by Steven R. Corman A few weeks ago I did a keynote speech at a public meeting of the U.S. Advisory Commission in Public Diplomacy.  Later in the meeting I heard a presentation by Ambassador Richard LeBaron, Coordinator of the State Department’s Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications (CSCC).  The topic of his talk tied together [...]

by Chris Lundry On Sunday, September 25, a lone suicide bomber detonated a bomb at a Protestant Church in Surakarta (Solo), Central Java, as services were letting out. Along with the bomber, one congregant was killed and several wounded from the shrapnel composed of nails, bolts and buckshot. In the ensuing week there has been [...]

by Chris Lundry Last year, my colleagues Steven Corman, Jeffrey Halverson and I wrote a series of blog posts exploring Islamist reactions to anti-Islam and anti-Muslim events in the US, including the debate over the Park51 Islamic Center and an American pastor’s proposal to burn a Qur’an on 9/11, among others. One of the points [...]

by Chris Lundry The past couple of weeks have been interesting in Indonesia, especially for those concerned with religion and conflict in the world’s most populous Muslim country. Ahmadiyya sentences. On February 6 in Banten, West Java, some 1000 villagers attacked a house with several members of Ahmadiyya inside. Ahmadis consider themselves Muslims, but many [...]

by Chris Lundry The next chapter in the saga of Abu Bakar Basyir, called the spiritual leader of terrorist organization Jemaah Islamiyah, came to an end on June 16. The court in South Jakarta pronounced its verdict of guilty to the charges of inciting terrorism related to the Jemaah Islamiyah training camp in Aceh — [...]

By Chris Lundry The first 48 hours after the death of Osama bin Laden were grounds for relief in the United States, its allies, and those who condemn violent extremism, but they have also been fraught with speculation and rumors concerning the operation. Is bin Laden really dead? Did he really use his wife as [...]

by Mark Woodward* Since March 15 Indonesia has experienced another wave of bombings, including a suicide attack on the Az Zikro mosque located in a police compound in Cirebon, Central Java. The bomber struck during Friday prayers. Other targets have included a book bomb mailed to Ulil Abshar Abdallah, the leader of Jaringan Islam Liberal [...]

by Bud Goodall There is a new narrative responsible for the success of the uprisings that spread from Tunisia through Egypt and now are heard in the streets of Syria, Yemen, Libya, and elsewhere.  It is a secular narrative generated by young Muslims who recognize that older jihadist forms of “telling their resistance story” by [...]

by Chris Lundry Indonesian police have charged Indonesian cleric Abu Bakar Basyir with supporting terrorism for his role in the the Jemaah Islamiyah training camp in Aceh. He has been accused of participating in planning and funding the project and ordering others to commit terrorist acts, and police reported finding progress reports and videos from [...]

by Steven R. Corman For some time people who think about the problem of terrorism have faced a puzzling question: Why is it that some Muslims who hold fundamentalist or radical beliefs about Islam become violent, while others don’t? New research shows that the answer is probably not what you might think. A popular view is that [...]