Isis Defectors

Isis Defectors PDF Author: Anne Speckhard
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781935866718
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 372

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Book Description
The authors hadn't intended to put themselves in danger but that's what happened as they interviewed an unprecedented thirty-two battle-hardened defectors about the gritty details of life inside ISIS. With unparalleled breadth, depth and access, ISIS Defectors: Inside Stories of the Terrorist Caliphate offers a compelling view of ISIS from men, women and teens now in hiding, having escaped the most brutal terrorist group in recent history. They were fighters and commanders, wives of fighters-living and dead, female enforcers, and Cubs of the Caliphate, including a child who volunteered and almost got sent as a suicide bomber at age thirteen. They discuss motivations for joining and defecting, and delve into news-making topics: coercing children to become suicide bombers; brides of ISIS and the brutal female morality police; Yazidi and Sunni sex slaves held in massive compounds where fighters use them at will; privilege bestowed on foreign fighters; prisoners kept for the sole purpose of beheading by new inductees. The defectors shared a startling array of photos and videos from personal cell phones and many are included in the digital version of this book. An unexpected subplot unfolded when Dr. Yayla found himself tailed by ISIS, and Dr. Speckhard barely missed two suicide attacks. But the authors are not deterred. As counter-terrorism experts with specialties in research psychology and law enforcement, they see ISIS as more than a terrorist group. ISIS is a brand that falsely sells dignity and purpose, justice and the restoration of glory-to vulnerable recruits-masterfully recruiting some 30,000 members online. It's the biggest influx of foreign fighters to a terrorist haven in history. Using the defectors own words, the authors intend to break the ISIS brand. They have videotaped these interviews to edit them into short clips, memes and tweets for an online counter-offensive. Speckhard and Yayla state that disillusioned ISIS defectors are the most influential tool for countering ISIS propaganda. The persuasive voices of these defectors and the resulting videos will soon invade ISIS chat rooms where their propaganda thrives. With over one thousand active investigations in the U.S. across all 50 states, discrediting ISIS ideology is essential to stopping it.

Isis Defectors

Isis Defectors PDF Author: Anne Speckhard
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781935866718
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 372

Get Book Here

Book Description
The authors hadn't intended to put themselves in danger but that's what happened as they interviewed an unprecedented thirty-two battle-hardened defectors about the gritty details of life inside ISIS. With unparalleled breadth, depth and access, ISIS Defectors: Inside Stories of the Terrorist Caliphate offers a compelling view of ISIS from men, women and teens now in hiding, having escaped the most brutal terrorist group in recent history. They were fighters and commanders, wives of fighters-living and dead, female enforcers, and Cubs of the Caliphate, including a child who volunteered and almost got sent as a suicide bomber at age thirteen. They discuss motivations for joining and defecting, and delve into news-making topics: coercing children to become suicide bombers; brides of ISIS and the brutal female morality police; Yazidi and Sunni sex slaves held in massive compounds where fighters use them at will; privilege bestowed on foreign fighters; prisoners kept for the sole purpose of beheading by new inductees. The defectors shared a startling array of photos and videos from personal cell phones and many are included in the digital version of this book. An unexpected subplot unfolded when Dr. Yayla found himself tailed by ISIS, and Dr. Speckhard barely missed two suicide attacks. But the authors are not deterred. As counter-terrorism experts with specialties in research psychology and law enforcement, they see ISIS as more than a terrorist group. ISIS is a brand that falsely sells dignity and purpose, justice and the restoration of glory-to vulnerable recruits-masterfully recruiting some 30,000 members online. It's the biggest influx of foreign fighters to a terrorist haven in history. Using the defectors own words, the authors intend to break the ISIS brand. They have videotaped these interviews to edit them into short clips, memes and tweets for an online counter-offensive. Speckhard and Yayla state that disillusioned ISIS defectors are the most influential tool for countering ISIS propaganda. The persuasive voices of these defectors and the resulting videos will soon invade ISIS chat rooms where their propaganda thrives. With over one thousand active investigations in the U.S. across all 50 states, discrediting ISIS ideology is essential to stopping it.

The Future of ISIS

The Future of ISIS PDF Author: Feisal al-Istrabadi
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 0815732171
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
Looking to the future in confronting the Islamic State The Islamic State (best known in the West as ISIS or ISIL) has been active for less than a decade, but it has already been the subject of numerous histories and academic studies—all focus primarily on the past. The Future of ISIS is the first major study to look ahead: what are the prospects for the Islamic State in the near term, and what can the global community, including the United States, do to counter it? Edited by two distinguished scholars at Indiana University, the book examines how ISIS will affect not only the Middle East but the global order. Specific chapters deal with such questions as whether and how ISIS benefitted from intelligence failures, and what can be done to correct any such failures; how to confront the alarmingly broad appeal of Islamic State ideology; the role of local and regional actors in confronting ISIS; and determining U.S. interests in preventing ISIS from gaining influence and controlling territory. Given the urgency of the topic, The Future of ISIS is of interest to policymakers, analysts, and students of international affairs and public policy.

Dying to Kill

Dying to Kill PDF Author: Mia Bloom
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 9780231133203
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
What motivates suicide bombers in Iraq and around the world? Can winning the hearts and minds of local populations stop them? Will the phenomenon spread to the United States? These vital questions are at the heart of this important book. Mia Bloom examines the use, strategies, successes, and failures of suicide bombing in Asia, the Middle East, and Europe and assesses the effectiveness of government responses. She argues that in many instances the efforts of Israel, Russia, and the United States in Iraq have failed to deter terrorism and suicide bombings. Bloom also considers how terrorist groups learn from one another, how they respond to counterterror tactics, the financing of terrorism, and the role of suicide attacks against the backdrop of larger ethnic and political conflicts. Dying to Kill begins with a review of the long history of terrorism, from ancient times to modernity, from the Japanese Kamikazes during World War II, to the Palestinian, Tamil, Iraqi, and Chechen terrorists of today. Bloom explores how suicide terror is used to achieve the goals of terrorist groups: to instill public fear, attract international news coverage, gain support for their cause, and create solidarity or competition between disparate terrorist organizations. She contends that it is often social and political motivations rather than inherently religious ones that inspire suicide bombers. In her chapter focusing on the increasing number of women suicide bombers and terrorists, Bloom examines Sri Lanka, where 33 percent of bombers have been women; Turkey, where the PKK used women feigning pregnancy as bombers; and the role of the Black Widows in the Chechen struggle against Moscow. The motives of individuals, whether religious or nationalist, are important but the larger question is, what external factors make it possible for suicide terrorism to flourish? Bloom describes these conditions and develops a theory of why terrorist tactics work in some instances and fail in others.

Bombshell

Bombshell PDF Author: Mia Bloom
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812208102
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
Between 1985 and 2008, female suicide bombers committed more than 230 attacks—about a quarter of all such acts. Women have become the ideal stealth weapon for terrorist groups. They are less likely to be suspected or searched and as a result have been used to strike at the heart of coalition troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. This alarming tactic has been highly effective, garnering extra media attention and helping to recruit more numbers to the terrorists' cause. Yet, as Mia Bloom explains in Bombshell: Women and Terrorism, female involvement in terrorism is not confined to suicide bombing and not limited to the Middle East. From Northern Ireland to Sri Lanka, women have been engaged in all manner of terrorist activities, from generating propaganda to blowing up targets. What drives women to participate in terrorist activities? Bloom—a scholar of both international studies and women's studies—blends scrupulous research with psychological insight to unearth affecting stories from women who were formerly terrorists. She moves beyond gender stereotypes to examine the conditions that really influence female violence, arguing that while women terrorists can be just as bloodthirsty as their male counterparts, their motivations tend to be more intricate and multilayered. Through compelling case studies she demonstrates that though some of these women volunteer as martyrs, many more have been coerced by physical threats or other means of social control. As evidenced by the March 2011 release of Al Qaeda's magazine Al Shamikha, dubbed the jihadi Cosmo, it is clear that women are the future of even the most conservative terrorist organizations. Bombshell is a groundbreaking book that reveals the inner workings of a shocking, unfamiliar world.

Online Jihadist Magazines to Promote the Caliphate

Online Jihadist Magazines to Promote the Caliphate PDF Author: Jonathan Andre Matusitz
Publisher: Peter Lang Incorporated, International Academic Publishers
ISBN: 9781433163258
Category : Communication
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This book examines online jihadist magazines published by three terrorist organizations and their aggressive promotion of the Caliphate. This book extends existing research by offering fresh insights on the communicative strategies, radicalization processes, and recruitment methods used by jihadist organizations and their effects on readers.

Hacking ISIS

Hacking ISIS PDF Author: Malcolm Nance
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1510718931
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 374

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Book Description
This book is written by two of the leading terrorist experts in the world - Malcolm Nance, NBC News/MSNBC terrorism analyst and Christopher Sampson, cyber-terrorist expert. Malcolm Nance is a 35 year practitioner in Middle East Special Operations and terrorism intelligence activities. Chris Sampson is the terrorism media and cyber warfare expert for the Terror Asymmetric Project and has spent 15 years collecting and exploiting terrorism media. For two years, their Terror Asymmetrics Project has been attacking and exploiting intelligence found on ISIS Dark Web operations. Hacking ISIS will explain and illustrate in graphic detail how ISIS produces religious cultism, recruits vulnerable young people of all religions and nationalities and disseminates their brutal social media to the world. More, the book will map out the cyberspace level tactics on how ISIS spreads its terrifying content, how it distributes tens of thousands of pieces of propaganda daily and is winning the battle in Cyberspace and how to stop it in its tracks. Hacking ISIS is uniquely positioned to give an insider’s view into how this group spreads its ideology and brainwashes tens of thousands of followers to join the cult that is the Islamic State and how average computer users can engage in the removal of ISIS from the internet.

Hunting the Caliphate

Hunting the Caliphate PDF Author: Dana J.H. Pittard
Publisher: Post Hill Press
ISBN: 1642930563
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 350

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Book Description
In this vivid first-person narrative, a Special Operations Joint Terminal Attack Controller (JTAC) and his commanding general give fascinating and detailed accounts of America’s fight against one of the most barbaric insurgencies the world has ever seen. In the summer of 2014, three years after America’s full troop withdrawal from the Iraq War, President Barack Obama authorized a small task force to push back into Baghdad. Their mission: Protect the Iraqi capital and U.S. embassy from a rapidly emerging terrorist threat. A plague of brutality, that would come to be known as ISIS, had created a foothold in northwest Iraq and northeast Syria. It had declared itself a Caliphate—an independent nation-state administered by an extreme and cruel form of Islamic law—and was spreading like a newly evolved virus. Soon, a massive and devastating U.S. military response had unfolded. Hear the ground truth on the senior military and political interactions that shaped America’s war against ISIS, a war unprecedented in both its methodology and its application of modern military technology. Enter the world of the Strike Cell, secretive operations centers where America’s greatest enemies are hunted and killed day and night. Plunge into the realm of the Special Operations JTAC, American warfighters with the highest enemy kill counts on the battlefield. And gain the wisdom of a cumulative half-century of military experience as Dana Pittard and Wes Bryant lay out the path to a sustained victory over ISIS. For more information about the book, visit www.huntingthecaliphate.com.

The Media World of ISIS

The Media World of ISIS PDF Author: Rosemary Pennington
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253045940
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
From efficient instructions on how to kill civilians to horrifying videos of beheadings, no terrorist organization has more comprehensively weaponized social media than ISIS. Its strategic, multiplatformed campaign is so effective that it has ensured global news coverage and inspired hundreds of young people around the world to abandon their lives and their countries to join a foreign war. The Media World of ISIS explores the characteristics, mission, and tactics of the organization's use of media and propaganda. Contributors consider how ISIS's media strategies imitate activist tactics, legitimize its self-declared caliphate, and exploit narratives of suffering and imprisonment as propaganda to inspire followers. Using a variety of methods, contributors explore the appeal of ISIS to Westerners, the worldview made apparent in its doctrine, and suggestions for counteracting the organization's approaches. Its highly developed, targeted, and effective media campaign has helped make ISIS one of the most recognized terrorism networks in the world. Gaining a comprehensive understanding of its strategies—what worked and why—will help combat the new realities of terrorism in the 21st century.

Islamic State

Islamic State PDF Author: Abdel-Bari Atwan
Publisher: Saqi
ISBN: 0863561012
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 263

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Book Description
Based on interviews with Islamic State insiders, Abdel Bari Atwan reveals the origins and modus operandi of the fastest-growing and richest terrorist group in the world. Outlining its leadership structure and strategies, Atwan describes the group's ideological differences with al-Qa`ida and why IS appear to pose a greater threat to the West. He shows how it has masterfully used social media, Hollywood `blockbuster'-style videos, and even jihadi computer games to spread its message and to recruit young people, from Tunisia to Bradford. As Islamic State continues to dominate the world's media headlines with acts of ruthless violence, Atwan considers its chances of survival and offers indispensable insight into potential government responses to contain the IS threat.

Twitter and Jihad. The Communication Strategy of ISIS

Twitter and Jihad. The Communication Strategy of ISIS PDF Author: M. Maggioni
Publisher:
ISBN: 9788898014668
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description