How Change to Countering “Radical Islamic” Extremism Hurts Counterterrorism

April 27, 2017, co-written with Bennett Seftel for The Cipher Brief U.S. counterterrorism efforts have achieved their fair share of successes – killing terrorist leaders with drone strikes and commando raids, keeping terrorist cells on the run so they can’t plot future attacks, and destroying militants’ underground bases and infrastructure. But one glaring weakness in …

White Supremacists and Jihadists Share Many Recruiting Tactics

April 20, 2017, co-written with Bennett Seftel in The Cipher Brief Over the last two decades, the U.S. government, Intelligence Community, and law enforcement apparatus have worked tirelessly to ensure that a repeat of 9/11 does not occur on U.S. soil. Through such efforts, the U.S. national security establishment has thwarted several terrorist plots and mitigated …

Does Moderate Political Islam Still Exist?

April 19, 2017 in The Cipher Brief The term “political Islam” has become commonplace after the Arab uprisings of 2011, during which Islamist groups rose to political prominence across the Middle East and North Africa. But what does “political Islam” really mean, and should Westerners fear it? For most observers, the term refers to relatively moderate …