In the Republic of Albania, the next local elections are scheduled to take place on 14 May 2023. The last local elections, which were held on 30 June 2019, were boycotted by the opposition, while the turnout at the elections was only 21.6%. As a result, all positions in local self-governance authorities were occupied by the candidates of the Socialist Party (PS) headed by Edi Rama. The last local elections in Albania were conducted in an atmosphere of tensions after the Albanian opposition had
Terrorism using social media has become one of the world's most pressing concerns. There is a symbiotic relationship between domestic terrorist groups and international terrorist organisations, which is aggravating the issue. Terrorist groups are using social media platforms to recruit, train, and communicate with their supporters and contributors since it is a less expensive, easier, faster, and effective mode of communication.
Terrorists use social media tools to propagate their ideologies
The research paper titled "Analysis of Terrorist Attacks in Pakistan: A Case Study of TTP" examines the trends, patterns, and drivers of terrorist attacks carried out by the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) from 2007 to 2023. The study employs a mixed-methods approach that involves quantitative and qualitative analysis of secondary data sources, including media reports, government documents, and academic publications. The findings suggest that TTP has been one of the most lethal and resilient
Part of the solution to Pakistan’s decades-long struggle against terrorism is to confront the embedded mindset behind it.
Terrorist attacks in Pakistan have been on the rise since Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) – the Pakistani Taliban – called off its ceasefire in November 2022.
According to the Pakistan Institute for Conflict and Security Studies (PICSS), December became the deadliest month for the country in over a decade, with 49 attacks resulting in 56 fatalities, including 32 security
It's getting harder to ignore. The persistent ISIS presence in the Syrian desert only serves US aims to continue its military occupation and support for Kurdish separatism.
In March 2019, former US President Donald Trump startled Washington’s war establishment by announcing that the mission of “eliminating terrorism” had been accomplished in Syria.
Seven months later, Trump solidified his claims by celebrating the assassination of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi by a US special forces
By Kit Klarenberg
On February 6, Syria and Turkey were rocked by devastating back-to-back earthquakes. Ever since, people in these countries and the region have been subjected to a particularly merciless - yet illuminating - crash course in Western double standards on humanitarian aid.
While aid and assistance have flowed into Istanbul and Damascus from all neighbors, initially many governments were reticent to dispatch anything at all to Syria, because US and EU sanctions made it illegal for
Recent rounds of back-to-back attacks by the Daesh terrorist group and the Israeli regime on quake-hit Syria were coordinated, and the Western governments were complicit in the deadly onslaught, according to an analyst.
Zafar Bangash, Toronto-based director of the Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought, told Press TV on Sunday that the international community, essentially the US and its allies, tend to gloss over Israel’s “war crimes” and consent to its illegalities.
“There is not only
The decision to try one of the so-called “Beatles” ISIS members in the US was to conceal his previous links to British intelligence and his role in their regime-change efforts in Syria.
In January 2023, reports emerged that Alexanda Kotey, known as “Jihadi George” and one of the four British ISIS members collectively known as the “Beatles,” had disappeared from the custody of the US Bureau of Prisons (BOP).
In 2022, Kotey was convicted in a US court and sentenced to life in prison for the
The US has been reaching out to groups opposing the Taliban, such as Daesh, and secretly giving money to them.
Zamir Kabulov, the Russian Presidential Envoy to Afghanistan, expounds the reasoning for this covert support thus:
Because they really want to avenge their shameful military political defeat in Afghanistan, and in retaliation, they do everything so that peace isn't established in this troubled land.
Zamir Kabulov, the Russian Presidential Envoy to Afghanistan
Kabulov also asserted that
The man who the authorities believe tried to shoot Cristina Fernández de Kirchner showed an interest in a mix of fringe ideologies, including the far right, his social media showed.
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has been the most prominent politician in Argentina for almost two decades. After an eight-year run as president, she is now the country’s leftist vice president, and political analysts are expecting her to make a bid to return to the top job next year.
So it was a bombshell when
A civil war has been raging in Cameroon since 2016. Separatists in Anglophone regions want their own state, called Ambazonia.
Five years ago, angry protests against Francophone dominance in Cameroon escalated — and soon led to armed clashes between various Anglophone separatist groups and the central government.
The conflict between the French-speaking majority state and the smaller English-speaking parts of the country has been simmering for decades.
Conflict rooted in colonialism
Cameroon was
By Lora Vonderhaar
Recent studies of women’s roles in jihadi terrorism debunk the widely held belief that women are either passive victims or fanatical jihadi brides. Women participate – both willingly and unwillingly – in terrorist activities for a variety of reasons. Women’s participation in jihadi terrorism is not binary, it is a spectrum of motivations, grievances, and agency – or the lack thereof. More importantly, terrorist groups have begun to see the advantages of incorporating women
By: Dr Alex Vines OBE and Jon Wallace
This article explains the history of terrorism in Africa, its causes, and future efforts to bring peace and stability. It focuses on certain nations in West and East Africa – Mali, Nigeria and Somalia.
To discuss terrorism in Africa it is essential to recognize the complexities involved. First, ‘terrorism’ is a problematic term. If terrorism is defined as the use of violence and intimidation against civilians, then some African governments have allegedly
This July, the Biden administration picked up where Trump left off and began bombing Somalia, a country with a gross domestic product of less than $6 billion and a poverty rate of 70 percent. But why?
The official reason provided by the Pentagon was that the Somali National Army needed air support in its operations to counter al-Shabaab. But the actual reason was that Somalia is geo-strategically important to U.S. empire.
Successive U.S. administrations have cycled through a myriad of excuses
Abstract
Background
The risk factors for radicalization and terrorism represent a key research issue. While numerous data on the sociological, political, and criminological profiles of radicalized people and terrorists are available, knowledge about psychiatric disorders among these populations remains scarce and contradictory.
Method
We conducted a systematic review of the literature regarding psychiatric disorders among both radicalized and terrorist populations.
Results
We screened
The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the spread of violent ideologies with terrorists and extremists capitalising on the increased time spent online, a new Europol report has found.
The latest "EU Terrorism Situation and Trend Report" by the bloc's law enforcement agency warns that "a notable increase" in intolerance of political opponents occurred in 2020, spurred in part by the global health crisis.
It noted that extremists and terrorists have found new opportunities in the increased time
When Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s caliphate was overthrown in al-Raqqa in March 2019, many wrongly believed that the Islamic State (ISIS) was over. Born out of the chaos of the Syrian War, many assumed that it would disappear as the guns gradually fell silent in Syria. That has not happened, and over the past six months there has been a series of attacks on civilian populations in both Syria and Iraq — all claimed by ISIS. The most recent of those was a twin suicide bombing in Baghdad in January. Two
By Alex Thurston
The “Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Partnership Program” has done more harm than good and wasted taxpayer dollars.
On March 24, the “Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Partnership Program Act” was approved by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The bill, introduced for the third time, would give a firmer legal foundation to the Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Partnership. The TSCTP is an executive branch program co-led by the State Department, the United States Agency for
Last week, Pakistan banned the radical Islamist political party, the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) after it staged a series of violent riots. The violent unrest only intensified across the country after that, including threats to international interests, demonstrating both that the Pakistani government was correct about TLP and that the state continues to struggle in dealing with Islamic militancy.
Background
TLP was created in 2015 by a Pakistani Islamic scholar, Khadim Hussain Rizvi. It is
By Francesco Marone
In the United Kingdom, a complex international case has fueled a heated debate, with deep legal, ethical, political, and security implications. The last development depended on a controversial ruling: the UK Supreme Court had to decide whether Shamima Begum, the London schoolgirl who traveled to Syria in 2015 to join the so-called Islamic State (ISIS), could return home to mount her defense. Eventually, on 26 February, the president of the court said the judges had decided
In the Republic of Albania, the next local elections are scheduled to take place on 14 May 2023. The last local elections, which were held on 30 June 2019, were boycotted by the opposition, while the turnout at the elections was only 21.6%. As a result, all positions in local self-governance authorities were occupied by the candidates of the Socialist Party (PS) headed by Edi Rama. The last local elections in Albania were conducted in an atmosphere of tensions after the Albanian opposition had
