Radicalization and Extremism

U.S. policymakers have long overlooked women’s involvement in terrorism, and rarely enlisted their participation in efforts to combat radicalization. A new bill would require U.S. counterterrorism policy to address the roles that women play as victims, perpetrators, and preventers.

By Van Jackson New Zealand may appear to be a paradise in the Pacific, but it is afflicted by many of the problems facing other liberal democracies, such as a rising suicide rate and deep socioeconomic inequalities with no clear solution. To this list of shared problems, tragically, one can now add white nationalist terrorism. The terrorist attacks in Christchurch on March 15, in which fifty were killed and dozens more wounded, was the worst such attack in New Zealand history. Focusing on transnational strategic threats, and looking from New Zealand, policymakers generally have not viewed white nationalist terrorism as a strategic concern, though both New Zealand and Australia have histories of white nationalism, including long histories of exclusionary immigration laws. But the brand of terrorism that resulted in the massacre in New Zealand is a strategic threat, and one that has been a blind spot for New Zealand and the national security establishments of its Five Eyes partners—the United States, Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom, whose bureaucratic-level intelligence sharing was established decades ago. The Five Eyes intelligence partnership among these five states has, over time, been effective in monitoring and responding to the challenges of the Cold War, the threat of Islamist terrorism, and more recently in managing the evolving strategic threat that China poses in the Asia-Pacific and other regions. The threat of terrorism from white nationalists, however, is in some ways a more dangerous threat than either of these challenges, simply because it has been largely ignored by policymakers. Terrorism from white radicals is a transnational threat. Similar attacks to the Christchurch killing have occurred in Canada, European countries like Norway and the United Kingdom, and the United States. More will come, and these extremists view themselves as part of a war that is only just beginning. A manifesto from one of the alleged New Zealand attackers says as much, but white nationalist groups in the United States have discussed the idea of a battle emerging around the world as well. Radical white nationalist terrorism has been a blind spot for the national security communities in many countries. Although law enforcement agencies like the FBI have highlighted the threat—the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security noted in a report in 2017 that white nationalist extremists had committed more attacks in the United States between 2001 and 2017 than any other group—policymakers still often have not taken this threat seriously enough. In part, national security leaders and politicians in many states may have ignored white nationalist terrorism as a transnational threat since white nationalists traffic in theories and ideas that echo rhetoric found in some more mainstream political circles. The extremists express shared beliefs about a white race under threat, the inferiority of other races and non-Christian religions, and other conspiracy theories. White nationalist terrorists are acting on ideas of hate that transcend borders, using technologies, like social media and live streaming, that transcend borders, and celebrating other white nationalist figures from around the world, to create an imagined future (of theirs) that they believe transcends borders. The national security communities of the Five Eyes countries need to work together to combat the transnational ideas and the technologies that can be used to turn extremist ideas into action, and ensure that mainstream politicians’ rhetoric does not dampen a meaningful response to this growing threat, or obfuscate its character. Yet while intelligence officials have noted that Five Eyes partners have created a massive intelligence sharing network regarding other types of transnational terrorism, they also have noted that this intelligence sharing has not generally extended to domestic terrorists and terrorist groups, even white nationalist ones. Indeed, intelligence officials told the Washington Post that while Five Eyes countries might tell a partner state about a potentially imminent terrorist attack by a domestic extremist in that other country, they do not routinely share information about domestic terror threats in partner states. Now, that must change. Van Jackson is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations at Victoria University of Wellington, the Defense & Strategy Fellow at the Center for Strategic Studies: New Zealand, and a Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Asch Harwood is a research associate with the Council on Foreign Relations and the creator of the Nigeria Security Tracker. Previously at UNICEF and Reboot, he is the founder of Red Hook Media Lab.  For eight years now, we have been tracking the evolution of political violence in Nigeria with the Nigeria Security Tracker (NST). Boko Haram has always been a focus, and in August 2018, we published an analysis of all our Boko Haram data to date. But the NST also collects data pertaining to police and military violence, and sectarian conflict. We have also recorded violent crime and kidnapping. Nevertheless, we are most frequently asked about the conflict in northeastern Nigeria. We have therefore added several new charts to the Nigeria Security Tracker that focus specifically on Boko Haram. The first graph tracks the number of incidents per month involving Boko Haram. These include incidents where Boko Haram is the perpetrator, but also when the military strikes first. An incident is defined as a geographically isolated act of violence that takes place over a continuous period of time.  The figure on top right of that graph shows total deaths in the Boko Haram conflict since 2011, when we began the NST. This number includes deaths of Boko Haram members, state actors, and civilians.  The final three charts under Graph 5 display our effort to disaggregate the victims of the conflict (as opposed to the total number of deaths by perpetrator, which is displayed in Graphs 2 and 3 of the tracker). On the top is the number of Boko Haram killed, and in the middle is state actors, typically military and police, killed. The bottom is civilians.  Based on these charts, we see an increased number of state casualties since July 2018. But note that the scale of the Boko Haram and civilian charts is very different from state actors. Throughout the conflict, far more Boko Haram (or alleged Boko Haram) and civilians have been killed.  The Nigeria Security Tracker relies on public reports for its data. This is most useful in tracking changes over time. However, given the limitations of a media-based methodology, it is less useful in declaring definitively the impact of the conflict or the precise number of casualties. We assume a lot goes on that is not reported. Further, particularly in the Boko Haram conflict, there are incentives for the government to downplay the number of state casualties and overstate the number of Boko Haram casualties. Likewise, it is widely believed that the military has targeted civilians while claiming they are Boko Haram. Boko Haram itself has been particularly brutal in its indiscriminate attacks on civilians.   var divElement = document.getElementById('viz1550764563680'); var vizElement = divElement.getElementsByTagName('object')[0]; vizElement.style.width='900px';vizElement.style.height='1127px'; var scriptElement = document.createElement('script'); scriptElement.src = 'https://public.tableau.com/javascripts/api/viz_v1.js'; vizElement.parentNode.insertBefore(scriptElement, vizElement);

Jack McCaslin is a research associate for Africa policy studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, DC. Between October 27 and 30, protesters from the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN), a Shiite religious organization led by the pro-Iranian Sheikh Ibrahim el-Zakzaky, clashed with security services in and around Abuja, Nigeria’s capital. The IMN reported that Nigerian security services had killed at least forty of its members during the marches. The military claimed that only six people were killed and that protesters were carrying petrol bombs and other dangerous weapons. It later arrested around four hundred members of the IMN. Today, as justification for its use of force against IMN protesters, the Nigerian army tweeted a clip of President Donald J. Trump explaining what he told the U.S. military in reference to the migrant caravan travelling north through Mexico to the U.S. border. "They want to throw rocks at our military, our military fights back," he said. "I told them, consider it a rifle." The tweet appears to have since been deleted. Group members were participating in the Arbaeen Symbolic Trek, an annual commemoration practiced by Shias to mark the fortieth day of the murder of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. The march featured prominently calls for the release of el-Zakzaky, who has been in government custody for almost three years. In December 2015, IMN members blocked the path of Army Chief of Staff Tukur Buratai’s convoy in Zaria, Kaduna state. The government accused el-Zakzaky of ordering the assassination of Buratai (though he was not formally charged until April 2018). Security services subsequently raided el-Zakzaky’s compound and injured and arrested him and his wife. During that December crackdown, security services reportedly killed over three hundred Shias across at least three locations in and around Zaria and quickly buried them in a mass grave. In December 2016, the Federal High Court in Abuja ordered the State Security Service to release el-Zakzaky, but it was apparently ignored. More recently in August 2018, the Kaduna State High Court cleared and released eighty IMN members also arrested in 2015 during the crackdown, but dozens of others still remain in custody. El-Zakzaky has vehemently opposed Nigeria’s federal government, the state of Israel, the United States, and secular government more broadly, and his rhetoric has been explicitly anti-Semitic and dehumanizing. In this way, some of his messages are similar to that of Boko Haram. But, el-Zakzaky does not promote violence, and in 2015 the IMN even supported Muhammadu Buhari’s presidential candidacy. The IMN, through el-Zakzaky, is also undeniably linked to Iran; he visited there in 1980 and was said to be inspired by the Islamic Revolution, and he has made frequent reference to it and its leaders. It is unclear how significant those links are for IMN operations.  That religious and political movements in Nigeria criticize or purport to offer an alternative to the massively corrupt federal and state governments should not be surprising. But, the government’s frequent and indiscriminant use of force reduces or eliminates the possible peaceful paths that these groups might take in their criticism. The Zaria episode is reminiscent of the 2009 confrontation in Maiduguri between security services and Boko Haram, during which the Mohammed Yusuf-led group staged an anti-government insurrection. The security services killed Yusuf, who was in their custody at the time, and several hundred of his followers. The movement then went underground, only to emerge two years later as one of the world’s deadliest terrorist organizations.  Afenifere, the influential Yoruba group, issued a stark warning following the violence in Abuja this week: “We must not forget how [the] extra-judicial killing of the founder of Boko Haram turned the group into a massive terror machine [that] we have been unable to contain and we are opening yet another front.” Afenifere’s warning is well-received. Should security service behavior radicalize the IMN, Abuja would face yet another insurgency for which it is ill-prepared. Despite their similarities, Boko Haram is in the Salafist tradition that generally loathes the Shia, and it is therefore highly unlikely that the two groups would join forces.

From arrest to sentencing to post-conflict reintegration and disarmament programming, evidence suggests that governments tend to be less responsive to women in terrorism compared to their male counterparts. Such disparities in treatment have numerous consequences for justice, security, and the prevention of violent extremism and subsequent conflict.

A new compilation of data gives insight into the African Islamist insurgency’s reach, tactics, and evolution. It reveals a far higher victim count than previous estimates.

Through mass kidnappings, bombings, and other acts of terrorism, the Islamist insurgent group remains an enduring threat to northern Nigeria and the Lake Chad Basin.

Geopolitical risk is always a major feature of global oil and gas markets, but the interplay of wars without end, powerful non-state actors, and the proliferation of new weapons technologies across the globe is raising that risk. Energy Realpolitik sits down with Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) National Intelligence Fellow Michael Dempsey to discuss a host of risks that might impact the energy sector in the coming years. Topics are drawn from recent discussions by CFR fellows at Columbia University's Center for Global Energy Policy.  What are some broad trends that could influence the energy sector’s outlook in the next few years?       Mike Dempsey: First, it’s clear that the underlying conditions that brought us the Arab Spring in 2011 have not been resolved.   Just consider, according to the most recent Arab youth survey, youth unemployment remains at around 30 percent in the Middle East, and countries in this region by 2025 are projected to have a population of nearly 60 million between the ages of 15-24.    That’s a sizeable slice of the region’s population, and one-third of them are likely staring at long-term unemployment, especially if regional growth rates stay mired in the 1 to 3 percent range.       The young are not only restive, they are connected. So, during Iran’s protests in January, Iranians used forty-eight million iPhones to spread the word, and the protests spread to more than eighty cities across the country.  In 2009, estimates are that 15 percent of Iran’s population had iPhones; today it’s about half.   Just ask yourself, would we have imagined last December that protests in countries as diverse as Tunisia and Iran would be sparked by many of the same underlying conditions?    That’s not, of course, to say that there aren’t some positive trends in the Middle East (the increasing influence of women, a renewed focus on education and technology, etc.) but the negative trends are still dominant, in my view, and are likely to trigger rapid, unexpected crises in the future of the sort that we’ve experienced in recent years.   Second, a more serious debate is underway in the Middle East and beyond about the future of Political Islam. This issue is obviously being discussed in Saudi Arabia—with some encouraging signs, but also concerns—and is playing out in different ways in Egypt, Iran, and across the globe from parts of Africa to Indonesia, Malaysia and beyond. How this debate is resolved will obviously have profound implications for future political stability.   Third, if evolving economic and religious trends are shaping global stability, so too is technology. I won’t go into detail on all of the widely recognized positives that flow from recent advances in technology—energy experts certainly know the effects on the sector better than I do—but there are emerging risks that also have to be considered.  Recall on the security front: a decade ago, the U.S. military was the only country operating armed drones over Iran and Syria. Today, there are more than a dozen countries and non-state actors such as ISIS and Hezbollah that are doing so.  In fact, during the U.S.-backed coalition advances on both Raqqa and Mosul, ISIS used armed drones against U.S. forces.         And consider press accounts concerning armed drones being used in Syria only three months ago.   During the evening of January 5 and into the next day, the Russian military reportedly faced two separate swarm attacks using miniature drones against two of its bases. In total, thirteen drones were used by the attackers, each carrying ten bomblets; ten drones targeted the Russian airbase in Latakia, three the Russian naval base in Tartus.   According to press accounts, the drones each carried an explosive charge weighing about one pound, and included strings of metal ball bearings that were intended to harm individuals in the open. There are reports that several Russian fighter jets were damaged on the ground, though Moscow denies this.    Most of the individual components in the drones, including the motors, are commercially available. The drones used an onboard GPS system for navigation, but again, this technology is easily available for purchase online.   So, is it really hard to imagine in the next few years that similar attacks will be launched at other bases or sensitive oil infrastructure facilities around the world?   And here is the final kicker to the Russian story. To this day, it’s impossible based on open source information to determine who conducted the attack. So, how attractive could this type of plausibly deniable operation be to terrorists or even criminal elements in the future?   One final word on drones, if you’ve ever seen drone races you’ll know that the tiny drones used fly at great speeds—more than 150 mph—and with incredible maneuverability. That type of speed and maneuverability already poses a clear and present threat to those charged with protecting important government and commercial facilities.   And while we are discussing security threats, consider that in Yemen, as many of you are well aware, the Houthis within just the past few months have struck a Saudi tanker in the Bab-al-Mandeb Strait and fired drones and missiles of increasing accuracy and range into Saudi Arabia, producing the first casualty in Riyadh.   So, how different would the global energy outlook be tomorrow if a barrage of Houthi missiles hits Riyadh?  Would that not trigger a broader regional conflict?   Or how about if Houthi missiles penetrate Saudi air defenses and strike Aramco?       I don’t mention these threats because I think they will happen, but I, unfortunately, absolutely believe they could.   I could go on about other threats, including cyber intrusions and the long-term threat posed by autonomous weapons, but here is the bottom line: technology is going to make working in the energy sector in the future much easier, but also, in some ways, perhaps much harder.    Fourth, while I am always worried about sudden country-specific crises that could influence the energy market, I’m frankly also concerned about a growing number of transnational challenges and their potential to trigger broader instability. Some of these challenges include the rapid spread of preventable diseases, as well as today’s unprecedented human displacement crisis.   Today, more than sixty-seven million people (or one of every 110 or so humans on the planet) is a displaced person, which is fueling instability in countries from the Middle East to Western Europe. I fear we are losing entire generations of young people in countries such as Syria, and the long-term effects on regional and international stability will be profound.    This trend is especially worrisome because it’s largely owing to the international community’s inability to end the conflicts that are driving instability and displacement—witness our seventeenth year of conflict in Afghanistan, seventh in Syria, and fourth in Yemen.   So, conflicts and threats that should be preventable or bounded, now seem to grind along into deeper crises with pernicious effects that we often don’t recognize until it’s too late. Just recall how the flow of people fleeing violence in Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria have affected Western Europe’s political landscape.    This challenge is made even more difficult by the inward turn of Western states. In my view, this is an especially problematic time for the West to retreat from the world stage and to turn its focus inward.  A fifth trend that will certainly affect the energy sector surrounds issues of transparency and corruption.   The push for greater transparency around the globe is a hugely positive development, in my view, that could eventually increase business and government efficiency, improve governance at many levels, and deepen public confidence in both government and business. As you know, the pernicious effects of corruption are well documented. For example, the IMF estimates that the cost of bribery alone (one subset of corruption) costs between $1.5 and $2 trillion a year, equal to about 2 percent of global GDP.   This cost has been evident in many countries for some time. Venezuela is a good example of this, where PDVSA has been raided for years both to pay for government expenses and as a patronage cash cow, all while the company’s infrastructure was neglected. Indeed, the fight against corruption is now a first-tier issue in countries of significant importance to global energy markets, from Brazil to Mexico and from Nigeria to India.    In the short-term, the anti-corruption fight could generate increasing political instability, but if it eventually leads to more transparent and better governance in these countries, I’m certain that it will invariably help their economic performance in general, and the energy sector in particular.      So, in my view, these are five critical trends that will influence the world’s energy market in the coming years.   Are there any current developments that you are following that could influence energy prices in the near-term?    MD: Sure. These include the outlook for the Iran nuclear deal after May 12, the prospects for the upcoming U.S.-North Korea Presidential Summit, Libya’s lack of progress toward political reconciliation and the recent terrorist activity against the country’s energy industry, and the ongoing negotiations concerning the global trade agenda, especially the near-term outlook for NAFTA.   How do you then view geo-strategic trends and the likely effects on global energy prices over the next year or two?   MD: I’d say the geo-strategic backdrop for the near-term leans heavily toward increased risk, with the potential for worrisome surprises—and potential oil flow disruptions—across a range of countries including Iran, Libya, Nigeria, Venezuela, and Saudi Arabia. But I hope I’m wrong!  Do you have any final advice/tips for energy analysts or those tracking the industry?  MD: Yes. In my view, the international environment is quite fraught at the moment, which means it would be a good time to:  Routinely challenge your underlying assumption about the energy market. There are enough gathering threats (from simmering regional conflicts that have the potential to spike on short notice to asymmetric threats such as cyber and other non-traditional weapons) that this isn’t a good time for analytic complacency.  Think deeply about the quality of leadership and governance in the countries you’re following. It’s always amazing, after the fact, to examine how signals were missed and how seemingly stable countries (and companies) can experience unexpected periods of profound turmoil. As a useful exercise in humility, for example, it’s worth going back and reviewing the leading investment banks’ economic forecasts in 2006-2007, right on the eve of the Great Recession. In both the intelligence and business sectors, then, it’s worth remembering that it’s easy to develop analytic blind spots, fall victim to straight-line analysis, discount worrisome alternative scenarios, and underestimate critical drivers of change.    Along these lines, I really would encourage everyone to look hard at physical and data security issues and to constantly re-evaluate how they are postured against the next generation of challenges.   And finally, I would urge folks to think broadly and systemically about the issue of risk. Is protecting one particular company good enough today? Or do industry leaders need to cooperate more in protecting the whole system they operate in? For example, if a cyber attack cripples one energy company, isn’t it possible that attackers will learn from that experience and attack others, and that the public’s confidence will be undermined in all parts of the industry?  The issues we face today are less about competitive advantage than about preventing systemic risk or failure. 

After months of speculation, many signs indicate that Malaysia will hold its national elections in late April or early May. According to reports in the Malaysian press, the country’s election commission has booked most of the private helicopters in Malaysia for that time period, suggesting that it will be using them to monitor the election. Although Prime Minister Najib tun Razak does not legally have to call an election until late August, he may want to hold an election in April or May, since the vote would come before opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim is released from jail. In the last national elections, held in 2013, the Anwar-led opposition coalition actually won the popular vote, but extreme gerrymandering gave Najib’s ruling coalition control of parliament, which it has enjoyed since Malaysia gained its independence. The election likely will be close, but, without Anwar, the opposition has turned to an unlikely figure of unity—former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who has now turned against the ruling coalition, but during his own terms in office harshly repressed dissent and oversaw Anwar’s first jail term.  And, even with the 1MDB scandal still swirling around him and the ruling coalition, Najib has a strong chance to win the election. If he does so, it will be in part because he, and the ruling coalition, have aggressively courted conservative, even Islamist voters, in part by splitting the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), part of the opposition alliance in the last national elections in 2013, away from the opposition. But to woo these voters, which the ruling coalition needs as urban Malay, Chinese, and Indian voters favor the opposition, Najib and the party have increasingly framed Malaysia as a state that should be dominated by Muslim, ethnic Malays. In addition, the ruling coalition has, among other steps, allowed PAS and its supporters to push forward legislation that could undermine Malaysia’s civil laws. The shift in Malaysia, in which conservative, even Islamist groups are wielding greater power in politics, is mirrored in Indonesia as well. There, the Jokowi government has not wooed Islamist organizations, but it was slow to recognize their growing power, which grew over the past decade but now has fully bloomed. Indeed, Jokowi’s administration only began to push back after Islamist organizations helped swing the vital Jakarta governor’s election last year. In a new CFR expert brief, I examine why Islamist groups are growing more powerful in Malaysia and Indonesia, the potential impact of their rise on the countries’ political systems, and the implications for U.S.-Malaysia and U.S.-Indonesia relations.  The full expert brief can be read here.

The rise of Islamism in Malaysia and Indonesia could have severe consequences for the two states’ societies, political systems, and overall stability.