“The media really got ISIS wrong for a long time,” argues scholar Max Abrahms, a prominent terrorism expert.
Many Western media outlets “made it seem as if ISIS has a big advantage over al-Qaeda because it is even more radical; that because the group uses violence in such a brutal fashion, it will be able to out-recruit al-Qaeda, have a larger membership size, more staying power and greater capabilities.”
Yet actually, in the long term, Abrahms says, al-Qaeda is the group that has
Terrorism is clearly reprehensible. Yet media reports and politicians often present terrorist attacks as if they are less calculated than they really are.
Scientific research shows that this view is mistaken. Terrorism scholars have found that, leaving aside the question of immorality, there is an internal political logic to terrorist attacks — although they are frequently ineffective.
A lot of what people think they know about terrorist attacks is wrong. For starters, no one publicly
By Matthew Hoh
Last month I had the privilege of answering an interview from an Iranian research agency dedicated to studying acts of terror carried out against the Iranian people. By their count 17,000 Iranians have been killed in acts of terror over the last 3 1/2 decades. Quite an astounding number, isn’t it? I have no reason to believe this number is inflated or exaggerated, but, even if the real count is only a tenth of the pronounced figure of 17,000, it would still signify a
By Philip Giraldi
It’s been almost a decade and a half since 9/11, but the foreign-policy establishment still cannot admit that continuous American intervention in the Middle East has been a failure.
I recently attended a conference entitled “Hindsight: Reflections on 15 Years of the War on Terror.” With a wide range of highly respectable speakers, I naively expected that the panels would conclude that the so-called “global war on terror” had been a misguided project ab initio, that the
The world has historically been filled with inequities, unfairness, racial and cultural conflict, and injustice. From the sickening realities of apartheid in South Africa to the senseless terrorist attacks in Paris in November, there has been no shortage of global power struggles that disrupt the effective functioning of society as a whole.
Yet, even as apartheid has been dismantled and militant radicals have the entire world seeking to destroy them, there appears to be no end in sight
The death of Osama Bin Laden five years ago was followed by a weakening of al-Qaeda but the terrorist group will manage to survive in the shadows of its offspring Daesh, war correspondent Rahimullah Yusufzai told Radio Sputnik.
Terrorism has changed but not subsided since Osama Bin Laden was killed five years ago, Pakistani journalist Rahimullah Yusufzai told Radio Sputnik.
These days al-Qaeda does not have much support in Afghanistan and Pakistan and has not made much headway in a campaign
Following each new terrorist attack, especially those in western countries such as France and Belgium, the international community reaffirms its commitment to fighting terrorism. U.S. President Barack Obama stated that the attacks in Brussels in March 2016 were “yet another reminder that the world must unite. We must be together, regardless of nationality or race or faith, in fighting against the scourge of terrorism... We can and we will defeat those who threaten the safety and security of
Contrary to popular belief, the reason behind the actions of terrorist organisations is not to gain advantage over security forces but, mostly, to generate propaganda. For instance, five people killed in a terrorist act do not serve as a measure of numerical superiority for the organisation. However, the impact of such an action, when brought on the agenda numerous times through media organs, would be far more severe so society as if the said action had been carried out time and again.
The skies are no longer a very friendly place to fly if you’re brown or “maybe-Muslim”. A few days ago, an Iraq-born researcher at UC Berkeley was removed from a Southwest Airlines plane for speaking Arabic. A passenger heard the guy end a phone call with “inshallah” and decided it must mean “this plane full of infidels is going down”. In reality inshallah (which translates as “God willing”) is a versatile Arabic phrase that can be used to mean everything from “hopefully” to “never going
In its report on the still-censored “28 pages” implicating the Saudi government in 9/11, “60 Minutes” last weekend said the Saudi role in the attacks has been “soft-pedaled” to protect America’s delicate alliance with the oil-rich kingdom.
That’s quite an understatement.
Actually, the kingdom’s involvement was deliberately covered up at the highest levels of our government. And the coverup goes beyond locking up 28 pages of the Saudi report in a vault in the US Capitol basement
LONDON — The horrific terrorist attacks on the Charlie Hebdo weekly in Paris have led to speculation as to whether the killers — the brothers Chérif and Saïd Kouachi — were lone wolves or tied to masterminds in ISIS or its rival, Al-Qaeda. Although Al-Qaeda in Yemen has taken credit for the attack, it is unclear how closely the affiliate actually directed the operation. No matter which organizational connections (if any) ultimately prove to be real, one thing is clear: the fountainhead of
Virtually every suspect involved in recent Brussels bombing had been tracked, arrested, in custody – either by European security agencies or the agencies of their allies – but inexplicably released and allowed to carry out both the Brussels attack as well as the Paris attack that preceded it.
So obvious is this fact, that the Western media itself admits it, but simply dismisses the obvious and deeper implications such facts pose by claiming it is merely systemic incompetence.
The Wall
PressTV- US officials say Washington is considering to greatly increase the number of its special operations forces deployed to Syria, the Reuters news agency reports.
The US, they say, looks to “accelerate recent gains” against Daesh but Hillary Clinton's leaked emails last month revealed that the United States plotted to topple the Syrian government even before the group existed.
For their new plan, the officials declined to disclose the exact increase under consideration but one of them
An international summit on nuclear security in Washington enters its second day Friday. Top of the agenda is how to stop terrorist organisations such as the Islamic State group from getting their hands on nuclear material. But how real is the threat?
In the aftermath of the November 13 terror attacks in Paris, and with the eyes of the world still focused on the bloodshed in the French capital, soldiers in Belgium were sent to guard the country’s nuclear power plants.
Four months later
By Dr. Sayed Khatab*
In dealing with terrorism, generally speaking, one should be aware that radical religious violence in society in the East as well as in the West is very much the result of what happening in the Middle East.
Nowadays, the world is like a small village and the information is at the tip of one’s fingers, thanks to the internet and social media technology. So, what is happening in the East will be known in the West in a fraction of a second, and vice versa. In addition
Leader's speech in a meeting with participants of International Congress on Takfirism on November 25, 2014:
We cannot ignore and forget about these signs and proofs easily. All these signs show that the takfiri orientation is at the service of arrogance, the enemies of Islam, America, England and the Zionist regime.
Take a look at the condition of today's Libya, Syria, Iraq, Pakistan and see against whom the forces and swords of Muslims are being used. These forces should have been used
The West has brought terrorists attacks on their own people by supporting for decades terrorists trying to achieve geostrategic objectives, said the editor of Politics First Marcus Papadopoulos, commenting on the Brussels blasts.
“The roots of these terrorist attacks are Western foreign policy. For the last 30 years or so America in particular, but also Britain and France have been working with Islamist terrorists to try and achieve geostrategic objectives. And this is what happens when you
Perhaps some right-wing Israel lobby groups can be forgiven for taking up the cause of the exiled Iranian opposition group, the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK). The more ignorant among them might see a group headed by a woman, Maryam Rajavi, who claims to champion a secular, human rights-respecting democracy in Iran. They don’t know about Rajavi and the MEK’s history: its violence, its cult-like behavior, and its own history of human rights violations. What they do see—however problematic it might be
More than four decades have passed since Brian Jenkins, an expert on security, first represented “terrorism as theater” in a report for the RAND Corporation. Yet, to this day, leaders and policymakers countering terrorism implement strategies composed mostly of military and police actions—little is done to oppose the theatrics. Taking theater as a model, terrorism relies on live performers and unwitting live participants to present the experience of an imagined event, an event in which the
Author and former CIA officer Barry Eisler spoke at the Association of Former Intelligence Officers opposite ex-CIA and NSA director Michael Hayden on Monday. In front of about a hundred former CIA, FBI, and NSA operatives, Eisler talked about bulk surveillance, whistleblowing, and why intelligence professionals need to take especially great care not to let propaganda pervert their intelligence.
Eisler's new novel, "God's Eye View," inspired by the Snowden revelations, is available now on
“The media really got ISIS wrong for a long time,” argues scholar Max Abrahms, a prominent terrorism expert.
Many Western media outlets “made it seem as if ISIS has a big advantage over al-Qaeda because it is even more radical; that because the group uses violence in such a brutal fashion, it will be able to out-recruit al-Qaeda, have a larger membership size, more staying power and greater capabilities.”
Yet actually, in the long term, Abrahms says, al-Qaeda is the group that has
