Archive for 'Counterterrorism'
News from Indonesia: Basyir charged with supporting Aceh terrorist camp
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 [...]
Posted: August 25th, 2010 under Counterterrorism, Indonesia, Media, Southeast Asia, Uncategorized.
Comments: none
Why Some Islamists are Violent and Others Aren’t
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 [...]
Posted: May 25th, 2010 under Analysis, Counterterrorism, Education, Islam, Religion.
Comments: 5
Lessons from Aceh Terrorist De-Radicalization
by Steven R. Corman The Consortium for Strategic Communication has released a new white paper by Mark Woodward, Ali Amin, and Inayah Rohmaniyah entitled Lessons from Aceh Terrorist De-Radicalization. The full white paper can be downloaded here. The executive summary is as follows: Although the International Crisis Group’s reports on radicalism in Indonesia are extremely [...]
Posted: May 13th, 2010 under Analysis, Counterterrorism, Indonesia, Movements, Southeast Asia.
Comments: none
Hip-Hop Ambassadors Wanted
by Jeffry R. Halverson Apparently I wasn’t the only one thinking about the diplomatic potential of Muslim hip-hop when I posted a blog about it for COMOPS Journal back in September of 2009. Recently we heard from Tyson Amir, one of the Muslim artists that I featured in the blog, and he had some interesting [...]
Posted: May 7th, 2010 under Counterterrorism, Diplomacy, Government, Image, Islam, Media, Popular Culture, Religion, State Dept..
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New ICG Report on Jihadists in Aceh, Indonesia
by Chris Lundry The International Crisis Group has issued another report on terrorism in Indonesia, concerning the recent arrests and killings in Aceh, Indonesia (the report is available here). As with most ICG reports, it is thorough and informative, and includes much detailed description obtained through extensive interviews. The report emphasizes some important elements of [...]
Posted: April 26th, 2010 under Counterterrorism, Indonesia, Southeast Asia.
Comments: none
Police Power, Soft Power and Extremist Sub-culture in Indonesia
by Mark Woodward, Ali Amin and Inayah Rohmaniyah* In recent months, Indonesian security forces, including the US-trained Detachment 88, have proven to be increasingly effective in locating, capturing or killing suspected terrorists. But police power alone will never defeat a deeply entrenched extremist sub-culture. Soft power is a crucial component as well, perhaps even more [...]
Posted: March 28th, 2010 under Analysis, Counterterrorism, Government, Indonesia, Movements, Southeast Asia.
Comments: 2
How Natalie Portman and Johnny Depp Can Save the World
by Jeff Halverson In the war of ideas for the “hearts and minds” of the Muslim world, cultural diplomacy can go a long way. The US government may not be very popular abroad, but our cultural products certainly are. Many Muslims hate our policies, but they still love our movies, listen to our pop music, [...]
Posted: March 2nd, 2010 under Analysis, Counterterrorism, Diplomacy, Education, Image, Islam, Media, Popular Culture, State Dept., Strategic Comm..
Comments: 2
What new strategy?
by Steven R. Corman In today’s Washington Post, Bruce Hoffman published an op-ed piece entitled “Al-Qaeda has a new strategy. Obama needs one, too.” I have a lot of respect for Hoffman and whatever he says about terrorism bears consideration. But in this case I’m not too sure what he’s driving at. As evidence for [...]
Posted: January 11th, 2010 under Analysis, Counterterrorism.
Comments: 2
Online Mobilization by Radical Groups
by Steven R. Corman I ran across an interesting research article in the most recent issue of the Journal of Communication entitled “‘Carrying online participation offline’–Mobilization by radical online groups and politically dissimilar offline ties.”* The study looks at neo-Nazis and radical environmentalists (NN/RE) in the West, but because it potentially sheds some light on [...]
Posted: November 7th, 2009 under Counterterrorism, Media, Research, Terrorism 2.0.
Comments: 3
Rap is Da Bomb for Defeating Abu Yahya
by Jeffry Halverson In the September 10 cover story on ForeignPolicy.com Jarret Brachman warns the Obama administration to pay careful attention to al-Qaeda’s new Libyan-born media darling, Abu Yahya al-Libi. He writes: Whether he’s shown traipsing through valleys, target shooting with his buddies, reciting poetry on a mountaintop, or breaking bread with his students, Abu [...]
Posted: September 14th, 2009 under Analysis, Counterterrorism, Identification, Islam, Popular Culture.
Comments: 3