Middle Eastern terrorism in Europe: Trends and prospects

Abstract

Europe has been the preferred operational area for Middle Eastern terrorist groups—some 418 attacks from 1980–1989. Unlike European Marxist revolutionary or separatist terrorist groups, the Middle Eastern groups present Europe with a regional security problem. The most dangerous element in this Middle Eastern terrorist threat is the state‐sponsored activities of Iran, Libya, Syria, and Iraq. These countries provided the fuel for a decade of Middle Eastern terrorist bloodshed in Europe. Given the problems of solving the various political conflicts and feuds in the Middle East and the continuing attractiveness of Europe as a substitute battlefield for Middle Eastern terrorist elements, the threat of Middle Eastern terrorist activity in Europe should continue into the 1990s.     

Islamist questioning and [C]olonialism: towards an understanding of the Islamist oeuvre

This paper revisits the narratives of two South Asian ‘Islamists' to explore what their questions and critiques offer for a discussion on Colonialism and the Islamist oeuvre. Departing from resilient biases in scholarship that dismiss the need to engage Islamist expressions, I focus on a realm of Islamist self-understandings. This paper highlights key facets of Muhammad Iqbal's and Abul Ala Maududi's questions of Colonialism and their psychological implications, and uncovers their metaphors and reconstructions that operate as technologies of critique. I also emphasize the urgency to engage these Islamists in light of the inadequacies of present scholarship on this topic, and the diverse translation and appropriation of their questions. This study bears implications for the understanding of Islamist consciousness and the broader rubric of Muslim intellectualism.     

Hezbollah: Islamist Resistance Comes of Age

The Iranian revolution—the political realization of the "Great Refusal" of Western modernization—was a direct consequence a half century later of the forced secularization of the Ottoman Caliphate by Kemal Ataturk. With the superstructure of the Muslim ummah dismantled and replaced by the Turkish nation state, insurgent religious movements, from the (Sunni) Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt to the Shiite imams of Qum and Najaf, moved into the vacuum to reclaim Islam from the shadow of Western dominance.
Now, history is turning again. Iran has been seized by violent turmoil as it seeks to reconcile democracy and religious rule. Secular Turkey is governed by an Islamist-rooted party. As they struggle to regain their balance, the global economic meltdown threatens a convergence against globalization that joins the Islamist resistance with populist backlashes elsewhere.
Two legendary intelligence agents, a Hezbollah leader, an Iranian dissident philosopher and Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian human rights lawyer and Nobel Laureate, examine this historical turn.     

Offshore energy terrorism: Perspectives on a problem

Abstract

This essay examines prevailing perspectives on the prospect of terrorist sabotage against the offshore oil and gas industry in the Gulf of Mexico. It contrasts the dominant “wait‐and‐see” attitude in the United States with counterterrorist preparations by the North Sea countries, and suggests some of the reasons for this difference in attitudes.     

Nationalists without a nation: South Moluccan terrorism in the Netherlands

Abstract

This article focuses on the phenomenon of South Moluccan terrorism in the Netherlands. Beginning with a historical examination of the colonial relationship between the Netherlands and Indonesia, attention is then given to the circumstances in which some 21,000 South Moluccans came to the Netherlands in the early 1950s, and the social, economic, and political conditions of the South Moluccan community in Holland since then. Then follows a detailed examination of the main incidents of South Moluccan terrorism in the Netherlands which climaxed in a series of violent incidents against Dutch and Indonesian targets in the mid‐1970s. Special attention is placed on the ways in which successive Dutch governments have responded to the various outbreaks of terrorism, as well as to the effects of this terrorism on public opinion. The article then shows what effects South Moluccan terrorism has had on the policies of Dutch and Indonesian governments; on national and international public opinion; on the South Moluccans in the Moluccas; and on the international terrorist community. The paper concludes that the focus of South Moluccan terrorism in the Netherlands is likely to shift from attempts to secure an independent homeland for their people to closer contacts with other terrorist groups espousing anti‐colonial, anti‐imperialist, and nationalist ideals.     

Selective Engagement with Islamist Terrorists: Exploring the Prospects

Despite claims to the contrary, governments have frequently talked to groups branded as terrorists in their efforts to find peaceful solutions to longstanding armed conflicts. The rhetoric of the so-called War on Terror has tended to portray an uncompromising and extreme, monolithic Islamist enemy with whom such accommodation is unthinkable. Therefore, it is not surprising that the potential for dialogue and negotiation with Islamist terrorist groups has been relatively neglected. This article examines the character of the contemporary Islamist threat and explores the prospects for selective engagement with terrorist groups that may not share Al Qaeda's global jihadist agenda.     

Transformative Radicalization: Applying Learning Theory to Islamist Radicalization

While a consensus has emerged concerning the role radicalization plays in persuading Westerners to participate in terrorism, little research investigates the cognitive processes inherent to radicalization processes. Transformative learning theory, developed from the sciences in education and rehabilitation, offers an interdisciplinary lens with which to study the processes of personal change associated with radicalization. Transformative radicalization explains how triggering factors lead to critical reflection of meaning perspectives and personal belief systems that guide and alter behavior. Using an autobiographical account of the radicalization process, this study offers a plausibility probe of an inherently interdisciplinary and novel theoretical framework.     

Environmental terrorism: A case study

Abstract

The radical environmental movement, Earth First, was founded in 1980 by David Foreman, a Washington environmental lobbyist. Adopting as their slogan “No compromise in the defense of Mother Earth,” the movement progressed through the early formative stages usually associated with protest groups: letter‐writing campaigns, staged protests, sit‐ins, antiestablishment skits, and so forth. But over the past several years, Earth First has turned to violence, sabotage, and terrorism against land developers and the lumber, oil, and electricity industries.

Their well‐educated, white, middle‐class members have more recently focused their attention on planning serious attacks on nuclear facilities and associated electric systems. In 1986 they were responsible for a successful attack on the Palo Verdes nuclear facility's transmission lines. In June 1989, three members were arrested for attempting to cut down power lines in Arizona as part of a plan to disrupt operations at the Diablo Canyon nuclear generating plant. The overall radical environmentalist movement and its sabotage efforts appear to be spreading. On April 29, 1990, eco‐terrorists claimed responsibility for a serious sabotage incident in Palo Alto, California, and on the same day power lines were sabotaged in Fairfax County, Virginia, by unknown perpetrators.

It is clear that in the United States a national ecoterrorist network exists whose main purpose is to commit illegal acts in defense of the environment. These ecoter‐rorists appear to be gaining strength as well as the capability to increase their activities around the country. The radical environmentalist movement has the potential to become the country's major domestic terrorism problem.     

Islamist Communities on VKontakte: Identification Mechanisms and Network Structure

Abstract

This article examines the presence of extremist online communities on the Russian social network VKontakte following the tightening by Russian federal аuthorities of internet counter-extremism policies and censorship. Extremist communities were detected using linguistic markers for extremist attitudes and radical violence. The study of socio-demographic data and network metrics of Islamist extremist communities reveals some general tendencies in the Russian context: a majority of female participants, a highly decentralised community network structure, radical Salafism as the mainstream ideology and covert proselytisation through the discussion of Islamic theology and lifestyle issues that are not in themselves extremist.     

The Potential of Islamist Terrorism in Sub-Saharan Africa

This paper is about the potential of terrorism in African Islamic movements. In order to lessen ambiguities related to the plethora of definitions given to the Islamist phenomenon, the various definitions related to the phenomenon of Islamism are examined as introductory information indispensable to the understanding of the topic. While it describes the encounter of sub-Saharan Africa with Islam, it also covers a number of movements in different countries in the African continent: Nigeria, Tanzania, Senegal, Kenya, South Africa, Somalia, Ethiopia, Niger, Mali, Chad, and Sudan. In all of these countries, the emergence of Islamic movements, their socio-political status, their present position in relation to the ongoing debate on their perceived radicalization or their supposed threat of violence or terrorism are comparatively analyzed.     

Resurgent religious terrorism: A study of some of the Lebanese Shi'a contemporary terrorism

Abstract

This study introduces the concept of geocultural immobility. A minority's geocultural immobility is identified as an imposed low geographic mobility within a nation with low cultural pluralism. It establishes the Lebanese Shi'a geocultural immobility, to which it attributes their religious resurgence. This Lebanese Shi'a religious resurgence is proven in this research to produce the zealots needed by religious terrorist organizations. This study also introduces and defines religious terrorism as violent acts performed by elements of religious organizations or sects, growing out of a commitment to communicate a divine message. It makes distinctions among religious terrorism, secular terrorism, and fighters for religious freedom, which are based on the actors' motives, affinities, and consciousness of the maliciousness of their acts. The primary and secondary data and the quasiexperiment in this research support its special hypotheses. They indicate a statistical correlation between eight Lebanese Shi ‘a cultural and religious attributes.     

European terrorism: A German perspective

Abstract

Concentrating on terrorism in West Germany, Italy, and the Basque provinces of Spain, the author presents a detailed picture of the motivations, the strategies, and the ‘'achievements” of a number of the best known groups which for alleged political purposes take the law into their own hands. The Red Armee Faction, perhaps the best known West German terrorist group, and the 2nd of June Movement as well as such organizations as the Revolutionary Cells and the Guerilla Diffusa are described and their aims and activities are scrutinized. German right‐wing terrorism is also shown to wield great power, its contacts with terrorists in Lebanon and Algeria rivaling those of leftist organizations. Italian terrorism is also fully covered in this paper, with the activities of the Red Brigades, the best‐known of the leftist organizations, and its international connections, as well as other groups and the individuals involved being dealt with in some detail. The events in Spain, past and present, due especially to Basque terrorism, are considered, and the Soviet influence, represented by terrorist organizations in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Cuba, is discussed as is also the outlook for the future.     

Research note: Rand's research on terrorism

Repeatedly, during the last few years, small groups of extremists have demonstrated that by using terrorist tactics they can achieve disproportionate effects. They attract worldwide attention to themselves and their causes; they arouse worldwide alarm, and can create international incidents that national governments are compelled to deal with, often before a worldwide audience. To protect against their attacks or to respond to crisis situations they create, they force governments to expend resources—manpower, money, the attention of senior officials—vastly out of scale with the magnitude of the actual threat they pose.¹     

Medical technology in combatting terrorism

State‐sponsored terrorism is a form of coercion, backed up by the threat and use of violence, to achieve political ends. These terrorist tactics also involve signaling of intentions and responses between the terrorist sponsor and those whom it targets. Accordingly this study examines Iranian state sponsorship of anti‐U.S. terrorism in the period of 1980–1990 as an example of political communication aimed at manipulating U.S. policy through the threat and use of violence. Official Iranian media are quantitatively content‐analyzed to demonstrate their systematic use of threat‐projections as warnings and indications to the U.S. in this period.