Categories
Africa Asia Pacific Middle East North America Policy & Politics Regional Security & Conflict Topical

Countering Terror in Transition: A Typology of Terrorist Organization Successors and their Vulnerabilities

Dr. Tricia Bacon is an Associate Professor at the School of Public Affairs at American University. Dr. Elizabeth Grimm is an Associate Professor of Teaching in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University. One of the singular challenges for a terrorist organization is how to transition to another leader after the founder’s death. For the […]

Categories
Middle East Policy & Politics Security & Conflict

ISIS Is Not al-Qaeda: We Need a Different Strategy

Author Nicole A. Softness argues that ISIS is primarily, and potentially exclusively, prioritizing its territorial claims. She argues that this warrants a new strategy from the US-led counterterrorism alliance: one that treats ISIS like a violent revolutionary movement (more akin to the French and Communist Revolutions), and as a potentially legitimate state, rather than a scattered and decentralized ideological network.

Categories
Asia Pacific Civil Society Governance & Law Security & Conflict

The Evolution of FATA Land into a Hub of Terrorism

Author Ahmad Shah Katawazai discusses the development of terrorist elements in the largely ungoverned Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) along the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan, describes its implications for regional and international security, and offers policy prescriptions to combat the continued growth of extremism in the FATA.

Categories
Civil Society Governance & Law Middle East

Tribalism in Transition: Iraq’s Sunni Tribes Before, During and After the Islamic State – Part II

In this two-part series, author Alex Simon discusses the evolution and increasingly fragmented nature of Sunni tribalism in Iraq from the era of Ottoman occupation through the rise of the so-called Islamic State, and its implications for the future of the Iraqi polity.

Categories
Civil Society Governance & Law Middle East

Tribalism in Transition: Iraq’s Sunni Tribes Before, During and After the Islamic State – Part I

In this two-part series, author Alex Simon discusses the evolution and increasingly fragmented nature of Sunni tribalism in Iraq from the era of Ottoman occupation through the rise of the so-called Islamic State, and its implications for the future of the Iraqi polity.

Categories
Book Reviews Middle East Policy & Politics Security & Conflict

ISIS: The State of Terror

Richard Purcell, a SAIS alum and freelance writer covering international security affairs, reviews Jessica Stern and J.M. Berger’s new book, “ISIS: The State of Terror.”