Homegrown Violent Extremism in Trinidad and Tobago: Local Patterns,Global Trends

The article examines the subject of homegrown violent extremism related to militant Islamism in the dual-Island Caribbean state of Trinidad and Tobago (T & T). It employs original research drawn from a series of semi-structured interviews and focus groups conducted between November 2015 and January 2016. Tracing the evolution of endogenous forms of radicalism and extremism the article considers how globalized-exogenous forms of militant Islamism associated with Al Qaeda and its offshoots, such as the so-called Islamic State, have impacted local patterns of violent extremism. The case study draws attention to a state and a region that have received scant attention in terrorism studies. As demonstrated by the article, this oversight is imprudent. There are a number of noteworthy findings from this case study for terrorism studies scholars: the unique historical legacy of radicalism, extremism and insurrection among T & T's Islamists; the country's markedly high levels of extremist travelers on a per capita basis and the high rate of religious converts among those travelers; the inter-linkages between criminality and political violence; and the potential threat posed by Trinidadian and Tobagonian militancy regionally.     

Endgames: Improving Our Understanding of Homegrown Terrorism

This article examines how the phenomenon of homegrown terrorism has evolved over the past decade. It argues that there have been significant developments that impact how we conceptualize and study it and offers two suggestions moving forward. It argues that re-branding it Islamist-inspired homegrown terrorism (IIHGT) better captures the nuances of this phenomenon and that sub-dividing it by “endgame,” the action the radicalized individual pursues creates the opportunity for a more robust analysis and provides a better way to compare incidents and identify traits that our current efforts overlook. Focusing on the action component may also provide a new way to investigate radicalization as the different endgames represent an escalation in violence, suggesting different degrees of radicalization might also be present.     

Reluctant terrorists? Transcaucasian social-cemocracy, 1901 – 1909

This article discusses the development of Transcaucasian social-democratic terrorism from 1901 to 1909. For two reasons the ‘psychohistorical’ model emphasising the subjective and irrational aspects of terrorism has only limited value for the Transcaucasian case. First, the significance of the contextual factor is powerfully underscored by the phenomenon of workers' ‘economic terrorism’. It was not uncommon even, for workers to blackmail reluctant party organisations into supporting the killing of their enemies. Secondly, the social democrats were not driven by irrational urges but followed a rationally motivated and selective terrorist strategy. They attempted to limit or prevent workers' terrorism from below, the ‘anarchist’ potential of which they considered a threat to the organised mass struggle. They set their hopes on a division of labour, with a militant but mostly peaceful workers' movement and terrorism as the prerogative of the party.     

Single-Issue Terrorism: A Neglected Phenomenon?

The willingness of some single-issue groups to use violence in the pursuit of their cause has received surprisingly little attention within the literature on terrorism. This article seeks to add to our understanding of this phenomenonnamely that of single-issue terrorismby focusing on the increasing tendency of groups within the British animal rights movement to utilize violent methods in order to achieve their objectives. The article will seek to further the argument that some single-issue groups have been willing to use violence in past campaigns, thereby highlighting the understudied nature of the phenomenon. This will be illustrated by examining the campaign of single-issue terrorism undertaken by the militant suffragettes in Britain in the 1910s.     

“From Terrorists to Peacekeepers”: The IRA's Disengagement and the Role of Community Networks

Utilizing interviews with former Irish Republican Army (IRA) members, Loyalists, and community workers, the article looks at how militants in Northern Ireland have helped to prevent terrorism and political violence (TPV) by adopting roles in the community. By using mobile phones, a network of former combatants emerged around interface areas in the late 1990s to contain trigger causes of terrorism, providing a unique role that the state could not. The structure of the network encouraged militant groups to follow the IRA's example to disengage—thus creating a domino effect—and the co-operation between senior militants has limited the opportunities for other groups to mobilize a campaign of terrorism.     

Career moves: Reflections on the Irish gunman

Abstract

The article, based on a generation of contacts with the militant Irish republican movement in general and the Provisional IRA in particular, focuses on: who becomes a gunman and why; who is chosen as a gunman by the leadership and why; what are the characteristics of an active service volunteer; what and who make a good gunman and why—the virtues, characteristics, and craft of the contemporary Irish gunmen; and the result of a gunman's career for the movement, the opposition, and the individual.     

Wahhabism as a Militant Form of Islam on Europe's Doorstep

This article examines the impact of the spreading of Wahhabism (as one of the most militant religious teachings) on the escalation of international terrorism on European soil. It tries to point out potential hazards and propose possible measures to protect Western Europe from further penetration of this conservative Islamic movement through the Balkans. In order to elaborate the stated interdependency, this article includes our analysis of the phenomenon and spreading of Wahhabism throughout the Balkans, more concretely—on the territories of the Republic of Serbia, Montenegro, as well as Bosnia and Herzegovina. This is precisely the region where Wahhabism has made its first step to “conquer” Europe.     

The Terror Speaks: Inside Pakistan's Terrorism Discourse and National Action Plan

This article, employing a poststructuralist Critical Discourse Analysis, reveals cracks, discrepancies, and inconsistencies in Pakistan's discourse on terrorism and practice. I argue that Pakistan continuously constructs a “monstrous enemy” and magnifies it in a way that conceals alternative representations of reality that could show that the state, by presenting itself as a victim of terrorism, is using phenomena of political violence to serve its political objectives inside and outside the boundaries of the state. The article argues that after a militant attack on a school in northwest Pakistan, critical, liberal, and dissenting narratives mingled with the dominant state discourse in a fashion that strengthen illiberal practices in the country, thus undermining the ideals of democracy.     

Toward a Behavioral Model of “Homegrown” Radicalization Trajectories

This research note presents a dynamic risk assessment model of homegrown terrorists. The model was tested in a study of convicted “homegrown” American terrorism offenders inspired by Al Qaeda's ideology. The New York Police Department model developed by Silber and Bhatt was chosen as the basis for creating a typology of overt and detectable indicators of individual behaviors widely thought to be associated with extremism. Twenty-four specific cues associated with each stage of radicalization were used to code and estimate the sequencing of behaviors and the duration of the average radicalization trajectory. Sixty-eight cases have been analyzed thus far. A decision was made to publish the initial results when it became apparent that the model was an effective tool for the evaluation of terrorist offenders.     

Exploring the “Root Causes” of Terrorism

This article attempts to clarify what is meant by “root causes” and considers if their analysis helps to explain and describe how, where, and why terrorism occurs. In attempting to explore—but not definitively resolve—these challenges, the article will attempt to delineate “root causes” into qualitative and quantitative variables that can be empirically tested in relation to contemporary terrorist activity. In so doing, it considers the relative merits of different methodologies for approaching “root causes.” The article concludes that indirect and underlying sources of conflict are significant to understanding specific incidents of terrorism and certain categories of terrorism; that “root causes” are less helpful in describing and explaining terrorism as a general phenomenon; and that root causes are of analytical use only in conjunction with precipitant factors.     

Violent Radicalization in Europe: What We Know and What We Do Not Know

When, why, and how do people living in a democracy become radicalized to the point of being willing to use or directly support the use of terrorist violence against fellow citizens? This question has been at the center of academic and public debate over the past years as terrorist attacks and foiled plots inspired by militant Islamism have grabbed European and American headlines. This article identifies and discusses empirical studies of radicalization and points to the strengths as well as the weaknesses characterizing these studies. The aim is to take stock of the current state of research within this field and to answer the question: From an empirical point of view, what is known and what is not known about radicalization connected to militant Islamism in Europe?     

Failure and Disengagement in the Red Army Faction

This article examines the factors that have contributed to the end of the Red Army Faction (RAF), and places particular emphasis on the causes and characteristics of individual disengagement of RAF members from the armed struggle. It discusses the evolution, ideology, and decline of each of the three generations of the RAF. The article's contribution is twofold. First, by assessing both contextual- and individual-level factors that led to the group's demise, the article bridges two approaches to analyzing the demise of terrorist organizations—the literature on how terrorism ends and why individuals disengage from terrorism. Second, the article helps build a growing empirical body of work on the demise of terrorist groups that can be used to confirm, challenge, or refine existing hypotheses on how terrorism ends, while formulating new ones. The article concludes that different factors contributed to the decline of each subsequent generation of the RAF. Successful German police efforts played a critical role in thwarting the RAF's first generation. Lack of public support and recruits, due in large part to an escalation of terrorist violence, hastened the decline of the second generation of the group. The third generation suffered from serious interorganizational strife, exacerbated by a government initiative that offered to release those RAF members from prison who renounced terrorism.     

The Role of International Clientelism in the National Factionalism of Palestine

In this article I investigate the role of the international community's policy in the national factionalism in Palestine. I attempt to illuminate how international policy has contributed to the sustaining of internecine Palestinian violence as Fatah, which lost the elections in 2005 and 2006, has been motivated not to hand over power. In the process of selecting allies in the fight against Islamist terrorism, the epitomic undemocratic feature of Arab political culture, clientelism, has been promoted over democracy. Hamas seizing power in Gaza in 2007 probably resulted from the need to tame unruly militant groups which were sponsored by leaders of the Palestinian Fatah party, which again were supported by Western powers. To understand the national splitting in Palestine there is a need to analyse the interconnection between warlords, local clientelism and international clientelism.     

North African Immigrants in Europe and Political Violence

North African communities in Europe have been the focus of unprecedented attention since the attacks of 9/11, largely thanks to the wave of arrests of North Africans on terrorism related charges across the continent. Yet very little is known about exactly who these North African militants are, what is motivating them and how and why they became attracted to radical interpretations of Islam. It is often assumed that these radicals are linked to Al Qaeda and share the same broad internationalist vision. A closer look suggests that these first generation immigrants continue to be preoccupied as much by national politics as any notion of a globalized form of Islam. Little attention has also been paid to the complex relationship between these militant elements and the wider North African communities residing in Europe. Although the War on Terror has made many North African immigrants feel increasingly uncomfortable, it has arguably also enabled the more politicized moderate parts of the Islamist community to increase their role and influence, with questionable consequences for these communities as a whole.     

Al Qaeda's Scorecard: A Progress Report on Al Qaeda's Objectives

Terrorism scholars are divided over whether terrorism is an effective tactic. Disagreement derives from the fact that the objectives of terrorist groups are often highly contested. Nowhere is this clearer than in contemporary statements on Al Qaeda. This article explores the most common interpretations for why Al Qaeda attacked the United States on 11 September 2001, and then analyzes their empirical support. After determining the most compelling interpretation of Al Qaeda's objectives, the article evaluates Al Qaeda's success in achieving them since perpetrating this watershed attack. The following analysis provides a timely case study in the classic debate over whether terrorism is strategically rational behavior.     

“Our Backs Are Against the Wall”: The Black Liberation Army and Domestic Terrorism in 1970s America

This article addresses the gap in the literature on U.S. domestic terrorism and counterterrorism in the 1970s by examining a once-notorious but now largely forgotten terrorist group, the Black Liberation Army (BLA). An outgrowth of the Black Panther Party, the BLA was directly responsible for at least 20 fatalities, making it amongst the most lethal “homegrown” U.S. groups of the period. This article seeks to shed new light on the BLA by exploring its relatively short but violent trajectory. By focusing on the group's origins, operations, ideology, and structure, the BLA can be understood as part of a wider landscape of homegrown political violence. The BLA emerged during the waning phase of a protest cycle that included the civil rights, Black Power, and anti-war movements. Like other terrorist groups before and after, the BLA claimed to be acting in self-defense and on behalf of the people, presenting itself as an army resisting police occupation of minority communities. With the collapse of the extreme Left in the mid-1970s, the BLA's prospects for creating a broader revolutionary base became remote. The article also examines law-enforcement responses to the BLA and the competing ways in which the Federal Bureau of Investigation and local police (and in particular, the New York Police Department) framed and countered the BLA threat.     

Contextualizing Political Terrorism: A Collective Action Perspective for Understanding the Tanzim

An attempt is made to embed the study of political terrorism within the larger phenomenon of Collective Action. It is suggested that the analysis of dynamics within and between components of Collective Action—structure of conflict, a social movement, authorities, and contention—can be beneficial for gaining additional insights into the study of group risk for political terrorism. Using the case of the Tanzim contention with Israeli forces it is demonstrated how processes within, between, and outside the conflictants affected Tanzim members' decision to employ political terrorism. Based on the analysis, several implications for counterterrorism are offered.     

Jihadism in Western Europe After the Invasion of Iraq: Tracing Motivational Influences from the Iraq War on Jihadist Terrorism in Western Europe

Abstract

This article investigates the importance of the invasion and occupation of Iraq as motivation for recent acts of jihadist terrorism in Western Europe. It analyses the mass casualty terrorist attack attributed to a group of Islamist militants in Madrid on 11 March 2004, and the killing of a Dutch filmmaker on the streets of Amsterdam by an Al Qaeda–inspired terrorist network. The first case has been assumed to be mainly motivated by the Iraq war, whereas the other case has been perceived as an act by an individual, motivated by domestic factors in Holland. The article situates these acts of terrorism within the theory of so-called spillover effects from armed conflicts to international terrorism. It argues that the Iraq war was a significant motivational factor for the terrorists in both cases, but that the terrorists linked the Iraq issue with perceived injustices against Muslims in Europe and globally.     

De-Radicalization Initiatives in Egypt: A Preliminary Insight

This article provides a preliminary insight to the ideological revision of the two principle Islamist militant groups in Egypt, the Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiyya and Al-Jihad Al-Islami. Several leaders of these groups have taken steps to renounce violence and promote peace co-existence with the government and society. They have also repented and apologized for the past terror attacks in Egypt that led to the killing of many innocent civilians, government officials and tourists. In addition, they have gone to great lengths to counter and argue against Al Qaeda's violent ideology and to restrict its influence on the Muslim population. The ideological revision of these two groups reflects a significant shift in the efforts of the Egyptian authorities and community to address the problem of ideological extremism and terrorism in the country.