Chairman: The Rt Hon. Dr Julian Lewis MP

This report highlights the significant close working relationship between our security and intelligence agencies and counter-terrorism policing. It is through this regular collaborative approach that we can keep our citizens safe from all forms of terrorism. I would like to take this opportunity to thank our agencies and counter-terrorism policing for their excellent work to better understand and disrupt the threat from extreme right-wing terrorism.

London: Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament, 2022. 137p.

By The Soufan Center

In the last three years, Indonesia and the southern Philippines have seen something new: women carrying out suicide bombings – some with their husbands, some with their children, and some avenging slain husbands – targeting churchgoers, police officers, and soldiers.1 In Malaysia, during the May 2018 general election, a 51-year-old housewife planned to use a car filled with gas canisters and explosives to mow down voters at a polling station, raising the spectre of women killing not only with their families, but also perpetrating “self-directed” or “lone wolf” terrorist acts themselves.2 More recently, the suicide bombing of a church in Makassar, Indonesia, and a shooting at a police headquarters in Jakarta have once again highlighted the potential of female terrorist operatives. Like suicide bombing, it was once assumed that women’s involvement as perpetrators of terrorist violence was culturally and ideologically anathema to terrorist groups in the region.

Washington, DC: The Soufan Center, 2021. 38p.

By Russell D. Howard, Marc D. Elliott, and Jonathan R. Prohov

In this monograph, the authors offer compelling research that reminds government and military officials of the moral, legal, and ethical dimensions of protecting cultural antiquities from looting and illegal trafficking. Internationally, states generally agree on the importance of protecting antiquities, art, and cultural property not only for their historical and artistic importance, but also because such property holds economic, political, and social value for nations and their peoples. Protection is in the common interest because items or sites are linked to the common heritage of mankind. The authors make the point that a principle of international law asserts that cultural or natural elements of humanity’s common heritage should be protected from exploitation and held in trust for future generations. The conflicts in Afghanistan, and especially in Iraq and Syria, coupled with the rise of the Islamic State (IS), have brought renewed attention to the plight of cultural heritage in the Middle East and throughout the world.

MacDill Air Force Base, Florida: Joint Special Operations University Press, 2016. 112p.

By Robert G. Spulak, Jr. and Jessica Glicekn Turnley

Social and physical networks have many similarities, and many differences. And while network analysis can be useful for defeating an adversary's physical networked infrastructure, such as power grids or transportation systems, it is only a piece of a larger toolkit when working with a human system. Indeed, human will and adaptability are critical aspects of a network that might otherwise be viewed as purely technical. We compare and contrast approaches from the physical and social sciences, using networks to highlight the advantages and disadvantages of using the same analytic perspective for significantly different targets. We conclude with a discussion of the networks suggested by the National Military Strategic Plan for the War on Terrorism.

Hurlburt Field, FL: Joint Special Operations University, 2005. 42p

By Treverton, Gregory F. ,Matthies, Carl , Cunningham, Karla J.,Goulka, Jeremiah ,Ridgeway, Gregory , Wong, Anny

This report presents the findings of research into the involvement of organized crime and terrorist groups in counterfeiting products ranging from watches to automobile parts, from pharmaceuticals to computer software. It presents detailed case studies from around the globe in one area of counterfeiting, film piracy, to illustrate the broader problem of criminal--and perhaps terrorist--groups finding a new and not-much-discussed way of funding their activities. Piracy is high in payoff and low in risk, often taking place under the radar of law enforcement. The case studies provide compelling evidence of a broad, geographically dispersed, and continuing connection between film piracy and organized crime, as well as evidence that terrorist groups have used the proceeds of film piracy to finance their activities. Counterfeiting is a threat not only to the global information economy, but also to public safety and national security. Cooperation among law enforcement and governments around the world is needed in the battle against intellectual-property theft, and meaningful progress will require increased political will, strong legislation, consistent enforcement, deterrent sentencing, and innovative solutions. The report lays out an agenda of measures. Increased global intelligence-gathering and sharing is needed to further illuminate the scope and nature of the connections between piracy and organized crime, and policymakers and law enforcement worldwide should reexamine the common but erroneous assumption that counterfeiting is a victimless crime.

Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2009. 183p.

By John Collins and Ian Tennant

This paper charts the history of Afghanistan’s interaction with the international drug control system and the complex relationship between national–international policy formation. It tells the story of Afghanistan’s relationship with and impact on evolving global drug regulations from the birth of the League of Nations drug control system through the 1961 UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs and up to the present day. It draws on primary documentation from US and British archives and an extensive review of secondary literature, as well as a series of interviews conducted for the purposes of this paper. It argues for a more nuanced historical awareness of Afghanistan’s role within multilateral drug control as a way to understand its roles in the creation of the modern licit drug economy and its continued role in the modern illicit drug economy. Further, it argues that there is a need to engage broader society in discussions, to ensure more continuity is built into the system—as relationships built with the old regime in Afghanistan have collapsed. It calls for re-centring international capacity-building efforts on community-centred approaches, not simply law enforcement and traditional alternative development (AD) programmes. Moving away from the former enforcement focused activities also reduces the risks of human rights violations.

Birmingham, UK: University of Birmingham.. 2022. 34p.

By Adrian Arellano.

Why do civilians form militias? Militias emerge not when there is a lack of state security but instead when competing violence specialists behave as predatory actors. I argue that varying time horizons create the conditions for militias. I examine political reforms that have heterogeneous effects, lowering horizons for specialists and raising them for civilians. A high discount rate pushes violence specialists towards destructive violence. Having two options of violence, productive and destructive violence, specialists weigh the cost and benefits of each. The cost of productive violence is incurred up front while the cost of destructive violence occurs later, leading specialists to opt for destruction when they are experiencing a falling discount factor. However, discounting the future is self-defeating as it sets the conditions for militias. Some civilians will flee while others collaborate, but those with low discount factors will form protective militias. For civilian militias, political reforms lowers their discount rate and increases the extent to which they value the future relative to the present. Civilian militias with a low discount rate will have an interest in securing their future with arms. With the help of subnational and archival research, I show that militia onset is more likely in response to predatory actors. I test the theory using two case studies: the autodefensas in Mexico and the Deacons for Defense and Justice in the United States.

Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 2019. 216p.

By Hal Brands.

Guatemala is currently experiencing a full-blown crisis of the democratic state. An unholy trinity of criminal elements—international drug traffickers, domestically based organized crime syndicates, and youth gangs—is effectively waging a form of irregular warfare against government institutions, with devastating consequences. The police, the judiciary, and entire local and departmental governments are rife with criminal infiltrators; murder statistics have surpassed civil-war levels in recent years; criminal operatives brazenly assassinate government officials and troublesome members of the political class; and broad swaths of territory are now effectively under the control of criminal groups. Guatemala’s weak institutions have been unable to contain this violence, leading to growing civic disillusion and causing a marked erosion in the authority and legitimacy of the government.

Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College Press, 2010. 71p.

By David Spencer

The intent of this monograph was to explore the multiple dimensions of Colombia's ongoing crisis and inform the public debate regarding the challenges faced by the statesmen, intellectuals, military strategists, and others who take on the responsibility to deal with that crisis. Hopefully, it will also generate serious reflection about the tough choices Colombian, U.S., and other global leaders face. The author points out, first, that the Colombian paramilitary self-defense forces represent some important sectors of society, and enjoy more popular support from Colombian society than the insurgents. Second, the paramilitaries have developed into a powerful irregular force that is proving itself capable of challenging Colombian guerrillas. Third, while they commit horrendous atrocities, they have been successful where the state has not. Therefore, the paramilitaries are seen by many as a viable solution to the conflict. Finally, he argues that, until the segments of the society represented by the paramilitaries are--somehow-- incorporated into the solution to the Colombian crisis, there will be no solution.

Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College Press, 2001. 32p.

By George W. Grayson

Until the 1980s, Mexico enjoyed relative freedom from violence. Ruthless drug cartels existed, but they usually abided by informal rules of conduct hammered out between several capos and representatives of the dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which ruled the country until the 1990s. Relying on bribes, the desperados pursued their illicit activities with the connivance of authorities. In return for the legal authorities turning a blind eye, drug dealers behaved discretely, shunned high-tech weapons, deferred to public figures, spurned kidnapping, and even appeared with governors at their children’s weddings. Unlike their Colombian counterparts, Mexico’s barons did not seek elective office. In addition, they did not sell drugs within the country, corrupt children, target innocent people, engage in kidnapping, or invade the turf or product-line (marijuana, heroin, cocaine, etc.) of competitors. The situation was sufficiently fluid so that should a local police or military unit refuse to cooperate with a cartel, the latter would simply transfer its operations to a nearby municipality where they could clinch the desired arrangement. Three key events in the 1980s and 1990s changed the “live and let live” ethos that enveloped illegal activities. Mexico became the new avenue for Andean cocaine shipped to the United States after the U.S. military and law-enforcement authorities sharply reduced its flow into Florida and other South Atlantic states. The North American Free Trade Agreement, which took effect on January 1, 1994, greatly increased economic activities throughout the continent. Dealers often hid cocaine and other drugs among the merchandise that moved northward through Nuevo Laredo, El Paso, Tijuana, and other portals. The change in routes gave rise to Croesus-like profits for cocaine traffickers--a phenomenon that coincided with an upsurge of electoral victories. Largely unexamined amid this narco-mayhem are vigilante activities. With federal resources aimed at drug traffickers and local police more often a part of the problem than a part of the solution, vigilantes are stepping into the void. Suspected criminals who run afoul of these vigilantes endure the brunt of a skewed version of justice that enjoys a groundswell of support.

Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College Press, 2011. 76p.

By Cathy Haenlein.

Organised crime groups, rather than terrorist groups, are profiting the most from the East African illegal wildlife trade. A number of myths and misperceptions have grown alongside the illegal ivory trade – none more troubling than the alleged participation of terrorist groups. In East Africa, the Somali terror group Al-Shabaab has supposedly received up to 40 per cent of its running costs through the illegal ivory trade alone. This is a powerful narrative, espoused by some politicians, policy-makers and practitioners. But it is largely wrong. Evidence for Al-Shabaab involvement in poaching and trafficking remains extremely limited and controversial. Briefings given to policy-makers on terrorism and the illegal ivory trade continue to refer to unverified sources. This is a cause for concern: such a narrative risks diverting attention from the trade’s main facilitators and, counter-intuitively, from Al-Shabaab’s known funding sources. To address these misconceptions, this report explores the complex ecosystems of terrorism, poaching and ivory trafficking in East Africa.

London: Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), 2015. 58p.

Edited by Beatrice de Graaf and Alex P. Schmid.

A Performative Perspective. “…terrorism trials can be an exceptional opportunity better to understand and, hence, counter terrorism, since they are the only place where most, if not all, of the actors in a terrorist incident meet again: terrorists, state representatives, the judiciary, the audience, surviving victims, terrorist sympathisers, etc. The media will report and broadcast their respective performances. Forming a nexus between terrorist violence, law enforcement and public opinion, terrorism trials thus offer the prospect of showcasing justice in progress, and in so doing of demonstrating to the world how terrorist suspects are dealt with under the laws of the land.”

Leiden University Press (2016) 603p.

By Stephen Reimer and Matthew Redhead.

The potential role that new technologies – from financial technology to social media – can play in terrorist financing (TF) has been a growing subject of anxiety in European policymaking circles. With their focus on speed, efficiency and a positive user experience, new technologies not only have the potential to make life easier for ordinary consumers, but also to reduce the frictions terrorist financiers face when funding attacks and organisational activities. Virtual assets (VAs) – especially cryptocurrencies – have been a major area of concern as a new frontier of TF risks. However, the recent focus on new technologies as an avenue for TF has not led to a consensus about how great the risks are. The debate around the issue has polarised into two broad positions – one which fears the worst, suspecting that innovation will make life easier for terrorist financiers, and another, which sees new technologies as no more or less risky than pre-existing technologies or conventional financial activities. The differences of opinion are deep, and the dialogue between the two positions difficult to resolve, because of the assumptions on which they are based. In the first case, policymakers and the traditional financial services sector tend to see novelty and uncertainty, and assess that the safest approach is to assume theoretical vulnerabilities and inherent risks are real until otherwise proved. In the second, those involved in creating and deploying new technology tend to believe that the risks should not be assumed, and need to be demonstrated. For both sides, understanding the nature and quality of evidence is essential. Amid this debate, this paper investigates whether new technologies pose new, or exacerbate existing, TF risks in Europe. Although there were difficulties in collecting data on sensitive terrorist cases, a clearer picture still emerged: new financial technologies have indeed been used in the procurement and financing of attacks, but only with certainty in a small proportion of cases. Likewise, payment platforms, social media crowdfunding and VAs have become tools for wider organisational financing, but they have been added to, rather than replaced, well-worn and conventional methods such as cash, the use of intermediaries, or money service businesse

Brussels; London: Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), 2022. 52p.

By Federal Criminal Police Office, Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, and Hesse Information and Competence Against Extremism.

The present document is the second update of the analysis of the background and process of radicalization among persons who left Germany to travel to Syria or Iraq based on Islamist motivations. Since the first report in 2014, highly dynamic, geopolitical developments have occurred, leading to major changes in travel movements to the conflict region in Syria and Iraq during the four and a half years under observation (January 2012 to June 2016). A high-water mark in 2014 around the time the “caliphate” was declared in Syria/Iraq was immediately followed by a significant decline in the number of departures; this decline was likely related to the increasing military pressure on the so-called Islamic State (IS). As a result, the conflicts in and around Syria, the founding and attempted expansion of the IS and the fight against this terrorist organization are issues which continue to dominate international and national policy. While the U.S.-led alliance, including Turkey, is focused above all on fighting the IS, the forces of the Syrian regime, with massive support from Russia and Iran, are fighting all actual or alleged Islamist opponents of the regime: both “moderate” Islamists such as the Free Syrian Army and clearly jihadist groupings such as the IS and the al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria, Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (“Front for the Conquest of the Levant”), formerly known as Jabhat al Nusra, or the al-Nusra Front. These efforts have increased in terms of quantity and quality since autumn 2015, with two immediate effects: First, they succeeded in pushing back the IS – the most obviously jihadist opponent of the Assad regime, also perceived internationally as the greatest threat – in both Syria and Iraq, which strengthened the Syrian government. Second, they set off an unprecedented wave of refugees fleeing the conflict region for Europe.

Wiesbaden: Bundeskriminalamt (BKA), 2016. 56p.

By Modupe I Akinleye.

The issue of terrorism has become one of the topmost concerns of US-Nigerian Foreign policy in connection with the GWOT. As a result of the ‘shift’ of the GWOT into Nigeria, Boko Haram was proscribed as a terrorist organisation in 2013. Extant research on Boko Haram’s terrorism in Nigeria and other parts of Africa is however premised on/driven by some essentialist thoughts and thus remains normative. Yet the proscription of Boko Haram reveals both continuities and change in relation to earlier constructs of the Nigerian state and non-state actors since the Cold War. These continuities in identity constructs therefore highlight the need for a post structural thought in understanding terrorism in Nigeria particularly and Africa generally. In particular, this thesis suggests that the labelling of Boko Haram as a terrorist organisation in Nigeria reveals the continuities of Othering of actors through the signification of ‘crises’ in policy discourse. The thesis uses Bhabha’s concept of Otherness as well as Laclau and Mouffe’s Discourse Theory to understand the construction of the ‘terrorist threat’, and the ‘United States Self’, ‘the counter terrorist state’, and the ‘terrorist other’. As no known study has undertaken to show how the labelling of Boko Haram works through discursive power and politics as well as the function of silence in meta-narratives, this research is therefore significant as the focus on policy and its implementers in Nigeria helps to unveil the silence in the discursive construction of the ‘strong’ state as the state which counters ‘evil’ terrorists. However, unlike TTS which highlights the state as a possible user of terrorism, the thesis adds to the CTS by examining how the production of the discourses within which the labelling of acts and actors of ‘terrorism’ have evolved and how practices like counter-terrorism enabled by these discourses become justified and normalized.

Bristol, UK: University of Bristol, 2019. 364p.

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.

Edited by Adam Henschke, Alastair Reed, Scott Robbins, Seumas Miller. This open access book brings together a range of contributions that seek to explore the ethical issues arising from the overlap between counter-terrorism, ethics, and technologies. Terrorism and our responses pose some of the most significant ethical challenges to states and people. At the same time, we are becoming increasingly aware of the ethical implications of new and emerging technologies. Whether it is the use of remote weapons like drones as part of counter-terrorism strategies, the application of surveillance technologies to monitor and respond to terrorist activities, or counterintelligence agencies use of machine learning to detect suspicious behavior and hacking computers to gain access to encrypted data, technologies play a significant role in modern counter-terrorism. However, each of these technologies carries with them a range of ethical issues and challenges. How we use these technologies and the policies that govern them have broader impact beyond just the identification and response to terrorist activities. As we are seeing with China, the need to respond to domestic terrorism is one of the justifications for their rollout of the “social credit system.” Counter-terrorism technologies can easily succumb to mission creep, where a technology’s exceptional application becomes normalized and rolled out to society more generally. This collection is not just timely but an important contribution to understand the ethics of counter-terrorism and technology and has far wider implications for societies and nations around the world. Cham: Springer, 2021. 231p.

By Graeme R. Newman and Ronald V. Clarke. This manual is intended to help police executives and other senior executives meet the new challenges involved in countering the threat of terrorism by summarizing writings on the essential components of a counterterrorism plan. It does not deal with the specifics of such matters as (1) conducting surveillance of suspected terrorists; (2) protecting different types of vulnerable targets, such as ports and chemical plants; or (3) achieving interoperability in wireless communications among different disaster-response agencies, such as fire, police, and emergency medical personnel. Although junior officers need this type of detail, chiefs require more general information about a broad range of issues that can help them develop plans and policies to counter the terrorist threat. This manual seeks to meet the needs of chiefs and other senior personnel by summarizing information about 50 key topics in the form of advice to the chief.

Read more at the Center for Problem Oriented Policing