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VOX-Pol Blog post.

VOX-Pol Blog post.

VOX-Pol Blog post.

In 1993, a largely forgotten neo-Nazi named Milton Kleim Jr. launched (what was yet to be called a website titled) “Aryan News Network” with the proto-internet platform USENET. Building upon more than a decade of revolutionary new communications technologies—embraced early and often by right-wing extremists—this peer-to-peer tool was intended as a form of ‘guerrilla warfare’ against the ‘main–stream media.’

Just three years ago, the Islamic State’s Central Africa Province was the poster child for the Islamic State’s efforts to maintain a constant and lingering threat across the globe. That year, the group conducted a series of regional terrorist attacks across Central and East Africa, and expanded inside the Democratic Republic of the Congo. More importantly, it produced a plethora of propaganda releases, making it one of the most active Islamic State’s affiliates on the continent. Today, this has largely changed. While still a serious and deadly threat inside Congo and beyond, its propaganda output is a shell of its former self. This decline is, in part, thanks to the current joint Ugandan-Congolese operations against it.

Homegrown Sunni extremists (jihadis) and Latin American street gang members (cholos) represent potential threats to national security. Both groups are known to inhabit the video- sharing website YouTube. Videos representative of each group were selected at random, and the visual motifs in the videos were categorized. Findings suggest similarities and differences between the two groups that may have significance for how practitioners address each threat, and for determining the likelihood that the two groups may begin to work in concert. The portraits that emerge of jihadis and cholos may assist in developing strategies to counter the violence perpetrated by each.