In The News

Southern Carnage: Kingdom Shaken

April 29, 2004
In the country's deadliest day of violence since 1973, over 100 Muslim militants died in clashes with security forces throughout southern Thailand. The militants, many of them teenagers, carried only machetes as they attacked police outposts while screaming religious slogans. Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra quickly declared victory and played down the political consequences, saying many of...

Militants in Europe Openly Call for Jihad and the Rule of Islam

Patrick E. Tyler April 26, 2004
As the situation in Iraq worsens, radical Muslims in Europe are stepping up their recruitment efforts. In the streets of countries such as England, France and Germany, more and more young Muslim Europeans are gathering to hear radical clerics' preaching on violence and martyrdom in the service of Islam. Ironically, it is often exactly the characters of the western societies that these...

Terrorists and Their Tools – Part II

Gabriel Weimann April 26, 2004
Although technology may be value-free, in the hands of terrorists technological innovations can certainly help amplify the darker side of human nature. The Internet, observes communications scholar Gabriel Weimann, is no exception. The World Wide Web has been utilized by terrorist groups around the globe to recruit supporters, raise funds, and instill fear in modern society. Claims on terrorist...

Terrorists and Their Tools - Part I

Riaz Hassan April 23, 2004
The weapon of mass destruction that seems to be favored most by terrorists is their own lives. But, though most suicide bombers are Islamic youths, sociologist Riaz Hassan argues that there is no direct link between suicide attacks and Islamic fanaticism. Suicide attacks, Hassan says, are motivated more by politics than religion. Many terrorist groups, such as the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka,...

Al-Qaeda Tries to Split West Over Iraq

Mark Huband April 16, 2004
Yesterday over Arab television, Osama bin Laden, leader of Al-Qaeda, offered European countries a three month respite from terrorist attacks in exchange for withdrawing their forces from Iraq. Mark Huband, security correspondent for the Financial Times, says that this move hints at Al-Qaeda's long term strategic goals: to expel non-Muslims from the Islamic world, undermine incumbent Islamic...

Weapons of Mass Destruction and the Media: Anatomy of a Failure

Susan Moeller April 14, 2004
After the September 11 terrorist attacks, President George W. Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld made the decision to present terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and Iraq as a linked triple threat. Susan Moeller, professor of media and international affairs at the University of Maryland, argues that in the “stultifying patriotic climate” that followed the attacks, most mainstream...

Terrorist Chemical Threat 'Worse than Suspected'

Mark Huband April 11, 2004
Small groups of chemical weapons experts uncovered in Europe appear to have a wide network of links. Two separate groups, one arrested in a Paris suburb by French counter terrorism officials and the other uncovered by British intelligence, are both reported to have received chemical weapons training in Chechnya, Russia's breakaway republic. The group arrested in France is said to have links...