Search

Begin New Search Topic Terrorism Political Geography Europe

81. Defining the Punjabi Taliban Network

Author:
Hassan Abbas
Publication Date:
04-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
CTC Sentinel
Institution:
The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
Abstract:
On march 30, 2009, militants launched a deadly assault on a police training center outside Lahore, the capital of Pakistan's Punjab Province. Eight police cadets were killed. Less than a month earlier, on March 3, gunmen in Lahore ambushed members of the visiting Sri Lankan cricket team, killing at least eight people. Punjab, the most populated of Pakistan's provinces, has largely escaped the bloodshed plaguing the country's troubled northwest. Yet since 2007, violence has escalated in the province. The bold terrorist attacks in Pakistan's heartland—within Punjab Province and in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad—show that local logistical support for these attacks is attributable to what is often labeled the “Punjabi Taliban” network. The major factions of this network include operatives from Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan and Jaysh-i-Muhammad—all groups that were previously strictly focused on Kashmir and domestic sectarian violence.
Topic:
Terrorism
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, United States, Europe, Taliban, and Punjab

82. The Growing Threat of Radical Islamic Groups in Germany

Author:
David Perl
Publication Date:
04-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
Abstract:
Germany has been increasingly forced to confront "homegrown" Islamist terrorism, the threat of radicalized converts to Islam, and the threat of non-integrated Muslim immigrants. In 2003, Iranian-backed Hizbullah was found to have identified Israeli, Jewish, and American facilities in Germany as terror targets. Which are the prominent radical Islamic groups operating in Germany? The Islamic Jihad Union (IJU), one of the most significant threats to German national security, is a Sunni terrorist organization closely associated with al-Qaeda. IJU is well known to the German public due to frequent video threats published on the Internet and on television. Hizb ut-Tahir al-Islami (HuT) is a clandestine, radical Islamist political organization that operates in 40 countries around the world including Germany, which banned the organization in 2003. Prior to its ban, HuT operated mainly in college towns in Germany, and orchestrated a terrorist attack in 2006, when two terrorists placed two suitcases containing bombs (which failed to detonate) on regional trains in Germany. The Islamic Center in Hamburg (IZH), which was under the direct guidance of Iran's Ayatollah Khameini between 1978 and 1980, is considered to be the most important Hizbullah base in Germany and is the institution most engaged in exporting the Islamic Revolution of Iran. It has branches in Berlin, Munich, Muenster, and Hannover, pointing to the ability of Hizbullah to launch attacks within Germany at any time in line with directives from the Iranian Supreme Leadership. Millî Görüş (MG), a radical Islamic group associated with Islamist parties in Turkey, is anti-Western, anti-Semitic, anti-Israeli, and opposes integration into Western society by the 2.5 million Turkish immigrants and their families in Germany. Yakup Akbay of the Fathi Mosque in Munich told Turkish television in 2007: "When Europe, as we hope, will be Islamized, the credit has to be given to the Turkish community. That's the reason for us doing the groundwork."
Topic:
Political Violence, Islam, Terrorism, and Armed Struggle
Political Geography:
Europe, Turkey, and Germany

83. Overdue Process: Protecting Human Rights while Sanctioning Alleged Terrorists

Author:
David Cortright, Alistair Millar, George A. Lopez, and Linda Gerber-Stellingwerf
Publication Date:
04-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame
Abstract:
Practices used by the United Nations Security Council in the name of countering terrorism have led to serious concerns about violations of human rights and limitations on the work of civil society groups. The use of blacklisting has eroded due process rights and discredited elements of the international fight against terrorism. Enhanced efforts to create clear and fair listing procedures are urgently needed and long overdue.
Topic:
Civil Society, Human Rights, International Organization, Terrorism, and United Nations
Political Geography:
Europe and Taliban

84. Roads to Militant Radicalization: Interviews with Five Former Perpetrators of Politically Motivated Organized Violence

Author:
Jon A. Olsen
Publication Date:
05-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
The present report is based on in-depth interviews with individuals formerly involved in politically motivated group violence, in order to acquire accounts of processes of radicalization in their own words. The main themes in the interviews were the following: 1) How did they become involved with militant activist groups? 2) What drove them to take part in specific militant operations? And: 3) What role did ideology, identity and social group processes play in these decisions? The latter theme is the main problem dealt with in this text.
Topic:
Political Violence, Islam, Politics, and Terrorism
Political Geography:
Europe

85. Trading Justice for Security? UN Anti-Terrorism, Due Process Rights, and the Role of the Judiciary

Author:
Carmen Draghici
Publication Date:
05-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre on Human Rights in Conflict
Abstract:
Policy-makers, domestically and in international for a, tend to address counter- terrorism and human-rights protection in terms of competitive goals. In the post-9/11 political climate dominated by security concerns, the suppression of the financing of terrorism is given priority over suspects' rights. The current procedures established by the UN Security Council for the freezing of funds of terrorist suspects encroach upon several individual rights. The most severe infringement upon the rights of persons targeted by the UN sanctions derives from the lack of a secure avenue of appeal. The denial of access to justice has been fostered for several years by the deference of national and regional courts to the UN Security Council. Recent developments at European Union level demonstrate that judicial decisions can shape counter-terrorism policies.
Topic:
Human Rights, Terrorism, United Nations, and Counterinsurgency
Political Geography:
Europe

86. U.S.-EU Counterterrorism Responses Post 9/11: Time for Strategic Cooperation

Author:
Bryan Groves
Publication Date:
01-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Department of Social Sciences at West Point, United States Military Academy
Abstract:
The lead up to the Iraq War and its conduct has highlighted significant differences in traditional perspectives, capabilities, and methods. While terrorism has been America's central fixation since 9/11, Europe still sees terrorism as one of several important threats today, with proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, failed states, regional conflicts, and organized crime among other top tier threats. The U.S. possesses a comparative advantage in intelligence gathering and kinetic strike cabability. This military strength has enabled the U.S. to favor it as its top tool in waging its global war on terrorism (GWOT). On the other hand, Europe's tendency toward employment of troops for nation-building and peacekeeping missions is in line with its strengths and its preferences. Europe countries also favour an extensive consensus building period of diplomatic maneuvering to establish a widely accepted multilateral response to threats, America under the current administration, however, has insisted on remaining.
Topic:
Security, Terrorism, Weapons of Mass Destruction, and International Security
Political Geography:
Iraq, America, Europe, and Middle East

87. A Linguistic Turn of Terrorism Studies

Author:
Jørgen Staun
Publication Date:
01-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
“Your democratically elected governments continuously perpetuate atrocities against my people all over the world. And your support of them makes you directly responsible, just as I am directly responsible for protecting and avenging my Muslim brothers and sisters. Until we feel security, you will be our targets. And until you stop the bombing, gassing, imprisonment and torture of my people we will not stop this fight. We are at war and I am a soldier”.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Political Violence, Islam, and Terrorism
Political Geography:
Europe

88. Palestine and Israel: Time for Plan B

Author:
Nathan J. Brown
Publication Date:
02-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
The international effort to achieve a two-state solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict has come to a dead end, at least for the present. Things can—and might well—get worse unless the United States and other outside actors couple a realistic view of the present with a serious effort to push for a more promising future. The first step in a new diplomatic approach must be to establish a cease-fire that builds on the common interest of both Israel and Hamas to avoid fighting in the short term. A new cease-fire should be clear and perhaps even written; mediators (whether Arab or European) must be willing to make an agreement more attractive to both sides to sustain (Hamas can be enticed by some opening of the border with Egypt; Israel will demand serious efforts against the supply of arms to Hamas). The second step must be an armistice that would offer each side what they crave for the present—Israel would get quiet and a limit on arms to Hamas; Palestinians would get open borders, a freeze on settlements, and an opportunity to rebuild their shattered institutions. Such an armistice must go beyond a one-year cease-fire to become something sustainable for at least five to ten years. Finally, the calm provided by the armistice must be used to rebuild Palestinian institutions and force Palestinians and Israelis to confront rather than avoid the choices before them.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Islam, Peace Studies, Terrorism, and War
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, Middle East, Israel, Palestine, Arabia, and Egypt

89. Análisis cuantitativo del terrorismo internacional en Europa occidental (1968-2008)

Author:
Domingo Jiménez Martín
Publication Date:
01-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Athena Intelligence Journal
Institution:
Athena Intelligence
Abstract:
The purpose of the present quantitative study is to explain the international terrorism activities in Western Europe. The data set contains information on terrorismrelated events in West European countries (data has been collected for the period from 1968-2008) and includes information about tactical, political or geographical criteria. International terrorism has been an important part of the Contemporary European History, the trend is not going to disappear and we need foresight tools to know the threat.
Topic:
Terrorism
Political Geography:
Europe

90. To what extent was Western intelligence at fault in failing to indentify the nature of the terrorist threat before 9/11 and its aftermath?

Author:
Fernando Celaya
Publication Date:
01-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Athena Intelligence Journal
Institution:
Athena Intelligence
Abstract:
In reflecting on the extensive literature and research on intelligence failures and particularly that which ensued in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US, Indonesia and those in Europe, this analysis concludes that intelligence, and particularly Western intelligence, cannot be completely at fault for the failure to identify appropriately and forewarn about the occurrence of historical discontinuity events. Western policymakers, economic advisers, as well as socio-economic elites' performance throughout the 1980s and 1990s reveals flaws in long-term policy planning and decision-making with serious repercussions for strategic intelligence analysis. The inability to forecast historical discontinuity events is a key element of intelligence and policy which needs further revision.
Topic:
Islam and Terrorism
Political Geography:
United States and Europe