Uran Botobekov

However, al-Qaeda, via its groups in Central Asia and Caucasus, which are fighting within Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, has developed and actively used new tactics of recruitment and distribution of the radical ideology of Jihadism. Since March 2018, two terrorist groups from Central Asia, Katibat Imamal Bukhari and Katibat al Tawhid wal Jihad have started to actively distribute photocopies of leaflets via social media supporting the jihadist line of al-Qaeda....

Tewfick Aclimandos

Are terrorists criminals who looked for a religious legitimation of their lust and hatred? Many European terrorists were petty criminal before their conversion to Salafist ideology. Nevertheless, this ideology brought solace and meant redemption. They were, in a way, “born again." True, they still perpetrated crimes, but the goal was no longer the same. Instead they tried to fund jihad....

Hekmat Khalil Karzai

This parallel fight against transnational terrorism to complement the peace process would not be possible without the continued support of the United States, NATO and our partners in the region. In addition to their military assistance, we look forward to their robust diplomatic support to help ensure the success of the Afghan-led and Afghan-owned peace process....

Tewfick Aclimandos

Abdallah Azzam, a Palestinian religious scholar and founding member of Al-Qaeda, did not like the idea of rebellion against Muslim leaders. The many Egyptians who went to Afghanistan unsuccessfully tried to convince him to change his mind and interpretation. These foreign fighters converted his principal aide, Osama Bin Laden, to their views, and finally killed Azzam. For them, Jihad, according to Qutb’s teachings, should be offensive and directed against rulers of the Muslim world who were not "real" believers, but rather apostates….

Harsha Kakar

Pressure on the Taliban must continue from multiple directions to compel it to reduce its acts of violence and adopt steps for peace. Pakistan has a direct influence on the Taliban hence it should continue to be pushed to the wall, to enhance pressure for talks....

Tewfick Aclimandos

He added: almost all theologians — Salafists or otherwise — say defensive jihad is legitimate. In addition, it is quite easy to prove many Muslim peoples are under attack, in Palestine or Iraq, for instance. So eventually, you will have at least a minority of quietist Salafists that will opt for violence. This subtle paper fascinated me. Jihadists and peaceful Salafists, who just try to construe a different sub-society, have a lot in common, so it is easy to switch from one position to the other and vice versa....

Akbar Jan Marwat

The dialogue offer by the Afghan Taliban, which came about a month after the bloody attack on Kabul, killing hundreds of innocent civilians, is unique in another sense also. It is for the first time, that the Taliban, have offered a negotiated solution to the US instead of the Ghani Government. The Taliban have in fact made it clear, that they consider the Ghani regime only a puppet of the Americans...

Sultan M Hali

It has been clarified by the Paigham-i-Pakistan that Jihad with weapons, is justified for Muslims “only in cases of extreme necessity when attacked by their enemies and that all peaceful means have failed.” Even in this case, the council added that the proclamation of jihad falls within the exclusive purview of the great Imam to whom Islam has given the right to proclaim, to call and organize it. Therefore, “Islam does not allow any individual or group to declare jihad on its own,” added the fatwa....

Adam Goldman

He travelled to Lahore, Pakistan, in 2007 and eventually linked up with militants who provided training and took him to Afghanistan. Six months later, Mr. Vinas was living at a safe house in Waziristan, a tribal area in northwest Pakistan, with Qaeda recruits from Egypt, Kuwait, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.....

“We will be celebrating Holi tomorrow. There will be a celebration of Buddha Jayanti that will be followed by the month of holy Ramzan - a symbol of the country's unity and diversity”. He further said, “Indian democracy is a celebration of our age-old plurality. This is the strength which enables the Indians to respect the country’s past, trust its present and future. Our heritage, that is, our identity of unity and diversity is essential to fight and curb violence and terrorism. On the basis of our cultural heritage, inter-faith relations, religions and their principles, we can defeat terrorism and violence.” The PM Modi said, “Religious extremists don't realize that their actions hurt the very religion they claim to represent.”...

Vinay Kaura

These tough words are not difficult to understand. Ever since President Trump’s August 2017 announcement of a new Afghan strategy, which ascribed India a key role in the stabilization efforts, the administration has put greater military pressure on the Taliban in order to bring it to the negotiating table with the Kabul government,...

Adnan Abu Zeed

In the end, tribes will have the final say, more so than the law and the rehabilitation procedures, since the liberated areas are of a tribal nature, governed by strict laws that are more effective there than the law of the state....

Among those now holed up in Kurram is the Haqqani network, an ally of the Afghan Taliban that America accuses the Pakistani army of shielding. In his first tweet of 2018, Donald Trump accused Pakistan of “lies and deceit”, and suspended $2bn in military aid...

Most militant Islamist organizations in South Asia—and particularly in Pakistan—adhere to either the Deobandi-Sunni or Ahl-e-Hadith (Salafist) schools of Islam. Prominent among these are Deobandi organizations like Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Harkat ul Jihad-e-Islami, Harkat ul Mujahedeen, Jaish-e-Mohammad, Lashkar-e-Omar and Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. Meanwhile, al-Qaeda, Islamic State, Waliyat-e-Khurasan, Hizb-ut Tahrir and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) adhere to the Salafist tradition....

Ajit Kumar Singh

The photograph, showing a woman protester sitting on a platform meant for prayer leaders in a mosque, had become a symbol of defiance of ordinary Iranians against the clerical regime in Iran. Soon after, fundamentalists started opposing the post calling it derogatory. Two FIRs (First Information Report) were filed on January 8, 2018, accusing Ali of “blasphemy” and also so making “fun of principal tenets of Islam”....

Halim Shebaya

In Orwell's 1984, we also read how "the heresy of heresies [for the Party] was common sense”. The question remains: Is it still possible to appeal to "common sense" amidst the madness we are witnessing that has made us numb to human tragedies? Or are we all victims of mass psychosis where "two and two make five"?....

Anton Mardasov

The problem is that al-Qaeda still has a chance to create its own safe havens in some opposition-controlled areas because of Ankara’s obsession with weakening the Kurds above all else; distrust among Iran, Turkey and Russia — the trio that negotiated the de-escalation zones; and the regime's desire to weaken the moderate opposition under the pretext of “fighting terrorists.”...

Jaclynn Robinson

In order to understand how displaced Syrians are adversely impacted by war, it is worth recognising the gendered vulnerabilities they face. These vulnerabilities have been compounded by war and stand to negatively impact their mental and physical wellbeing as a result of the trauma experienced. There is increasing evidence that the effects of war can impact the mental and physical health outcomes of displaced persons as they process the experiences of war and migration....

Thomas Joscelyn

It will not be so easy, though, to pivot away from the jihadists. ISIS and al Qaeda have tied up security services throughout the West for years. Thousands of terror suspects across Europe require monitoring. The FBI has been swamped by hundreds of U.S. cases involving potential terrorists. The CIA and allied intelligence agencies continue to hunt down professional terrorists who plot mass destruction in the West....

Basil Hijazi, New Age Islam

In order to reform Islamic extremism on the ideological basis, we need to perform a complete process of action on strategic basis, focusing on the five basic elements.  The primary and fundamental element in this context is built on seeking alternate religious connotation concentrating mainly on peace, love and brotherhood, because the current ideology shouting the pretext of Islam is causing birth to violence, hatred and religious extremism. If it had not been so, the Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi would not have asked the scholars of Jamia Azhar (the Ulema-e-Azhar) to establish a new religious statement consisting of “revolutionary” attributes….

Adnan Abu Amer

Hamas’ choice to broadcast the confessions could indicate that the movement is entering a new phase in its relationship with IS — the phase of ultimate confrontation. It seems Hamas is concerned about the successive security developments in the region after Egypt launched on Feb. 9 a large-scale military operation in Sinai to pursue armed groups, especially since Hamas wants to avoid giving IS the opportunity to involve it in the current Egyptian events....

S. Binodkumar Singh

To pave the ground for official talks between the two sides on January 14, 2018, Afghan Government representatives held the third round of unofficial talks with five Taliban members in Turkey. Humayun Jarir, a representative of the Afghan Government in the talks, disclosed that the Taliban members represented the Quetta Shura, Haqqani network and other factions of the Taliban. Meanwhile, Mawlawi Abdul Rauf, the Taliban leader who headed the peace talks delegation in Turkey, told Tolo News on January 15, 2018, “We represent the overall Taliban of the Islamic Emirate ...

Irene Costantini

The relationship between displacement, emigration and return is a complex one, whose contours remain largely unexplored in the literature. Since June 2014 and the Islamic State’s expansion, Iraq has experienced all of the above: the number of internally-displaced people (IDPs) reached more than 3 million, a large portion of which found refuge in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI); in 2015 Iraqis were among the top three nationalities reaching Europe through the Mediterranean routes....

Rod Nordland

Fatma Muhammed, 34, limped outside her lighted doorway on what is now called Serzan Bufa Street — after a martyr of the fight — five of her nine children, ages 2 to 15, at her skirts. Her husband had been killed in front of her, and she was shot so many times that she nearly died, losing a finger and the full use of one leg.“Life is hard for us here,” she said…..

Global jihadists and their sympathisers in religious parties all over the world believe that beheading innocent people will make Zionists quiver with fear. They are confident that their vociferous anti-Israel slogans will jolt the Jewish state. These holy warriors seem to have a dogged determination to conquer the world through a retrogressive ideology that advocates the return of Muslims to medieval times and accept the intellectual supremacy of semi-literate clerics who wreaked havoc in the Muslim world by polluting it with the doctrine of hate, fanaticism and sectarianism....