ISIS
Mothers Against Joining Jihad
The number of foreign fighters who have joined ISIS now exceeds 20,000, illustrating the effectiveness of the group's recruitment strategies. Governments and private groups like CEP are experimenting with a variety of initiatives designed to counter...
Turkish Voters Say No to Erdogan
“Turkey narrowly averted a disaster,” stated the Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP) leader, Selahattin Demirtas after Turkish voters pushed his party past the 10 percent electoral threshold necessary to qualify for seats in the parliament. The...
Syria Post Assad – No Closer to Pluralism
In the early days of the Syrian rebellion, it was widely assumed that the Assad dictatorship would collapse in short order. The “Arab Spring” had already cast off tyrannies in Tunisia and Egypt. The Ghaddafi regime in Libya would soon join that list...
Iran’s Influence in Iraq: Temporary or Permanent?
The Americans will leave one day, Quds Force commander General Qasem Soleimani once told Iraqi leaders, but Iran will remain Iraq’s neighbor. That lesson has only been reinforced by the lead role Iran has since taken in the fight against ISIS. Iran...
Will Miski’s Repeated Resurrections Wake Up Twitter?
On May 3, two heavily armed violent Islamic extremists from Arizona, Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi, attempted to murder attendees and organizers of a Garland, Texas gathering billed as a free speech event. Fortunately, security personnel prevented...
A Salafi Salad: Jihadism, Takfirism, and the Use of Violence
“No Single Definition for Salafism, AJCS’ Conference Finds (!)” This was the oddly bold caption headlining the 2014 conference report on “Salafism in the Arab World” (sub-title: “Perceptions, Trends and Groups”), hosted by the al-Jazeera “Center for...
ISIS and the Cleansing of a Culture
“Nothing is safe from the cultural cleansing under way in the country: it targets human lives, minorities, and is marked by the systematic destruction of humanity’s ancient heritage.” – Irina Bukova, Director-General of the UN Educational, Scientific...
No Turkish Delight for U.S.
Turkey’s relationship with violent extremist group ISIS might generously be described as “permissive” - less generously, “complicit.” Not only has Turkey adopted a relaxed stance toward ISIS, some claim it has actively aided and abetted the terror...
The Tangled Roots of ISIS
The belief that the Iraq war was a monumental blunder is now widely held. In the public mind, the decision to dethrone Saddam Hussein has also become a ready explanation for nearly every ill to befall the world since. The latest baleful effect...
Extremists Compete for Control in Libya
The February beheading of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians by ISIS-alligned extremists in Libya grabbed international headlines, as did the reality that ISIS’s influence had spread far beyond Syria and Iraq. Since the beginning of 2015, forces loyal to...
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