This report provides a summary of the expert conference “In the Blind Spot – Right-Wing Extremists on Alternative and Established Platforms“, which took place in Berlin in September 2023 as part of the “Countering Radicalisation in Right-Wing Extremist Online Subcultures” programme funded by the Federal Ministry of Justice (BMJ). The…
This report is the fifth edition of the annual review of online jihadist propaganda. It analyses the major trends and developments in the propaganda of the most prominent Sunni jihadist organisations – the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS) and al-Qaeda (AQ) – as well as their branches and offshoots. The review…
This practitioner report provides a brief introduction and overview of some key considerations around autism in extremism contexts.
This article introduces and reports the psychometric properties of the Hate Behaviours Scale (HBS), which assesses individual intentions to engage in a range of violent and non-violent hateful behaviours against various target groups. Three independent U.S. adult samples (total n = 3524) were used to gather data on the scale and associated covariates…
Al-Shabaab has been evicted – at least temporarily – from scores of towns and villages in the central Somali Federal Member States of Hirshabelle and Galmudug since summer 2022. While this began as an ‘organic’ uprising led by clan militias (the Ma’awisley) against the insurgent’s excessive demands for ‘taxation’ and…
This research was conducted in the context of a Somali state offensive in the Federal Member States of Hirshabelle and Galmudug that generated more territorial gains from al-Shabaab than any other military campaign since the mid-2010s. Such conditions provide fertile ground for disengagement from the insurgents, with many ex-members enrolled…
The Western Balkans (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo* (1), Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia) represent a post-conflict region (2) facing various forms of violent extremism. At present, the Western Balkans face most problems with Islamist extremism (IE) and right-wing extremism (RWE). Between 2012 and 2016, more than 1 000 individuals…
In an ever-evolving technological landscape, digital disinformation is on the rise, as are its political consequences. In this paper, we explore the creation and distribution of synthetic media by malign actors, specifically a form of artificial intelligence-machine learning (AI/ML) known as the deepfake. Individuals looking to incite political violence are…
The recruitment of new members requires delicate secret steps by terrorist and extremist organisations. This vital organisational activity needs to be smart and effective, takes time, and can be discovered by security and intelligence services. This paper shows that recruitment is a flexible multi-tool process able to be smartly adapted…
Country Reports on Terrorism 2022 is submitted in compliance with Title 22 of the United States Code, Section 2656f (the “Act”), which requires the Department of State to provide to Congress a full and complete annual report on terrorism for those countries and groups meeting the criteria of the Act.
Many authors have deplored the scarcity of evaluations that assess the impact and effectiveness of programmes and policies in the field of Counter-Terrorism (CT) and Preventing/Countering Violent Extremism (P/CVE). This makes it difficult to understand which efforts to address violent extremism have had positive results, and what measures and methods…
In 2022, the United States witnessed both dramatic breakthroughs and calamitous setbacks on women’s rights, from Ketanji Brown becoming the first Black woman to sit on Supreme Court of the United States to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, a legal precedent that protected a woman’s right to bodily autonomy…
