Al-Qaida in Afghanistan

Al-Qaida in Afghanistan PDF Author: Anne Stenersen
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107075130
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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Book Description
This book presents an alternative narrative of al-Qaida's aims, goals and strategies prior to the events of 9/11.

Al-Qaida in Afghanistan

Al-Qaida in Afghanistan PDF Author: Anne Stenersen
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107075130
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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Book Description
This book presents an alternative narrative of al-Qaida's aims, goals and strategies prior to the events of 9/11.

Insurgent Fragmentation in the Horn of Africa

Insurgent Fragmentation in the Horn of Africa PDF Author: Michael Woldemariam
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108423256
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 333

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Book Description
This extended treatment of insurgent fragmentation provides an innovative new theory tested through analysis of the Horn of Africa's civil wars.

Dirty Wars

Dirty Wars PDF Author: Jeremy Scahill
Publisher: Bold Type Books
ISBN: 1568587279
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 682

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Book Description
A New York Times bestseller Now also an Oscar-nominated documentary In Dirty Wars, Jeremy Scahill, author of the New York Times bestseller Blackwater, takes us inside America's new covert wars. The foot soldiers in these battles operate globally and inside the United States with orders from the White House to do whatever is necessary to hunt down, capture or kill individuals designated by the president as enemies. Drawn from the ranks of the Navy SEALs, Delta Force, former Blackwater and other private security contractors, the CIA's Special Activities Division and the Joint Special Operations Command ( JSOC), these elite soldiers operate worldwide, with thousands of secret commandos working in more than one hundred countries. Funded through "black budgets," Special Operations Forces conduct missions in denied areas, engage in targeted killings, snatch and grab individuals and direct drone, AC-130 and cruise missile strikes. While the Bush administration deployed these ghost militias, President Barack Obama has expanded their operations and given them new scope and legitimacy. Dirty Wars follows the consequences of the declaration that "the world is a battlefield," as Scahill uncovers the most important foreign policy story of our time. From Afghanistan to Yemen, Somalia and beyond, Scahill reports from the frontlines in this high-stakes investigation and explores the depths of America's global killing machine. He goes beneath the surface of these covert wars, conducted in the shadows, outside the range of the press, without effective congressional oversight or public debate. And, based on unprecedented access, Scahill tells the chilling story of an American citizen marked for assassination by his own government. As US leaders draw the country deeper into conflicts across the globe, setting the world stage for enormous destabilization and blowback, Americans are not only at greater risk -- we are changing as a nation. Scahill unmasks the shadow warriors who prosecute these secret wars and puts a human face on the casualties of unaccountable violence that is now official policy: victims of night raids, secret prisons, cruise missile attacks and drone strikes, and whole classes of people branded as "suspected militants." Through his brave reporting, Scahill exposes the true nature of the dirty wars the United States government struggles to keep hidden.

The Exile

The Exile PDF Author: Adrian Levy
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1408858789
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 641

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Book Description
The extraordinary inside story of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda in the years after 9/11. Following the attacks on the Twin Towers, Osama bin Laden, the most wanted man in the world, eluded intelligence services and Special Forces units for almost a decade. Using remarkable, first-person testimony from bin Laden's family and closest aides, The Exile chronicles this astonishing tale of evasion, collusion and isolation. In intimate detail, The Exile reveals not only the frantic attack on Afghanistan by the United States in their hunt for bin Laden but also how and why, when they found his family soon after, the Bush administration rejected the chance to seize them. It charts the formation of ISIS, and uncovers the wasted opportunity to kill its Al Qaeda-sponsored founder; it explores the development of the CIA's torture programme; it details Iran's secret shelter for bin Laden's family and Al Qaeda's military council; and it captures the power struggles, paranoia and claustrophobia within the Abbottabad house prior to the raid. A landmark work of investigation and reportage, The Exile is as authoritative as it is compelling, and essential reading for anyone concerned with history, security and future relations with the Islamic world.

The ISIS Apocalypse

The ISIS Apocalypse PDF Author: William Faizi McCants
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1250080908
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
A comprehensive history of ISIS based on insider accounts and secret communications few outsiders have seen

The Global Jihad Movement

The Global Jihad Movement PDF Author: Rohan Gunaratna
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442245425
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 461

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Book Description
Three to four dozen international and local organizations, up to one hundred thousand individuals, and millions of supporters are part of the phenomenon of Global Jihad. The Global Jihad Movement endeavors to name and differentiate these organizations and to explain their infrastructure, operational capabilities, and activities. It also analyzes their mutual and multi-lateral relations inside and outside the “jihadi framework.” In essence, this is a “who’s who” in the Global Jihad. The first section deals with ideology, focusing on the emergence of the Salafi and the Salafi-jihadi ideologies, which are still the most important factors behind the operational performance of Global Jihadi elements. The second section addresses the “affiliate groups” of al-Qaeda, such as al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, and al-Qaeda in Iraq. This section focuses mainly on the groups that adopted al-Qaeda’s Global Jihad strategy by incorporating Western targets in their vicinity of operations in their targeting policies. The next section discusses the different jihad arenas that have emerged over the last three decades, absorbing jihadi fighters from Islamic communities around the world. Finally, tThe last section examines the long process of radicalization, from regular and normative lifestyle patterns to the final jihadi stage—which in many cases involves martyrdom as suicide bombers in the name of radical Islam.

Terror in Transition

Terror in Transition PDF Author: Tricia Bacon
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231549733
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 454

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Book Description
What is the role of founding leaders in shaping terrorist organizations? What follows the loss of this formative leader? These questions are especially important to religious terrorist groups, in which leaders are particularly revered. Tricia L. Bacon and Elizabeth Grimm provide a groundbreaking analysis of how religious terrorist groups manage and adapt to major shifts in leadership. They demonstrate that founders create the base from which their successors operate. Founders establish and explain the group’s mission, and they determine and justify how it seeks to achieve its objectives. Bacon and Grimm argue that how successors position themselves in terms of the founder shapes a terrorist group’s future course. They examine how and why different types of successors choose to pursue incremental or discontinuous change. Bacon and Grimm emphasize that the instability surrounding succession can place a group at its most vulnerable—the precise time to explore options to weaken or defeat it. Bacon and Grimm highlight similarities between Islamic terrorist groups abroad and Christian white nationalist groups such as the 1920s Ku Klux Klan in the United States. Drawing on extensive field research in Afghanistan, Somalia, and Pakistan, Terror in Transition features detailed analysis of groups such as al-Shabaab, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and al-Qaeda in Iraq / the Islamic State in Iraq, as well as the KKK. Offering a rigorous theoretical perspective on terrorist leadership transition, this policy-relevant book provides actionable recommendations for counterterrorism practitioners.

Why Terrorist Groups Form International Alliances

Why Terrorist Groups Form International Alliances PDF Author: Tricia Bacon
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812295021
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
Terrorist groups with a shared enemy or ideology have ample reason to work together, even if they are primarily pursuing different causes. Although partnering with another terrorist organization has the potential to bolster operational effectiveness, efficiency, and prestige, international alliances may expose partners to infiltration, security breaches, or additional counterterrorism attention. Alliances between such organizations, which are suspicious and secretive by nature, must also overcome significant barriers to trust—the exposure to risk must be balanced by the promise of increased lethality, resiliency, and longevity. In Why Terrorist Groups Form International Alliances, Tricia Bacon argues that although it may seem natural for terrorist groups to ally, groups actually face substantial hurdles when attempting to ally and, when alliances do form, they are not evenly distributed across pairs. Instead, she demonstrates that when terrorist groups seek allies to obtain new skills, knowledge, or capacities for resource acquisition and mobilization, only a few groups have the ability to provide needed training, safe haven, infrastructure, or cachet. Consequently, these select few emerge as preferable partners and become hubs around which other groups cluster. According to Bacon, shared enemies and common ideologies do not cause alliances to form but create affinity to bind partners and guide partner selection. Bacon examines partnerships formed by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Al-Qaida, and Egyptian jihadist groups, among others, in a series of case studies spanning the dawn of international terrorism in the 1960s to the present. Why Terrorist Groups Form International Alliances advances our understanding of the motivations of terrorist alliances and offers insights useful to counterterrorism efforts to disrupt these dangerous relationships.

Anatomy of Terror: From the Death of bin Laden to the Rise of the Islamic State

Anatomy of Terror: From the Death of bin Laden to the Rise of the Islamic State PDF Author: Ali Soufan
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 039324203X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 191

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Book Description
"Anyone who wants to understand the world we live in now should read this book." —Lawrence Wright To eliminate the scourge of terrorism, we must first know who the enemy actually is, and what his motivations are. In Anatomy of Terror, former FBI special agent and New York Times best-selling author Ali Soufan dissects Osama bin Laden’s brand of jihadi terrorism and its major offshoots, revealing how these organizations were formed, how they operate, their strengths, and—crucially—their weaknesses. This riveting account examines the new Islamic radicalism through the stories of its flag-bearers, including a U.S. Air Force colonel who once served Saddam Hussein, a provincial bookworm who declared himself caliph of all Muslims, and bin Laden’s own beloved son Hamza, a prime candidate to lead the organization his late father founded. Anatomy of Terror lays bare the psychology and inner workings of al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, and their spawn, and shows how the spread of terror can be stopped. Winner of the Airey Neave Memorial Book Prize

Religious Violence Today [2 volumes]

Religious Violence Today [2 volumes] PDF Author: Michael Jerryson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN:
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 630

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Book Description
Through sections containing overview essays and reference entries related to particular religions, this resource explores the rise of religious violence, hate crime, and persecution around the world. Religious violence and persecution have been growing steadily both within the United States and around the world. Drawing on the expertise of a wide range of scholars, this current and comprehensive reference helps readers understand the persecution of members of particular faiths as well as violence committed by members of those faiths. In doing so, it promotes a greater understanding of the role of religion in global politics, domestic and international terrorism, and religious bigotry. The book contains sections on particular religious traditions from around the world. Each section begins with an overview essay surveying violence related to that particular religion, whether committed by or against members of that faith. Reference entries in each section then provide objective, fundamental information about particular topics related to violence and the religion discussed. The entries provide cross-references and suggestions for further reading, and the work closes with a bibliography of resources for further study.