Online Library

Although researchers know a great deal about persuasive messages that encourage terrorism, they know far less about persuasive messages that denounce terrorism and little about how these two sides come together. We propose a conceptualization that distinguishes a message’s support for an act from its support for the ideology underlying an act. Our prediction is tested using corpus-linguistic analysis of 250 counter-extremist messages written by Muslims and U.K. officials and a comparison set of 250 Muslim extremist messages. Consistent with our prediction, Muslim extremist and Muslim counter-messages show disagreement on terrorist actions but agreement in ideological aspects, while U.K. officials’ counter-messages show disagreement with both Muslim extremists’ acts and ideology. Our findings suggest that counter-messages should not be viewed as a homogenous group and that being against violent extremism does not necessarily equate to having positive perceptions of Western values.

VOX-Pol Blog post.

Since the declaration of the Caliphate in 2014, the Islamic State became a prominent protagonism of contemporary political debate, especially for its unprecedented media flow. Moving from an already vast literature on the topic, the chapter will analyze the video-testaments produced by IS as an internal propaganda format, able to build a sense of community between the fighters and to inspire new generations to join the jihadi effort. After connecting this visual practice with its immediate predecessor (al-Qaeda martyrs’ video-testaments), the chapter will provide an in-depth analysis of these videos, stressing the role of memory and inspiration, as well as their ability to produce a certain narrative of what it means to be a true Muslim.

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.

Discussion of how the war in the Balkans (1992-95) attracted the attention of Muslim foreign fighters, who had mostly participated in a proclaimed defensive-jihad against communist occupation forces in Afghanistan. Chapter in Gunther Hauser, Franz Kernic & Sven Gareis, ‘The European Union: A global actor?’,

An introduction to Jihadism online