At the height of the Islamic State’s (IS) success, in 2013 and 2014, a constant flow of information emerged on social media about the group’s leaders.
Though not enough to endanger the group’s leadership, it did give a general idea of its chain of command. At times IS actively contributed to this through its propaganda, while exercising care not to compromise security.
On the very day of the proclamation of the “Caliphate”, on 29 June 2014, the so-called Islamic State (IS) published a video in English, through one of its official media channels, titled “The End of Sykes-Picot”. In this sophisticated video, a Chilean-Norwegian militant showed and narrated the destruction of a border crossing between Iraq and Syria as well as the hoisting of the “Caliphate”’s flag.
Radicalization in prison has long been a critical issue in the West (and beyond), where prisons have sometimes been turned in recruitment and proselytization hubs by different kinds of extremists, including jihadists. As is well known, one of the main concerns is that radicalized subjects may indoctrinate other common detainees. Italy has also been affected by this phenomenon and jihadist radicalization in prison represents a concrete threat.
In the past years, expulsions on the grounds of extremism have acquired a key role in the Italian strategy to counter the jihadist threat.1 2015 in particular, marked an important change in the use of this tool.
Italian legislation features different types of expulsions that can be used in the fight on extremism:
“A historical anomaly” is the starting point for analysing Thai history of the last two centuries: that is, unlike other Southeast Asian nations, Thailand has never been colonised. This is the theory of Yale University historian Eugene Ford.
Throughout much of their recent history, Indonesia and Malaysia have been celebrated by regional and global audiences alike as thriving examples of peaceful coexistence between different religions and backgrounds, thanks to the consolidation of a moderate, pluralistic, and generally accommodative Islam that proved de facto compatible with democratic principles and practices.
Since March 2017, the autonomous region of Xinjiang has gained, once again, media coverage because of the continuous clashes between the local Uyghur population and the Chinese government forces.
On July 1, 2016, Bangladesh was rocked to the core as a group of young militants stormed Holey Artisan Bakery, a posh café in a highly secured diplomatic zone in Dhaka, killing 20 hostages – 17 of whom were of foreign nationals. A week later, another attack in Sholakia, which was hosting the largest Eid prayer of the country, killed 3 more people, including 2 police officers. ISIS had finally announced its arrival in the country through its local wing “Neo-JMB”.
Despite the several conflicts that were taking place in and around India, Tamil Nadu in South India has been distantly associated with the threat of jihadism and the global threat of terrorism emanating from contemporary jihadist groups. This has changed over the last twenty-four months or so. The attraction that the on-going civil war in Syria holds for foreign fighters has altered this landscape of relative peace.
Between Afghanistan and Pakistan there are probably a record number of organizations dedicated to terrorist activities, some hundreds if even the smallest ones are counted. In practice, the 'terrorists' of Afghanistan and Pakistan can be grouped into five groups:
• The Afghan Taliban, involved in terrorist activities mainly through the Haqqani network, which operate against Western presence in Afghanistan and against the Afghans accused of collaborating with them;
Today the so-called foreign fighters seem to pose a serious threat to the security of countries across the world, including many in Asia.
In July 29, 2018, four Western cyclists were killed in Tajikistan's Danghara district by a group of five men who hit them with a car before stabbing them to death. In a video released after the attack, the five men appear to pledge allegiance to the Islamic State, while sitting under a tree in front of the Islamic State flag.
