Violence and Security

IS Continues Eradication of Mideast's World Civilizational Sites

June 24, 2015

The Islamic State ("IS") has placed explosives and landmines around the ancient Roman city of Palmyra, signaling likely preparations to destroy yet another one of the world's civilizational sites in part of its ongoing camping to eradicate all historical sites deemed heretical by the fanatical Islamist group.
Syrian Islamist Attacks on Druze May Lead to Conflict Spillover with Lebanon and Syria

June 24, 2015

Mideast security experts warn that a recent spate of attacks against Syria's Druze minority by the Islamist militias of the Jabhat al-Nusra Front, the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda, threaten to draw Lebanon and Israel, whose own Druze populations live on the borders with Syria, into a broader regional conflagration.
Islamist Radicalization and Violence Bodes Instability in North Caucasus

June 24, 2015

Recent violence in a major mosque in Russia's Republic of Ingushetia, between Salafist and Sufi Muslims over questions about prayer cycles, points to the deepening cleavage emerging across the North Caucasus region between radicalizing, extremist Muslim groups connected to Mideast Islamists versus supporters of Sufi Islamist moderation espoused by the Caucasus' recent International Islamic Theological Conference.
UN Special Envoy Warns of Jihadi Foothold in Gaza as Blowback from Israeli Blockade

June 15, 2015

The UN Special Envoy for the Middle East Peace Process has warned that the dire humanitarian conditions in Gaza, which he mainly attributed to Israel's blockade of the territory and the general failure of international donors to meet commitments to Gaza's reconstruction, are providing fertile ground for the embedding of Islamist jihadi and radical groups committed to the collapse of the Hamas authorities and to the destruction of Israel.
Sunni Jihadis Systematically Destroy Christian Religious Sites

June 15, 2015

The Islamic State ("IS") and other radical Sunni jihadi groups have matched their brutal violence against civilians with systematic, comprehensive campaigns of unprecedented destruction of Christian religious and cultural patrimony, including many UN-designated world heritage sites, throughout the Middle East and North Africa.
Islamic State Turns to Turkey

June 15, 2015

The inauguration of a Turkish-language publication by the propaganda arm of the Islamic State ("IS") groups points to the jihadi Islamist group's concern that Turkey remains loyal to the IS vision of a global caliphate and calls on all Muslims in Turkey to reject democracy as incompatible with the caliphate.
Judicial and Security Reforms Are Key to Stopping Nigeria's Violent Islamists

June 11, 2015

A recent assessment by international human rights groups of the spree of violence and terror carried out by Boko Haram in Nigeria over the first half of 2015 underscores that transparency and best practices in bringing perpetrators to justice will be critically important to effectively combating the militant Islamist group's efforts to impose sharia law throughout Nigeria and West Africa.
US Intel Says Extremist Islamists Move to Black Web to Recruit and Avoid Law Enforcement

June 09, 2015

US intelligence and counter-terrorism agencies are concerned over the shift by the Islamic State ("IS") to "black web" technologies, which are specifically designed to avert law enforcement and intelligence tracking, as a mode of recruitment and planning for Islamist militancy and violence anywhere in the world.
Education of Women Is Critical to Countering Islamist Extremism

June 04, 2015

The recent 2015 U.S.-Islamic World Forum sponsored by the Brookings Institution in Qatar heard reports which underscored the critical importance of education of girls and women for developing literacy and labor skills and for fostering social inclusion and sustainable development, keys to building local communities which reject the violence and exclusion promoted by extremist Islamism.
Islamic State Combines Brutality and Protection to Make Dangerous Legitimacy Gains

June 04, 2015

The Islamic State ("IS") has begun to make dangerous gains in building legitimacy as an alternative state in Syria, Iraq, and potentially, Lebanon, by crafting a political message that IS is the protector of Sunni Muslims against both authoritarian regimes and Shiite expansionism, as well as by continuing the use of brutal tactics to respond to any opponents of IS's hyper-fundamentalist brand of Islamism.