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ISSN 2334-3745 Volume XIII, Issue 3 June 2019 PERSPECTIVES ON TERRORISM Volume 13, Issue 3 Table of Contents Welcome from the Editors..............................................................................................................................i Articles Global Jihadism after the Syria War.....................................................................................................1 by Tore Refslund Hamming Call of Duty Jihad: How the Video Game Motif has Migrated Downstream from Islamic State Propaganda Videos....................................................................................................................................17 by Cori E. Dauber, Mark D. Robinson, Jovan J. Baslious, and Austin G. Blair A Phoenix Rising from the Ashes? Daesh after its Territorial Losses in Iraq and Syria.......32 by Ronen Zeidel and Hisham al-Hashimi Knowing What to Do: Academic and Practitioner Understanding of How to Counter Violent Radicalization.................................................................................................................................44 by Daniel Koehler and Verena Fiebig Blurred Lines: The New ‘Domestic’ Terrorism.....................................................................................63 by Gregory D. Miller Research Notes The Utility of Disabled Fighters in the Islamic State ..............................................................76 by Chelsea Daymon Resources Bibliography: Islamic State (IS, ISIS, ISIL, Daesh) (Part 5)............................................................87 Compiled and selected by Judith Tinnes Bibliography: Boko Haram ...................................................................................................................131 Compiled and selected by Judith Tinnes Counterterrorism Bookshelf: 62 Books on Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism-Related Subjects....165 Reviewed by Joshua Sinai Book Review: J.M. Berger, Extremism. (The MIT Press, Essenial Knowledge Series 2018).................180 Reviewed by Daniela Scerri Recent Online Resources for the Analysis of Terrorism and Related Subjects...............................182 Compiled and selected by Berto Jongman 115+ Academic Theses (Ph.D. and MA) on the Role of the Internet in Facilitating and Combating Radicalization, Extremism, Terrorism and Cyber-Terrorism, written in English between 1995 and 2019..............................................................................................................................................233 Compiled and selected by Ryan Scrivens ISSN 2334-3745 June 2019 PERSPECTIVES ON TERRORISM Volume 13, Issue 3 Announcements Conference Monitor/Calendar of Events (June – September 2019).........................................................241 Compiled by Reinier Bergema About Perspectives on Terrorism.................................................................................................................250 ISSN 2334-3745 III June 2019 PERSPECTIVES ON TERRORISM Volume 13, Issue 3 Welcome from the Editors Dear Reader, We are pleased to announce the release of Volume XIII, Issue 3 (June 2019) of Perspectives on Terrorism, available online now at: https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/PoT. Our free and independent online journal is a publication of the Vienna-based Terrorism Research Initiative (TRI) and the Institute of Security and Global Affairs (ISGA) of Leiden University’s The Hague Campus. Now in its thirteenth year, Perspectives on Terrorism has nearly 8,400 regular e-mail subscribers and many more occasional readers and website visitors worldwide. The Articles of its six annual issues are fully peer reviewed by external referees while its Research and Policy Notes, Special Correspondence, and other content are subject to internal editorial quality control. The opening article by Tore Hamming examines the evolution of global jihadism following the conflict in Syria. The second article, by a team of researchers led by Cori E. Dauber, offers a unique analysis of the intersection between video games and jihadist propaganda videos. In the third article, Ronen Zeidel and Hisham al- Hishami provide a research-based projection on the future evolution of Daesh (ISIS) following its territorial losses in Iraq and Syria. Next, Daniel Koehler and Verena Fiebig explore the quality of CVE initiatives and their potential usefulness for practitioners. And in the final research article of this issue, Greg Miller examines how to properly categorize domestic terrorist attacks where the perpetrator was inspired by a foreign ideology. In our Research Notes section, Chelsea Daymon examines a relatively under-studied question of how the Islamic State uses disabled fighters in their propaganda and recruitment efforts. The Resources section includes our regular contributions from Joshua Sinai (book reviews), Judith Tinnes (with two bibliographies), Berto Jongman (web-based resources), Ryan Scrivens (theses), and Reinier Bergema (conference calendar). In addition, there is a review by Daniella Scerri of an important new book, Extremism (The MIT Press, 2018), authored by J.M. Berger. The current issue was jointly prepared by James Forest (Co-Editor) and Bart Schuurman (Associate Editor), with the assistance of Alex P. Schmid (Editor-in-Chief), Christine Boelema Robertus (Associate Editor for IT), and Jodi Moore (Editorial Assistant). ISSN 2334-3745 i June 2019 PERSPECTIVES ON TERRORISM Volume 13, Issue 3 Global Jihadism after the Syria War by Tore Refslund Hamming Abstract The period 2012-2018 is turning out to be an important transformative period for the global Jihadi movement, most importantly because of events in Syria but also resulting from Jihadists’ ability to expand and take advantage of beneficial opportunity structures in other war theatres. The article identifies the most important trends of this period for the future evolution of Jihadism, namely the ideological evolution, Jihadism as a tangible political project, internal conflict, networks and training, the coming of a new generation of ideologues and technical evolution. Similar to previous transformative periods in Afghanistan and Iraq, the argument made here is that these six trends will have a long-lasting impact on the Jihadi movement and guide the behaviour of groups and individuals for years to come. Keywords: Jihadism, Syria, Global Jihad, Fratricide, Ideology In 2013, Danish researcher Ann-Sophie Hemmingsen posed the question of whether Syria would become a school for terrorists.[1] Now, six years later, the answer appears to be a resounding confirmation. The war in Syria will go on record as one of those key periods that transformed the state of Jihadism, similar to previous experiences of Jihadi melting pots like Afghanistan in the 1980s-90s and Iraq in the 2000s. In 2006, Thomas Hegghammer published the article “Global Jihadism after the Iraq War” examining how the war in Iraq impacted the Jihadi movement and its engagement in other battlefields.[2] This article builds on Hegghammer’s piece in that it identifies how the Syrian war—and more generally the period 2012-2018—has had an impact on developments and trends within Jihadism. Looking at past transformative periods, like the experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq, helps to understand how current events may change the future. Hence, our knowledge of how these past experiences influenced the ensuing evolution of the Jihadi movement offers further insights into how current trends affiliated with the Jihadi school of Syria will influence the future development and configuration of the Jihadi movement. The article does not only deal with the Syrian war, but more generally, its evolutions within Jihadism during the period (2012-2018) of the Syrian war as Jihadists have been active on several battlefields, but with Syria being the most dominating, not least because of the success of the Islamic State and Syria being the centre of its caliphate. Moreover, it identifies the most important trends of this period and discusses how they may influence the future. These trends are: ideological evolution, Jihadism as a tangible political project, internal conflict, networks and training, a new generation of ideologues, and technical evolution. Each of these aspects has been characteristic of the ongoing Jihad in Syria and other battlefields since 2013 and will likely have an impact on the future development of Jihadism locally, regionally, and globally. This article is founded on several years of close observation of the Jihadi movement as part of a larger research project on the internal dynamics within Jihadism. This process has involved reading thousands of Jihadists’ own written products, following their online behaviour on Twitter and later Telegram, and interviewing senior ideological figures. Based on this research, the article first describes each of six identified trends before concluding with a discussion of how these trends will have an impact on the future evolution of the Jihadi movement. Ideological Evolution The emergence of modern Jihadism is usually dated to 1960s Egypt although it can be traced back to the 19th century and the military struggles of Abd al-Kader and Omar Mukhtar against Western imperialism. Abu Musab al-Suri, one of the most prominent contemporary Jihadi strategists and thinkers, sets the start of the ISSN 2334-3745 1 June 2019 PERSPECTIVES ON TERRORISM Volume 13, Issue 3 Jihadi current to 1963.[3] Since then, Jihadi ideology has evolved considerably in terms of the definition of the main enemy,
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