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Between 1979 and 2013, the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami was the largest Islamist political party in the country and the only one that ever played a prominent role in government. In 2013, the party had its registration revoked, effectively banning it from running in elections, and has since been stigmatized as a terrorist, or at the very least a terror-sympathizing, organization. This paper looks at the nature of the party and the roles it has played historically in Bangladesh politics. It also investigates the party's alleged links with religious extremism and terrorist activities in the country, and the roles the party has played in perpetuating religious nationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research on predictors of successful terrorism incidents is scarce and warrants more scholarly attention to minimize the number of successful terrorist attacks. This study examined whether suicide attack, region, weapon type, attack type, target/victim type, and type of terrorist organization are predictors of successful terrorism incidents. The data contained global terrorism incidents that occurred between 1970 and 2019 and were obtained from the Global Terrorism Database (N = 154,289). The results of multivariate analyses obtained from the binary logistic regression test showed that successful terrorism is less likely to occur in North America but, when such attacks do occur, they are more likely to involve facility/infrastructure as the attack type and a firearm as the weapon type; target private citizens and property; and be committed by religious terrorist organizations. The findings of the study and its policy implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The "Periodical Literature" article from the Catholic Historical Review covers a wide range of topics, including ancient, medieval, early modern, late modern, Canadian, and Latin American history. The articles delve into various aspects of Catholic history, from the Ethiopic Version of the Story of Mamas the Martyr to the Catholic mobilizations in twentieth-century Mexico. The document provides a comprehensive overview of scholarly research in the field of Catholic history, offering insights into different regions and time periods. [Extracted from the article]

The article examines the subject of religious cyberterrorism, which is remains relevant in the contemporary discourse. The author underlines the possibility for terrorist organizations to form "sleeper cells" and "lone wolves" who can be deployed at any time to complete their missions. The article outlines religious terrorist organizations' goals and propaganda methods, as well as countermeasures and counter-propaganda strategies. The relationship between their goals and propaganda tactics, information, and psychological methods of persuasion employed by propagandists is examined. The purpose of this article is to examine the information strategy of terrorist group propagandists aimed at recruiting new combatants, as well as a qualitative examination of legal, technical, and counter-propaganda methods adopted by various governments throughout the world to counteract terrorist propaganda. The author lists countermeasures and evaluates each one's effectiveness. China is used as an example, as it is now the most effective in technological terms, despite criticism from human rights groups. As part of a counter-agitation approach, the experience of getting clergy to dispute terrorist organizations' religious doctrine is explored. It is concluded that, notwithstanding the defeat of ISIS, the problem of opposing religious terrorist propaganda operations remains relevant today. The most essential feature of the article is the investigation of this subject within the context of Kazakhstan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In today's world, where globalization has led to the emergence of various state and non-state actors, including sub-national ones, with differing interests and motivations that often conflict with one another, the provision of essential services such as transportation, electricity, drinking water, medical and digital services, and others is of critical importance to contemporary society. About half a decade ago, when the critical infrastructures that provide these services were built, threats to them, such as terrorism, organized crime, asymmetrical or hybrid ones, were almost non-existent and not as much of a concern to the critical entities responsible for protecting them. The present research is intended to carry out an analysis of two threats to critical infrastructures - terrorism and organized crime, with the aim of identifying their typology, the effects they produce, the method of operation employed by the non-state actors that conduct such activities. The article's findings have demonstrated that ideological, political, and religious motivations of terrorist organizations, as well as the financial motivations of organized crime hold special significance as they yield effects in the modus operandi of these entities and also shape the response of law enforcement authorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In today's world, where globalization has led to the emergence of various state and non-state actors, including sub-national ones, with differing interests and motivations that often conflict with one another, the provision of essential services such as transportation, electricity, drinking water, medical and digital services, and others is of critical importance to contemporary society. About half a decade ago, when the critical infrastructures that provide these services were built, threats to them, such as terrorism, organized crime, asymmetrical or hybrid ones, were almost non-existent and not as much of a concern to the critical entities responsible for protecting them. The present research is intended to carry out an analysis of two threats to critical infrastructures - terrorism and organized crime, with the aim of identifying their typology, the effects they produce, the method of operation employed by the non-state actors that conduct such activities. The article's findings have demonstrated that ideological, political, and religious motivations of terrorist organizations, as well as the financial motivations of organized crime hold special significance as they yield effects in the modus operandi of these entities and also shape the response of law enforcement authorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the role of the Catholic ideology of Cristo Rey during the Cristero Conflict, which lasted from 1926 to 1929. This conflict was an armed rebellion led by militant Catholics who opposed the Mexican government's enforcement of anti-clerical provisions in the Mexican Constitution of 1917. This article argues that the creation of the Cristo Rey devotion in Guanajuato, Mexico as well as the statue dedicated to that devotion in 1923 demonstrate the early role the Mexican clergy played in escalating tensions between the Church and the Mexican State in the years before the armed phase of the Cristero rebellion. Additionally, this examination provides an important insight into the unification of lay Catholic organizations surrounding the expulsion of the Papal Nuncio, Eugenio Filippi in 1923. This article further demonstrates that the militant Catholic interpretation of Cristo Rey was impactful outside of Mexico, especially through the official Papal adoption of Christ the King as Catholic doctrine in 1925. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cooperation between two terrorist groups benefits both, but there are also risks. This paper focuses on these risks, especially how the demise of one group affects the longevity of the remaining groups. Using a generalized equation estimations (GEE) model with data from the Global Terrorism Database (GTD) from 2001 to 2016, this paper analyses how the disbanding of one partner terrorist group with the same ideology and regime type affects the longevity of the remaining groups in a cooperative relationship. The results indicate that when a partnering terrorist group with religious ideology ceases to exist, remaining groups have a better chance of survival as compared to those with other ideologies. In addition, when two groups are based in democratic nations and one partner disbands, the remaining group is more likely to disband. Moreover, if collaborating groups operate under different regime types and one group disbands, the remaining terrorist groups are less likely to disband as compared to those groups operating under regimes of the same type. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Re-education is a follow-up intervention that aims to provide a re-understanding for terrorist prisoners. This research consists of two interventions that are psychological and religious for terrorist prisoners in Correctional Institutions in Lampung Province. This study aims to determine whether there is an increase in terrorist acceptance in the Republic of Indonesia through psychological and religious interventions. This research was conducted from 2018 to 2021 involving psychologists, doctors, and masters of the Islamic religion as a facilitator. The results of this study were categorized based on two major themes that are: 1) the terrorist's knowledge about religious intervention; 2) the increasing knowledge and acceptance toward NKRI through psychological intervention. The results of this study found that the provision of re-education through psychological and religious interventions was able to increase the understanding of the acceptance of terrorists toward the Republic of Indonesia and could improve the perception block that each terrorist had. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects and correlations of the perceived religious affiliation on a fictitious terrorism case. Participants were 402 French adults who completed a questionnaire after reading a scenario involving the arrest of a person (French vs. North African; man vs. woman) wearing an explosive belt. They indicated the level of the perpetrator's religious affiliation and judged her/him and the act. The participants' level of social dominance orientation (SDO) was measured and studied along in its two dimensions. The results showed an effect of ethnicity on perceived religious affiliation, which was correlated with judgment and mediated the effect of social dominance on judgment. The implications of this study are discussed in terms of intergroup interactions and religious prejudice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) pervades most aspects of life in post-revolutionary Iran. Ostensibly the regime's security organisation, the IRGC's political clout and economic heft enable it to extend its influence beyond security and into foreign policy. This study employs a constructivist perspective, casting light on the key elements of the IRGC's identity, notably its religious discourse. In doing so, it develops our understanding of how the organisation's beliefs and values affect the foreign policy agenda of the Islamic Republic of Iran. This article draws on IRGC press statements, ideological training materials and its constitutive charter in conjunction with an analysis of the organisation's behaviour to delineate an image of an organisation staunchly loyal to the total imperium of the 'House of Leader', and which buttresses the regime with its militant, violent and religiously hardline outlook. Working to promote rather than define Ayatollah Khamenei's system of Islamic governance, the IRGC's role is closer to that of enforcer and implementer than of autonomous agent of foreign policy. This article contributes to the wider literature on constructivist idealism by highlighting the importance of ideas as relational and performative elements of foreign policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the extent to which the frequency and lethality of terrorist attacks change after pledging allegiance to religious terrorist groups. Drawing on data from the Global Terrorism Database, the analyses specifically aim to explore whether a significant change occurred in Boko Haram's bombing attacks after its pledge to the Islamic State in 2015. Results from our time-series analysis indicate that the frequency and lethality of Boko Haram's bombing attacks did not change significantly in the post-pledge period. The number of bombings and casualties in these incidents did neither significantly increase nor decrease after the alliance of Boko Haram with the Islamic State. The contributions of our findings to the terrorism literature are discussed and policy implications for counterterrorism efforts are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The most intense violations of religious freedom have been recently perpetrated in Asia, by governments, and in Africa, by jihadist terrorists linked to intercommunal violence, especially in the Sub-Saharan region. This work focuses on African countries where states have failed to manage the threats to the most fundamental human rights, posed by terrorist groups on religious terms. It analyzes whether and how those atrocities perpetrated by both al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, and their associates, can be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court. For this purpose, the Al Mahdi case constitutes an exceptional precedent regarding jurisdiction, accountability, and judgement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many ways, the Black September killing of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics tells little about the evolution of targeting sporting events by political and religious militants, though this attack has never been replicated in scale and drama. It introduced a post-World War II era in which secular nationalists rather than religious militants dominated the targeting of sporting events, executives and athletes. That may have been different if plans for attacks by religious militants had not failed or been foiled. Interestingly and more as a result of local circumstances, successful attacks on sporting events and personalities since Munich have struck a balance between having been perpetrated by secular and religious terrorists. This is true even if political violence since the 1980s has increasingly been perpetrated by religious rather than secular terrorists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stability and security remain the two most important objectives in the post-Gaddafi era since no accord has established a legitimate government in Libya yet. The rivalry of the Tripoli and Tobruk governments has resulted in unabating state insecurity in Libya. This article focuses on the strategic city of Sirte where the insecurity was felt most in the post-Gaddafi era. The significance of this city also comes from its strategic location, which makes it the main target for the political actors that want to control Libya. Deriving from these points, this article analyzes the impact and threat of ISIS as the terrorist group in Sirte. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A number of religious terrorism acts closely related to the 9/11 event had happened in Indonesia and disrupted the nation's stability and harmony. The hard-power approach that the Indonesian government had hitherto employed to curb terrorism had not succeeded in eradicating religious terrorist groups entirely. A soft-power approach is needed to contest the indoctrination that the terrorist exercised on their followers and to halt the recruitment of new terrorists. Although the savageness of religious terrorism has given religion a terrifying impression, taking a shortcut by restricting the role of religion to the private sphere—as applied by secular countries—has not proven successful. Rejecting the solution offered by secular countries, this article offers the idea of principled pluralism with its vision of religious freedom as a soft-power solution in treating religious terrorism. By opposing tyranny and authoritarianism, religious freedom would hopefully break the chain of consolidation maintained by religious terrorists with their followers. By using principled pluralism as a hermeneutical lens to read Pancasila, this article argues that civil society is the only channel for religion to contribute significantly to Indonesian society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the cultural and political repertoire that contributed to Catholics' understanding of violence as a legitimate means to resist the secular state in 1930s Mexico. Following the end of the Cristero War (1926-29), the Church officially and overtly rejected the use of violence by Catholics as a means to defend religious freedom. However, many Catholic militants and organizations continued to support violence as a last but necessary recourse to resist the country's so-called tyrannical government and to build a Catholic nation that would recognize the kingship of Christ on earth. Informed by noncanonical understandings of martyrdom, sacrifice, and redemptive violence, as well as by an intransigent view of politics, these Catholics regarded violence as a moral response against the injustices and dangers posed by what they considered an oppressive and blasphemous state. The article is based on the examination of a series of violent events perpetrated by Catholic militants during the 1930s, as well as on the analysis of several newspapers, official documents, and Catholic publications. Contrary to government portrayals of Catholicism as a top-down, monolithic, and unchanging set of institutions and practices that promoted recalcitrant forms of religious militancy, Catholics were in fact deeply divided regarding the legitimacy of violence along theological, moral, and practical grounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Like all federal systems, Nigeria has had its own fair share of insurgencies which ranged from conflict amongst ethnic nationalities to even religious terrorism. Of course, states have no option than to ensure and assure its citizens safety and security any way and anyhow they can guarantee it. Reprisal attacks on terrorists is a mere bandage method, basically because the wound has already been inflicted, but also since ensuring security is also target hardening, and has little effect on the success or failure of a terrorist attack. Security can only minimise casualties, not prevent attacks, especially those delivered by the terrorist suicide bombers. This paper uses secondary data as a source of information and presents the results of their content analysis to explain Nigeria efforts to protect the citizens. It argues that terrorism is a violent form of insurgency that must be retorted accordingly and any policy response that does not take this into consideration is not only naïve, but also utopian. The paper, then, recommends solutions adapted to particular circumstances. While it supports negotiation with Niger-Delta militants, it objects negotiation with Boko Haram, because these groups are pursuing totally different agendas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article highlights the principal themes addressed in recent Italian and American historical studies of law enforcement, as well as proposals for removing major social obstacles such as discrimination in the police and the policing of social protest, Islamic terrorism and organized crime or the excessive use of force by law enforcement agencies against the citizenship. An introduction to historical studies on the origins of local law enforcement in the United States is followed by a description of the concept of policing, namely the interaction between police and citizens, a subject addressed by most American criminologists, sociologists and historians. On the other hand, Italian jurists and historians have preferred to focus on the history of the Italian state police (Polizia di Stato) or on the national gendarmerie (Arma dei Carabinieri), and to highlight the primarily the critical times of Fascism and the so-called 'Years of Lead'. The police function to counter crime, but to do so, they adapt themselves to the kind of crime being prosecuted. A comparative overview of the main issues addressed in the two historiographies illustrates how after the 9/11 attacks law enforcement evolved in both the United States and Italy specifically to fight Islamic terrorism, and how new special units have been formed to counter crimes such as drug trafficking and Mafia rackets. But structural changes in local and state law enforcement work are also connected with changes in the authority of the state, suggesting that historians need to explore more closely the connections between security bodies, citizens and social control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines violence against religious minorities, especially Shia groups in the democracy of Indonesia, focusing particularly on the case of the 2016 anti-Milad Fatimah (Fatimah Birth Commemoration) mass mobilization performed by IJABI (The all-Indonesia Assembly of Ahlul Bait Associations) in Bondowoso, East Java, Indonesia. This article finds that the anti-Milad Fatimah mass mobilization involved alliances and conspiracy between Godly Muslim groups with a varied agenda. Sunni militant groups from the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), FPI (Islamic Defenders Front), Wahabi/Salafi, and Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia (HTI) groups, which merged into FOKUS (Ahlus Sunnah Wal Jama'ah Communication Forum), were the main protagonists who played a key role in driving mass mobilization. Unlike previous studies that understood the anti-Shia movement merely as a form of affirming Islamic orthodoxy, this study finds evidence that there were wider agendas than the theological ones. Excluding the Shia from capturing Islamic public space, and challenging religious authority and local power which was dominated by moderate Muslim groups, were the socio-political agendas which contributed to the anti-Milad Fatimah mass mobilization. The involvement of radical Islamist groups such as the activists of the Tarbiyah and HTI is a sign that there is a strong political agenda behind mass mobilization. However, the ultimate goal of applying Islamic Sharia will never fade from the religious movements of Islamist groups. Studi ini mengkaji kekerasan terhadap minoritas agama khususnya kelompok Shia di Indonesia era demokrasi. Tulisan memilih kasus aksi mobilisasi massa anti-Milad Fatimah yang dilaksanakan oleh IJABI (Ikatan Jama’ah Ahlul Bait Indonesia), Bondowoso, Jawa Timur pada 2016. Tulisan ini memeroleh temuan yang menarik bahwa aksi mobilisasi massa anti-Milad Fatimah, melibatkan aliansi longgar di antara kelompok-kelompok Godly Muslim dengan agendanya yang tidak tunggal. Kelompok-kelompok militant Sunni dari kalangan NU, FPI, Wahabi/Salafi dan HTI, yang menggabungkan diri ke dalam FOKUS (Forum Komunikasi Ahlus Sunnah wal Jama’ah), merupakan aktor-aktor utama yang berperan penting dalam memobilisir aksi massa tersebut. Berbeda dari kajiankajian yang umumnya memahami gerakan anti-Shi’ah sebagai bentuk peneguhan ortodoksi Islam atupun homogenisasi Islam Indonesia, studi ini mendapati temuan yang jauh lebih besar dan kompleks dari sekedar agenda teologis itu. Mengekslusi Shi’ah dari ruang public Islam dan menantang otoritas keagamaan dan kekuasaan local yang didominasi oleh kelompok-kelompok Muslim moderat merupakan sejumlah agenda sosio-politik yang turut mewarnai aksi massa itu. Keterlibatan kelompok-kelompok Islamisme radikal seperti aktivis Gerakan Tarbiyah dan Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia (HTI), menjadi sinyalemen cukup kuat adanya agenda politis di balik aksi massa. Bagaimanapun, imaginasi dan citacita penerapan syari’at Islam tidak akan pernah pudar dari gerakan keagamaan kelompok-kelompok Islamis.

The northwest province of Xinjiang in the People's Republic of China has drawn international attention recently because of state-perpetrated violence towards its non-Han population. This paper examines how Chinese authorities construct their narratives about the Xinjiang issue and justify their actions in the region. The analysis will focus on official white papers published by the State's Council Information Office. Through the investigation of these documents, three main narratives on Xinjiang will be presented, together with the way they have developed over the past decades. Each will then be situated within the larger transformation of Chinese politics and political discourse in recent years, especially since General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Xi Jinping has taken office. Instead of considering Beijing's narratives on Xinjiang as an exception, this essay maintains that their underlying paradigms accord with Chinese governmental strategy as a whole, although the repression in Xinjiang represents their extreme consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this reply to Bart Schuurman's response to my two-part article "Bringing Religiosity Back In: Critical Reflection on the Explanation of Western Homegrown Religious Terrorism," I address how we are speaking at cross-purposes and this leads to misunderstandings. When it comes to discussions of the role of religiosity in motivating jihadist terrorism this situation is common, and hence it is instructive to reexamine how we agree and disagree. Relative to some other prominent scholars, we agree that religiosity can play a role in radicalization and that the level of someone's religious knowledge is a poor way of determining this on a case-by-case basis. Schuurman implies incorrectly, however, that I treat people's beliefs as a sufficient explanation for their violent actions. My critique focuses instead on his reliance (with his coauthor John Horgan) on a modern Western privatized conception of religion that reduces the religio-political commitments of Western jihadists to "personal" (i.e., largely psychological) motivations, when religious motivations, which are intrinsically social, play a more independent role in the social ecology of radicalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces the contents of this special issue on terrorist groups. After some general remarks, we review essential concepts germane to the issue's eight articles. Those concepts include the notion of terrorist groups and their alternative ideologies and goals. Differences between domestic and transnational terrorist attacks are briefly reviewed along with time-series plots of such attacks during 1970–2019. Other plots compare and contrast leftist and religious fundamentalist terrorist groups based on their number of attacks and active groups during 1970–2016. The introduction is devoted mainly to highlighting the individual articles and their contributions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Are terrorist groups with multiple home bases more or less predisposed to direct their violence at home or abroad? Moreover, what are the determinants of home-base terrorist attacks? We address those and related questions using the Extended Data on Terrorist Groups for 1970–2016. In so doing, we find that religious terrorist groups are less inclined than groups with other ideologies to conduct home-base attacks. In addition, multi-base terrorist groups are more apt to attack within their base country or countries after, but not before, 1990. In addition, our empirics indicate that terrorist groups with an empire goal are more inclined to attack outside their home base than groups possessing other goals (e.g., policy change or territorial ambitions). Democracy encourages home-base terrorist attacks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Insecurity in Nigeria is causing panic. It is complex and difficult to tackle because it comes in different forms. The paper sees attacks on educational institutions, killings and abduction of school children by insurgency, ethnic and religious militias, bandits and kidnappers as security challenges impeding the progress of the nation. The use of the internet media to spread sentiments of hate is a thing of worry that it addresses. The paper discusses internet media peace education as an intervention program that may be effective and serve as a better option of peace building. The paper concludes that online peace building has not been given enough attention in Nigeria. It recommends online media interactive dialogue, religious peace education programs, peace jingle etc. as the possible panacea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thisarticle approaches contemporary reconfigurations of Catholic militancy ways through an analysis of the creation and evolution of basic ecclesial communities in Maranhãostate. Using a variety of methodological expedients, the analysis seeks to highlight two interdependent dimensions: on the one hand, it explores the basic ecclesial communities as a laboratory of observation on the effects of the promotion of the laity for the emergence of a new ecclesiastical configuration in the same state and, on the other hand, it investigates how concretely the networks of Catholic support for social movements and causes in the countryside functioned, within which, inadvertently, a consubstantially religious and militant ethics was being constituted, that is disseminated across a variety of instances and activities in Maranhão's time and space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although there are several security threats in Nigeria, the Boko Haram insurgency in the Northeast region remains the most critical security problem in the country. While previous studies have examined how unemployment, poverty, poor governance, corruption, weak judiciary system affect insecurity and the impact of exclusionary politics on insecurity in Nigeria, the role and challenges of the Nigerian military in countering the Boko Haram insurgency in Northeast Nigeria has received limited scholarly attention. This paper examines the role and challenges of the Nigerian military in countering the Boko Haram insurgency in the Northeast region of Nigeria. Using secondary data and the structural-functional theory, this study argued that the Nigerian Armed Forces face several operational, strategic, and tactical challenges in their counterinsurgency operation, including inadequate funding, inadequate and outdated weapons, the presence of a 'third force' sabotaging the war efforts and a lack of personnel motivation. These challenges undermine the capacity of the military to protect the territorial integrity of Nigeria and promote national security. This study concludes that improved funding of the military presents an opportunity for proper equipping of the armed forces, improved morale of personnel, effective countering of Boko Haram and the mitigation of insecurity in Nigeria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jihadism is a complex social phenomenon that changes people, but not always uniformly. This article argues that cognitive and behavioral radicalization can be seen as a discursive journey or jihadiship involving (e)merging ideas, problems, and solutions that change with encounters with new circumstances—both material and immaterial. The differences observed between various generations of jihadists are one manifestation of this complexity. Especially in a jihadi group, the processes of radicalization are bound to continue and take new forms, compared with those experienced in the West. Another example of the complexity of jihadiship is that not only can radical ideas lead to radical behavior, but also radical behavior can increasingly give rise to radical ideas in jihadi groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This qualitative study explored and compared factors that drive individuals with and without military experience to commit violent acts of terrorism within a sample of 10 jihadism-inspired lone actors. Findings reveal four major themes driving violent terrorist action among lone actors: Action, Grievance, Growing in Jihad, Religious Fervor. Results also provide some of the first evidence that drivers of lone actor terrorism differ between those with and without military experience. Factors related to action, certain grievances, and growth in Jihad were seen more commonly among the military-affiliated lone actors than their civilian peers. Implications for policy and prevention are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An unusual feature of the social scientific study of religious terrorism is the erasure of religiosity as a significant motivational factor. This article systematically delineates and criticizes the presence of this peculiar interpretive preference, demonstrating that it is methodologically suspect and theoretically and empirically unhelpful. There are two parts to the critique. Part I (this article), discusses three foundational aspects of the argument: (1) it delineates ten conditions of the critique, to avoid predictable misunderstandings; (2) it specifies three methodological reasons for considering the motivational claims of religious terrorists as potentially important and valid data; and (3) it surveys the history of the study of religious terrorism to identify some extra-methodological influences that may have truncated the analysis of the religious motivations for religious terrorism. Part II (the next article), examines three types of arguments commonly used to minimize the role of religiosity in motivating religious terrorism. Identifying the arguments by the primary interpretive errors they rely on, some arguments (1) mistakenly treat the religious background and knowledge of homegrown jihadists as a sound indicator of their religiosity; others (2) inappropriately apply a modern Western normative conception of religion to homegrown jihadists; and some arguments (3) rely on an overly dichotomized conception of the relationship of social processes and ideology in the process of radicalization. The critique ends with consideration of alternative perspectives, offering a more refined conception of the role of ideology, and more specifically religiosity, in the determination of the actions of religious terrorists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In upsurge of religious extremism and terrorism in Afghanistan that followed the 2014 withdrawal of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) confirmed the pessimistic forecasts for the country’s future: a far greater number of terrorist attacks and their victims among non-combatants across the country was the most obvious repercussion. The civil war continued unabated, while the negative additional factors—the Taliban that had grown much stronger, as well as the activation of ISIS militants, who had come from Iraq and Syria to continue fighting—contributed to its further exacerbation. All sorts of extremist religious groups in Afghanistan consolidated their positions and even created an unwelcome possibility of their transit to the Central Asian countries. The authors have clearly demonstrated that there is a direct interdependence between the presence of ISAF under U.S. command and the degree of violence of the Taliban, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant—Khorasan Chapter, and Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan operating in Afghanistan. They have also analyzed the impact of the statement made by the U.S. regarding the signed agreement with the Taliban that envisaged the removal of U.S. troops from the country in the next fourteen months and the release of Taliban prisoners. Since the Government of Afghanistan had been left in the cold, many doubted that the agreement would be fully realized any time soon. An analysis of the events that followed demonstrated that the Taliban would not stick to its part of the agreement, while the White House treated the document as an election promise (formally) fulfilled. There are enough extremist organizations (i.e., ISIS) that operate in the provinces and, free from obligations and in pursuit of their own aims, might interfere in the attempts to fulfill the agreement in its optimistic version. An assessment of certain processes suggests that the threats coming from ISIS are somewhat overestimated. The studies are based on the following methods: comparative analysis of relevant literature, statistical analysis of the dynamics of time series to identify the developing trends of terrorist activities of religious extremists in Afghanistan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Extreme right-wing violence and terrorism today are a growing threat to Western societies. This form of political violence differs greatly from others by some key features. Following the 9/11 attacks, policymakers, security and intelligence agencies have allocate most of their capacity to tackling religious militant extremism and terrorism. This has led to imbalances in dealing with threats, especially with the far right and appropriate ways of dealing with them. Despite the extensive history of right-wing terrorism in Western democracies, a systematic categorization of this phenomenon is lacking. In the past decades, extremism, political violence, and terrorism have largely been fueled by radical right-wing movements. In April 1995, in Oklahoma, USA, far-right activists were responsible for the bombing of the Federal Building. In Germany, neo-Nazi gangs have been involved in a violent campaign against foreigners and asylum seekers. These events have become a serious dilemma for the leaders of modern democratic states. Until recently, extreme right-wing violence and terrorism was characterized by relatively frequent incidents but a small number of deaths. For the last two decades, right wing terrorism has been overshadowed by mass casualties caused by militant Islamist organizations. In the US, since the 9/11 attacks, more people have been killed by far-right extremists than by militant Islamist extremists. Further, the July 22, 2011 attacks in Norway and the attacks on the Christ Church Mosque, New Zealand on March 15, 2019, proved that lonely actors inspired by far-right views are ready and can kill a large number of people. These incidents of mass murder have set a new standard for a new generation of far-right terrorists. They work independently, but are virtually connected through the Internet, where they are inspired to commit terrorist acts. Security analysts in Western democracies take delayed measures, downplaying far-right potential for terrorist violence. Right wing extremism is quite difficult to define, and there are over 20 definitions to describe this phenomenon. The reason is the different goals and ideologies of right wing terrorist organizations. Some of the common goals revolve around xenophobia, racism, nationalism and the desire for a strong state. Right-wing terrorism is motivated by various farright ideologies, and neo-fascism, neo-nazism and white nationalism are the most pronounced. Right-wing terrorists aim to overthrow governments and replace them with nationalist or fascist regimes. This paper will analyze the concept of right-wing terrorism, the lessons learned to tackle it, and will propose recommendations to counter the threat by taking appropriate legal action against perpetrators of extreme right-wing violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chris began his career as a foreign correspondent covering the Contras, the United States-backed guerrillas fighting the Nicaraguan communist Sandinista regime during the 1980s. Nearly a quarter of a century later, I still recall how perfectly Chris Dickey summed up an emerging trend in terrorism with his description of the 1997 terrorist attack on foreign tourists in Luxor, Egypt that claimed the lives of 58 persons. MSNBC anchorman Brian Williams eulogized him on air as "the real deal ... one of those great and curious storytellers who seem to know just about everything and everyone."[2] Chris was indeed a true polymath. [Extracted from the article]

Framed as being in response to terrorist attacks and concerns about religious bias in some English schools, 'British Values' (BV) curriculum policy forms part of the British Government's Counter-Terrorism and Security Act, 2015. This includes a Duty on teachers in England to actively promote British Values to deter students from radicalisation. This paper, first, traces the history of Britishness in the curriculum to reveal a prevalence of nationalistic, colonial values. Next, an ensemble of recent policies and speeches focusing on British Values is analysed, using a psycho-political approach informed by anti-colonial scholarship. Finally, we interrogate two key critiques of the British Values curriculum discourse: the universality of British Values globally, and concerns over the securitisation of education. Findings indicate that the constitution of white British supremacist subjectivities operate through curriculum as a defence mechanism against perceived threats to white privilege, by normalising a racialised state-controlled social order. The focus is on 'British' values, but the analytic framework and findings have wider global significance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]