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THE ROOTS OF RADICALIZATION


The Stream, on Al Jazeera English, hosted a discussion of radicalization with Haris Tarin, director of the Washington office of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC); Mubin Shaikh, a former undercover operative with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS); and Intelwire's J.M. Berger.




When Boston Marathon runners rounded the bend from Beacon Street last week, they were in the home stretch of the race. As they poured through the closed intersection, they ran past a nondescript address: 510 Commonwealth Avenue.

The location was once home to an international support network that raised funds and recruited fighters for a jihadist insurgency against Russian rule over Chechnya, a region and a conflict that few of the runners had likely ever given any serious thought.

One mile farther, life in Boston was transformed in an act of horror that killed three and injured scores. And one week later, everyone in Boston and around the United States is thinking and talking and asking about Chechnya.

Full story at Foreign Policy

RECENT STORIES AND BLOG POSTS

The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of Inspire

Myths of Radicalization

Forecasting Terrorist Attacks With Big Data

Extremist Chatter on Boston Massacre

J.M. Berger on Marathon Bombings

Marathon Bombing: Issues to Watch

Background on Marathon Bombers Tamerlan Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

On Comparing White Nationalists to Anarchists

A Closer Look at the SPLC's Hate List

J.M. Berger discussed the Boston Marathon bombing with BBC television and radio, and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Berger also wrote about the attack for Foreign Policy and spoke with reporters from The Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail, the Christian Science Monitor, Radio Australia, AFP and many others.

WHO MATTERS ONLINE

It is relatively easy to identify tens of thousands of social media users who have an interest in violent ideologies, but very difficult to figure out which users are worth watching. For students of extremist movements and those working to counter violent extremism online, deciphering the signal amid the noise can prove incredibly daunting.

A new paper by J.M. Berger and Bill Strathearn published by the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR) offers new metrics for evaluating engagement and influence in social media networks related to extremism, analyzing thousands of followers of Twitter accounts for prominent American white nationalists and anarchists. The metrics were extremely effective at identifying highly engaged extremists in large data sets.

The new research also sheds light on the relationship between mainstream and extremist politics, showing that followers of white nationalists on Twitter were highly engaged with mainstream Republican party politics, according to an analysis of the hashtags and links they tweeted.

For the full study, click here

RECALCULATING THE SPLC'S HATE LIST

The Southern Poverty Law Center released its annual "Year in Hate and Extremism" report last week, and as usual, it was terrifying. In an article for the SPLC's Intelligence Report magazine, researchers said they had identified an "all-time high" of 1,360 antigovernment groups active during 2012 and about the same staggering number of hate groups as last year, a total of 1,007. But those numbers are not what they seem.

Full Story at Foreign Policy


Somali al Qaeda affiliate al-Shabab woke up one January morning to discover that its popular English-language Twitter account -- @HSMPress -- had been suspended, apparently because it had issued a direct, specific threat of violence in breach of Twitter's terms of service. This rare termination dusted off one of the counterterrorism industry's most-cobwebbed debates: Should we let terrorist groups use the Internet, or should we try to knock them offline?

Full story at Foreign Policy

RECENT BLOG POSTS:

  • Inspire 10: Still sucks
  • Bum Rap
  • Former friend rips U.S. jihadi Hammami in online post
  • Omar Hammami and the Trolls of Jihad
  • Review: The Last Refuge


    PANEL: TERRORIST USE OF THE INTERNET


    J.M. Berger took part in a panel discussion on terrorist use of the Interent for the Huffington Post Live news channel.


    THE FBI'S SECRET WAR WITH THE PATRIOTS


    An FBI undercover program known as PATCON spent more than two years collecting intelligence on the Patriot movement, without producing a single conviction. Timothy McVeigh was in contact with members of the targeted groups at the time of the investigation, but those links escaped notice, even after the Oklahoma City bombing.

  • Special report by J.M. Berger for Foreign Policy (shorter)
  • Special report by J.M. Berger for the New America Foundation (longer)


    DOMESTIC EXTREMISM

  • Racists Eye Republican Party
  • Newtown and the Doomsday Preppers
  • When Are Informants Really Cops?
  • Unplaying the Race Card
  • Evolving Role of Race in the Patriot Movement
  • Wisconsin Shooter Showed Up in FBI Probe

    INTERVIEWS

  • U.S. Jihadist Omar Hammami on Why Al Shabab Wants to Kill Him
  • Online Jihadist Abu Suleiman Al Nasser
  • Controversial preacher Bilal Philips

    AMERICAN JIHADISTS

  • Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam
  • Bun Rap: Omar Hammami Disavows Propaganda Beats
  • The Boy Who Cried Lone Wolf
  • Why U.S. Terrorists Reject the Al Qaeda Playbook
  • Baltimore's Jamaat al-Muslimeen: Radical But Disciplined
  • Al Qaeda's Gun Fixation

    ANWAR AWLAKI

  • The Enduring Appeal of Awlaqi's "Constants on the Path of Jihad"
  • The Myth of Anwar Awlaki
  • Gone But Not Forgotten
  • Anwar Al-Awlaki's Links to the September 11 Hijackers
  • Anwar Awlaki's Emails with Fort Hood Shooter
  • U.S. Gave Millions To Charity Linked To Al Qaeda, Anwar Awlaki

    COUNTERING VIOLENT EXTREMISM (CVE)

  • A Way Forward for CVE: The Five Ds
  • Monsters and Children: Politics And How We Talk About Muslims
  • The Value of Exposing Collaborators
  • The 'You Name It!' Problem
  • White House CVE Strategy Full of Sound and Fury
  • Terrorist Acts, Terrorist Thoughts
  • Visualizing CVE Audiences

    ONLINE EXTREMISM

  • #Unfollow: Why Kicking Terrorists Off Twitter Works
  • The Trolls of Jihad
  • Internet provides terrorists with tools -- just like everyone else
  • Don't Be Evil: Why Terrorists Love Google Services

    AL QAEDA

  • Analysis: The Abbottabad Documents
  • Analysis: AQAP Vows Inspire Will Continue

    EXCLUSIVE DOCUMENTS

  • CIA's Secret 9/11 Files
  • FBI's Secret 9/11 Files
  • Oklahoma City Bombing, Stories and Documents


  • OSINT on Terrorism and Extremism, Social Media Monitoring, Analysis and Strategies | Read More...




    JIHAD JOE

    Jihad Joe by J.M. BergerJihad Joe: Americans Who Go To War In The Name Of Islam, the new book by INTELWIRE's J.M. Berger, is now available in both Kindle and hardcover editions. Order today!

    Jihad Joe is the first comprehensive history of the American jihadist movement, from 1979 through the present. Click here to read more about the critical acclaim Jihad Joe has earned so far, including from the New York Times, Publisher's Weekly, Redstate.com and more.