Usama bin Ladinβs βFather Sheikhβ: Yunus Khalis and the Return of al-Qa`idaβs Leadership to Afghanistan
The purpose of this report is to shed light on the poorly understood role that Yunus Khalis played in modern Afghan political history. This research is based on...
View Result
Exploding Stereotypes: The Unexpected Operational And Demographic Characteristics of Boko Haram’s Suicide Bombers
Since 2009, the Islamist group known as Boko Haram has ushered in a wave of violence across the Lake Chad Basin region of West Africa, at the intersection...
View Result
The Islamic State in Africa: Estimating Fighter Numbers in Cells Across the Continent
...current state of fighter numbers of various Islamic State cells in Africa, from largest to smallest. Figure 1: Estimated Numbers of Islamic State Fighters in Various African Cells...
View Result
Letters from Abbottabad: Bin Ladin Sidelined?
This report is a study of 17 de-classified documents captured during the Abbottabad raid and released to the Combating Terrorism Center (CTC). They consist of electronic letters or...
View Result
Sunni and Shiβa Terrorism
There are significant and little appreciated differences in the trajectory of Sunni extremist terrorism and that of Shi’a extremism. The differences exist across six key areas that impact...
View Result
Afghanistanβs Security Forces Versus the Taliban: A Net Assessment
...of those factors in the projected absence of U.S. forces. Size A glance at commonly cited numbers would leave the impression that Afghanistan’s security forces far outnumber the...
View Result
The Insider Threat: Far-Right Extremism in the German Military and Police
...and monitoring of potential terrorists among fellow servicemen and police officers is a difficult task for security services, and rooting out bad actors can be even harder—especially in...
View Result
Al-Qa`ida in Pakistan: A Metric Problem?
...temporal (including day, month, and year), geographic (including district- and neighborhood-level arrest data), arrest details (including number of arrest actions, number of individuals arrested, number killed, arresting unit,...
View Result