FREErad!cals - The ICSR Blog

Don�t hold your breath �

Ahron Bregman — 2010-09-02

Peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians have resumed in Washington. However, to say that I'm holding my breath and expecting a breakthrough would be an exaggeration, to say the least.

I think that two important indicators could signal to us when this all turns into a serious exercise:

The first would be a new coalition in Israel. My impression is that, by now, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu understands – intellectually – that the occupation must come to an end. But politically he isn’t ready for a change; his current coalition government is composed of parties and individuals (see my previous post 'No Peace, I’m afraid') who are just too right-wing to accept a deal with a two-state solution at its h

Sectarian threats in the UK

John Bew — 2010-09-01

In early June I blogged about the sectarian attacks on two mosques in Lahore, in which over 70 people were murdered. The mosques belonged to the Ahmadiyya community, a Muslim minority group who have increasingly become a target for sectarian Islamist groups in Pakistan, who allege that the Ahmadiyya represent a deviant sect of Islam.

Partly because of official persecution in Pakistan, the Ahmadiyya moved their headquarters to the UK in the 1980s. But the presence of Ahmadiyyas in the UK goes back over a century and predates the waves of immigration from South Asia since the 1960s. It is a worrying development therefore that some of the sectarian animosity faced by the Ahmadiyya in South Asia seems to be gaining traction in the suburbs of Britain.

According to the Surrey Comet, a police investigation has recently been launched following a leaflet campaign calling on Muslims to murder ‘

Counting Britain�s Jihad

Raff Pantucci — 2010-08-27

The chaps over at the Center for Social Cohesion were kind enough to share with me a copy of their recent comprehensive text Islamist Terrorism: The British Connections. It got quite a bit of media attention at the time of publication, as it was basically the only substantial text to be published in time for the five year anniversary of the 2005 bombings on the London underground (this is not to forget the special edition of International Affairs that also came out at around the same time featuring a number of heavy hitters in the world of terrorism studies).

The report meticulously goes through all of the “Islamist related offences” committed in the UK between 1999-2009, though it looks as far back as 1993 for plots which have British links: some early fighter

The Islamist Irgun Strategy: The Cordoba Initiative Mosque and Cultural Center

Amm Sam — 2010-08-26

(Dis)Loyal readers: I have taken a position that does not allow me much opportunity to blog, so I apologize for my long and unexplained absence. But on to the matter at hand.

There is no shortage of commentary about the “Ground Zero Mosque,” which is neither at Ground Zero nor exactly just a mosque, so I will keep this short and try to contribute an original perspective. I am not going to address what I think about the morality, wisdom, and legality of the decision to build this center in close proximity to the site of the World Trade Center. We have all had enough of that. I only focus on the strategic angle.

To be clear at the outset, I do not think the Cordoba Initiative is Islamist-inclined. However, as a friend of mine, who is good at assessing these things, recently noted in an email to me:

My own view…is that the Cordoba guys are not Islamists. At least not in a meaningful way. Certainly, Islamists wil

Anwar Al Awlaki�s Global Reach

Raff Pantucci — 2010-08-03

Yemeni-American preacher Anwar al Awlaki has becoming something of an international boogeyman, with traces and connections to him being found amongst an ever expanding array of terrorist plots around the world. According to the U.S., he has gone beyond being a nuisance preacher to being actively involved in terrorist plotting – his connections to underpants bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab have earned him a place on the U.S. Predator hit-list.

But in many ways, more interesting than his apparently growing role as a preacher moving up the ladder to training individuals, is his ability to reach out through cyberspace to an ever-expanding and diverse community of people. Two recent cases highlight this in particular: Paul “Bilal” Rockwood and his wife Nadia in Alaska, and on the other side of the world in Singapore, On Spies and Introductions I’ve already referred to the unfortunate Marwan Affair.

I knew Ashraf Marwan, the son-in-law of Egypt’s former President Gamal Abdel Nasser, quite well. In Israel’s Wars I hinted that he was an Egyptian spy who misled the Israeli Mossad, and I went on to provide more details in A History of Israel.

However, my concealed references to him in these and ot

Poverty and Terror

Raff Pantucci — 2010-07-09

It has become something of an article of faith to say that poverty and economic misfortune are not drivers of terrorism. This seems a sensible conclusion to reach when one considers the volume of poverty and misery in the world and the relatively small volume of terrorists that emerge from it. Were poverty truly a determinant of a predilection for terrorist radicalization then theoretically speaking there would be far more terrorists in this world than there are.

But at the same time, it seems clear that there is some sort of correlation between social deprivation and radicalization – even if only from the perspective that it often appears as a constant in communities where radicalization seems able to take root (though of course this is not always the case). This is a difficult correlation to understand as it is not one that appears to exist on a steady or universal gradient, but it is clearly plays some sort of a role in the radicalization picture.

Underst

Keynote Address: Tzipi Livni

ICSR — 2010-07-01

H.E. Tzipi Livni brought the event to a close with an hour long speech entitled ‘Fighting Against Terror – Fighting for Peace’, in which she discussed a range of issues surrounding the Middle East peace process and Israel’s standing on the world stage. Below is a summary of the speech, the full recording of which will be made available on this site shortly.

She began by explaining that the main threat to Israel emanates from extreme religious ideologies which reject the values of the free world. The extremists who imbibe these beliefs fight to take away the rights and freedoms that they so often claim to represent, and are a threat not only to Israel, but to all liberal democracies.

Livni argued that organisations like Hamas and Hezbollah are at odds with the beliefs of their host governments, the Palestinian Authority and Leba

Panel Discussion: How Terrorism Ends

ICSR — 2010-07-01

‘How Terrorism Ends’ was the title of the final panel discussion of the conference, and despite a packed two day schedule, the speakers remained on top form. Moderated again by Dr. Peter Neumann, the panelists were: Professor Audrey Kurth Cronin, author of How Terrorism Ends; Shiraz Maher, Senior Research Fellow, ICSR and former seniot member of the British wing of Hizb ut-Tahrir; Hekmat Karzai, Director of the Centre for Conflict and Peace Studies in Kabul; and Michael Semple, Fellow at Harvard’s Carr Centre.

Audrey Kurth Cronin kicked off the session by giving the audience a quick overview of the findings of her fine book, in which she identified the six main ways that terrorist groups come to an end:

1) A decapitation of the group in which the leader is killed or captured and the organisation dissolves;

2) Successful negotiations;

3) The group succeeds in