In the last 15 years, the threat of Muslim violent extremists emerging within Western countries has grown. Terrorist organizations based in the Middle East are recruiting Muslims in the United States and Europe via social media. Yet we know little about the factors that would drive Muslim immigrants in a…
This paper argues that the figure of the migrant has come to be seen as a potential terrorist in the West, under the condition of a double, but completely opposed, set of crises internal to the nation-state. The refugee crisis in Europe can no longer be understood as separate from…
ICSVE uses field-based primary research and evidence-based educational video materials that are carefully crafted to counter the efforts of extremist and terrorist organizations to publicize their propaganda and garner support for violence. ICSVE strongly believe that the voices of defectors and victims of terrorist groups should be the overriding force…
Education constitutes one of the foremost components of most of the counter-violent extremism (CVE) models and frameworks currently being implemented in the Muslim-majority and Western countries. In countries like Pakistan, where education, both mainstream and religious, is considered by many to have been a factor in the promotion of ideological…
Understanding violent extremism and the ways to counter it are among the major themes PIPS has been exclusively focusing on since its establishment in the last quarter of 2005. The other main areas of PIPS? focus are also directly or indirectly linked to counter-violent extremism (CVE) such as conflict analysis…
When the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) the Sunni extremist group, quickly conquered much of Sunni-dominated Iraq in 2014, pundits described it as a natural outcome of the country’s sectarian inheritance. Iraq’s artificial borders, drawn in 1920, placed the country on the fault line of the world’s Sunni-Shia…
The Nigerian jihadi group Boko Haram has killed over 15,000 people, disrupted governance, and caused a humanitarian emergency in Nigeria and the surrounding countries. While its ideology is often described as opposition to democracy and rejection of Western-style education, its theology and politics encompass more than hatred for Western influence….
This Peace Brief examines the relationship between radicalization and institutional dysfunctions in Bangladesh and addresses how strengthening political and social institutions, and making them more inclusive, can help prevent violent extremism and related conflict dynamics. Geoffrey Macdonald, PhD is a consultant at the United States Institute of Peace.
Despite government denials, Bangladesh has increasingly become fertile ground for al-Qa`ida and the Islamic State. Both groups have taken advantage of an upsurge in Islamist militancy in the country over anger at the execution of Islamist political leaders in 2013, and both hope to expand their footprint there by building…
Bangladesh has attracted international media attention for heightened militant activities in 2015, particularly after a series of killings of bloggers by a local militant group allegedly associated with Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) and after murders of foreign nationals, responsibility of which was claimed by the Islamic State…
On December 17, 2015, representatives from Libya’s rival governments in Tobruk and Tripoli signed a UN-brokered agreement in Morocco, pledging to form a unity government within 40 days. The international community heralded the agreement as a new beginning for Libya, and expressed hope for the country’s future. On January 19,…
Using the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) as a case study, we explore the process by which children evolve from novice recruits to fully fledged members of a violent extremist movement. From currently available data, we propose six stages of child socialization to ISIS—Seduction, Schooling, Selection, Subjugation, Specialization,…
