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Much qualitative research has drawn an association between social media and domestic terrorism, with the studies reaching different conclusions. However, few empirical studies have evaluated whether the surge in social media participation affects domestic terrorist events. Controlling for common explanations in the literature, we conduct a cross-national, time-series analysis of up to 151 countries from 2000 to 2019 to assess the impact of social media penetration on domestic terrorism. We find that greater social media penetration increases the likelihood of domestic terrorism in countries as it supports extremists' ability to recruit, mobilize, and train terrorists. Using mediation analysis, we also find that greater social media penetration amplifies online and political polarization, increasing the likelihood of domestic terrorism events. Our work indicates the possible mechanisms linking social media and domestic terrorism and the need to develop and apply appropriate counterterrorism strategies to mitigate terrorist operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United States has emerged as a prominent actor in the international fight against transnational terrorism in the Sahel region of Africa since 2002, exerting significant political influence on regional affairs. Under the leadership of the United States, a coalition of Sahel countries has collaboratively established security programs, notably including the Trans-Saharan Counterterrorism Partnership (TSCTP). However, the U.S. counterterrorism strategy in the Sahel region has not only proven ineffective in containing the deterioration of regional security, but also has exacerbated the vulnerability to coups in recipient countries. The observed deterioration can be attributed to various driving factors, such as deviations in the willingness and ability to involve and the security traffic jam. We contend that the U.S.-Sahel counterterrorism partnership is fundamentally misaligned and plagued by a securitization problem. Firstly, a significant impediment to international cooperation lies in the United States' pursuit of consolidating its dominant role in Sahel security affairs, which usually overlooks the pragmatic principle of 'African solutions to African problems'. In the counterterrorism process, there is a misalignment between U.S. national interests and those of Sahel states. Furthermore, the United States' extensive reliance on military strategies indicates a significant securitization of non-violent civil affairs in certain Sahel states, inadvertently creating an opportunity for genuine terrorist organizations to recruit members. In addition, U.S. interference in the internal affairs of Sahel states heightens the risk of coups, thereby undermining the legitimacy of U.S. leadership in the region. Currently, with both the withdrawal of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) and France withdrawing their security forces from the Sahel region, there has a significant weakening effect on regional security capabilities. Therefore, it is imperative for the international community to collaborate with African nations and adopt more proactive measures to safeguard regional security and maintain order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to build upon Ryan and Deci's self-determination theory and shows how continual neglect of an individual's psychological need for autonomy, competency, and relatedness increases their susceptibility to terrorist organizations recruiting tactics. It begins by establishing how fulfillment of these psychological needs is necessary for normal human functioning. It then explains how failing to meet these needs pushes an individual away from normal social interactions; placing them at odds with a world which they are unable to integrate with. Once sufficiently excluded from normal social functioning, the individual is highly susceptible to the promise of belonging, power, and self-realization that terror organization offers in their recruitment. The individual will begin to alter their belief systems and entirely cut themselves off from their previous lives; eventually losing themselves in a new identity which is interconnected to their terror group. The article concludes with reflections on how future research of this process can have a meaningful impact on curtailing terrorism in the United States. Public Significance Statement: Terrorism is a persistent international threat, and it presents a clear danger to societal well-being. This article illustrates how neglect of psychological needs facilitates the radicalization process for terror organizations; and in turn, places an individual at odds with the social world that they were raised in. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article tracks the emergence, evolution, and decline of the Rhodesian-American religious lobby, a transnational network of churches, magazines, lobbying groups, and other non-state actors that operated during the Rhodesian Bush War from 1965 to 1980. Voicing its concerns in religious, racial, and anticommunist terms, the lobby recruited US combatants into the Rhodesian Security Forces and mobilised US evangelicals to press political leaders to recognise Rhodesian sovereignty. By threading together the post-Vietnam mercenary diaspora with waning segregationist groups and the emerging Christian Right in the United States, the lobby significantly shaped US-Rhodesia relations and global far-right politics in the late Cold War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an explanation for how the PKK, Kurdish Hezbollah, and ISIS, representing distinct ethno-nationalist, Islamist and ideologically motivated political movements, radicalize and recruit supporters in the regions of Eastern and Southeastern Turkey. In doing so, this paper contributes to ongoing theoretical debates about radicalization and recruitment. This study reveals how various regionally specific structural factors encourage radicalization and recruitment into violent politico-ideological movements. In particular, state oppression of ethnic minorities, economic inequalities, geography, and local demographics. While existing literature on radicalization focuses on push factors (structural) combined with pull factors (ideology), this research demonstrates that structural factors in Eastern and Southeastern Turkey are both push and pull factors in processes of radicalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Islamist group ISIS has been particularly successful at recruiting Westerners as terrorists. A hypothesized explanation is their simultaneous use of two types of propaganda: Heroic narratives, emphasizing individual glory, alongside Social narratives, which emphasize oppression against Islamic communities. In the current study, functional MRI was used to measure brain responses to short ISIS propaganda videos distributed online. Participants were shown 4 Heroic and 4 Social videos categorized as such by another independent group of subjects. Persuasiveness was measured using post-scan predictions of recruitment effectiveness. Inter-subject correlation (ISC) was used to measure commonality of brain activity time courses across individuals. ISCs in ventral striatum predicted rated persuasiveness for Heroic videos, while ISCs in mentalizing and default networks, especially in dmPFC, predicted rated persuasiveness for Social videos. This work builds on past findings that engagement of the reward circuit and of mentalizing brain regions predicts preferences and persuasion. The observed dissociation as a function of stimulus type is novel, as is the finding that intersubject synchrony in ventral striatum predicts rated persuasiveness. These exploratory results identify possible neural mechanisms by which political extremists successfully recruit prospective members and specifically support the hypothesized distinction between Heroic and Social narratives for ISIS propaganda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to prevent and fight terrorism, a new research area has developed called terrorist financing. An important aspect is the financing of terrorism by Non-Profit Organization (NPO), through transfer funds, terrorist alliances, abuse of NPOs, terrorist recruitment, and false NPOs and agents. Therefore, the NPO counter-terrorist financing strategy was established, considering four major aspects: warning information indicators, internal management mechanisms, international cooperation and information sharing, and counter-terrorist Financing legislation. This paper provides a new way to supervise the terrorist financing of NPOs. First, actual cases should be collected, and viable warning indicators for regulatory agencies and NPOs should be established. Second, internal management mechanisms should be strengthened to actively prevent terrorist activities within NPOs. Third, given the global activity of NPOs and terrorist organizations, information-led international cooperation must be emphasized. Fourth, from the angle of independent counter-terrorist Financing legislation, the gap should be filled in NPO counter-terrorist Financing legislation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

More than 77,000 people have disappeared in Mexico since the beginning of the war on drugs, but very little is known about them. After analyzing the descriptions of a non-randomized sample of disappearance registries from governmental data, we find that those events associated with organized crime are better understood by analyzing four factors: migration to the U.S. border and traveling on highways, gender differences and individual vs. multiple-victim disappearances, the forced recruitment of skilled and unskilled workers, and cooperation with the authorities. These results should be used as a starting point for pushing the government to release better data and to improve search mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The longest war in the history of America resulted in an Afghan Taliban victory. Despite astronomical material and capacity superiority of the American-led NATO forces vis-à-vis Afghan Taliban, the latter overcame the greater forces and captured Kabul in a lightning-fast sweep across the country. Failure of the US to realize a superior military force in achieving a political victory on the field lies in the characteristics, actions, and effective operationalization of Afghan Taliban's warfare tactics on the battleground. Tribalism, networked structures, and innovative recruiting principles, coupled with the Afghan government(s) own inefficiencies and rampant corruption led to the demise of American power in Afghanistan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article titled "Clerics in the Congo: Understanding the Ideology of the Islamic State in Central Africa" explores the ideology and evolution of the Islamic State's Central Africa Province (ISCAP), formerly known as the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF). The ADF, despite its name, has never espoused democratic aspirations and has faced doubts about its true ideology. Interviews with former ADF members shed light on the group's beliefs and objectives, demonstrating its clear identification as the Islamic State's local branch in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, and eastern Africa. The article also discusses how ISCAP operates in a non-Muslim majority area and how its ideological framework shapes its behavior and recruitment strategies. The authors aim to provide insight into ISCAP's internal dynamics and shed light on this little-understood Salafi-jihadi insurgency. [Extracted from the article]

This article locates Turkey in discussions of gender and violent extremism (VE), probes women's diverse roles, motivations, and constraints for and against religious radicalization, and discusses the impact of sustainable patriarchy on their agency. Building on the findings of an extensive field study on women's recruitment to ISIS and al-Nusra from Turkey, the article disproves women's widely assumed passivity, demonstrates other roles as sympathizers, recruiters, and perpetrators, and explores potential push, pull, and enabling factors. It also reveals the hindering effects of patriarchy on women's preventive roles and accentuates the empowerment of both women and women's NGOs for an effective and gender-sensitive fight against VE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Private security companies (PSCs) blur the lines between the public and the private sector through the provision of services to state militaries. Based on a multi-modal qualitative content analysis of YouTube recruitment videos aimed at veterans, we show how PSCs also challenge these boundaries through their hiring practices. By relating to veterans' past as hero warriors and by envisioning their future as corporate soldiers, the companies appear as 'like-military' and as allowing ex-militaries to 'continue their mission'. The findings contribute to scholarly debates about the privatization of security. They illustrate that similarly to the public sector, the private is also re-constituted through the military values that veterans introduce. The study adds to the literature on the visualization of war showing how video-based platforms allow security actors such as PSCs to construct their corporate identity in ambivalent ways by appealing to different emotional levels and by giving rise to different narratives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Terrorist organizations do not solely rely on violence, but also utilize a range of nonviolent activities from political engagement to social services provision. We argue that terrorist organizations that use a combination of violent and nonviolent strategies are more effective in achieving two important organizational goals than those that rely solely on violent strategies. Using the Reputation of Terror Groups Dataset (2016), we demonstrate that organizations that deploy a mix of violent and nonviolent strategies are better able to attract new recruits and carry out more lethal attacks than those that rely exclusively on violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the connection between delinquency and jihadism, specifically among Tunisian returnees. It highlights the role of social and economic factors, such as marginalization and poverty, in the recruitment of individuals to jihadist movements. The study reveals that many jihadists have criminal backgrounds and were involved in petty crime before joining. It also discusses the phenomenon of Tunisian returnees reverting to delinquency instead of continuing as jihadists, attributing this to weak religious training and a lack of strong ideological commitment. The article emphasizes the need for socio-professional reintegration programs and de-radicalization efforts to address this issue. The text further discusses the recruitment and radicalization of individuals in Tunisia to join jihadist groups, particularly the Islamic State (IS). It notes that recruitment efforts primarily targeted individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds, often living in working-class suburban neighborhoods. Many of these recruits had a history of drug addiction and dropped out of school. The text also highlights that the training camps of IS focused more on military training rather than religious indoctrination, resulting in a lack of deep religious understanding among recruits. The Tunisian authorities have not effectively implemented deradicalization and reintegration programs for returnees, increasing the risk of recidivism in delinquency or terrorism. The text suggests that Tunisia could learn from the reintegration programs implemented in Morocco and Algeria to address this security challenge. [Extracted from the article]

Research on terrorism disagrees on whether terrorist activity is at its highest in collapsed states, which are more hospitable to such activities, or whether terrorism increases in more capable states. We revisit this discussion by theorizing an interactive relationship: terrorists prefer to operate in politically-hospitable states, but their attack frequency within these states increases with greater technological capacity, which allows them to expand their military, recruitment, and financing operations. We analyze 27,018 terrorist incidents using regression and causal inference models, conduct a case study, and find robust support for this interactive logic. Our conclusions outline implications for policy and academic work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is an extensive body of literature examining how rebel groups recruit civilians. Much of this scholarly work focuses on the role of material and ideological appeals in mobilizing recruits. However, despite expectations about the importance of recruitment processes, there is currently a lack of data on the persuasive recruitment practices of a large cross-section of groups, making it difficult to test a variety of implications stemming from theories about armed group recruitment. To remedy this, I developed original data—the Rebel Appeals and Incentives Dataset (RAID)—which contains information on 232 militant groups for the period 1989 to 2011. RAID details not only the specific types of recruitment appeals groups make, but the degree to which they rely on ideological appeals, relative to material incentives, for recruitment. To demonstrate the value of the dataset, I employ RAID to test two hypotheses about rebel recruitment and wartime rape derived from existing literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even I The New York Times i Editorial Board concedes, "Many aging Vietnam-era veterans attest to the sense of community that came with either involuntary military service or the alternative service routes that those who refused the draft opted for ([4])." With cheeky chapter titles like "Digging for Deferments" and "A Draft Dodging Business", Rutenberg creatively and incisively cuts to the heart of the matter: young people historically I avoid i military service as often as they I volunteer i for military service. [Extracted from the article]

Objective: To better understand the implications of applying different labels to perpetrators of mass violence. Method: Two experiments (Study 1: N = 307 college students, Study 2: N = 696 community sample recruited through Prolific Academic) were conducted to examine U.S. public perceptions of "terrorist," "lone wolf," and "mass shooter" (only in Study 2) labels. In both studies, participants were randomly assigned to consider one of the terms and respond to prompts about the assumed demographic characteristics and traits of the perpetrator. In Study 2, participants also responded to prompts about the appropriate consequences for the perpetrator and the best policies to address violence committed by that type of perpetrator. Results: Participants displayed much overlap in their characterizations and responses to the labels, but important distinctions emerged, particularly with the terrorist label. Across studies, the terrorist was perceived as more religious, while lone wolf and mass shooter were perceived as more likely to be White and U.S. citizens. The terrorist was characterized by group and ideological characteristics and more highly associated with several demonizing traits, while the lone wolf and mass shooter were characterized as more depressed, sad, and lonely. The terrorist label evoked less support for mental health treatment and more support for tracking associates of the perpetrator and increasing military involvement. Conclusions: Awareness of the different associations evoked by perpetrator labels may help to avoid biases in their application and can shape how mass violence and its consequences are conceptualized by the public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global terrorist organizations attract radicalized individuals across borders and constitute a threat for both sending and receiving countries. We use unique personnel records from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Daesh) to show that unemployment in sending countries is associated with the number of transnational terrorist recruits from these countries. The relationship is spatially heterogeneous, which is most plausibly attributable to travel costs. We argue that poor labor market opportunities generally push more individuals to join terrorist organizations, but at the same time, limit their ability to do so when longer travel distances imply higher travel costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The unusual rapid change of globalization process, winning of extreme right parties in some countries, who ask for racism and refuse other nationalities and races makes the world unstable and coexistence among various nations is in dangerous. All these things does not come to exist without any plan of some extremist parties, subversive activities in different places. Physical terrorism and terrorist acts are semi controlled, but the extreme groups nowadays found other ways to terrorize societies, frighten and threaten people intellectually. There is an exploiting of different ideas, different views of parties in a country and change it to an intellectual terrorism just for specific and private interests or to take power in a country. Under the name of rights there is a huge deface on religion through deception and mislead people and push them to take unusual habits and acts which leads to anger some people without taking into account of other religion through burning the religious book, abusing religious characters and all these acts consider to be intellectual terrorism and spreading hatred among different religions who were living in peace before without any crucial and serious big problem. To this devastating end, the extremist parties and their elements try to use any way of means to reach their dirty and bad intentions. Even we live in a media revolution nowadays which if anything happens in the farthest part of the world will be known in other parts in a way or another, make them to have hostile ideas against who are not in their religion, ethnic, nationality or language, even some of high officials and ranks clearly mention in front of their assembly and spread hostile idea. It has nothing to do with the freedom of expression. It is some kind of terrorism, not physical but intellectual and it is stupidity of people through their bad planned ideas, their political orientation and their trade in the blood of others. Unfortunately there are still many who believe in such things and terrorism and terror belongs to specific religion or ideology without having a minimum information on it. We all together need to face intellectual terrorism and stop them otherwise the situation goes worse than it is. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking as reference a cost-benefit analysis of cyberterrorism published in 2004 by Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, this article briefly reviews what happened in the last 15 years in cyberterrorism research, what was correctly forecast, what was wrong and what may happen in the future. Some of the analyses published in during this period have been accurate, indicating that terrorists would use the Web and then social media for supporting operations in financing, recruiting and, especially "propaganda" (information operations), instead of wasting resources in ineffectual cyberattacks against critical infrastructures. The same analyses, however, did not appreciate enough how successful information operations by terrorist groups would have been. Overall, the approach, research methods, findings and forecasting have been quite valid and fruitful and thus they can represent a solid foundation on which scholars of (cyber)terrorism may base their future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By examining actions taken to eliminate seaborne bandits, this study argues during the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), everyday people and foreigners played important roles in military activities. When Guangdong native Lin Feng (also known as Limahong) roamed the seas from South China to Southeast Asia in the mid-1570s, officials searched far and wide for allies to confront him. Reevaluating this period in Chinese military history from the bottom-up and outside-in shows civil officials and military officers repeatedly found fishers, traders, and sailors, along with outsiders, who were willing to collaborate against the marauders. Historical records from the late Ming and Qing periods consistently presented this cooperation as a Sinocentric and hierarchical ritual-based recruiting. In contrast to this top-down and inside-out perspective, the present research illuminates that during the early modern period, the Chinese government was growing progressively dependent on sea-going peoples to reinforce its maritime operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change's interaction and convergence with other risks and pressures can exacerbate conflicts and increase instability. The global community has agreed upon defining climate change as a 'threat multiplier' as to reveal its challenging impacts. This article addresses the impact of climate change on terrorism as a 'threat multiplier', especially how it lays a fertile ground for terrorist recruitment and radicalization. In this regard, how the root causes of terrorism intersect with climate change is analyzed together with how climate change impacts terrorism. The article reflects on the importance of contextuality about the impact of climate change on terrorism and argues that the impact of climate change in the Global South differs from the Global North, and understanding these differences is important for better threat assessments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focusses on transformations in the military labour regimes brought about by the recruitment of African soldiers during the early years of the Italian colony of Eritrea, by analysing colonial reports, correspondence and official regulations. On the one hand, it demonstrates that the lack of complete political control forced the Italians to adapt to the local multiple currency system for the building and maintenance of the indigenous corps. On the other hand, it shows that money was employed in colonial discourse and practice as a tool to facilitate the regularisation of indigenous soldiers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital technology is now a fundamental and indispensable component of daily life. While the great opportunities offered by cyberspace are undoubted, the growing security challenges and threats it brings should not be overlooked. Cyberspace, by its nature transnational and elusive regarding forms of control, is useful to terrorism because it allows not only the propaganda of fundamentalist doctrines but also the creation and manipulation of information; the apology and dissemination of information instrumental to the processes of radicalisation; the use of devices capable of transversally violating the security of technical and virtual infrastructures that are critical to the security of nations; the operational planning of terrorist activities; and the recruitment, financing, and training of recruits. The so-called "new terrorism", religiously motivated, makes extensive use of the digital tool. After an excursus concerning the use of cyberspace by religious fundamentalist groups and the transformation of religiously motivated terrorism, this paper focuses on the analysis of the European legal response and on the need for global and shared European action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite decades of research considering police misconduct, there is still little consensus on officer characteristics associated with misconduct, and best practice for detection and prevention. While current research focuses on the correlates of misconduct among serving police, a small but growing body of research seeks to understand factors that could improve the accuracy of vetting during the police recruitment process and thereafter. In the wake of recent high-profile misconduct by police in the UK, there is a renewed focus on whether current vetting processes are sufficient, and how they might be improved. The present research analyses data from the vetting of a sample of UK police officers to consider whether current processes accurately identified which officers were high risk for misconduct. Findings suggested that current vetting processes performed poorly at identifying officers at risk of misconduct. However, police intelligence and criminal history data from the time of recruitment performed very well at identifying which officers were high risk for serious misconduct later in their career. These findings hold important implications for how police are vetted, and subsequently selected in the UK. In particular, the importance of integrating police intelligence, and criminal records data into vetting processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focusing on interviews with advertising professionals, this article identifies racialized logics at work in the cultural production of United States Marine Corps recruitment advertisements and reads them as crucial contributors to the late-stage war on terror as a racial project. Characterized by the emergence of post-racial discourses, an ongoing commitment to warfare, and an embrace of diversity and inclusion within the U.S. military as hallmarks of American exceptionalism, the late-stage war on terror was represented in recruiting ads as a war fought by a racially representative Marine Corps dedicated to benevolence. Identifying primary themes through which race was constructed and contested in Corps recruitment advertising between 2012 and 2016, this article makes visible the processes through which racial ideologies manifest in cultural production. Though seemingly guided by a commitment to inclusion, the production of recruitment materials consolidated Whiteness while making limited space for the representation of a racially diverse military. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay examines the 2001 Thomasite Centennial in the Philippines, marking the arrival of American teachers who came to the colony aboard the US Army Transport Thomas in 1901 as a site of contemporary negotiations of US colonial history for the needs of the present. As representatives of colonial love, the Thomasites were both admired and criticized by Filipinos and used by the US as exemplifications of American benevolence. Although the centennial, billed as a commemoration of the Thomasites by American diplomats, was demonstrably an instance of soft power led by the US embassy, the Filipinos recruited for the event were multiply positioned subjects, constrained as well as empowered by the situated yet mutable sites they occupied. Analyzing the centennial through its circulation in different discursive registers—journalistic, promotional, historical, diplomatic, and literary—the essay reveals the contested nature of present-day memory-making of US sentimental colonialism in the Philippines, with different state and nonstate actors struggling to claim historical record. Tony Perez's play "A Hundred Songs of Mary Helen Fee," written for the occasion, simultaneously memorializes Fee and instantiates a critique of the centennial by putting the Thomasite memoir on which it was based in conversation with the colonial archive. The essay illustrates the complexities of postcolonial commemoration and shows how the centennial functioned as a contested site of American and Filipino diplomacy, critical interrogation, and a strategic rerouting of Thomasite history by Filipinos. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Integral to its military and state-building activities, the Islamic State (IS) terrorist organisation recruited and mobilised large numbers of children into its ranks. The group's propaganda publications showcase the commitment and skills of its young male militants, with footage focused on training in weapons handling and hand-to-hand combat. Marketed as a potent weapon against IS' enemies, a sub-set of propaganda videos foregrounds the role of boys in the ultra-violent executions of hostages. This article presents analysis of 20 official IS propaganda videos released between 1 January 2015 and 31 December 2018, in which 71 boys conducted on-camera executions on behalf of the group. Data presented include the setting and method of killing; the profile and "charge" of the victim; and the boy's nationality, age group, and "justifications" for their acts. Highly staged, these violent displays frame and constitute the status of the young IS "cub" and the adult male hostage as symbols of their respective societies, values, and masculinities. The author examines the juxtaposition of the two figures and their constructed positions in IS' ideological, military, and masculine hierarchy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social media have come to play a vital role not only in our everyday lives, but also in times of conflict and crisis such as natural disasters or civil wars. Recent research has highlighted, on the one hand, the use of social media as a means of recruitment by terrorists and, on the other hand, the use of Facebook, Twitter, etc. to gain the support of the population during insurgencies. This article conducts a qualitative content analysis of content on Twitter concerning the conflict in the Jammu and Kashmir region. The tweets following the death of a popular militant, Burhan Wani, cover three different themes: (1) criticism of intellectuals; (2) Burhan Wani's impact on the conflict; and (3) tweets referring to the conflict itself. Generally, people use Twitter to make their own point of view clear to others and discredit the opposing party; at the same time, tweets reflect the antagonism between the two parties to the conflict, India and Pakistan. The sample of tweets reflects the lack of awareness among people in the region regarding the motivations of the new generation of militancy emerging in Kashmir after 1990. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In several conflicts worldwide children are recruited as fighters in irregular forces. These children need to be reintegrated into the society after the conflict. However, concurrent to various reservations in the communities, the reintegration of former child soldiers is challenged by the fact that many of the affected children were indoctrinated by the armed group and traumatized through war events. Even several years after the defeat of the terrorist organization ISIS in Iraq, systematic efforts towards the reintegration of children who had been recruited by ISIS are notably absent. Methods: we conducted clinical interviews with a sample of N = 59 adolescents and young adults who were incarcerated for terrorism in the prisons of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq to assess levels and types of trauma exposure, PTSD, depression, readiness to reintegrate and ongoing identification with ISIS. Results: We found high levels of PTSD and depression that were associated with trauma exposure. The subjective readiness to reintegrate into the communities was associated with trauma exposure and was mediated by depression, even after controlling for the influence of ongoing identification with the armed group. Conclusion: The study indicates that trauma-related mental ill-health should be considered in efforts to reintegrate young former terrorists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research came under the title: "Recruitment of children in wars, a jurisprudential study of the Syrian case as a model" to show the danger of this phenomenon that has spread in Syrian society as it has spread to other societies, and this research has been divided into an introduction, three sections and a conclusion. In the first topic, I talked about: definitions of research, where I got to know the recruitment and the child, then I got to know the recruited child. The second topic included: The reasons for the recruitment of children in the Syrian war: in which I talked about the role of terrorist organizations in recruiting children, and the role of the criminal Syrian regime in the causes of recruitment through: sectarian incitement from Nusayris and their efforts to recruit children, and the role of ISIS and other parties in recruiting children in Syria. The third topic included: the legal ruling on recruiting children, and ways to treat this phenomenon, in which I talked about a child who is able to fight and has special features, about children's participation in non-combat activities, about the imam's permission for the child to participate in hostilities, and the children's need for parents' permission. Then I talked about the rule of the war child, then I talked about proposals to solve the problem of child recruitment through activating the role of the family, activating social media, activating the role of schools and Sharia institutes, and the role of international organizations and humanitarian bodies. Then came the conclusion; To identify the most important results and the most prominent recommendations that the research concluded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers new insights into the business-historical perspective of German colonial railway construction in West Africa. Two archival case studies of German colonial railroad construction in Cameroon and Togo reveal the relationship and character of training and work in specific colonial contexts at the turn of the century. The case studies demonstrate that skills on construction sites went beyond mere questions of unskilled manual work or education. This article argues that, from a business-historical perspective, not only was the general (mass) availability of unskilled labour power crucial to infrastructural projects in the former German colonies, but also that was a substantial element of skill involved, ranging from literacy to the (technical) pre- and initial training of workers and craftsmen. Moreover, firms struggled to retain (semi-)skilled workers on construction sites for longer periods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current focus on diversity and inclusion amid calls to decolonize the German curriculum prompts us once again to examine what we understand to be "German" about German Studies. This article pursues this agenda by addressing a lacuna in our understanding and representation of migrants to Germany, specifically the presence, history, and legacies of labor migrants to East Germany. The first half of this article contextualizes the German Democratic Republic's (GDR) recruitment of foreign workers and examines key similarities and differences between the East and West German guest worker program models. This section focuses particularly on the labor migrants recruited from the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the People's Republic of Mozambique – the largest cohorts of non‐European workers recruited by the GDR – and concludes with a brief overview of the long afterlife of the Vertragsarbeiter*innen through the Wende, reunification, and beyond. The second section offers a range of texts and assignments keyed to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) guidelines for integrating the narratives of Vertragsarbeiter*innen into German language and Studies curricula. Recuperating the history of non‐European contract workers in East Germany serves to expand our conception of German Studies and to dismantle artificially exclusive boundaries, thereby working toward the deterritorialization of the discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Networks are resilient to internal failures or external attacks. The resiliency is often beneficial, but there are scenarios where the collapse of a network would benefit society, such as the dismantlement of terrorist, rebel or organized crime groups. In this article, we develop a method to estimate the effect of knockouts and apply our method to the Islamic State recruitment network. Using our novel application, we demonstrate how coordinated attacks against recruiters might reduce the Islamic State's ability to mobilize new fighters. This analysis has direct implications for research on network resilience and terrorist recruitment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study analyzes the implications of COVID-19 on the different forms of terrorism. The authors discuss the two types of terrorist acts: (i) the radicalization, recruitment, and funding of terrorism and (ii) planning the place and target of the operation. The authors argue that the COVID-19 policies have failed to inhibit or stop terrorism in Indonesia. This is supported by the four cases of terrorism that took place in the country during the COVID-19 period. Since the purpose of this study was to identify and analyze the social phenomenon, a qualitative method was adopted for collecting the data. The authors conclude that while COVID-19 did affect the financing and operation of terrorism, it helped the terrorist groups to radicalize and recruit new members due to the increasing use of the Internet, people's insecurities during the pandemic, and the radical narrative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to discuss the pressure caused by military recruitment, especially during the Paraguayan War (1864-1870) on local protection networks. It is known that there was a tacit agreement between the parties involved on who should be responsible for the military. However, with the growing demand for more recruits, there was an increasing interference by the Brazilian imperial state in local affairs, particularly in the political clienteles, whose protective networks were under pressure. Chiefs and authorities of the localities, especially the superior commanders of the National Guard, had the capacity to protect their clientele and, above all, their prestige was put in check. Therefore, we will analyze a particular case that occurred in Uberaba as an example of these pressures in favor of military recruitment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The centuries-old relations between the Este family and Hungary were carried on also with the new Austria-Este dynasty, originating from the marriage between the archduke Ferdinand of Habsburg-Lorraine and princess Maria Beatrice d'Este, heir to the Duchy of Modena. From a military point of view, Francis Ferdinand held for over forty years (1834-1875) the position of owner colonel (Inhaber) of a Hungarian regiment, the I. and R. 32nd infantry regiment. Archduke Francis always remained very attached to his own regiment, which fought in Italy in 1848-1849 and 1859, and in Bohemia in 1866, and provided instructors for the ducal troops on some occasions. Inhaber of a Hungarian-recruiting regiment, i.e. the I. and R. 3rd Hussar cavalry regiment, was also the archduke Ferdinand of Austria-Este (1781-1850), uncle of Francis V, who joined the Austrian army at a very young age, obtaining in 1836 the rank of field marshal. Among the numerous tasks carried out by Ferdinand, there were also those of General Commander of Hungary and Imperial Commissioner in Transylvania. It is precisely in the tight-fitting Hungarian uniform that he is depicted in a beautiful statue, inaugurated in 1855, which can still be admired in the vestibule of the Este mortuary chapel in Modena. Another uncle of Francis V, the archduke Maximilian of Austria-Este, also had to deal with Hungary, having been, among other things, in charge of organizing the Insurrectio in Transylvania during 1809 war. The Austria-Este Dukes also took to their service some Hungarian soldiers coming from Austrian army, such as Nicola Romay and John Pisztory. Some ducal soldiers entered Austrian regiments with Hungarian recruitment or in any case of garrison in Hungary, also following the dissolution of the Modenese ducal army (Brigata Estense) in September 1863. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]