Relocating the Virtual War
September 18, 2023
Countering Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups’ use of the Internet for both organizational purposes and the dissemination of radical propaganda has frequently been conceptualized in terms of a war in a virtual space. This assumption has led to a distorted understanding of how the Internet is relevant to terrorism, and what methods are appropriate ...
Lights, Camera, Jihad: Al-Shabaab’s Western Media Strategy
September 18, 2023
While the threat that al-Shabaab poses to the West can easily be overstated, its outreach to Muslims living in Europe and the United States has been successful relative to other al-Qaeda-linked groups and warrants exploration. The organisation has recruited dozens of foreign fighters from the West (see Appendix). It also holds the dubious distinction of ...
As American as Apple Pie: How Anwar al-Awlaki Became the Face of Western Jihad
September 18, 2023
CSR is pleased to announce the release of its newest report, As American As Apple Pie: How Anwar al-Awlaki Became the Face of Western Jihad, by Research Fellow Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens. This study provides the first forensic analysis of Anwar al-Awlaki’s work, which tracks his ideological path from a supposedly moderate preacher to an al-Qaeda recruiter. ...
Sub-Saharan African Terrorist Groups’ Use of the Internet
September 18, 2023
This article presents the results of a study which measured the web presence of terrorist groups active in Sub Saharan Africa. It also explores the relationship between web technology availability and adoption by terrorist groups and looks at how differentiating between web publishing technologies used by terrorist groups can further develop the study of terrorist ...
In Defense of Honor: Women and Terrorist Recruitment on the Internet
September 18, 2023
Until today there have been no women in the core leadership of Al Qaeda (Al Qaeda al Sulba). While the organization is frequently described as patriarchal and exclusive of women, women are among its most fervent supporters. A significant recent development in women’s participation in violent extremism has been the dissemination of radical ideologies online ...
Terrorism and the Mass Media after Al Qaeda: A Change of Course?
September 18, 2023
This article analyzes the possible relationship between terrorist groups and the media. As an example, a case study on the Al Qaeda organization will be used. Our methodology will involve analyzing the content of its public statements and examining the developments that have taken place during its history as an organization. Both perspectives suggest that ...
Von al-Zarqawi bis al-Awlaki: Das Internet als neue Form des radikalen Milieus.
September 18, 2023
Chapter in Stefan Malthaner and Peter Waldmann (eds.) Radikale Milieus: Das soziale Umfeld terroristischer Gruppen. ...
Terrorism and the Making of the ‘New Middle East’: New Media Strategies of Hizbollah and al Qaeda
September 18, 2023
Chapter, “Terrorism and the making of the ‘New Middle East'”, in book: Seib, Philip, (ed.) New media and the new Middle East ...
Media, Fear and the Hyperreal: the Construction of Cyberterrorism as the Ultimate Threat to Critical Infrastructures
September 18, 2023
Analysis of the construction of the cyberterrorist threat, with the core argument that US media outlets have been significant contributors not just to the dissemination, but to the actual discursive construction of the contemporary cyberterrorist threat and, further, that it is their emphasis on the (imagined) fatal connectivity between virtual networks and physical infrastructures that ...
Twitter and Jihad: the Communication Strategy of ISIS
September 18, 2023
The capture of Mosul in the summer of 2014 by the self-styled ‘Islamic State’ appears today much more than a significant military event in the complex scenario of the Middle-East and in the tangled situation of Iraq and Syria. Close observers were not surprised. The establishment of the ‘Islamic State’ has characterized most of the ...