Online Library

Jihadis have long shared military-related information and expertise on top jihadi forums. Recently, much of that information has been circulated on the various social media outlets, as well. The shared information varies, from original content to translations, summaries, and recommended reading of non-Arabic material. Contrary to the common notion that jihadis are suspicious of, and avoiding circulating, any material originating from “enemy” sources, jihadis visiting military and technology sections on top jihadi forums in fact thrive on a broad base of information, especially information originating with “enemy” sources. This report provides an overview of military and technology-related subsections on the main jihadi forums.

This study explores how terrorists utilise the Internet to learn bomb-making skills. Unlike previous studies, it does not focus on assessing the quality of online bomb recipes. Rather, it discusses the efforts being made by on-line jihadists to help others learn by providing so-called “e-learning courses.” As of today, such courses have few active participants yet they tend to attract large interest – indicating that there is a demand among Al-Qaeda’s online sympathisers for developing this concept further.

While the use of the internet and social media as a tool for extremists and terrorists has been well documented, understanding the mechanisms at work has been much more elusive. This paper begins with a grounded theory approach guided by a new theoretical approach to power that utilises both terrorism cases and extremist social media groups to develop an explanatory model of radicalisation. Preliminary hypotheses are developed, explored and refined in order to develop a comprehensive model which is then presented. This model utilises and applies concepts from social theorist Michel Foucault, including the use of discourse and networked power relations in order to normalise and modify thoughts and behaviors. The internet is conceptualised as a type of institution in which this framework of power operates and seeks to recruit and radicalise. Overall, findings suggest that the explanatory model presented is a well suited, yet still incomplete in explaining the process of online radicalisation.

An examination of the organisational nature of the threat posed by jihadi terrorism, supplying quantitative and qualitative data on the dynamics behind the creation, evolution, and disappearance of the main jihadi Internet forums during the period 2008–2012. An analysis of the origins and functions of the forums, their links with terrorist organizations, their internal structures, and the processes accounting for their stability in cyberspace shows that far from representing a horizontal structure where the main actors are a network of followers, the terrorist presence on the Internet is in fact a hierarchical organization in which intervention by formal terrorist organizations plays a crucial role.

Demystifying the Abu Mansur Saga

How do right-wing extremist organisations throughout the world use the Internet as a tool for communication and recruitment? What is its role in identity-building within radical right-wing groups and how do they use the Internet to set their agenda, build contacts, spread their ideology and encourage mobilization? This important contribution to the field of Internet politics adopts a social movement perspective to address and examine these important questions. Conducting a comparative content analysis of more than 500 extreme right organizational web sites from France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States, it offers an overview of the Internet communication activities of these groups and systematically maps and analyses the links and structure of the virtual communities of the extreme right. Based on reports from the daily press the book presents a protest event analysis of right wing groups’ mobilisation and action strategies, relating them to their online practices. In doing so it exposes the new challenges and opportunities the Internet presents to the groups themselves and the societies in which they exist.