Locating Al Qaeda's Center of Gravity: The Role of Middle Managers

This article claims that the ongoing debate about the structure and dynamics of Al Qaeda has failed to appreciate the importance of an organizational layer that is situated between the top leadership and the grass-roots. Rather than being “leaderless,” it is the group's middle management that holds Al Qaeda together. In Clausewitzian terms, Al Qaeda's middle managers represent a center of gravity—a “hub of … power and movement”—that facilitates the grass-roots’ integration into the organization and provides the top leadership with the global reach it needs in order to carry out its terrorist campaign, especially in Europe and North America. They are, in other words, the connective tissue that makes Al Qaeda work. The article substantiates this hypothesis by providing a number of case studies of Al Qaeda middle managers, which illustrate the critical role they have played in integrating the grass-roots with the top leadership. The policy implications are both obvious and important. If neither the top leadership nor the grass-roots alone can provide Al Qaeda with strategic momentum, it will be essential to identify and neutralize the middle managers, and—in doing so—“cause the network to collapse on itself.”     

The Tottenham Ayatollah and The Hook-Handed Cleric: An Examination of All Their Jihadi Children

Omar Bakri Mohammed (the Tottenham Ayatollah) and Abu Hamza al-Masri (the hook-handed cleric) are two of the more infamous figures to emerge from what critics called “Londonistan.” However, they should be remembered not only for their rhetoric and appearance, but also for the fact that their respective organizations, Bakri's Al Muhajiroun, and Hamza's Supporters of Shariah based at the Finsbury Park Mosque, have been the connective thread through most Islamist terrorist plots that have emanated from the United Kingdom. This article maps out the network of terrorist plots in the United Kingdom and abroad that appears to have emanated from the networks around these two men with a view to understanding better how the connections remained unclear for so long and how understanding of the networks evolved over time.     

A Roadmap for Sino-Indian Cooperation in Afghanistan

As NATO and Western powers begin to take a backseat in Afghanistan＇s future,one of the most pressing questions is what role the region can play in helping Afghanistan to become a prosperous and stable nation.Numerous efforts are already underway through multilateral and bilateral forums,yet the key to regional cooperation for Afghanistan＇ s future lies through closer interaction between Beijing and New Delhi.Drawing on a research project spanning a number of workshops in Beijing,New Delhi and Qatar and involving influential thinkers and experts from China,India,the UK and Afghanistan,this paper will try to map out specific ideas that policymakers in Beijing and New Delhi can explore as avenues of cooperation.Post-2014 Afghanistan will remain a major regional concern for at least the short to medium term.The earlier China and India can develop workable collaborative undertakings,the sooner they can forge a stable and prosperous neighbourhood.     

Sleeping Beauty Awakens: The Italian Parliament and the EU after the Lisbon Treaty

More direct involvement in the EU decision-making process has traditionally been an ambition of the Italian parliament. The implementation of the Lisbon Treaty has prompted parliament to maintain tighter scrutiny of the EU legislative process, not only through the use of the new subsidiarity control mechanism, but in particular by exerting a stronger influence on the government on EU affairs. The latter will be the key challenge in the post-Lisbon era. It is too early to say, however, whether this will have a positive or negative impact on the EU's democratic legitimacy.     

A Review of: “Alison Pargeter. The New Frontiers of Jihad: Radical Islam in Europe.”

Recent years have witnessed a significant increase in the amount of counterterrorism legislation worldwide. The commonly held assumption behind the adoption of counterterrorism legislation links it to the terrorist threat in a state. However, little research has focused on empirically testing reasons driving states to legislate. This article addresses this void by analyzing the puzzle of why states choose to adopt new terrorism-specific legislation. The article presents empirical analysis of the probability of states to legislate before and after September 11, 2001, and is based on a new database of counterterrorism legislation. The findings reveal that before September 11, state decisions to adopt new legislation correlated with the number of terrorist organizations operating in their territory. Since September 11, however, the most significant predictors for the adoption of new legislation have become the existence of previous counterterrorism legislation and the participation of a state in the War on Terror.