China’s largest province, Xinjiang, could become another front in the global war on terror if the government’s policies against Uyghur separatism do not become more nuanced soon. Marginalized from the country’s economic boom, separatists from the mostly Muslim Turkic-minority Uyghur community have increasingly turned to violence against the Han migrants flooding into the province for work. China has responded harshly in the name of national security, choosing to tie all separatist activity to Islamist extremism rather than address any of the local grievances. As the Council on Foreign Relations notes, this has made it difficult for outside observers, including the media and human rights groups, to distinguish between China’s “genuine counterterrorism” efforts and its “repression of minority rights” in the province.

The Uyghur have reportedly lived in the area continuously since the 3rd century and experienced periods of independence along with foreign rule for many centuries. Long before the People’s Republic of China annexed the province in 1949, the Mongols, Arab caliphates and ancient Chinese dynasties all laid claim for a time to what China calls Xinjiang  today and what some Uyghur separatists have re-named Eastern Turkestan.

China is not likely to give up sovereignty in its largest oil and gas producing province any time soon. Economic growth initiatives and a new bullet train into Xinjiang is helping to improve the local economy and integrate the province into China proper.  Unfortunately, as some analysts note, many job advertisements explicitly seek Mandarin-only speakers or those who are ethnic Han. This has resulted in some Uyghurs becoming suspicious of the increased Han migration, believing it is a growing threat to their culture and possibly an attempt to dilute the 10 million-strong Uyghur community, which is approximately 45 percent of the total Xinjiang population.

In February, a Uyghur suicide-bomber self-detonated at a hotel in Xinjiang, killing seven. In July 2009, riots in Xinjiang’s capital of Urumqi left 197 dead. This incident received national attention.  The provincial government responded by increasing the security budget in 2010 by almost 90 percent, to 2.89 billion yuan ($423 million). The underlying issues of discrimination and economic disparity were not addressed. Consequently, conflicts continue. Last year, 29 people were killed in a mass knife attack at a train station in the southern Chinese city of Kunming. Following the government line, the Chinese media labelled the act terrorism.

The most recent incident comes after the federal government launched an anti-terror campaign last year, following the Urumqi incident, blaming Uyghur separatists and Islamist insurgents seeking to establish an independent state.

China is also cracking down on religious observances of Muslims in Xinjiang. In cities across the region, signs warn people against public prayer. Individuals younger than 18 cannot enter mosques. Video cameras are often trained on mosque entrances by the government to keep track of who comes and goes daily.  Civil servants are banned from participating in Friday prayer services and Uyghur college students are not permitted to fast during Ramadan.

Ironically, outside of Xinjiang, Chinese Muslims, mostly ethnic Hui, are not discriminated against by the Han. Some observe it is because they are physically indistinguishable from the Han and Mandarin-speaking. Thus, it seems that the problems in Xinjiang are more closely tied to lack of assimilation of a unique ethnic group, rather than Islamist extremism alone.

Yet, if China continues to threaten Uyghur religious identity, the likelihood of attracting more discontented Muslims to jihadism will grow. Uyghur separatists, to date, seem more inclined to interact with Islamist groups in Pakistan and central Asia for training only, not Islamist indoctrination. Yet, there is a trickle of radicalization in the province, embodied by groups such as the Eastern Turkestan Islamist Movement (ETIM). ETIM’s actual numbers, capabilities and connections to more serious extremists like al-Qaeda or ISIS is unclear.

Strategically located at the border of eight countries: Russia, Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, Mongolia, and the central Asian states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, Xinjiang can either be a buffer to Islamist extremism or an Islamist foothold into China. As evidenced in other nationalist movements where Muslims are involved, like Chechnya or Bosnia, Islamist foreign fighters sometimes take on a cause whether they are invited or not; or in the case of the Iranian revolution, usurp power once a common goal (overthrowing the Shah) is achieved.

Should Islamist extremists in any of these countries (and there are many) turn their attention east, it would be very easy for foreign fighters to adopt the Uyghur nationalist movement as a Muslim cause and introduce Xinjiang to dreams of an enduring caliphate.

More than 20,000 foreign fighters from 80 countries have joined the ranks of ISIS and other extremist groups in Iraq and Syria. Somewhat surprisingly, of that total, almost 4,000 fighters have come from Western Europe.

Why would so many leave relatively comfortable lives in the West to take up jihad?

Religious extremists often believe they are waging a divine battle for good against evil and have historically justified their actions – no matter how violent or grotesque – as appropriate, divine acts in the service of God. Their opponents therefore become not just ideological opponents, but amoral enemies of God. The defense of God’s message against such enemies in turn enables extremists to justify and rationalize all manner of actions that appear cruel or bizarre to outsiders.

Islamic extremism is grabbing headlines today for its widespread brutality, but religious-based extremism is far from exclusive to Islam. For example, Jewish extremist Baruch Goldstein committed a reprehensible massacre of 29 Muslim worshippers in a Hebron mosque in 1994. In addition, violent Jewish Israeli nationalists have committed so-called price-tag attacks on Muslim businesses, houses of worship, and private property. In one such recent attack, members of a Jewish anti-Arab group set fire to a bilingual Hebrew-Arabic school in Jerusalem. An Orthodox rabbi from Teaneck, N.J., made international headlines in November 2014 with a blog post stating, “Arabs who dwell in the land of Israel are the enemy in that war and must be vanquished.”

One manifestation of Christian extremist violence took place in 1994 when the Rev. Paul Hill killed Dr. John Britton and his bodyguard outside a Florida abortion clinic. Before his 2003 execution, Hill said he expected “a great reward in Heaven.”

The Army of God, a Virginia-based anti-abortion group, has claimed responsibility for the bombings of abortion clinics in Georgia and Alabama, while praising the murders of abortion doctors – though it did not claim direct responsibility for those acts. Its website invites visitors to send thank-you notes to Scott Roeder, convicted for the 2009 murder of Dr. George Tiller, medical director of a Kansas abortion clinic.

Christian Pastor Terry Jones of Florida issued a worldwide call in 2010 to burn copies of the Koran on September 11, which he dubbed “International Burn a Koran Day.” The Southern Poverty Law Center lists Jones as part of the “Anti-Muslim Inner Circle.”

All of these people were motivated by what they believed to be a divine duty. Clearly, even as mainstream religious leaders seek to condemn religious-based extremism, the justification of violence as a holy endeavor remains an enduring phenomenon across religions.

A January 18 Israeli airstrike on a Hezbollah convoy in Syria left six dead, including a senior Iranian general who had been advising the Syrian military. The strike had been in response to Syrian rocket fire within the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. Hezbollah responded 10 days later with a rocket attack on an Israeli patrol in the disputed Shebaa Farms area of the Golan Heights, killing two soldiers. Israel responded by shelling Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon.

It seemed like another war between Israel and Hezbollah was inevitable. Then on January 30, Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah said his group doesn’t want a war but is “not afraid of war.” He added that Hezbollah has thrown out its rules of engagement with Israel and will strike when and where it chooses.

To most observers, this sounded more like an attempt at deterrence than a ‘rally-the-troops’ address. Recent skirmishes may point toward a new conflict between Hezbollah and Israel, but Hezbollah’s military situation and Israel’s political situation make that scenario much less likely. Hezbollah and Israel were obligated to respond to January’s tit-for-tat attacks, but both refrained from the types of large-scale retaliation that would inevitably have led to a full scale conflict. Indeed, Hezbollah has reportedly told Israel through unofficial channels that it is uninterested in war.

Hezbollah might actually be at its weakest in years. The Shiite terror group has been stretched thin fighting on behalf of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, losing at least 1,000 men. It also faces threats from ISIS, the Nusra Front, and other Sunni rebel groups. A depleted Hezbollah and Syrian forces reportedly began a campaign in early February to push the Nusra Front out of southern Syria.

A sustained Israeli aerial assault would further weaken Hezbollah, allowing Syrian jihadist groups to take advantage on other fronts and perhaps even push into Lebanon. A war with Israel would also wreak havoc on Lebanon, further incensing a public already angry at Hezbollah for dragging Lebanon into the Syrian war and suspicious the Shiite group is putting Iran’s interests ahead of Lebanon’s.

Israeli strikes on Syrian government targets better serve Hezbollah’s interests. Israel has officially remained neutral in the Syrian civil war, but increased Israeli strikes against Syrian targets risk raising suspicions that jihadist rebel groups are collaborating with the Jewish state. Such suspicions could weaken rebel factions that do not want to be seen collaborating with Israel. Israel likely knows this and has limited its strikes in Syria to targets directly affecting its interests, avoiding overt interference in the Syrian conflict.

With Israeli elections scheduled for March, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is looking to bolster his security credentials. Last summer’s conflict with Hamas is still fresh in the minds of many Israelis, as is Netanyahu’s inability to score a decisive victory against the terrorist group that rules the Gaza Strip. Engaging in a war with Hezbollah ahead of elections would likely damage Netanyahu’s reelection chances if he could not score a quick and decisive victory, which is unlikely. Continued small pinpoint strikes against immediate Hezbollah threats demonstrate strength while pragmatically avoiding getting drawn into a wider conflict.

Israel will likely continue to respond to individual attacks on its northern frontier and concentrate its air power on stopping major weapons shipments from Iran. Hezbollah will continue to beat its chest in response. Full-fledged war, however, currently serves no one’s interests. 

What do the perpetrators of the recent terrorist attacks in Paris and Copenhagen have in common? Beyond the similarity of their chosen targets, three of the four men were homegrown Islamist extremists radicalized in European prisons.

Paris shooters Cherif Kouachi and Amedy Coulibaly met at French prison Fleury-Merogis, Europe’s largest jail, holding more than 4,000 inmates.  Kouachi was arrested and imprisoned for attempting to join jihad against American troops in Iraq in 2005.  Coulibaly was serving his third sentence for armed robbery. In their youth, both men had formed associations in Islamic radical circles.

The two men were housed in the same wing of the prison and were influenced by Djamel Beghal, a radical jihadist with ties to Osama bin Laden.  Beghal had been sent to France decades before to set up a terrorist cell. He was serving a 10-year sentence for a plot to bomb the U.S. embassy in Paris and became famous within the prison’s walls. Although Beghal was kept in isolation, the men found ways to contact him. It was during this period that Coulibaly converted to Islam.

Cherif Kouachi was again jailed in 2008 for helping to send militants to Iraq. Coulibaly also served an additional sentence in 2013 for his involvement in the effort to free Islamist Smain Ait Ali Belkacem from prison. Coulibaly was released in 2014. Instead of reforming the pair, prison had served as a nurturing environment for their growing extremism. Their ideologies continued to fester and intensify, coming to a head in Paris in early January 2015.

Twenty-two year old Omar Abdel Hamid El-Hussein, the perpetrator of the Feb. 15 Copenhagen attacks, was born and raised by Palestinian parents in the Danish capital. In January 2014, he was arrested and imprisoned on burglary charges and the stabbing of a 19-year old man. While in prison, he was radicalized to the point of pledging allegiance to ISIS, which he did on his Facebook page just days before the attacks. Prison authorities warned that El-Hussein was at “risk of being radicalized in jail,” but Danish intelligence services did not see him as an imminent threat. Two weeks after he was released, he carried out the deadly attacks that killed two and wounded five..

These perpetrators illustrate the severity of Islamic radicalization in European prisons. Today, Muslims constitute more than half of the population in French prisons, though they comprise only 8 percent of the French population. This makes it easy for radical Islamist prisoners to prey on potential recruits, rallying for their larger cause. EU governments will not be able to put a significant dent in extremism until they find a way to effect change in the prison system that today transforms so many into violent jihadists.   

The United Arab Emirates labeled two U.S. non-profit groups, the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Muslim American Society, as terrorist organizations in late 2014 due to connections to the Muslim Brotherhood. The U.S.  has not taken similar action, however, it has on multiple occasions prosecuted other organizations for funneling money to extremist groups.

In July 2004, U.S. authorities indicted officials from the Dallas, Texas-based Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development for financial relations with a Specially Designated Global Terrorist. Holy Land, then the country’s largest Muslim charity, had provided money for orphanages and clinics in the West Bank and Gaza, but it also provided $12.4 million to Hamas, according to the indictment. Authorities closed down the foundation in 2001.

In 2008, five Holy Land leaders were found guilty of providing material support to Hamas. During the trial, CAIR argued the case was politically motivated. Unbeknownst to many then, CAIR had been an unindicted co-conspirator in the trial.

After the verdict, CAIR continued to operate freely in the United States. It collected $5.9 million in contributions in 2012, according to tax records. Just days before the UAE’s designation, CAIR reportedly honored Sami Al-Arian, a former University of South Florida professor who founded the USF-affiliated World and Islam Studies Enterprise (WISE) in 1990 to promote scholarly research and dialogue between Muslim and Western scholars. Al-Arian and WISE were under investigation for several years for ties to Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and its secretary general, former USF professor Ramadan Shallah.

Shallah joined WISE’s leadership when he arrived at USF in 1991. He left USF in early 1995 and was introduced as PIJ’s new leader that October. WISE denied knowledge of Shallah’s affiliation with any Middle East political group. In May 1997, however, the Immigration and Naturalization Service alleged that the Tampa-based Islamic Concern Project and WISE were fronts for Palestinian terror groups.

In February 2003, the Department of Justice accused Al-Arian of being PIJ's North American leader. Most charges against him were dropped in 2006 after he pleaded to one count of aiding PIJ, and he is currently awaiting deportation.

In 2012, two Australian organizations – World Vision, a Christian relief, development and advocacy group, and AusAID, the Australian government agency responsible for managing the country’s overseas aid programs – were listed as financial supporters of the Union of Agriculture Work Committee (UAWC) in the Palestinian territories. The UAWC, however, was created in 1986 by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and PFLP members have appeared at recent events.

Great Britain’s Charity Commission began investigating the relief organization Children in Deen in April 2014 after a participant in a 2013 aid convoy, Abdul Waheed Majeed, had allegedly become Britain’s first suicide bomber in Syria. Children in Deen is one of more than 80 charities the Charity Commission is investigating for possible extremist ties.

Charities present prime opportunities for abuse by extremists. Under the guise of providing welfare, charities can launder money and provide fresh supplies to extremist groups in far-away lands through the use of aid convoys, as well as create sympathy for the needy and the extremist groups claiming to represent them.

“Even if extremist and terrorist abuse is rare, which it is, when it happens it does huge damage to public trust in charities,” said William Shawcross, chair of Britain’s Charity Commission.

Unfortunately, it is not rare enough.

As many as 20,730 foreigners have joined armed militant groups in Iraq and Syria, making the two countries the most popular destinations for Muslim foreigner fighters in modern history.

While garnering tremendous media attention of late, the phenomenon of foreign fighters is not new. Muslim foreign fighters have joined modern conflicts since the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, when influential Islamic scholar Abdullah Azzam issued a fatwa (religious decree) declaring that fighting against the Soviets was fard ayn (an individual religious duty) for all Muslims.

From 1980 until 2010, 10,000 to 30,000 Muslim foreign fighters took part in 16 conflicts throughout the world. Of these, Afghanistan has drawn the greatest contingency of foreign fighters by far, followed by the 2003 Iraq war and the 1992-1995 Bosnian war. Afghanistan has consistently drawn foreign fighters since the 1980s, and conflicts in Somalia, Chechnya and Tajikistan have also drawn comparatively small but notable contingencies of foreign fighters.

The phenomenon of foreign fighters poses a particular threat to the West. An analysis by Thomas Hegghammer of the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment estimates that one in nine foreign fighters have returned home to perpetrate attacks. Statistics from 1990 to 2010 show that during that time, 26 percent  of all terrorist plotters had foreign fighter experience, and about 46 percent of all plots included at least one veteran foreign fighter. For executed attacks that resulted in fatalities, 67 percent had at least one veteran foreign fighter. While not all foreign fighters have become al-Qaeda members, the majority of al-Qaeda members began their careers as foreign fighters, and most international jihadist groups are the by-products of foreign fighter mobilizations.

Today, Muslim foreign fighters have traveled to Iraq and Syria from more than 80 different countries, including at least 14 in Western Europe. Of these, France is estimated to have produced the greatest number of foreign fighters in Iraq and Syria, while Belgium has produced the highest number per capita. Almost one-fifth of all foreign fighters are estimated to come from Western Europe.

Some of these foreign fighters have already returned from conflict zones to their home countries, and a subsection of these fighters have already plotted or carried out attacks against the West. French native Mehdi Nemmouche is allegedly one, having purportedly returned from fighting abroad with ISIS to perpetrate the attack at a Jewish Museum in Belgium that killed four.

Over the last two years, European security officials have disrupted at least five terrorist plots with possible links to foreign fighters from Iraq and Syria, in countries ranging from Kosovo to the U.K. Following the January 2015 Islamist attacks in Paris, European countries, particularly Belgium and France, have disrupted terrorist cells and made sweeping arrests that have involved suspected terrorists and returned foreign fighters.

Western countries differ in their policies towards toward returning foreign fighters. Some choose to monitor or imprison citizens known to have fought in Iraq and Syria, while others emphasize their commitment to rehabilitation. Others still have begun to refuse re-entry to returning foreign fighters altogether. While the response differs by country and even by case, all governments appear to recognize the threat posed by returnees. For although foreigners may have left to fight in the conflict zone for a wide array of reasons – some for adventure, some for violence, some to defend their brothers and sisters – their return after fighting poses a clear, statistical threat.

In the words of a European counterterrorism official speaking to CNN, “The threat of attacks has never been greater – not at the time of 9/11, not after the war in Iraq – never.”

Right-wing extremist groups have traditionally rejected democratic values, particularly equality. They have, however, used the democratic process to gain strength across Europe in recent years. Last year, right-wing extremist political parties received record votes in the EU Parliament and made important gains in a number of national legislative bodies.

Right-wing extremism is characterized by strong ethno-nationalism and the belief in a homogenous nation. Minorities are viewed as outsiders and become scapegoats responsible for society’s problems. This has led to anti-immigration political platforms, rallies, and acts of violence across the continent.

Marine Le Pen, head of France’s National Front, scored Islamist extremism in a recent New York Times op-ed.  On its own, the piece could be interpreted as being reasonable.  Contextually, it is important to know that Le Pen heads a xenophobic, anti-immigration, and historically anti-Semitic organization. National Front won a third of France’s 74 seats in the 751-member European Parliament last year, which French Prime Minister Manuel Valls called “an earthquake.” The National Front’s win is indicative of a crisis of confidence in the EU, he said.

Greece’s neo-Nazi party, Golden Dawn, advocates National Socialism, racism, and anti-Semitism. It considers the United States and liberalism to be Greece’s absolute enemies.  Golden Dawn supports the Arabs “oppressed by Zionism,” but also fights against what it sees as the “Islamification” of Greece and the rest of Europe.  Its popularity spurred by the global financial crisis and opposition to economic austerity measures, Golden Dawn won 6.9 percent of the vote in Greece’s 2012 parliamentary elections. Since then, members of the party have been implicated in hundreds of attacks and racist incidents against immigrants, including the 2013 fatal stabbing of a left-wing musician. Greece moved to ban Golden Dawn after the murder, and its party leadership and prominent lawmakers are in pre-trial detention for belonging to a criminal organization. Despite this, Golden Dawn won 17 seats in Greece’s 300-seat parliament in January, making it the third largest party in Greece.

The Movement for a Better Hungary (Jobbik) claims to protect Hungarian values and describes itself as a “radically patriotic Christian party.” A 2014 Hungarian court ruling said Jobbik may be described as neo-Nazi. It has argued that Jews represent a national security risk, while calling for detention camps for Roma “deviants.” It became Hungary’s third largest political party after the country’s elections last year.

In Germany, a group called Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the Occident (Pegida) held several rallies in January that drew upwards of 25,000 people protesting the “Islamization” of the West. Pegida’s leaders insist they are not racist and are exercising their rights to free speech and assembly. German Chancellor Angela Merkel accused the group of having “hatred in their hearts” but defended their right to speak freely. 

The Netherlands’ Party for Freedom head Geert Wilders is known for extreme anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant views. Dutch authorities said in December they would charge Wilders with anti-immigrant hate speech for remarks he made during a March 2014 rally against Moroccans in the country. He was previously charged with hate speech in 2011 after he compared the Quran to Mein Kampf and called for the holy book to be banned. He was acquitted of the charges.

Right-wing extremism may appear synonymous with hatred against immigrants, but the growing popularity of the movement is more complex. European austerity measures stemming from the global financial crisis have angered citizens in a number of countries and many are looking for someone to blame. Eighty years ago, Jews represented “the other” in otherwise largely homogenous European societies. Today, the failure of Muslim immigrants to assimilate into Europe has given right-wing extremists a new scapegoat; and the rise of Islamist extremism has allowed right-wing extremists to disguise their ideology as a defense of traditional values and a shared history against a violent ideology bent on conquest.

At one time, it was assumed that it was impossible to study the motives of women who sacrifice their lives during acts of terror, simply because those instances were so rare and isolated.  However, as female participation in suicide bombings has gradually become more common, the phenomenon has begun to capture the attention of sociologists and researchers worldwide.

In the past, psychologists posited that only abused, grieving, vengeful or coerced women could turn toward becoming suicide bombers. Because the incidence of female terrorism is highest in the Islamic world, it was presumed that given the tendency there to respect stricter gender roles, terrorists would recruit women for suicide bombings only as a last resort. That assumption may no longer be valid.

Groups are concluding that there appear to be a number of advantages to using females to carry out suicide bombing missions. Women often appear less conspicuous to authorities and therefore are less likely to raise suspicion and be stopped before detonating thier explosives.

Nevertheless, studies of female suicide bombers tend to focus on personal traumas and emotional issues as motivating factors for the women involved. This differs markedly from the sociological study of male suicide bombers, which has concentrated on motivating factors associated with religion and politics, in addition to the power of indoctrination, recruitment and religious extremism.

As it turns out, the motivation factors for female suicide bombers can be more complex and layered. For example, the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University published an article entitled Female Suicide Bombers: Dying for Equality? The article highlights the story of Wafa Idris, a 25-year-old   Palestinian divorcee. Her husband left her because she was unable to have children, and she returned to her parents’ home where she became “an economic burden.” Barren and divorced, the chances of her building a new life were slim. Her only chance for societal redemption was to become a suicide bomber. On January 27, 2002 Wafa detonated a bomb on her person and became the first female suicide bomber to attack within Israel.

Some women, like their male counterparts, become suicide bombers to further a political or religious cause. However, motivating factors for female terrorists sometimes involved other personal and gender-specific factors, including challenges to patriarchal systems that relegate them to second-class citizenship. Nevertheless, in the vast majority of cases, the women interviewed did not express regret for their actions. 

Recently, media reports have described a new and disturbing development involving women and terrorism in Nigeria. The Islamist terror group Boko Haram is suspected of using kidnapped school girls  to carry out suicide bombings. This recent phenomenon represents a devastating complication in the fight to stop women from participating or being forced to participate in suicide bombings.

Clearly, in order to prevent future incidents where women take their own lives while murdering innocent men, women and children, past assumptions about motivations will have to be shelved and more resources devoted to understanding  and preventing this phenomenon from growing.

Sayyid Qutb, (1906-1966) was a prominent Egyptian author and the intellectual father of modern jihadism. Following are representative examples of the frequently violent, divisive and extremist rhetoric characteristic of the man who became an icon of the Muslim Brotherhood:

Racist: “Jazz is the American music, created by Negroes to satisfy their primitive instincts—their love of noise and their appetite for sexual arousal.” (from The Looming Tower)

Anti-Semitic: “The Jews are behind materialism, animal sexuality, the destruction of the family and the dissolution of society.” (from In Their Own Words: Voices of Jihad)

Anti-Gay: “In all modern jahili societies, the meaning of ‘morality’ is limited to such an extent that all those aspects which distinguish man from animal are considered beyond its sphere. In these societies, illegitimate sexual relationships, even homosexuality, are not considered immoral.” (from Qutb’s Milestones)

Anti-Christian, Anti-Jewish: “The true goal of the People of the Book, whether Jews or Christians… is to lead Muslims astray from their religion to the religion of the People of the Book.” (from In Their Own Words: Voices of Jihad)

Anti-Non-Salafist Muslims (Takfirism): “Indeed, people are not Muslims, as they proclaim to be, as long as they live the life of Jahiliyyah… This is not Islam, and they are not Muslims.” (from Qutb’s Milestones)

Anti-West: “I hate those Westerners and despise them! All of them, without any exception: the English, the French, the Dutch, and finally the Americans, who have been trusted by many.” (from The Looming Tower)

Anti-Secular, Non-Salafist Muslims: “There are two parties in all the world: the Party of Allah and the Party of Satan – the party of Allah which stands under the banner of Allah and bears his insignia, and the Party of Satan, which includes every community, group, race, and individual that does not stand under the banner of Allah.” (from In Their Own Words: Voices of Jihad)

Teaching Hatred and Violence: “Let us… plant the seeds of hatred, disgust, and revenge in the souls of these children. Let us teach these children from the time their nails are soft that the white man is the enemy of humanity, and that they should destroy him at the first opportunity.” (from The Looming Tower)

Anti-Democracy: “Islam is a declaration of the freedom of man from servitude to other men. Thus it strives from the beginning to abolish all those systems and governments which are based on the rule of man over men.” (from Qutb’s Milestones)

Pro-Pan-Islamism: “It is the nature of Islam to dominate, not to be dominated, to impose its law on all nations, and to extend its power to the entire planet.” (from The Looming Tower)

Pro-Violence:“[Resistance to shariah] must be removed by physical force, which is ultimately the only way.” (from In Their Own Words: Voices of Jihad)
 

As evidenced by the recent cyberattack against Sony Pictures, acts of cyberterrorism are increasingly being committed by state actors.

From mid-2012 to early 2013, a group called the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters launched more than 200 distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against PNC, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, and other financial institutions. DDoS attacks overwhelm websites with traffic, such as external communications requests, in order to overwhelm and create a bottleneck within the server’s operations, making the site unreachable.

The U.S. accused Iran and its Quds Force, the Islamic Republic’s expeditionary terrorist arm, of orchestrating the attacks.

The Syrian Electronic Army (SEA), loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad, claimed responsibility for a number of cyberattacks in 2013. It hacked into the Associated Press’ Twitter account and released a tweet saying that President Obama had been wounded in a White House bombing. As a result, the Dow Jones average plunged 140 points. The SEA hacked the U.S. Marines’ website, posting a message accusing President Obama of siding with al-Qaeda in Syria. It also targeted Qatar’s domain name system, compromising government websites, including state-sponsored Al Jazeera.

One component of a comprehensive defense against terrorism is heightened public awareness of the threat. The same is true for cyberterrorism. Coincidentally, the Sony attacks occurred at a time when the U.S. was attempting to do just that.  October was National Cyber Security Awareness Month and November was Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience Month.

There are challenges to raising awareness of the threat from cyberterrorism, not the least of which is the lack of consensus on even a definition of the term.  

NATO, for example, defines cyberterrorism as “a cyber attack using or exploiting computer or communication networks to cause sufficient destruction to generate fear or intimidate a society into an ideological goal.”

The FBI defines it as the “premeditated, politically motivated attack against information, computer systems, computer programs, and data which result in violence against noncombatant targets by sub-national groups or clandestine agents.”

In her book, Computer Forensics: Cybercriminals, laws and evidence, cybercrime expert Dr. Marie-Helen Maras defines it as:

“The politically, religiously, or ideologically motivated use of computers (or related technology) by an individual, group, or state targeting critical infrastructure with the intention of harming persons and/or damaging property in order to influence the population (or segment of the population) or cause a government to change its policies.”

To appropriately respond to cyberterrorism, authorities first need to reach consensus on how to define it.  Until there is a standard definition, there cannot be effective laws and regulations aimed at preventing or curtailing this criminal activity.  Also, differing country to country standards make transnational cooperation and enforcement needlessly complex. This gap was highlighted by the government’s debate over whether the recent attack on Sony was cyberterrorism or cybervandalism.

CEP has opened its own front in the cyberspace battle with the #Digital Disruption Campaign, designed to identify and expose extremists who are misusing social media platforms like Twitter to radicalize and recruit new members, and to plan violent attacks against innocent people. Through this rigorous research and crowdsourcing campaign, CEP has monitored hundreds of accounts and exposed violent calls to action and instances of direct threats against individuals that jihadis are propagating on Twitter. 

On Jan. 27, CEP CEO Ambassador Mark Wallace, in testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade, highlighted the need for more aggressive actions for identifying and removing extremists from social media platforms. Wallace outlined a number of mechanisms by which social media companies can be proactive in preventing the hijacking and weaponization of Twitter and other platforms. He reiterated CEP’s calls for Twitter, in particular, to significantly strengthen its policies along the lines of new guidelines it developed to prevent bullying and harassment of women.

Fighting cyberterrorism will also require strengthened public-private partnerships. The Pentagon spends about $3 billion a year on cyberdefenses. A 2013 Executive Order called for increased information sharing to protect critical infrastructure. It largely focused on what the government provides to the private sector and not what the private sector provides to the government. To be effective, information sharing must be a two-way street.

In July 2013, 50 financial institutions simulated a cyberattack to test their responses. A key finding was that information sharing between the public and private sectors is essential to protecting critical infrastructure from cyberterrorism. Former Senator Judd Gregg, CEO of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, which led the exercise, said he hoped the test would encourage Congress to pass legislation promoting information-sharing.

Hopefully, an intensified awareness to the many dangers of cyberterrorism of all kinds, and greater cooperation between public and private entities can give this issue the exposure it deserves and boost the effectiveness of our efforts to prevent it.