Edited by Tanya Mehra, Thomas Renard and Merlina Herbach with contributions from Marc Hecker and Sofia Koller.

The involvement of women in terrorism is not new, but it has gained more attention with the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which attracted many women to its so-called caliphate. Initially perceived as victims or harmless, these women progressively became a growing subject of attention and concern for security services. In 2017, the Dutch intelligence service (AIVD) already indicated that the threat emanating from female jihadis should not be underestimated, while recognising knowledge gaps about the role(s) these women played in jihadi movements or the threat they posed.1 The same year, the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2396 (2017) stressed that women who were affiliated with terrorist organisations “may have served in many different roles, including as supporters, facilitators, or perpetrators of terrorist acts” and urged states to pay special attention to this as women “require special focus when developing tailored prosecution, rehabilitation and reintegration strategies.”2 Yet, in spite of more attention from counter-terrorism services, and a growing body of literature on female terrorists, there is still a considerable lack of data-driven, empirical research on female violent extremist offenders (VEOs). This book seeks to inform practitioners and policy-makers on how to manage female VEOs through the criminal justice system in a rule of law and human rights compliant manner through four case studies in Europe.

The Hague: The International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT: 2024. 223p.

By Kacper Rekawek, Viktor Szucs, Martina Babikova, and Katsiaryna Lozka  

For the last year and a half, GLOBSEC has been studying the phenomenon of a crime-terror nexus in Europe. Its research team has built up a dataset of 348 individuals arrested for terrorism offences, expelled for alleged terrorist connections, or who died while staging terrorist attacks in Europe in 2015, the peak year of European jihadism. The dataset covers the 11 European countries, all within the EU, who reported the highest number of terrorism arrestees to EUROPOL (European Police Office). The work has been geared towards establishing whether the nexus exists and if so, then researching its nature and strength. The researchers deployed 11 experienced national teams who worked on available data (open source, official documents, personal interviews with stakeholders) to map out the European crime-terror nexus. The main research tool is a 120+ variable codebook deployed to analyse each case of a terrorist included in our dataset. As a result, the research team was able to establish that out of the 310 jihadists included in the database, 95, or 31%, had a previous criminal past, indicated by a pre-2015 arrest for any offence, with the French subset recording the most criminals (44 of the individuals, or 46%, have a criminal past preceding their terrorist involvement). Data show it is a male phenomenon, comprising 264, or 88%, of the individuals in our database. The European jihadists are not youngsters, as their average age is 34 (average male: 29; average female: 34; average “criminal turned terrorist”: 34), nor are they very well educated (the research team only knows of 72 who “had some high school” experience, and hardly any attended university).

Slovak Republic: GLOBSEC Policy Institute....28p.

By Pieter Van Ostaeyen | Kwesi Aning  

Since the initial rise in violent extremist and terrorist groups in the Sahel in the mid-2000s, the number of such groups in the region has continued to grow. This is reflected in the nature of the opportunistic alliances that have developed among different groups, with varying interests and memberships. Furthermore, these groups have changed their operational tactics over time and, since 2019, began a gradual expansion of their activities towards the littoral states of West Africa. This paper focuses on two of the most important extremist groups in the Sahel: Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP) and Islamic State in Greater Sahel (ISGS). In discussing the origins of both groups, this paper argues that their establishment was not borne out of religious rationales alone. Rather, ISWAP’s and ISGS’s formation and expansion were based on their fractured relationships with the organizations from which they split and to a certain extent transformed, as well as their pursuit for new allegiances and competition for preeminence in the leadership as they battled to expand and establish Islamic states in northern Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, Niger, and the Sahel. Ideologically, this paper identifies the adoption of Takfiri doctrines as the driving force resulting in more draconian interpretation and implementation of Islamic laws implemented by the hisba relating to zakat, hudud, ta’zir, and qisas. This paper argues that factionalism and splits from the original organizations represent fundamental splits from their original members and that the alliances formed by these originally distinct groups constitute a fundamental split and shift in operational tactics. ISWAP and ISGS operations are characterized by opportunism and exploitation of local grievances that enables them to build specific narratives for support….

Berlin: Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung e.V.. Counter Extremism Program, 2023. 20p.  

By Edmund Fitton-Brown and Bakary Sambe 

  This short paper explores how Jamaat Nusrat Al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), the predominant coalition of al-Qaeda (AQ) affiliates in the region, is structured and financed and how its component parts relate to one another. The paper will outline how the various groups constituting JNIM train and operate jointly and the extent of their use of trafficking routes and overlap with regional organized crime. It addresses the extent to which the spillover of JNIM activity from Mali and Burkina Faso into the Atlantic/Gulf of Guinea littoral states represents a threat to their stability. It also addresses the impact of political instability in Mali, Burkina Faso, and elsewhere on counterterrorism (CT) activity and the impact on terrorism of external state and non-state assistance. The paper seeks to diagnose the challenges posed by JNIM considering its local and regional circumstances on the ground and to provide operationally relevant recommendations both for actions within the region itself and through the use of international resources. The recommendations seek to integrate CT with measures aimed at preventing and countering extremism, conflict resolution, and development goals. They also highlight that the needs vary between different countries in the region. For example, measures applied to Mali cannot easily be transferred to mitigate the challenges in Burkina Faso  

Berlin: Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung e.V. , Counter Extremism Program, 2023. 14p.

By Europol

  Terrorism remains a significant threat to the internal security of the European Union. Terrorists operate across borders, leveraging new technologies and modi operandi to target innocent people. EU law enforcement authorities, in particular the counter-terrorism community, remain vigilant and united in countering the threat. The EU Terrorism Situation and Trend Report (TE-SAT) 2023 contributes to this effort, by presenting prevalent terrorism trends in the EU. Terrorism constitutes an attack on our society intending to create fear and chaos among EU citizens. In 2022, 16 terrorist attacks took place in the EU and an additional 12 attacks failed or were foiled. While the attacks directly affected seven Member States, more Member States arrested suspects in terrorism-related cases. Tragically, four people were killed in terrorist attacks in the EU, two resulting from jihadist attacks and two from a right-wing terrorist attack. We honour the memory of all those lost to terrorism in 2022 and in previous years.

• More....

  Member States continue to view jihadist terrorism as the most prominent terrorist threat to the EU despite the fact that the number of jihadist attacks has decreased compared to 2021 and 2020. The threat from right-wing terrorist lone actors, radicalised online, remains significant. Left-wing and anarchist terrorists and violent extremists continue to pose a threat to public safety and security in the EU. Additionally, the spread of propaganda online and its potential for radicalisation remains a key concern. Social isolation and the lack of a solid support system remain key vulnerabilities which terrorists take advantage of in order to propagate their messages and to recruit new followers. This is particularly worrying with the increasing number of young people, including minors, exposed to online terrorist propaganda. Furthermore, the terrorist and violent extremist environment is becoming more decentralised and volatile. Diffuse actors connect and inspire one another, uniting behind grievances beyond ideology or group affiliation. This context is ripe for self-radicalisation and for lone actors to begin engaging in attack planning, and poses significant challenges for preventing and combating terrorism and violent extremism in the EU.   

  Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, 2023. 94p. 

By Rudiger Lohiker

Jihadism has been an important issue of public discussions since 9/11. Internet media have been used by Jihadis as means of communication, propaganda, recruitment, and even training purposes. In this volume, the processes of interaction on Jihadi internet sites are analysed. Particular attention lays on the mechanisms of spread of propaganda via the internet by diverse technical means. The process of transformation of Islamic knowledge into Jihadi knowledge, the rhetorics  of videos, the development of South Asian Jihadi organisations and some conceptual issues are discussed.

Gottingen: V&R unipress, 2012. 224p.

By Audrey Alexander

The self-proclaimed Islamic State and other jihadist actors have identified several unique roles for Western women in their radicalization and recruitment efforts. This report finds that, while few conduct violent plots, many disseminate propaganda, donate resources, or travel abroad to offer their support. A recent surge in relevant legal cases suggest that the rate of American female involvement in jihadist movements is on the rise. This report uses a wealth of primary and secondary data to examine the efforts of 25 jihadi women in America from January 2011 to September 2016. The cases offer a tremendous diversity of demographic data, suggesting that an overarching profile of the American female jihadist is indiscernible. …. These findings contribute towards the development of policies to respond to this threat, which must be met with a varied response. Moreover, the diverse backgrounds of these cases render monolithic approaches ineffective. Though legal redress is the primary means to mitigate the threat, complementary strategies that offer alternatives to arrest, explore de-radicalization, and emphasize prevention are necessary steps to counter violent extremism by women.

Washington, DC: George Washington University, Program on Extremism, 2016. 32p.

By Lorenzo Vidino, Francesco Marone and Eva Entenmann

Over the last three years Europe and North America have been hit by an unprecedented wave of terrorist attacks perpetrated by individuals motivated by jihadist ideology. The roots of this development are largely to be found in two, deeply intertwined phenomena: the military successes achieved by the Islamic State and its declaration of a Caliphate along with the large number of followers the group has managed to attract in the West. This report identified 51 successful attacks throughout Europe and North America from June 2014, when the Caliphate was declared, until June 2017. From coordinated operations causing large numbers of casualties like the November 2015 Paris attacks, to the many acts of violence carried out by lone attackers, the attacks vary significantly in terms of sophistication, lethality, targets and connectivity to the Islamic State and other groups. Similarly, the profile of the 65 identified involved in the 51 attacks is extremely heterogeneous from both demographic and operational perspectives.

Milano, Italy: Ledizioni LediPublishing, 2017. 108p.

By Chelsea Daymon and Devorah Margolin

This report compares women’s participation in far-right and salafi-jihadist movements in the United States through the examination of four case studies: the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, Al-Qaeda, and the Islamic State. To do so, the authors apply a unique analytical framework that examines three key aspects of women’s participation to compare similarities and differences. First, the report takes a top-down approach to analyze how organizations conceptualize women’s roles. Second, it takes a bottom-up approach to explore how women have participated in violent extremism in the United States. Finally, it uses a gendered lens to address how groups have responded when women have participated in violent extremism in America.

Washington, DC: Program on Extremism at George Washington University., 2022. 67p.

By Peter Bergen and Bruce Hoffman

Al-Qaeda and allied groups continue to pose a threat to the United States. Although it is less severe than the catastrophic proportions of a 9/11-like attack, the threat today is more complex and more diverse than at any time over the past nine years. Al-Qaeda or its allies continue to have the capacity to kill dozens, or even hundreds, of Americans in a single attack. A key shift in the past couple of years is the increasingly prominent role in planning and operations that U.S. citizens and residents have played in the leadership of al-Qaeda and aligned groups, and the higher numbers of Americans attaching themselves to these groups. Another development is the increasing diversification of the types of U.S.-based jihadist militants, and the groups with which those militants have affiliated. Indeed, these jihadists do not fit any particular ethnic, economic, educational, or social profile. Al-Qaeda’s ideological influence on other jihadist groups is on the rise in South Asia and has continued to extend into countries like Yemen and Somalia; al-Qaeda’s top leaders are still at large, and American overreactions to even unsuccessful terrorist attacks arguably have played, however inadvertently, into the hands of the jihadists. Working against al-Qaeda and allied groups are the ramped-up campaign of drone attacks in Pakistan, increasingly negative Pakistani attitudes and actions against the militants based on their territory, which are mirrored by increasingly hostile attitudes toward alQaeda and allied groups in the Muslim world in general, and the fact that erstwhile militant allies have now also turned against al-Qaeda. This report is based on interviews with a wide range of senior U.S. counterterrorism officials at both the federal and local levels, and embracing the policy, intelligence, and law enforcement communities, supplemented by the authors’ own research.

Washington, DC: Bipartisan Policy Center’s National Security Preparedness Group (NSPG), 2010. 44p.

By Brian Michael Jenkins

The U.S. homeland faces a multilayered threat from terrorist organizations. Homegrown jihadists account for most of the terrorist activity in the United States since 9/11. Efforts by jihadist terrorist organizations to inspire terrorist attacks in the United States have thus far yielded meager results. No American jihadist group has emerged to sustain a terrorist campaign, and there is no evidence of an active jihadist underground to support a continuing terrorist holy war. The United States has invested significant resources in preventing terrorist attacks, and authorities have been able to uncover and thwart most of the terrorist plots. This Perspective identifies 86 plots to carry out terrorist attacks and 22 actual attacks since 9/11 involving 178 planners and perpetrators. Eighty-seven percent of those planners and perpetrators had long residencies in the United States. Only four of them had come to the United States illegally, all as minors. Nationality is a poor predictor of later terrorist activity, and vetting people coming to the United States, no matter how rigorous, cannot identify those who radicalize here. Determining whether a young teenager might, more than 12 years later, turn out to be a jihadist terrorist would require the bureaucratic equivalent of divine foresight.

Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2017. 98p.

Edited by Paul Burke, Doaa’ Elnakhala, and Seumas Miller

This insightful book provides a unified repository of information on jihadist terrorism. Offering an integrated treatment of terrorist groups, zones of armed conflict and counter-terrorism responses from liberal democratic states, it presents fresh empirical perspectives on the origins and progression of conflict, and contemporary global measures to combat terrorist activity.

Cheltenham, UK Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2021. 352p.

By Bart Schuurman.

A Multilevel Analysis of Involvement in the Dutch Hofstad group, 2002-2005. How and why do people become involved in European homegrown jihadism? This book addresses this question through an in-depth study of the Dutch Hofstadgroup, infamous for containing the murderer of filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who was killed in November 2004 in Amsterdam, and for plotting numerous other terrorist attacks. The Hofstadgroup offers a window into the broader phenomenon of homegrown jihadism that arose in Europe in 2004 and is still with us today. Utilizing interviews with former Hofstadgroup participants and the extensive police files on the group, Becoming a European Homegrown Jihadist overcomes the scarcity of high-quality data that has hampered the study of terrorism for decades. The book advances a multicausal and multilevel understanding of involvement in European homegrown jihadism that is critical of the currently prevalent 'radicalization'-based explanatory frameworks. It stresses that the factors that initiate involvement are separate from those that sustain it, which in turn are again likely to differ from those that bring some individuals to actual acts of terrorism. This is a key resource for scholars of terrorism and all those interested in understanding the pathways that can lead to involvement in European homegrown jihadism.

Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2-18. 267p.

By Inge Versteegt Vanja Ljujic, Fatima El Bouk, Frank Weerman and Floor van Maaren

In the last two decades, interest in terrorism and extremism has increased tremendously, in particular after the events of 9/11, the rise of Al Qaeda and I.S. Several countries in Europe were recently confronted with large scale attacks. This is only part of a worldwide variety in attacks from different backgrounds and conflicts. Jihadist extremism and terrorism is at the fore of the public debate and attention, but there have also been many attacks from other religious and political backgrounds, for example right-wing extremist attacks on mosques, synagogues and migrants. Due to the increased public and political concern for terrorism since the beginning of the 21st century, there has been a growing research interest into this theme (e.g., De Graaf, 2017, Sageman 2008; Horgan, 2012). This has improved our knowledge and insights on the subject. However, many studies on terrorism are based on similar, limited sources that are often reused. As a result the theoretical debate on terrorism is not always at par with the availability of reliable empirical research material (Borum, 2011). Although various insights about the underlying mechanisms of needs and motivations for involvement in terrorism have been discovered (Horgan, 2012), much is still unclear. What we lack in particular is an understanding of the factors that increase the likelihood of resorting to violent extremism in people who have the same backgrounds and encounter similar experiences as people who do not become involved in terrorism.

Amsterdam: Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement, 2018. 155p.