The unrest in Syria has quickly spiralled beyond a sectarian civil war and into a regional crisis.
Read More »Terror-Byte: why we need a Hard Drive to shutdown cyber-Terrorism
One is struck with an unsettling scenario when watching Skyfall: an unseen invader reaches into your infrastructure from afar and manages to cause untold chaos and carnage whilst sat behind his desk sipping Red Bull. Cyber-terrorism is yet to approach its zenith, but that time is not very far away.
Read More »Al Shabaab: the Rise and Fall from Black Hawk Down to Westgate and Beyond
The attack on Nairobi demonstrated that al Shabaab has peaked and is attempting to reverse its seemingly unstoppable decline.
Read More »African Union Requests Security Council to Defer Cases of Kenyatta and Ruto
On Saturday 12th October, the African Union held an extraordinary session in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to consider Africa’s relationship with the International Criminal Court. The outcome of that debate was a request from the African Union to the Security Council to defer the cases of Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta and Vice President William Ruto
Read More »Syria: No, we are not better off now
When will we learn that, where Islamism is involved, we have to get involved early and not late? We may well look back in years to come and ask ourselves why it was that we managed to lose on two fronts; not only that we let thousands of civilians be massacred, but also created the ideal conditions for a new generation of terrorists to boot.
Read More »Heads of the Hydra – al Qaeda’s New Direction
Whilst al-Qaeda has never been a particularly centralised organisation, in recent years it appears to have shifted from a model of a centralised franchise, which supports other groups to carry out attacks in their name, to a fractured structure of regional groups, each with its own internal politics and personal missions.
Read More »HSC Senior Fellow Ghaffar Hussain speaks to Sky News about Kenya Attack and al-Shaabab
Following the Westgate Mall terror attack in Nairobi, Kenya, the HSC’s senior fellow and radicalisation expert Ghaffar Hussain appeared on Sky News and talked about al-Shabaab’s motives, strategies and recruitment processes. To approach members of the HSC for similar expert ...
Read More »Jihadist Perceptions of the ‘Arab Spring’
Whilst it is widely agreed that the Arab Spring will have an enormous impact on al-Qaeda and the worldwide jihadist movement, there is no consensus on what this impact will look like. On one hand, there are optimists like Fawaz Gerges and Peter Bergen who think the Arab-Spring is a death blow to the jihadist movement.
Read More »From an Intelligence Perspective, was 9/11 Avoidable?
On this, the twelfth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on New York’s World Trade Centre, the wounds are still fresh and raw in much of the West. Images of men and women diving to their deaths, rather than be crushed and of emergency personnel dying to save those inside the towers still haunt almost aspect of Western politics.
Read More »Trying to Make Sense of Pakistan
Many filed Pakistan under 'basket case' years ago and stopped trying to rationalise developments in that country. Sadly, for others, that isn't an option. What is taking place is tragic, absurd, and frightening.
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