Terrorism Archive

Boko Haram no longer represents the same threat it did three years ago. But Nigeria’s heavy-handed military approach to fighting the group might still backfire. Find out more when you subscribe to World Politics Review (WPR). Boko Haram, the Nigeria-based jihadi movement affiliated with the self-proclaimed Islamic State, has been in decline since 2015, since it began to lose territory around Lake Chad under joint military pressure from Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon. After retreating from major towns in northeastern Nigeria such as Bama and Mubi, Boko Haram now controls only certain remote rural areas in that corner of the […]

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, and associate editor, Elliot Waldman, discuss British Prime Minister Theresa May’s week of humiliations on the shambolic road to Brexit. For the Report, Frederic Wehrey talks with WPR’s senior editor, Robbie Corey-Boulet, about the growing power and influence of the “quietist” current of Salafism in the Maghreb and what that means for the region. If you like what you hear on Trend Lines and what you’ve read on WPR, you can sign up for our free newsletter to get our uncompromising analysis delivered straight to your inbox. The newsletter offers […]

This week’s attack against a Christmas market in Strasbourg, France, by a radicalized French Muslim illustrates that jihadis, or militant Islamists, still pose a serious threat to national security in the U.S. and Europe. But since late 2013, jihadis have also become a threat to other jihadis, regularly killing each other on battlefields across the Middle East in numbers that have observers talking about a jihadi civil war. In Syria, armed rebels affiliated with al-Qaida and the so-called Islamic State continue to fight each other, while the most potent force battling the Islamic State’s affiliate in Afghanistan is the Taliban. […]

Adherents of Salafism, the literalist, Saudi-inspired current of Islamism, are growing in influence across North Africa. This is especially true for the so-called quietist current, which theoretically eschews overt political activism but is increasingly asserting itself in the political and social spheres. In some states in the Maghreb, authoritarian regimes are partly responsible for the quietist salafists' rise. BENGHAZI—The young fighters huddled on lawn chairs in the nighttime shadows of the militia camp, smoking and drinking coffee. Around them in a courtyard sat the machinery of war: howitzers, tanks and truck-mounted recoilless rifles. Artillery and rockets boomed in the distance. […]