The HSC’s Director for Government Relations and Strategic Partnerships, Dr Dwayne Ryan Menezes, was quoted in Channel News Asia on the subject of foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq. British Prime Minister David Cameron has condemned the apparent killing of ...

On 18th August, 20014, the HSC’s Executive Director, Julie Lenarz, was on BBC Radio Drivetime debating Iraq with Chris Nineham of the Stop the War Coalition.

On 18th August 2014, the HSC’s Executive Director, Julie Lenarz, was on LBC discussing the threat posed by ISIS and strategy in Iraq.

Campaigners have marched through the streets of London to protest against recent attacks on Iraqis and Syrians by ISIS militants. Hundreds of people gathered outside BBC Broadcasting House before marching through Oxford Street towards the US Embassy. Demonstrators, led by ...

On 13th August, 2014, the Human Security Centre’s Executive Director, Julie Lenarz, was invited by Channel 4 News to discuss the Yezidi situation in Iraq and the way forward.

Robert P. George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University, and Advisory Board member of the Human Security Centre, started a petition calling on President Barack Obama, Congress and the international community to destroy ISIS as a fighting force. Watch his interview ...

The deteriorating situation in Syria gives rise to a number of pressing security concerns both in the wider region and elsewhere. The phenomenon of European foreign fighters, predominantly Western nationals travelling to Syria to join the conflict, brings forth complex issues concerning domestic radicalisation and national security.

The active sectarian rivalry and conflict in Iraq – long exploited by successive governments in Bagdad – has reached crisis proportions. Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city and a primary oil centre, was overrun and occupied June 12th 2014 by the Sunni militant group the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham) (ISIS) which formerly fought under the al-Qaeda banner. ISIS are making gains on their previous successes in taking large parts of the central city of Fallujah in December 2013

Despite a fairly new name, ISIS has a considerable pedigree as a terrorist and insurgent organisation. Before taking its current name in 2013, it was known as the “Islamic State of Iraq”, “Al-Qaeda in Iraq” and “The Organisation for Monotheism and Jihad”,

The initial step in assessing the potential military response to recent events in Iraq is to seek to understand how the security situation in the country degenerated so quickly. The most obvious and urgent question that needs to be answered is how as few as 800 ISIS militants (out of a total of around 6,000 in Iraq), were able to overrun a garrison of around 25,000 Iraqi troops.