As I haven’t posted here in a while, this is a quick update about some recent research contributions and commentary.

Research on terrorism in transnational mobilisation

On 15 September 2024 I had an article published in Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, called “The Smallest Act You Do in Their Lands is More Beloved to Us than the Biggest Act Done Here”: When Do an Armed Movement’s Transnational Supporters Turn to Terrorism at Home?

What explains whether someone who supports an armed movement in a foreign war turns to plotting a terrorist attack at home? Using data on 129 Australian supporters of Islamic State, this paper examines the impact of contextual and dynamic factors relating to strategic logic, mobilising structures and security measures. It finds that the strategic priority Islamic State publicly placed on transnational terrorism at a given time was most important, followed by whether the supporter was subjected to travel restrictions and law enforcement interactions, only then followed by micro-level factors traditionally focused on in quantitative studies of individual involvement in terrorism.

This is the first journal article to come out of my PhD, and there will be more ahead. I’m particularly keen to build on this approach to addressing the specificity puzzle in terrorism studies (the puzzle of what differentiates the extremely small number of people who engage in terrorism from the much larger number of people, affected by the same presumed factors, who do not engage in terrorism) by incorporating factors relating to strategic logic, mobilising structures and security measures. I explain this here:

When quantitative studies of individual involvement in terrorism do address higher level factors, they tend to be of a limited range. Often, the main meso-level factors addressed involve social relations (such as whether the individual had extremist peers or an extremist family) and the main macro-level factors involve socio-economics (such as the individual’s education or employment level, which can serve as a proxy for structural disadvantage). These factors have immense value, as they speak to questions of social psychology, social identity and social structure, the importance of which is recognised throughout the field. They highlight issues like the role that social exclusion can play in terrorism, and show that the rise of the concept of radicalisation has not necessarily come at the expense of research on root causes. However, these factors also have limits. They tend to be static rather than dynamic, encompassing social positions rather than political processes. There are other meso-level and macro-level factors equally worthy of inquiry, that result not from the structure of the social order but from the contingencies of political mobilisations, and which reflect the contentious interactions between many different types of political actors that are routinely part of the context in which terrorism occurs.

Terrorism, the “intentional threat or use of force by a nonstate actor to evoke fear in a population to affect a political outcome”, is a tactic used in political mobilisations. These mobilisations necessarily involve actors beyond individuals (such as networks, groups and organisations) and a broader political context. This applies whether the political mobilisation involves a broadly non-violent social movement where terrorism develops only at the fringes, or an armed movement in a civil war whose leadership embraces terrorist tactics. This is not a novel point, as the importance of understanding terrorism as one tactic among many in a broader political mobilisation is emphasised throughout influential works in terrorism studies. This includes many multi-level qualitative studies such as Clark McCauley and Sophia Moskalenko’s work on mechanisms of radicalisation, the social movement theory approaches of Thomas Hegghammer and others drawing on the pioneering work of Donatella Della Porta, or the foundational contributions to terrorism studies by scholars like Martha Crenshaw. Nonetheless, quantitative studies of individual involvement in terrorism have not tended to explicitly examine some key factors reflecting the political role of terrorism, with important exceptions that show the value of overcoming the earlier neglect of such factors. This is particularly evident in the case of three sets of factors: strategic logic, mobilising structures and security measures.

Greater pragmatism under al-Qaeda’s post-Zawahiri leadership?

More recently, on 17 February 2025, I had a post published at Jihadology called, Making sense of alleged AQAP-Houthi cooperation: local pragmatism or further accommodation between al-Qaeda and Iran?

The latest report by the United Nations Analytical Support and Monitoring Team reiterated allegations that al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is cooperating with the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. Is this alleged cooperation likely to have resulted from the local dynamics of the Yemeni conflict, or does it reflect a broader accommodation between al-Qaeda and Iran?

I greatly enjoyed writing this post, particularly because it moved beyond the Australia-centred focus of much of my writing. I was motivated by a glaring gap in current commentary; there had been a fair bit of discussion about recent reports of AQAP-Houthi cooperation, but I couldn’t find any analysis placing this in the context of what we knew about the contentious (but not always hostile) relationship between AQAP’s parent organisation and the Houthis’ main state supporter (particularly given that al-Qaeda’s likely leader is based in Iran). So, I sought to make some sense of it myself and write this explainer.

I didn’t offer definitive answers (hence the question marks in the title and introduction), seeking to make it more of an analytical piece than an opinion piece. This was not a topic that I had conducted my own primary research on, so I instead built on the work of Yemen experts and scholars of jihadism who frequently translate Arabic language primary material, then brought in my own knowledge from political science and terrorism studies. I’m quite happy with the result and aim to write more short pieces like this.

60 Minutes on Operation Silves

I also provided some background material for 60 Minutes’ story on the 2017 Sydney plane plot, which aired on 23 February 2025. In the episode they interview one of the plotters (Tarek Khayat) as well as the patsy (Amer Khayat), along with terrorism scholar Levi West and others. For more detail on the plot, see my CTC Sentinel article from April 2020: Operation Silves: inside the 2017 Islamic State Sydney plane plot:

Nearly three years ago, Australian counterterrorism investigators arrested two men in Sydney who had plotted, under instructions from Islamic State operatives in Syria, to bomb an international flight and create a chemical weapon. It remains one of the most innovative of the Islamic State’s external operations and the most ambitious jihadi plot that Australia has faced. Newly available information resulting from the successful prosecution of the Sydney-based plotters reveals how the plot developed, shedding light on the evolution of the Islamic State’s external operations. The Syria-based Islamic State operatives possessed several advantages that, combined with their approach to providing logistical support, allowed them to bring the plot close to completion. Fortunately, the plotters failed to overcome the inherent difficulties involved in long-distance terrorist plots and were impeded by years of investment in airport security, international intelligence cooperation, and counterterrorism capabilities.

Renewed calls for repatriation

I recently offered some comments for Henry Belot’s Guardian article on 24 February 2025, Australia should repatriate and investigate alleged crimes of Islamic state member found in Syria, experts say.

My views on this topic (I comment on the general situation, not specific individuals) are the same now as they were in 2019, because the situation remains the same. There are no doubt dangers involved in bringing some of these people back to Australia, but there are also dangers in leaving them in Syria, particularly with the situation getting more uncertain over there. For example, there have been cases when captured Islamic State members have escaped through mass breakouts or been handed over in prisoner swaps. There have also been cases where Australian Islamic State members abroad have instigated terrorist plots in Australia. So the idea that the best way to protect Australia is to keep all potential threats outside of Australia doesn’t always work.

Then there are the human rights problems posed by leaving these Australians in Syria. It’s obviously hard to imagine anyone joining Islamic State for innocent reasons, but they still have the right to due process and the best chance for that is in Australian courts. So, while there are no easy options, in my view the best policy approach is to repatriate as many of these suspected Islamic State members and their families as possible, and where appropriate prosecute as many as possible or apply other measures like Control Orders. Given the fall of Assad and the uncertainty facing the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (who hold almost all the detainees) I suspect this problem will regain prominence.

On this, I recommend this new Just Security article arguing that the new situation in Syria strengthens the case for repatriation of Islamic State affiliated detainees: In a new era for Syria, states must take responsibility for their Islamic State-affiliated prisoners and families.

CoVE in Congress

Finally, on Wednesday (or Tuesday Washington time), some research I contributed to through Valens Global (along with Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, Emelie Chace-Donahue and Madison Urban), on what we term Composite Violent Extremism (CoVE), was discussed at a hearing of the US Congressional Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence.

You can watch the hearing, or read Daveed Gartenstein-Ross’s witness statement, or read our Studies in Conflict & Terrorism article from March 2023: Composite violent extremism: conceptualizing attackers who increasingly challenge traditional categories of terrorism:

Scholars and counterterrorism practitioners have expressed increasing concern over violent extremists who display an amalgamation of disparate beliefs, interests, and grievances. Despite a proliferation of labels like “salad bar extremism,” consensus on the nature of the problem is lacking and current understandings risk conflating what are in fact distinct types of extremism. Building on current literature and a detailed dataset, this article presents a new conceptual framework for understanding this phenomenon, consisting of an overarching concept of composite violent extremism (CoVE) and underlying typologies of ambiguous, mixed, fused, and convergent violent extremism. The article then proposes explanations for the apparent increase in these radicalization patterns.