Fatal Attraction: Western Muslimas and ISIS
More than 550 Muslim women from Western countries have joined ISIS and moved to its proclaimed ‘Caliphate’ in Syria and Iraq. No extremist group has been able to attract so many female Western recruits so far, and their number continues to grow. This article is intended to explain the reasons behind such unprecedented success, the motivation of Western Muslimas to join ISIS and their roles in the ‘Islamic State’. It also compares living conditions under ISIS’ rule with the expectation induced by ISIS’ recruiters in women from the West who had shown an interest to make hijra and join ISIS. Understanding these factors is vital to figure out how to stop this trend and to assess the security threat posed to the West by possible female returnees, or radicalized sympathizers who are unable to leave their countries of residence.
Terror on Twitter: A Comparative Analysis of Gender and the Involvement in Pro-Jihadist Communities on Twitter
Social media has become the milieu of choice to radicalize young impressionable minds by terrorist organizations such as al Qaeda and the Islamic State. While a plethora of research exists on the recruitment and propaganda efforts by terrorist organizations there is limited number of quantitative studies that observe the relationship of gender and the involvement in online radical milieus. This current research will build upon prior studies through the comparative analysis of 750 unique Twitter accounts supporting the IS and the affiliates of al-Qaeda that were non-randomly sampled between January and September of 2015. The research aimed to address the questions of: 1) whether women that are involved in pro-jihadist communities on Twitter post substantively different amounts of content than men, 2) whether women that are involved in pro-jihadist communities on Twitter post substantively different content than their male counterparts and, 3) whether the gender disparity in level and type of involvement on Twitter differ amongst the supporters of different jihadist organizations. This study found that, while pro-jihadist communities on Twitter continue to be dominated by male participation, female supporters of the IS are more active and post more violent content than women that support any other organization. The intragroup differences found amongst the female supporters suggests that group ideology, recruitment and propaganda strategies play a role in the level of involvement of women in radical milieus.
APPLICATION OF SATELLITE PHOTOGRAPHS IN A MORPHOTECTONIC STUDY OF THE CENTRAL ALBORZ, IRAN
This paper introduces a study of morphotectoni c structure in the Central Alborz Basin, Mazandaran province of Iran (about 1200 square kilometer), using Russian KFA-1000 satellite photography and sequential air photographs. The KFA-1000 metric camera has better ground resolution than SPOT and LANDSAT for the whole of the study area. Results are provided from one pair of 30×30 cm. photos, which provided easy interpretation and better results than other data. Areas identified from these images as being of significance were examined in greater detail through the use of aerial photographs (at scales of 1:5000, 1:10000 and 1:60000 were available).