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Independent review of how Terrorism Act 2000 & of Part 1 of the Terrorism Act 2006 were operated in the UK in 2009

The judicial cases featured in this Digest cover relevant aspects of the international legal regime against terrorism. It provides a comparative analysis of national statutory frame- works for terrorism prosecutions, and it identifies legal issues and pitfalls encountered in investigating and adjudicating relevant offences. In addition, it identifies practices related to specialized investigative and prosecutorial techniques. It also addresses the links between terrorism and other forms of crime (like organized crime, the trafficking of drugs, people and arms), as well as how to disrupt terrorist financing.

In this report a team of scholars critically assesses both the “cyberutopian” and “cyberskeptic” perspectives on the impact of new media on political movements. The authors propose a more complex approach that looks at the role of new media in contentious politics from five interlocking levels of analysis: individual transformation, intergroup relations, collective action, regime policies, and external attention.

Responding to critical questions on the al-Hebah Forum in 2007, the leading chief ideologue of AQIM, Abu ‘l-Hassan Rashid, provides a chilly look on the jihadists practical understanding and definition of deploying suicide-bombers and the potential of killing innocent Muslim bystanders during such operations. The 2007 document is based on comprising Arabic sources that have been over the years disseminated and amended by the means of the internet. The article intends to provide an assessment of alleged Islamic principles used for such attacks and draws on a comprising database of jihadist writings and videos. Rashid cites and builds his arguments on writings that can be in the meantime termed as common understanding and knowledge by most sympathizers on- and offline. By including AQIM videos the article intends to further analyze the practical incorporation of the language and notion of the jihadists as portrayed and disseminated by AQ’s video outlets.

Der Artikel bietet anhand der Rhetorik ausgewählter arabischer Quellen des Dschihad einen Einblick in die Motivation und die Definition sogenannter Glaubensbekenner-Operationen. Wesentlicher Bestandteil ist das Grundverständnis, dass solche Arten von Operationen rechtlich erlaubt sind und keinen Selbstmord darstellen. Diese Operationen werden von Gott im Jenseits belohnt und sind integraler historischer Teil der militärisch- operativen Vorgehensweise früher Muslime im Denken dschihadistischer Gelehrter, die diese Taktiken in die Gegenwart übertragen und entsprechend sanktionieren. Anhand der im Internet auf einschlägigen Foren und Webseiten veröffentlichten Interviews, Videos und Statements nach der Glaubensbekenner-Operation des palästinensisch-stämmigen Abu Dujana gegen eine von der CIA betriebene „Forward Operations Base“ in Khost, Afghanistan, wird der Artikel nach einem theoretischen Teil mit pragmatischen Argumenten durch die Dschihadisten abgeschlossen.

[Chapter in, “New Approaches to the Analysis of Jihadism: On and Offline”, Rüdiger Lohlker (ed.)] Jihadism has been an important issue of public discussions since 9/11. Internet media have been used by Jihadis as means of communication, propaganda, recruitment, and even training purposes. In this volume, the processes of interaction on Jihadi internet sites are analysed. Particular attention lays on the mechanisms of spread of propaganda via the internet by diverse technical means. The process of transformation of Islamic knowledge into Jihadi knowledge, the rhetorics of videos, the development of South Asian Jihadi organisations and some conceptual issues are discussed.