The North African Franchise: AQIM's Threat to U.S. Security; Strategic Insights, v. 8, issue 5 (December 2009)
Al Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) is a growing and evolving North African franchise of Al Qaeda. While the group carries out a significant number of attacks within the Sahel, they have not executed attacks in the United States or Europe. There is significant research concerning the historical development of AQIM . However, there is a dearth of literature on the threat that this group poses to the United States. The purpose of this paper is to fill this research gap and evaluate the threat that AQIM poses to US security. My analysis will demonstrate that AQIM’s operations in Europe and Iraq are a security threat to US facilities and personnel. Moreover, this paper will demonstrate that AQIM has both the intent and capability to conduct attacks against US targets in Europe, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Terrorist learning in context – the case of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb
ABSTRACT It is astonishing how many researchers adopt a counterterrorism agenda and suggest researching terrorist learning in order to shape security countermeasures. Posing different questions would lead to different answers. One such question would be, “What makes terrorist learning different?” Terrorist groups operate clandestinely, which means the environment in which they learn is different. This paper investigates the context in which Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has learned. Thus, a qualitative case study analysis of the influence of meso- and macro-level factors on AQIM’s tactical and strategic patterns between 1999 and 2013 will shed light on terrorist learning. Meso-level influences are conceptualised as cooperation and ultimate merging with Al Qaeda, and macro-level influences as government action. The result is puzzling: AQIM has learned tactically from Al Qaeda and strategically from counterterrorism. This is puzzling because scholars commonly question whether it is possible to learn under pressure. Nevertheless, AQIM’s learning has been more profound when faced with pressure than when cooperating voluntarily. The sustainable answer to the question of the political implication thereof is not how to boost counterterrorism measures but how to redefine them. If what is different about terrorist learning is above all the context, we need to question the context.
Europe's Muslim Youth: An Inquiry into the Politics of Discrimination, Relative Deprivation, and Identity Formation
Several academic observers and policy analysts insist that Europe has become a breeding ground for jihadists. 1 According to these arguments, Muslim migrant communities in France, Great Britain, Italy, Spain, Belgium, and the Netherlands have become recruiting grounds for Muslim terrorists. 2 As Rohan Gunaratna, a leading authority on Islamic terrorism, argues, “Every major terrorist act in the West in the past decade, with the exception of Oklahoma City, utilized immigrants or immigrant communities.” 3 Other authors argue that the emergence of European-grown mujahideen — holy warriors — threatens the national security of Europe and the United States. It is clear that local and national influences appear to play a far greater role in the radicalization of populations than previously assumed. In other words, many Muslim communities are turning inward and rejecting European institutions and traditions.