Counterterrorism

By Amy-Louise Watkin and Sean Looney To involve children in terrorism is an unthinkable prospect. And yet they have become not only targets of violence, but are being used to promote radicalised causes too. This is not just about European or American children being victims of attacks by the so-called Islamic State (IS). Young people who are ...

This week’s Blog post is the full text of Max Hill QC’s, the UK’s Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, keynote speech from last week’s TASM conference at Swansea University. The speech was widely reported on in media, including in The Guardian and The Times. Ed. By Max Hill There can be no doubt  that social media plays ...

The Terrorism and Social Media Conference (TASM) was held on 27 to 28 June in Swansea University. The event kicked off with a keynote speech by Prof. Bruce Hoffman from Georgetown University entitled “The Threat From ISIS and al Qaeda: Contextualising the Role of Social Media” in which he emphasised that social media has played a serious ...

By Molly Land In the wake of the recent attacks in Manchester and London, British Prime Minister Theresa May has called on social media companies to eliminate “safe spaces” online for extremist ideology. Despite losing the majority in the recent election, she is moving forward with plans to regulate online communications, including in cooperation with ...

By Anne Speckhard, Ph.D. On International Women’s Day it seems important to recognize strong women and the unique characteristics of women to play important roles in defeating terrorism. In the past days, taking part in the Institute for Defense Studies and Analysis Combating Terrorism Conference in New Delhi, India, I had the opportunity to meet and listen to ...

VOX-Pol’s Kate Coyer and Lisa McInerney are participating in a series of meetings of the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC) on preventing terrorist use of the Internet at UN Headquarters in New York today and tomorrow. The CTC was established after the events of 11 September, 2001 to aid States’ abilities to fight terrorism. The CTC-hosted ...

The United Nations General Assembly resolution adopted in July 2016 highlights the need to counter extremist narratives online. In the recent past, extremist content, usually content aiding terrorist activity has become a global concern. This post examines the methods adopted by state authorities and private entities to counter such online extremism. State Response The response to growing ...

by David Donaldson The Australian Defence Force’s latest initiative in the war on the Islamic State, a Twitter account disputing “Daesh lies”, builds on lessons from the problems encountered by earlier attempts at countering IS propaganda — but nobody really knows if it will work. The @fight_DAESH account, which became the object of unwanted attention when ...

By Joshua Sinai In the United States, Canada and Western Europe, dozens of al Qaeda, al-Shabab- and ISIS-related terrorist plots have been thwarted by government counterterrorism agencies through electronic surveillance of terrorist operatives’ suspicious activities on the Internet. While their activities were likely also monitored “on the ground,” the fact that terrorists of all extremist ...

The Brookings Institution, in conjunction with the State of Qatar, convened the 12th annual US-Islamic World Forum in Doha from 1 – 3 June. The Forum’s theme was “Changing Assumptions,” which referred to historic shifts in geopolitical realities affecting the United States and Muslim-majority countries, as well as to societal and cultural norms. VOX-Pol’s Coordinator Dr ...