As Ukraine dominates headlines, Afghanistan has receded into the background. This has happened before. After the mujahideen wore out the Soviet Red Army, the US forgot about Afghanistan. To be fair, there was a lot going on. The Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and the Soviet Union itself collapsed in...
On August 15 last year, Ashraf Ghani, the then president of Afghanistan fled the country. Ironically, Ghani had promised that he would “die defending” his country only three months before he fled. By fleeing, Ghani facilitated the takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban who are led...
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?
Throughout the Sahel, international borders are porous, poverty rates are high, and there is a history of violent conflict making social fabrics acutely fragile.
Today, people’s rising aspirations often sit at odds with political stability. Impatience, dissent and violent protests can easily slip into insurgency and terrorism. Various state machineries stand guilty of weaponizing political disaffection in pursuit of political goals. These policies often...
Since 2011, Tunisia has been widely recognized as the Arab Spring’s only success story. But the North African state's political transition faces grave threats.
In all likelihood, you have an ambiguous understanding of “terrorism.” The average individual can recognize an event as terrorism but, when asked to define the term, is able to offer only the most general of definitions. The reason for this is that terrorism is undefined or, more accurately,...
International sporting events, especially the Olympic Games, are a perfect theater in which to play out political dramas. “The world will begin hearing us. We are, for 24 years, the world's largest refugee population. Our homes taken from us, living in camps, no future, no food, nothing decent...
Nobody really knows for sure whether today’s terrorists are really yesterday’s criminals, thugs and gangsters. It seems that studying terrorism and terrorists through the prism of past criminal activities has become particularly fashionable. Western media outlets have been awash with...
Cultural artifacts from across the world are being peddled so bombs can be thrown back at us. How much does a terrorist attack cost? Where does the money come from? How does the money get through to terror groups? How are far-off countries like India an integral part of the terror-funding...
Jailing returning jihadists among the general prison population presents a worrying source of radicalization in Europe. On July 26, a German court sentenced Sven Lau, a known recruiter of foreign fighters, to more than five years in prison. One immediate concern following the continued loss of...
The Yazidis of the Middle East have been persecuted for centuries. But who are they? Since 2014, a unique ethno-religious community in northern Iraq/Kurdistan known as the Yazidis have been persecuted ruthlessly by the Islamic State (IS). The information within this article is built upon what...
The recent terrorist attack in Iran has exposed the fragility of the country’s security. On June 7, terrorism came to Tehran as 17 people were killed and many more wounded. While the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, dismissed the attack as mere “fireworks,” in reality it shocked the...
The long and destructive campaign by the IRA not only hardened the citizens of London and Manchester, but increased their open-mindedness about how to deal with terrorism. In the wake of the June 3 terror attacks in London, Mayor Sadiq Khan assured Londoners of their safety. He said this as part...
The reality behind the cause of terrorism is somewhere in between the failures of integration as a domestic policy level and the consequences of foreign policy in the Middle East. It was another night in London and another terrorist attack on Britain. On June 3, the capital witnessed a horrific...
