Iran, South Asia, Sri Lanka, Nigeria, and United States of America

24. November 2021 Issue

Author:
Andrew Watkins, Seth Morrow, Nicholas Tallant, Jerome P. Bjelopera, and Matthew Bamber
Publication Date:
11-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
CTC Sentinel
Institution:
The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
Abstract:
It has been three months since the Taliban entered Kabul and retook control of Afghanistan. According to the head of the U.N. World Food Programme, “23 million people [are now] marching toward starvation. 95% of Afghans don’t have enough food. The economy is collapsing. Winter is coming. This is going to be hell on earth.” In this month’s feature article, Andrew Watkins assesses the Taliban’s efforts to rule Afghanistan so far. He writes that “The Taliban have busied themselves consolidating control, reacting swiftly and harshly to perceived threats. They have not clearly defined the scope or structure of their state, nor have they shared long-term plans for their rank-and-file, many of which continue to operate as they did before August 15, 2021. Taliban leaders have demonstrated the continued primacy of maintaining internal cohesion, a longstanding trait that will likely stunt the group’s response to Afghanistan’s impending economic and humanitarian crises.” Watkins writes that from their perspective, “accepting aid that might sustain their state would prove worthless if doing so fueled a fissure within their own organization. The Taliban would become the very thing their origin story professes they rose up to eradicate and replace: a fractious constellation of militant bands. To put it another way, if Afghanistan’s compounding crises pose the Taliban with the prospect of either failing to provide for the desperate needs of the Afghan people or their own potential fragmentation, the Taliban will put their own organization first.” This month’s interview is with General Richard D. Clarke, commander of U.S. Special Operations Command. In a commentary, Jerome Bjelopera argues that “given that the U.S. national security establishment has taken up great power competition (GPC) as its primary concern recently, and terrorism has slipped from the top position, it is time for the security policy community to place terrorism within a new conceptual framework, one that combines terrorists, violent criminals, drug traffickers, insurgents, and others under the heading of violent non-state actors (VNSA).” Interviews that Matthew Bamber conducted with 43 former Islamic State civilian employees shed light on two distinct categories: those who became full members of the group and those who did not. He writes that “there are significant differences in how these two categories were treated by the Islamic State, the positions they were able to fill, the financial benefits they received, and the processes through which they joined and left Islamic State employment ... Understanding the nuances is important in assessing the culpability of the Islamic State’s civilian workers and the danger they may pose in the future.”
Topic:
Terrorism, Non State Actors, Military Affairs, Taliban, Counter-terrorism, Islamic State, and Strategic Competition
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, Middle East, and United States of America

25. January 2021 Issue

Author:
Bruce Hoffman, Jacob Ware, Stephen Hummel, Paul Cruickshank, Don Rassler, Jonathan Schroden, and Nodirbek Soliev
Publication Date:
01-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
CTC Sentinel
Institution:
The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
Abstract:
The violent storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, has heightened concerns about the threat posed by far-right extremism in the United States. In examining the wide range of terrorism and counterterrorism challenges facing the incoming Biden administration in this month’s feature commentary, Bruce Hoffman and Jacob Ware write that “the January 6 events at the U.S. Capitol offered a stark, frightening picture of the powerful forces fueling a conspiratorial mindset eschewing both the country’s foundational democratic values and the rule of law” and “serves as a salutary and timely reminder of the danger of potential violence to come.” Given the continued threat posed by “a stubbornly resilient Islamic State and an implacably determined al-Qa`ida,” they write that “it may be that as the United States and its allies enter the third decade of war against international salafi-jihadi terrorism, we need to recalibrate our immediate expectations away from ‘winning’ and ‘losing,’ toward ‘accepting’ and ‘managing’ this conflict. Such an admission would not be popular, but it would be a fairer reflection of the current state of the fight against terrorism, and a more honest prediction of what to expect over the next four, or more, years.” Our interview is with David Lasseter, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction. He notes that “advances in synthetic biology and other related biotechnologies hold the potential for both promise and peril in their application. And so we’ve got to be cognizant of how such technological shifts can alter the threat landscape [and] impose new defense and security challenges. We’ve heard it said that biological weapons are ‘a poor man’s nuke,’ given the potentially enormous impact of their usage. I think COVID-19 has further accelerated this mindset. The U.S. has had a watchful eye on bio threats and has elevated bio threats as a core national security priority over the past several years.” In an assessment that has far-reaching implications for the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan, Jonathan Schroden finds that if the United States were to withdraw the remainder of its troops from the country, the Taliban would have “a slight military advantage” over Afghanistan’s security forces, “which would then likely grow in a compounding fashion.” Nodirbek Soliev examines the Tajik connection in an Islamic State plot against U.S. and NATO air bases in Germany thwarted in April 2020.
Topic:
NATO, Taliban, Counter-terrorism, Islamic State, Joe Biden, and January 6
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, Europe, Tajikistan, Germany, and United States of America

26. March 2020 Issue

Author:
Blyth Crawford, Florence Keen, Raffaello Pantucci, Colin P. Clarke, Lorenzo Vidino, Jon Lewis, Andrew Mines, and Christopher Anzalone
Publication Date:
03-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
CTC Sentinel
Institution:
The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
Abstract:
Far-right terror is going global, propelled to a significant degree by an online ecosystem of extremists posting in English. Since 2018, attackers have targeted synagogues in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; the towns of Poway, California, and Halle, Germany; mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand; and a Walmart in El Paso, Texas. In this month’s feature article, Blyth Crawford and Florence Keen examine the February 19, 2020, far-right terrorist attack that targeted shisha bar customers in the German town of Hanau and led to the death of nine victims. They write that the influences on the deceased Hanau attacker Tobias Rathjen were “a combination of traditional far-right, race-based, and anti-immigration narratives, alongside several more obscure conspiracy theories.” They argue that a common denominator between the Hanau attack and the aforementioned attacks in the United States, New Zealand, and Germany “is the perpetrators’ shared adherence to the ‘Great Replacement’ conspiracy narrative … which perceives the cultural and biological integrity of the white race to be endangered by increased levels of (non-white) immigration and the stagnation of white birth rates.” In our ongoing “A View from the CT Foxhole” series, Raffaello Pantucci interviews Jonathan Evans, who served as the Director General of the U.K. Security Service MI5 between 2007 and 2013. Colin Clarke examines the issues raised by the December 6, 2019, terrorist attack by the Saudi Air Force Officer Mohammed Alshamrani, which killed three U.S. Navy sailors at Naval Air Station Pensacola in Florida. He writes, “In early February 2020, al-Qa`ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) claimed responsibility for the attack. It is not clear yet whether the group had a direct role in the attack, but if it did, it would make the shooting the first deadly terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 9/11 directed by a foreign terrorist organization.” By analyzing “all related-court cases since 2013,” Lorenzo Vidino, Jon Lewis, and Andrew Mines find that “save for a few exceptions, the vast majority of U.S.-based Islamic State supporters left a remarkably small financial footprint. Most, in fact, simply relied on personal savings to pay the small costs required for their activities.” Christopher Anzalone examines al-Shabaab’s PSYOPS (psychological operations) messaging, which he argues “takes advantage of the lack of transparency in certain instances from its opponents, including some governments, and the demand by the international news media for details from on the ground, with the group framing itself as a reliable source of on-the-ground information.”
Topic:
Terrorism, Counter-terrorism, Media, Islamic State, Violence, Far Right, and Al Shabaab
Political Geography:
Global Focus and United States of America

27. April 2020 Issue

Author:
Andrew Zammit, Jason Warner, Thomas Renard, and Tim Lister
Publication Date:
04-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
CTC Sentinel
Institution:
The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
Abstract:
It was one of the most ambitious and innovative international terror plots ever seen. In July 2017, Australian police arrested two brothers in Sydney who had attempted to get a bomb on board an Etihad plane flying from Sydney to Abu Dhabi carrying around 400 passengers and were separately planning to carry out a poison gas attack inside Australia with an improvised chemical dispersion device. The two brothers had been guided by Islamic State operatives in Syria, who successfully arranged for a partially constructed bomb to be air-mailed from Turkey to Australia. In our feature article, Andrew Zammit draws on “newly available information resulting from the successful prosecution of the Sydney-based plotters” to provide the most comprehensive account to date on how the plot developed and what it reveals about the evolution of the international terror threat posed by the Islamic State. Donald Yamamoto, the United States Ambassador to Somalia, is featured in our ongoing “A View from the CT Foxhole” series. The interview was conducted by Jason Warner in front of cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Attacks in London in November 2019 and February 2020 by two convicted terrorists released from prison has created a surge of concern about terrorist recidivism. But Thomas Renard points out that academic research undertaken thus far suggests terrorists are unlikely to relapse into violent extremism. His review of the judiciary files of 557 jihadi terrorist convicts in Belgium, since 1990, finds that less than five percent reengaged in terrorist activities. Drawing on nearly a dozen reporting trips to Ukraine between 2014 and 2019, Tim Lister examines the nexus between far-right extremists in Ukraine and the United States. He writes: “In recent years, some Americans and Europeans drawn to various brands of far-right nationalism have looked to Ukraine as their field of dreams: a country with a well-established, trained, and equipped far-right militia … that has been actively engaged in the conflict against Russian-backed separatists.” He notes that in some instances, “U.S.-based individuals have spoken or written about how the training available in Ukraine might assist them and others in their paramilitary-style activities at home.”
Topic:
Diplomacy, Terrorism, Violent Extremism, Counter-terrorism, Islamic State, and Far Right
Political Geography:
Ukraine, Australia, Somalia, and United States of America

28. July 2020 Issue

Author:
Heni Nsaibia, Caleb Weiss, Seth Loertscher, Nick Kramer, Robin Simcox, Hannah Stuart, Amarnath Amarasingam, and Marc-Andre Argentino
Publication Date:
07-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
Abstract:
Earlier this month, the United Nations monitoring team that tracks the global jihadi threat warned the Security Council that “ISIL franchises in West Africa and the Sahel continued to enjoy operational success in early 2020, as have those of Al-Qaida, heightening international concern about stability in the region.” Concern over the threat has grown despite the fact that a year ago clashes erupted between the Islamic State and al-Qa`ida franchises in the region, turning what had been an often amicable and sometimes cooperative relationship into fighting between them in Mali and Burkina Faso. In our feature article, Héni Nsaibia and Caleb Weiss assess that a number of factors ended the “Sahelian anomaly” of amicable relations between the regional Islamic State and al-Qa`ida groupings, “including the hardening of ideological divisions, pressure from Islamic State Central for its regional satellite to take on a more confrontational approach toward its rival, and tensions created by the growing ambition of the Islamic State affiliate in the Sahel.” They note that “while some argue that fighting between jihadi groups is positive for the counterterrorism landscape, it is also possible that the two groups are in effect engaging in a process called ‘outbidding,’ wherein a group aims to show ‘greater resolve to fight the enemy than rival groups.’” Our interview is with Chris Costa, who during the first year of the Trump administration served as the Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Counterterrorism. Building on a study of terrorist recidivism in Belgium by Thomas Renard published in the April issue of CTC Sentinel, Robin Simcox and Hannah Stuart examine the problem set created by jihadi prisoners in Europe from two different angles. Firstly, they examine the nature of the threat by analyzing a dozen alleged jihadi terror plots and attacks that occurred inside and outside prisons in Western Europe since 2014 in which at least one of the attackers/plotters had been convicted in Europe of a previous terrorism offense. Secondly, they look at the scale of the threat by calculating the rates of various forms of recidivism from a comprehensive database relating to U.K. jihadi terror activity. Amarnath Amarasingam and Marc-André Argentino assess the emerging security threat posed by the QAnon conspiracy. They write: “A survey of cases of individuals who have allegedly or apparently been radicalized to criminal acts with a nexus to violence by QAnon, including one case that saw a guilty plea on a terrorism charge, makes clear that QAnon represents a public security threat with the potential in the future to become a more impactful domestic terror threat. This is true especially given that conspiracy theories have a track record of propelling terrorist violence elsewhere in the West as well as QAnon’s more recent influence on mainstream political discourse.”
Topic:
Terrorism, Prisons/Penal Systems, Counter-terrorism, Al Qaeda, Islamic State, Conflict, and QAnon
Political Geography:
Africa, Europe, Sahel, and United States of America

29. September 2020 Issue

Author:
Daniel Milton, Muhammad Al-'Ubaydi, Michael Brian Jenkins, and Mohammed Hafez
Publication Date:
09-2020
Content Type:
Journal Article
Institution:
The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
Abstract:
In the September issue, it is revealed for the first time that the Islamic State’s new leader, publicly identified by the U.S. government as Amir Muhammad Sa’id ‘Abd-al-Rahman al-Mawla, was detained by U.S. forces in Iraq in 2008 and interrogated. The Combating Terrorism Center has made available on its website three of his declassified interrogation reports, and these are analyzed in a feature article by Daniel Milton and Muhammad al-`Ubaydi, who caution that claims made by al-Mawla while in custody are very difficult to verify. Based on their assessment of the three documents and their research, they conclude that “key assumptions about al-Mawla, notably his Turkmen ethnicity and early involvement in the insurgency in Iraq, may not be accurate. Moreover, statements made by al-Mawla, while doubtless trying to minimize his own commitment to ISI [the Islamic State of Iraq], suggest that his commitment may have been borne less of zeal than of serendipity. If true, this would suggest that something certainly changed in al-Mawla, as his later reputation suggests someone who ruthlessly pursued his ideology, even to carrying out genocide against its enemies. The TIRs [tactical interrogation reports] also show that al-Mawla, who, according to the timeline that he himself provided, appears to have quickly risen in the organization’s ranks in part because of his religious training, knew much about ISI and was willing to divulge many of these details during his interrogation, potentially implicating and resulting in the death of at least one high-ranking ISI figure.” The Combating Terrorism Center convened a panel of leading scholars and analysts to further discuss the three documents. Cole Bunzel, Haroro Ingram, Gina Ligon, and Craig Whiteside provided their takeaways, including on whether the revelations may hurt al-Mawla’s standing within the group. In the other cover article, Brian Michael Jenkins considers the future role of the U.S. armed forces in counterterrorism, in a sweeping examination of the changing strategic, budgetary and threat environment. He writes: “Dividing the military into near-peer warfare and counterterrorism camps makes little sense. Future wars will require U.S. commanders to orchestrate capabilities to counter an array of conventional and unconventional modes of conflict, including terrorism.” Finally, as the global civil war between the Islamic State and al-Qa`ida intensifies, Mohammed Hafez outlines how a recent ‘documentary’ released by the Islamic State’s Yemeni branch has made clearer than ever before the areas of disagreement between the groups.
Topic:
Terrorism, Armed Forces, Counter-terrorism, Al Qaeda, Islamic State, Populism, and Jihad
Political Geography:
Middle East, Global Focus, and United States of America

30. Foreign Military Presence in Iraq in Light of the Iran-U.S. Rivalry

Author:
Sara Nowacka
Publication Date:
02-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
The Polish Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:
Iraq remains an area of rivalry between the U.S. and Iran. The latest example was the assassination of Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad by the U.S. in January. The Iraqi parliament then demanded the withdrawal of all foreign military troops. However, the fear of the resurgence of the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) and continued protests against Iranian influence, ongoing since October 2019, may lead the Iraqi authorities to alter their position. An alternative option to request a NATO mission to take over some of the activities of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS may be a good solution.
Topic:
NATO, Military Affairs, Islamic State, Military Intervention, and Qassem Soleimani
Political Geography:
Iraq, Iran, Middle East, North America, and United States of America