Egyptian Cinema as a Tool in the Struggle Against Islamic Terrorism

The cinema has been used by Egyptian regimes, from the monarchy until Mubarak, to resist the political agenda of Islamic radicals and terrorists. Edward Said and others describe Islamic terrorists’ images in the Western media as “Western fantasies.” Nevertheless, for Egyptian intellectuals, terrorists were and remain a stark reality. In Egypt, the entire state apparatus was set in motion to fight Islamic terrorism. The state was unprepared for the massive popular uprising of 2011. While the direction that Egyptian culture will follow after Mubarak remains unclear, an important objective is to study pre-revolutionary Egyptian cinema and to understand its ideological tendencies.     

The Institutionalization of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQMI)

A number of observers have expressed serious concerns that Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQMI), as it expands in the Sahel, may become strong enough to be a threat to Europe and carry on the global mission of Al-Qaeda as conceived by bin Laden. This fear seems unwarranted. Using institutional analysis to study the AQMI behavioral fluctuations over the last decade, this article argues that AQMI's need to find a compromise between external and internal legitimacy has constrained its behavior. The affiliation of the Algerian terrorists with Al-Qaeda was in many ways a marriage of convenience that created a number of internal contradictions. At the cognitive level, implicit Algerian nationalism to rid the country of its corrupt regime remains at odds with pan-Islamic views shared by Al-Qaeda's leadership. At the normative level, indiscriminate suicide bombing supported by Al-Qaeda is abhorrent to many Algerian terrorists, who construe their mandate in the spirit of the Algerian war of independence where it is their duty to protect civilians. These and other contradictions prevent AQMI from developing a coherent political agenda and thus it is less likely to engage in a long-term conflict against European societies.     

Al-Qaeda and the Nature of Religious Terrorism

This article examines the nature of religious terrorism, principally with reference to al-Qaeda. It argues that a distinction must be made between the ultimate aims and the immediate objectives of ‘religious’ terrorists, and that while the ultimate aims will be religiously formulated, the immediate objectives will often be found to be almost purely political. This distinction is illustrated with reference to such pre-modern religious terrorists as the Assassins and Zealots. Immediate objectives, are for many purposes more important than ultimate aims.

Although the immediate objectives of al-Qaeda on 9/11 cannot be established with certainty, it is highly probably that the intention was to provoke a response from the US that would have a radicalizing impact on al-Qaeda's constituency. Reference to public opinion in the Middle East, especially in Egypt, shows that this is indeed what has happened. Such an impact is a purely political objective, familiar to historians of terrorism from at least the time of Errico Malatesta and the ‘propaganda of the deed’ in the 1870s. While no direct link between Malatesta and al-Qaeda exists, al-Qaeda was certainly in contact with contemporary theories that Malatesta would have recognized, and seems to have applied them.

Even though its immediate objectives are political rather than religious, al-Qaeda is a distinctively Islamic group. Not only is its chosen constituency a confessional one, but al-Qaeda also uses—and when necessary adapts—well-known Islamic religious concepts to motivate its operatives, ranging from conceptions of duty to conceptions of ascetic devotion. This is demonstrated with reference to the ‘Last Night’ document of 9/11. The conclusion is that terrorism which can be understood in political terms is susceptible to political remedies.     

Strategic Consequences of Radical Islamic Neofundamentalism

Militarized Islamic neofundamentalism is a modern and essentially violent ideology. As an ideology, it cannot be killed, but instead must be supplanted. The strategic objective of defeating the ideology is distinct from, and sometimes in conflict with, the tactical objective of combating terrorists. Managing this tension requires the war on terror to be conceived in essentially political terms, which in turn requires a realignment of U.S. security policy.     

The Palestinian intifada: An analysis of a popular uprising after seven months∗

This study challenges the conventional wisdom that the Internet is a reliable source of operational knowledge for terrorists, allowing them to train for terrorist attacks without access to real-world training camps and practical experience. The article distinguishes between abstract technical knowledge (what the Greeks called techne) and practical, experiential knowledge (mētis), investigating how each helps terrorists prepare for attacks. This distinction offers insight into how terrorists acquire the practical know-how they need to perform their activities as opposed to abstract know-what contained in bomb-making manuals. It also underscores the Internet's limitations as a source of operational knowledge for terrorists. While the Internet allows militants to share substantial techne, along with religious and ideological information, it is not particularly useful for disseminating the experiential and situational knowledge terrorists use to engage in acts of political violence. One likely reason why Al Qaeda and other Islamist terrorists have not made better use of the Internet's training potential to date is that its value as a source of operational knowledge of terrorism is limited.     

Islamikaze and their significance

This article dismisses the terminology of ‘suicide‐bombing’ used to describe the acts of mass murdering committed by Muslim fundamentalists worldwide, posits the Japanese Kamikaze as a control group to depict the nature of this terrorism and coins the term of Islamikaze in consequence. This essay first pieces together the information about the places where these terrorists are trained, and then analyses the psychological and doctrinal make‐up of these groups and individuals, with an emphasis on the jihad and self‐sacrifice that have taken root in certain Islamic traditions. This piece concludes with practical policy guidelines to be adopted by countries who confront this brand of terrorism.     

The role of ideology in terrorists’ target selection

Ideology plays a crucial role in terrorist's target selection; it supplies terrorists with an initial motive for action and provides a prism through which they view events and the actions of other people. Those people and institutions whom they deem guilty of having transgressed the tenets of the terrorists’ ideologically‐based moral framework are considered to be legitimate targets which the terrorists feel justified in attacking. As an extension of this, ideology also allows terrorists to justify their violence by displacing the responsibility onto either their victims or other actors, whom in ideological terms they hold responsible for the state of affairs which the terrorists claim led them to adopt violence. While it is not the only factor which determines whether a potential target is attacked, ideology provides an initial range of legitimate targets and a means by which terrorists seek to justify attacks, both to the outside world and to themselves.     

The Usefulness of Examining Terrorists’ Rhetoric for Understanding the Nature of Different Terror Groups

ABSTRACT

This study advances a distinction between two generic types of terrorists’ rhetoric: (1) ideological rhetoric candidly reflecting the terrorists’ genuine beliefs and values regarding their military targeting policy (who is a legitimate target), even when adopting such rhetoric involves high image/diplomatic costs; and (2) a PR-oriented rhetoric which consciously misrepresents the terrorists’ intentions and behavior in an attempt to project a more benign and humane image, thus maintaining sympathy and rebuffing criticism. We contend that such a distinction can provide a highly useful metric for assessing terrorists groups’ rationality and pragmatism: the most pragmatic groups will shift between these two types of rhetoric depending on changing strategic needs. To show the practical usefulness of this distinction we provide criteria for categorizing terrorists’ rhetorical responses to (mostly liberal-minded) criticism that they have killed innocent civilians in their enemy’s camp. We apply our criteria by examining terrorists’ (sincere and insincere) apologies.     

Terrorism as a strategy of insurgency

This essay describes terrorism as a mode of warfare and examines its unique characteristics, by comparing this method of struggle to other forms of violent conflict. It further emphasizes the role of terrorism as a strategy of insurgence and delineates the main strategic ideas by which terrorists have hoped to achieve their political objectives. The study evaluates terrorists’ success in obtaining political goals and the conditions which affect their ability to materialize their objectives.

The author concludes that the mode of struggle adopted by insurgents is dictated by circumstances rather than by choice, and that whenever possible, insurgents use concurrently a variety of strategies of struggle. Terrorism, which is the easiest form of insurgency, is practically always one of these modes.     

Framing terror: an experimental framing effects study of the perceived threat of terrorism

An exploratory framing effects experiment was conducted to test whether three controversial news portrayals (or frames) of the terrorist threat increase subjects' perceptions of the danger. A total of 176 subjects were exposed to one of eight different article treatments. The subjects reported higher levels of perceived threat when the danger was associated with ‘radical Islamic groups’ (as compared to homegrown terrorists) and ‘nuclear’ technology (as compared to conventional weapons). Contrary to conventional wisdom, however, this study also showed that the term ‘terrorism’ itself did not affect the perceived threat. These results provide support for a theory of framing that explains the precise ways in which a particular set of communicating texts (terrorism news frames) influence human consciousness. Further theoretical details, as well as the social and political implications of this study, are discussed.     

RESEARCH NOTE: OBSERVATIONS OF SUICIDAL TERRORISTS IN ACTION

11 September woke the world up to the scourge of the twenty-first century—suicidal terrorism. Hostage-taking coupled with suicidal terrorism is its newest variant, played out in a Moscow theater in late October 2002. Forty Chechen terrorists armed with automatic rifles, grenades and self-detonating bombs announced to 800 plus hostages that the event was a suicide mission. The standoff ended when Russian Special Forces gassed and stormed the building, killing all the terrorists. Suicidal terrorists are rarely, if ever, observed in action. In the first months after the event, an American psychologist collaborated with Russian Academy of Sciences colleagues to collect interviews from the hostages. This article reports on hostages’ observations, interactions and conversations with the 40 suicidal terrorists.     

Why Democracies Make Superior Counterterrorists

The conventional wisdom is that terrorists tend to target democracies because they are uniquely vulnerable to coercion. Terrorists are able to coerce democracies into acceding to their policy demands because liberal countries suffer from two inherent counterterrorism constraints: (1) the commitment to civil liberties prevents democracies from adopting sufficiently harsh countermeasures to eradicate the terrorism threat, and (2) their low civilian cost tolerance limits their ability to withstand attacks on their civilian populations. This article tests both propositions of the conventional wisdom that (a) terrorists attack democracies over other regime types because (b) liberal constraints render democracies vulnerable to coercion. The data do not sustain either proposition: illiberal countries are the victims of a disproportionate number of terrorist incidents and fatalities, and liberal countries are substantially less likely to make policy concessions to terrorists, particularly on issues of maximal importance. A plausibility probe is then developed to explain why democracies have a superior track record against terrorists. The basic argument is that liberal countries are comparatively resistant to coercion—and hence inferior targets—because they are superior counterterrorists. Liberalism's commitment to civil liberties and low civilian cost tolerance are, in the aggregate, actually strategic assets that help democracies prevail in counterterrorist campaigns, thereby reducing the incentives for terrorists to target this regime type. These findings have important implications for how democracies can defend their liberal values and physical security in the age of terrorism.     

Wolves in sheep clothing or victims of times? Discussing the immoderation of incumbent Islamic parties in Turkey,Egypt, Morocco,and Tunisia

This article discusses the “immoderation” of incumbent Islamic parties – defined by the pursuit of a moral agenda and by an unwillingness to compromise with the opposition – through a comparative study of four incumbent Islamic parties in the socio-politically different regimes of Turkey, Egypt, Morocco, and Tunisia. Building on literature from religion and politics, social psychology, sociology of religion, and on the inclusion-moderation hypothesis, this study argues that (1) Islamic parties’ strong organizations resulted both in their success and in the absence of internal pluralism and that (2) their dominant status in the party system consolidated their majoritarian understanding of democracy. Through its discussion of “immoderation” this study aims to contribute to the interdisciplinary literature on religion and politics.     

Radical Islam and the struggle for influence in Central Asia

The threat of an Iranian‐style Islamic takeover of the newly independent states of Central Asia is currently more of a potential than actual threat to the secular rulers of these countries. Nonetheless, economic, environmental and nationality problems render these rulers vulnerable to a future Islamic potential challenge. The threat of Islam has been used by local leaders to justify dictatorships and intervene in neighboring countries, while foreign governments, such as Turkey and Israel, have sought to exploit the threat of Islam in Central Asia to strengthen their support from the United States. By contrast, Iran has downplayed the Islamic factor in its foreign policy toward these new republics and as a result has enhanced its relationship with Russia, which seeks to establish its hegemony over the region.     

Terrorism-Free Zone in East Central Europe? Strategic Environment,Risk Tendencies,and Causes of Limited Terrorist Activities in the Visegrad Group Countries

The aim of this article is to analyse terrorism and the phenomena linked to it in East Central Europe. In comparison with a number of other regions of today's world, this area can currently seem to be a relatively “terrorism-free zone.” Although the number of terrorist attacks committed in this territory is insignificant, this does not mean that the risk of terrorism is entirely negligible in the region. This text explains some historical determinants of the current situation and describes the consequences both of regime change in the countries in question and of their foreign policy decisions after 1989. I also analyse the importance of East Central Europe as a logistical space for international terrorism (weapons procurement, stays of terrorists, etc.). I characterise the threats of Islamic and Middle Eastern terrorism in connection with the pro-American and pro-Israeli policies of East Central European countries, especially after 9/11, assess the risks posed by the domestic extremist scenes in those countries that have a relationship with terrorism, and take notice of the accusations of terrorism that have been voiced in international politics. On the basis of this data, I then provide an overview of the importance of East Central Europe for the contemporary study of terrorism.     

Conceptualizing the effects of mass‐mediated terrorism

Abstract

In summer 1985, a TWA plane was hijacked by Shiite terrorists to Beirut creating what turned to be one of the most impressive spectacles of the mass‐mediated “theater of terror.” After the event the American media were blamed for fanning the crisis atmosphere, giving the terrorists the publicity they craved, abetting the terrorists by reporting U.S. military movements, holding a brutal competition among themselves to get exclusive footage or interviews, harassing the hostages’ families, negotiating directly with the terrorists, milking the hostages still held by the terrorists for political and ideological declarations, and propagandizing the terrorists’ anti‐U.S. and anti‐Israel messages. The resulting debate that followed these accusations, illustrates the lingering argument regarding media and terrorism. While some claim that “the media are the terrorists’ best friends. The terrorist act by itself is nothing. Publicity is all”,¹ others argue that the media are avoiding the “real terror” for ideological reasons, averting Western public opinion from U.S. terrorism by underreporting its share in Third World Terrorism.² The ideological loadings of definitions and arguments are combined with confused interpretations of media effects and public opinion to yield an endless, futile debate. The purpose of the paper is to conceptualize basic effects of mass‐mediated terrorism by relating media effects studies to the case of terrorism and public opinion.     

论马来西亚伊斯兰复兴运动的组织

20世纪60年代末、70年代初以来,马来西亚兴起伊斯兰复兴运动,对马来西亚的政治、经济、社会与文化发展都起着重要作用。本文通过对马来西亚伊斯兰复兴运动组织的个案研究,分析各种复兴运动组织的目标、策略和活动方式,探讨复兴运动的不同模式及其与马来西亚政治发展的关系,以加深认识伊斯兰复兴运动的本质和自身发展规律。     

Killing and Voting in the Basque Country: An Exploration of the Electoral Link Between ETA and its Political Branch

We deal in this article with the relationship between ETA attacks and electoral support for Batasuna, its political wing. We show that the relationship is twofold, since the geographical distribution of electoral support for the terrorists affects the location of ETA attacks, but violence also influences electoral support for the terrorist cause. On the one hand, when ETA chooses a location for its attacks, it takes into account the electoral strength of Batasuna. Our results show that the higher the vote for Batasuna in a municipality, the more likely members of the security forces will be killed there. With regard to the targeting of civilians, the relationship is curvilinear. ETA kills civilians in municipalities that are polarized, where support for Batasuna falls short of being hegemonic. On the other hand, our results also show that ETA attacks have an effect on the size of its support community. When ETA kills members of the security forces, voters punish the Batasuna party electorally. In the case of civilians, it depends on the specifics of the various campaigns. We find that when ETA kills informers and drug-dealers, the vote for Batasuna increases. ETA's killing of non-nationalist politicians, however, decreases Batasuna's vote share.     

Comparing Extremist Perpetrators of Suicide and Non-Suicide Attacks in the United States

ABSTRACT

This study explores differences in perpetrators of suicide attacks and non-suicide attacks in the United States. The study uses data on far-right and Al Qaeda and affiliated/inspired terrorists between 1990 and 2013 from the United States Extremist Crime Database. Our analysis estimates logistic regression models to test whether suicide attackers were more likely to have exhibited specific risk factors for suicidality, while examining other prominent claims regarding patterns of suicide terrorism. Suicide attackers were no more likely than non-suicide attackers to have previously attempted suicide or to have been diagnosed as mentally ill. Suicide attackers were more likely, though, to have a history of substance abuse, to be loners, have served in the military, participated in paramilitary training, and be more ideologically committed to the cause. We found that Al Qaeda affiliated/inspired attackers were more likely than far-right attackers to have engaged in a suicide mission. With the current focus on Americans traveling to Syria and Iraq to receive training and fight for jihadist movements (e.g., the Islamic State), our findings appear relevant. Observers have expressed concern that these fighters may return and then commit attacks in their homeland. Law enforcement could make use of this study’s findings.     

Egypt's struggle against the militant Islamic groups

This study deals with the militant Islamic challenge to the Egyptian regime during the early 1990s. The article analyzes the militant Islamic groups’ modes of operation and the regime's counter‐measures. This analysis leads to the conclusion that although the Islamic groups are a major source of instability in Egypt, their ability to overthrow the government and to establish an Islamic order is doubtful. The militant Islamic groups would be able to pose a viable alternative to the regime only if they could overcome the disputes among themselves, broaden their socioeconomic infrastructure, penetrate the army and find a charismatic leader capable of attracting and leading the masses.