Approximately 300 Americans are estimated to have traveled or attempted to join the Islamic State (ISIS) as part of the group’s campaign in Syria and Iraq between 2013 and 2019. These individuals joined more than 53,000 men, women, and minors from roughly 80 countries. Often referred to as foreign (terrorist)…
This paper provides an overview of how a shifting landscape of youth radicalization is impacting a new generation, key trends in extremist mobilization and the broad range of extremist actors currently targeting young people, with a particular focus on the United States.
Background Data on children who grow up with parents adhering to violent extremism is scant. This makes it extremely delicate to inform policies and clinical services to protect such children from potential physical and psychological harm. Objective This paper explores the predicament of children whose caretakers were referred to a…
Why does one person radicalize to involvement in terrorist violence within a group-based context, while another engages in this form of violence alone? Existing research remains subject to limitations related to sample size, ideological and geographical range, and contradictory findings. This article draws on a newly-developed dataset to compare group-based…
This study investigates the effectiveness of counternarratives in reducing the attractiveness of the jihadi ideology among Sunni Muslims in the Middle East and North Africa. The research design was divided into two phases. Phase 1 involved a) creating a comprehensive list of counternarrative disseminated by three main regional organizations (Antibiotics,…
The management of violent extremist prisoners (VEPs) poses major challenges to many United Nations (UN) Member States, according to a new Analytical Brief published by the UN Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED). At the same time, the detention period represents a unique opportunity to promote disengagement from violence…
What role do political opportunities play in far-right mobilisation? The case of Georgia indicates that modernisation in itself may be insufficient to trigger a far-right backlash. A systematised database of 154 far-right protest events in Georgia in the period 2003–2020 shows that the movement remained dormant for over two decades…
In April 2021, following concerns raised by some European countries, UNICRI launched a research initiative to explore, assess, and understand the potential interplay between regular and irregular movements of people and the threat stemming from ISIL and Al-Qaida inspired terrorism in Europe. The research also looked at the risks posed…
European citizens who travelled to Syria, Iraq and other conflict zones where terrorist groups have taken control have been coming back since 2012. Since the defeat of the so-called caliphate in early 2019, a large number of Daesh fighters have been captured by Kurdish forces and detained in north-east Syria,…
The mental well-being of youth is influenced by life events, which affects mental health in adulthood. Social support has been shown to have a buffering effect on the impact such events may have on mental health. This research aimed to explore the effect social support has on risk factors, such…
This book tells the stories behind the impact of the growth of violent extremism, acting as an imminent threat to peace, stability and development in Africa. Despite significant investment by the international community to counter the devastating impact of violent extremism, it has further expanded and spread in subSaharan Africa,…
In the aftermath of the fall of ISIS’ so-called “caliphate”, tens of thousands of children, women, and men with alleged ISIS affiliations from some 60 countries fell under the custody of the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES). As an increasing number of states start to heed…
