FO Live asks if another mass casualty terrorist attack is inevitable. What drives terrorism in the 21st century? And is there a solution to this phenomenon?
In France, Samuel Paty was beheaded on October 16 near Paris. He was a history teacher who had shown caricatures of Prophet Muhammad to his students in a lesson on freedom of speech and freedom of conscience. Paty’s killer, Abdullakh Anzorov, is an 18-year-old of Chechen origin. He arrived in...
Scholars hoping to get an insider and yet critical appraisal of Islamic activism in Europe should take this book as their starting point. No religious minority in the world today has received so much global attention as the Muslims in Europe. From the burkini and burqa ban in France to the...
Pakistan’s focus on external enemies complicates efforts to reduce political violence, ease inter-communal strains and facilitate the easing of tensions with neighboring countries. In August, Pakistan’s military commanders gathered to assess the impact of the massive bombing in Quetta that...
For Saudi Arabia, the chicken is coming home to roost. The Saudi export and global support for religiously driven groups goes far beyond Wahhabism—its own puritan interpretation of Islam—and is not simply a product of the Faustian bargain that the ruling Saud family made with the...
The terrorist attack on an upmarket bakery in Dhaka could herald a more intense phase of Islamist violence in Bangladesh. In the first-ever largescale attack on Dhaka’s diplomatic zone, gunmen stormed Holey Artisan Bakery, an upscale restaurant in the Gulshan neighborhood, on July 1 and held...
Knowingly or unknowingly, we may be supporting and promoting groups like Daesh instead of crippling and destroying them. In the fight against terrorist groups or cults, we should take care not to promote them in any way or to make it easier for them to recruit. Our first line of defense should...
The UK government wants to get tough on fighting extremism, but will the extended approach help or is it a form of McCarthyism? The British government has announced a raft of measures to help fight the war against extremism. It is part of a revised counterterrorism and counter-extremism strategy...
What can history teach us about jihadist groups such as the Islamic State? “No, we must be clear. The root cause of the threat we face is the extremist ideology itself.” British Prime Minister David Cameron’s recent speech in Birmingham represents a direct political intervention in the...
