Combating Jihadist Terror: Recent Episodes
CoJiT
Combating Jihadist Terrorism & Extremism (CoJiT - www.cojit.org) is the independent, not-for-profit research initiative that produces the Combating Jihadist Terror podcast which is hosted and presented by its Editorial Director, Anthony Richards. Dr Richards is Senior Lecturer in Criminology and co-Director of the MSc in Terrorism and Counter Terrorism Studies at Royal Holloway, University of London and each week on the podcast he and his invited guest explore key contemporary questions and issues within terrorism and counter-terrorism.
Aims & Scope of the podcast: to enhance our understanding of the contemporary terrorist threat, identify the most pressing challenges and consider what the most appropriate responses might be by providing the very latest expert analysis on key contemporary questions within terrorism and counter-terrorism.
Audiences targeted: this series will be of value to all those with an interest in terrorism and counter-terrorism including: Policymakers and practitioners; relevant Think Tanks, organisations and research institutions; Academics, students and University research centres; International audiences; the media and the public.
Our Promise: the interviewees are recognised leading national and international experts in the field and are amongst the very ‘best in the business’ on each of the themes that will be discussed.
Benefits to the listener: these podcasts provide the absolute latest analysis on key contemporary questions, emerging themes and pressing issues within terrorism and counter-terrorism, providing both specialist communities and audiences as well as the media and interested members of the public with immediate, authoritative news and valuable insights into upcoming trends around the globe.
Dr Anthony Richards’ guest on this final Series 2 episode of CoJiT’s Combating Jihadist Terror podcast is Sarah Marsden, Senior Lecturer at the University of St Andrews’ Handa Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence. The podcast focuses initially on her work for the Centre for Research & Evidence on Security Threats (CREST), the UK’s hub for behavioural and social science research into security threats. Dr Marsden is currently leading two CREST projects: ‘Constraining Violence’ where she discusses her research on how individual, social and subcultural factors constrain the potential for extremist violence; and ‘Trauma, Adversity and Violent Extremism’ where she reveals how her research on the direct and indirect effects of trauma, including emotional neglect and physical abuse, may advance our understanding of radicalisation. Changing tack, there is then a fascinating discussion on Dr Marsdens’ identification of the difficulties for the social media giants of identifying ‘terroristic’ material on their sites, with cross border and freedom of speech issues among many others making this a fiendishly tricky exercise. Finally, Dr Marsden is asked about one of her key contentions that reintegrating extremists in society rather than first seeking to de-radicalise them is the better way to go about it for which she makes both a convincing and appealing case.
Dr Marsden’s most recent book is available here Reintegrating Extremists: Deradicalisation and Desistance: Amazon.co.uk: Marsden, Sarah V.: 9781137550187: Books
To buy CoJiT’s own publication – Jihadist Terror: New Threats, New Responses – which synthesises our current understanding of the current terrorist threat and counter terrorist response, and which was co-edited by Dr Richards, please click here.
This penultimate number in Series 2 of CoJiT’s Combating Jihadist Terror podcast sees Anthony Richards joined by Dr Elizabeth Grimm, Associate Teaching Professor and Director of Teaching at the Centre for Security Studies, Georgetown University, Washington, DC. Against the background of US missile strikes that killed the leaders of al-Qaeda in August and al-Shabaab in October this timely discussion focuses on Dr Grimm’s new book (co-authored with American University’s Dr Tricia Bacon) ‘Terror in Transition: Leadership and Succession in Terrorist Organizations’. The podcast begins by detailing the interdisciplinary nature of their research and setting out the key questions the authors sought to answer: what is the role of the founding leaders of terrorist organizations, what factors shape their successors and what different types of successors are there? Dr Grimm discusses at some length the preparations for handover by al-Qaeda’s Osama Bin Laden and the surprising capacity of al-Shabaab to select ‘dark horse’ leaders. She identifies four types of leader and makes the key point that a better understanding of the different leadership types involved potentially has an important impact for counter terrorism policy makers in terms of discrediting terror networks and their messages of violence.
Dr Grimm’s and Dr Bacon’s new book is available here. Terror in Transition: Leadership and Succession in Terrorist Organizations (Columbia Studies in Terrorism and Irregular Warfare): Bacon, Tricia, Grimm, Elizabeth: 9780231192255: Amazon.com: Books]
To buy CoJiT’s own publication – Jihadist Terror: New Threats, New Responses – which synthesises our current understanding of the current terrorist threat and counter terrorist response, and which was co-edited by Dr Richards, please click here.
This week on the Combating Jihadist Terror podcast series we are delighted to welcome Dame Sara Khan, previously the Lead Commissioner for the Commission for Countering Extremism who has now been appointed, by the Prime Minister, to a new role as the government’s Independent Advisor for Social Cohesion and Resilience to tackle extremism in our communities. In this episode Dr Richards and Dame Sara begin by discussing the creation of the Commission for Countering Extremism, and the challenges faced when defining ‘extremism’ in the British context both for the Commission and her personally. Dame Sara then gives an impassioned defence of the Commission’s work, notably describing the kind of ‘hateful extremism’ that the Commission found to both exist in this country and to be entirely legal, with some telling examples of the types of actions and groups that fit this description. Finally, Dame Sara describes her new role and the links between social cohesion and extremism.
The Independent Report that Dame Sara published in February 2021 at the conclusion of her work with the Commission for Countering Extremism,Operating With Impunity: Legal Review, is available here.
Dame Sara has recently opened a ‘Call for Evidence’ to seek views of the experiences of victims of extremism, and on protecting social cohesion and strengthening resilience against extremism. Find more information about this here.
This week on the Combating Jihadist Terror podcast: Anthony Richards is joined by Dr Devorah Margolin, Director of Strategic Initiatives and a Senior Research Fellow at the Program on Extremism, George Washington University. Alongside her work at GWU, Dr Margolin is also a senior investigator with the ISIS Files Project, and the start of this podcast features a discussion about some of the findings that have been unearthed; including interesting insights into how, even for fundamentalists, pragmatism must sometimes trump religion. Dr Margolin and Dr Richards then discuss the role of women and children in violent Islamist groups, the subject of Dr Margolin’s recent PHD thesis, and in particular how women’s roles are conceptualised by these groups. Finally, Dr Margolin gives a fascinating insight into her work looking at women who took part in, and “took ownership of”, the Capitol Hill riots on January 6, 2021.
Dr Margolin’s most recent paper (co-authored with GWU colleague Hilary Matfess) which she discusses towards the end of this podcast, looking at women who participated in the Capitol Hill riots and particularly their connection to and use of social media, is available here.
To buy CoJiT’s own publication – Jihadist Terror: New Threats, New Responses – which synthesises our current understanding of the current terrorist threat and counter terrorist response, and which was co-edited by Dr Margolin and Dr Richards, please click here.
Now on the Combating Jihadist Terror podcast: a discussion between Dr Katherine Brown and CoJiT’s Dr Anthony Richards. Dr Brown begins by outlining what she sees as the difference between CVE and PVE, before examining the limitations of counter-radicalisation and counter-extremism programmes in helping women. Finally, Dr Brown expands on her Humanities for Resilience project – an alternative framework for international development aid that goes beyond the disciplinary boundaries of religious studies and human geography and seeks to explore how the arts and humanities can contribute to understandings and practices of ‘resilience’ in Lower and Middle Income Countries.
Dr Katherine Brown is a Reader in Religion and Global Security at the Department for Theology and Religion, University of Birmingham. She is also co-lead of the Humanities for Resilience project there. Her most recent book,Gender, Religion and Extremism: finding women in anti-radicalisation (Oxford University Press, 2020), is available to purchase here.
To buy CoJiT’s own publication – Jihadist Terror: New Threats, New Responses – which synthesises our current understanding of the current terrorist threat and counter terrorist response, please click here.
https://youtu.be/AewoWgQL4WY
In this double-length episode of the Combating Jihadist Terrorpodcast, Dr Richards speaks to Professor Maura Conway. Their discussion begins with a look at classifying extremists and terrorists, they then examine to what extent academics and policymakers should be using the term ‘cyberterrorism”. Finally, Professor Conway expands on her views of how to further research into online extremism, as well as how gender should be used within academic discussions on extremism. Dr Maura Conway is Professor of International Security in the School of Law and Government at Dublin City University in Dublin, Ireland and Coordinator of VOX-Pol, an EU-funded project on violent online political extremism.
To buy CoJiT’s own publication – Jihadist Terror: New Threats, New Responses – which synthesises our current understanding of the current terrorist threat and counter terrorist response, please click here.
This week on Combating Jihadist Terror, Dr Anthony Richards talks to Petter Nesser about jihadi exploitation of refugee streams, and the involvement of refugees in European terrorism. They also touch on Nesser’s categorisation of terrorists as ‘entrepreneurs’, ‘misfits’ and ‘drifters’. Finally, Dr Nesser gives his suggestions for the effective targeting of terrorist networks and advocates for a balance between security and surveillance. Petter Nesser is a Senior Research Fellow at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment’s (FFI) Terrorism Research Group, and the author of Islamist Terrorism In Europe, an acclaimed and comprehensive account of the rise of Jihadist militancy in Europe from the 1990s onwards.
Islamist Terrorism in Europe is available here.
To buy CoJiT’s own publication – Jihadist Terror: New Threats, New Responses – which synthesises our current understanding of the current terrorist threat and counter terrorist response, please click here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZDIbEyyvAM
This episode of Combating Jihadist Terror features a conversation with Kurt Braddock, Assistant Professor at the School of Communication at American University, Washington, DC and author of Weaponised Words: The Strategic Role of Persuasion in Violent Radicalization and Counter-Radicalization (Cambridge University Press, 2020).The discussion focusses on attempts to counter jihadi narratives within both violent and non-violent extremism, with insights into how counter-narratives sometimes reinforce the narratives they are specifically attempting to counter and an assessment of the progress made in the effectiveness of such counter-narratives. Professor Braddock finishes by outlining his current research agenda on countering right-wing narratives, with particular focus paid to the narratives leading to the events in Washington, DC on 6th of January 2021.
Professor Braddock’s most recent book, Weaponised Words, is available here.
To buy CoJiT’s own publication – Jihadist Terror: New Threats, New Responses – which synthesises our current understanding of the current terrorist threat and counter terrorist response, please click here.
In this episode of the Combating Jihadist Terror podcast Dr Anthony Richards, COJIT’s editorial director, talks to Raffaello Pantucci, Senior Fellow in the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore and Senior Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies, London. Dr Richards and Mr Pantucci examine the nature, severity, and sophistication of the current terrorist threat – including the implications for the use of modern technology – in future terrorist attacks, with Mr Pantucci stressing his concerns about possible future lone actor terrorists making use of technology and the Internet. Finally, we hear about Mr Pantucci’s latest research in his recent paper for the European Institute for Counter-Terrorism and Conflict Prevention (EICTP) on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on transnational terrorism. That paper is available to read here.
Raffaello Pantucci’s most recent book, “We Love Death As You Love Life”: Britain’s Suburban Terrorists, is available here, and his recently broadcast BBC Radio 4 show Terrorism and the Mind is available to listen to here. He also regularly publishes his work on his blog.
To buy CoJiT’s own publication – Jihadist Terror: New Threats, New Responses – which synthesises our current understanding of the current terrorist threat and counter terrorist response, please click here.
In the first episode of a new series of the Combating Jihadist Terror podcast, Dr Anthony Richards talks to Tahir Abbas, Professor in Radicalisation Studies at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs at Leiden University, The Hague. Professor Abbas is also the Scientific Coordinator of the EU-funded H2020 Drive, which is an international research project spanning five countries (including participation by the Universities of Liverpool and Cambridge in the UK) to examine how social inclusion impacts on radicalisation. This episode features discussion on the link between Islamophobia and radicalisation, the role of “pull” factors in radicalisation and the increasingly front-line role of counter-terrorism policy.
Professor Abbas’ latest book Countering Violent Extremism: The International Deradicalization Agenda (Bloomsbury, 2021) is available to purchase here. For further background see his website here.
To buy CoJiT’s own publication – Jihadist Terror: New Threats, New Responses – which synthesises our current understanding of the current terrorist threat and counter terrorist response, please click here.
In this final episode in Series 1 of Combating Jihadist Terror, Dr Anthony Richards speaks to Richard Walton, ex-Head of the Metropolitan Police’s Counter-Terrorism Command and now the Director of Counter Terrorism Global Ltd, which provides advice, consultancy and counter-terrorism services to public, private and non-government sectors. Dr Richards and Mr Walton look at the UK’s counter-terrorism PREVENT programme, for which Mr Walton is a strong advocate, as well as discussing the recent report from the Commission for Countering Extremism. Mr Walton also recounts a story from his time at the Met’s counter-terrorism desk about a man who was concerned his son has been radicalised, and asked for help.
Richard Walton wrote a chapter entitled ‘An Independent Assessment of the UK’s Capacity and Capability Devoted to Countering Jihadist Terrorism: Government, Policing, Intelligence Agencies and Civil Society’ for CoJiT’s publication Jihadist Terror: New Threats, New Responses which is available to buy here.
Listen to the podcast above or see an illustrated video of the interview here.
In this penultimate episode of Series 1 of Combating Jihadist Terror, Dr Anthony Richards talks to Professor Peter Neumann about the nature of the threat of Al-Qaeda and ISIS today, in particular of the effects their expansion in parts of Africa and the Middle East on security in the West. Professor Neumann also provides insights into why the UK’s counter-terrorism PREVENT programme has not done as well as hoped, and how we can use the examples of our European neighbours to help improve both the PREVENT and associated CHANNEL programmes. PeterNeumann is Professor of Security Studies at King’s College London and a Founding Director at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation.
His most recent publication, Radicalized: New Jihadists and the Threat to the West, is available here.
Listen to the podcast above or see an illustrated video of the interview here.
To buy CoJiT’s own publication – Jihadist Terror: New Threats, New Responses – a synthesis of our current understanding of the current terrorist threat and counter terrorist response, please click here.
In this eighth episode of Combating Jihadist Terror Dr Anthony Richards interviews Professor Max Taylor, a leading forensic and legal psychologist and co-editor of Terrorism and Political Violence, one of the principal journals on terrorism and political violence. They discuss the usefulness of profiling in determining terrorists and how researching psychological patterns might help to produce some fresh understanding. Professor Taylor also gives his opinion on how affordances can lead to terrorist activity, in particular focusing on the events of January 6th 2021 in Washington D.C. on which he has written an article entitled: ‘Some Primary Thoughts prompted by President Trump’s 6 January Speech: Words, Enemies, Affordances’ soon to be published in Terrorism and Political Violence.
Professor Taylor’s most recent book Evolutionary Psychology and Terrorism, co-edited with Ken Pease and Jason Roach is available here.
Listen to the podcast above or see an illustrated video of the interview here.
To buy CoJiT’s own publication – Jihadist Terror: New Threats, New Responses – which synthesises our current understanding of the current terrorist threat and counter terrorist response, please click here.
This week on Combating Jihadist Terror, Dr Anthony Richards talks to Professor Maria Sobolewska about radicalisation and the new era of the culture wars, how young Muslim Britons are being pushed into extremism by alienation from society and her hopes about the decline in interest in such identity politics as Brexit recedes from memory.
Professor Sobolewska is Professor of Political Science at the University of Manchester and focuses her work on the representation and integration of immigrants and ethic minorities. Her latest book Brexitland, co authored with Robert Ford is available here.
Listen to the podcast above or see an illustrated video of the interview here.
To buy CoJiT’s own publication – Jihadist Terror: New Threats, New Responses – which synthesises our current understanding of the current terrorist threat and counter terrorist response, please click here.
In this special edition of Combating Jihadist Terror,Dr Anthony Richards talks to Professor Ed Husain about his new book Among The Mosques: A Journey Across Muslim Britain. Professor Husain describes what prompted him to begin writing it and expresses his concerns about the increasing tribalisation in British society which has the capacity to lead to extremism and terrorism. He concludes by putting forward, with great passion, his theory on how, through inclusive patriotism, Britons may be able to overcome this threat to the soul of our nation.
Professor Husain co-founded the anti-extremism think tank Quilliam and was a former Senior Advisor to Tony Blair before becoming an Adjunct Professor at the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.
Listen to the podcast above or see an illustrated video of the interview here.
Among The Mosques is available here.
Now on Combating Jihadist Terror, Dr Richards interviews Dr Amarnath Amarasingam about conspiracy theories and in particular how these relate to terrorism and extremism. This fascinating discussion covers why such theories – whether Jihadist conspiracies about COVID-19 or the pro-Trump QAnon conspiracies – often engender extremism, and highlights current research on the best methods of helping those recovering from conspiracy indoctrination.
Dr Amarasingam is an Assistant Professor in the School of Religion at Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada and a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. His best known publication is an edited volume looking at the impact of fake news which is available to purchase here.
Listen to the podcast above or see an illustrated video of the interview here.
To buy CoJiT’s own publication – Jihadist Terror: New Threats, New Responses – which synthesises our current understanding of the current terrorist threat and counter terrorist response, please click here.
In the fourth episode of Combating Jihadist Terror, we return to the subject of Al-Qaeda and ISIS as Dr Richards interviews Dr Lorenzo Vidino. Dr Vidino is the Director of the Program on Extremism at George Washington University, and an expert in the Muslim-Brotherhood, governmental counter-radicalisation tactics and the dynamics of Jihadism in the west. In the podcast, Drs Richards and Vidino discuss the implications of Jihad-inspired African terrorism, the effectiveness of governmental-responses to terrorism in both Europe and the US, and “homegrown” Jihadi threats.
Listen to the podcast above or see an illustrated video of the interview with Lorenzo Vidino here.
Dr Vidino’s latest book, The Closed Circle: Joining and Leaving The Muslim Brotherhood in the West, is available to buy here.
To buy CoJiT’s own publication – Jihadist Terror: New Threats, New Responses – which synthesises our current understanding of the current terrorist threat and counter terrorist response, please click here.
In this episode of Combating Jihadist Terrorism, Dr Anthony Richards and Paul Gill, Professor in Security and Crime Science at UCL, discuss lone actor terrorism. Professor Gill shares the results of his research using empirical data gathered from a data set of over 110 lone actor terrorists. He describes how the Internet is used by lone actor terrorists, what the motivations behind lone actors are, how those motivations sometimes are unrelated to ideology and how online radicalisation is a misnomer.
Listen to the podcast above or see an illustrated video of the interview with Paul Gill here.
Professor Gill’s publication mentioned in the podcast, Lone Actor Terrorists: A Behavioural Analysis, is available to purchase here.
To buy CoJiT’s own publication – Jihadist Terror: New Threats, New Responses – which synthesises our current understanding of the current terrorist threat and counter terrorist response, please click here.
In this special episode of Combating Jihadist Terrorism, CoJiT Editorial Director, Dr Richards speaks to Professor Andrew Silke, a highly regarded authority in terrorism studies (with over 100 publications) who holds the Chair in Terrorism, Risk and Resilience at Cranfield University’s Forensic Institute. Professor Silke gives his understanding of the key take-aways from the inquest into the attack at a prisoner’s rehabilitation conference at Fishmonger’s Hall, London Bridge in November 2019. In particular, Professor Silke he addresses issues around the effectiveness of prison risk assessments and prison rehabilitation for terrorist prisoners, as well as identifying possible future avenues for research.
Listen to the podcast above or see an illustrated video of the interview with Andrew Silke here.
Andrew Silke’s most recent publication, The Routledge Handbook on Terrorism and Counterterrorism (Routledge, 2019), is available to purchase here.
To buy CoJiT’s own publication – Jihadist Terror: New Threats, New Responses – which synthesises our current understanding of the current terrorist threat and counter terrorist response, please click here.
In the first episode of Combating Jihadist Terrorism, CoJiT Editorial Director, Dr Richards speaks to leading scholar Jytte Klausen of Brandeis University about the nature and severity of the threat presented by the Al Qaeda and ISIS terrorist groups. Professor Klausen discusses her findings from research for her most recent book Western Jihadism: A Thirty Year History (2021, OUP) and outlines her thoughts on the leadership, current motivations and thinking behind Al Qaeda and ISIS as well as the state of current western responses to Jihadist terrorism over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Listen to the podcast above or see an illustrated video of the interview with Jytte Klausen here.
Western Jihadism: A Thirty Year History is released in the UK in June, and in September in the US. It is available for pre-order here.
To buy CoJiT’s own recent publication – Jihadist Terror: New Threats, New Responses – which synthesises our current understanding of the current terrorist threat and counter terrorist response, please click here.