Protests Pose New Challenges to Iranian Regime’s Future by John Rossomando IPT News Investigative Project on Terrorism Reaction in Iran to Gen. Qasem Soleimani’s death last month from a U.S. drone strike underscores the weakness and decay of the Islamic Republic. The median age of Iran’s population is 31, so most people have no memory…
Tunisia’s Islamist Parliament Speaker in Hot Water Over Erdogan Meeting by Hany Ghoraba Special to IPT News Investigative Project on Terrorism Islamists’ second chance at ruling Tunisia is off to a rough start. Newly-elected Tunisian Parliament Speaker Rachid Ghannouchi, who leads the Muslim Brotherhood-linked Ennahda Party, triggered a political backlash this month by secretly meeting…
Tunisian Islamists Aim for Power After President’s Death by Hany Ghoraba Special to IPT News Investigative Project on Terrorism Tunisian Islamists are hoping to return to power in upcoming elections triggered by last month’s death of President Beji Caid Essebsi. And for the first time, the Islamist Ennahda Party has a candidate running. Ennahda, founded…
Report: Al-Qaida-Linked Charities Funded Canadian Organization, Quran Competition tby John Rossomando Investigative Project on Terrorism A Toronto-area mosque received funding from a Kuwaiti charity blacklisted by the U.S. Treasury and the United Nations., the Kharon Brief found. The Kharon Brief describes itself as an open-source intelligence group headed by former senior officials from the U.S.…
Turkish Prosecutor’s Document Suggests Turkey Spying on U.S. Soil by John Rossomando IPT News Investigative Project on Terrorism A Turkish prosecution obtained by the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) could offer the first public documentation showing Turkish spying on people in the United States. Turkey has cited information gathered in the 2017 document in a…
Child Marriage in Yemen Seen As a Means of Survival by Abigail R. Esman Special to IPT News Investigative Project on Terrorism There was no more money. There was only bread and tea for weeks. There was so much hunger, and so many children. And so the couple agreed to let the man wed their…
U.S. MB Supporters Lobby Congress for Third Straight Year by John Rossomando IPT News Investigative Project on Terrorism Muslim Brotherhood supporters from the New York-New Jersey area lobbied members of Congress Monday to ask them to pressure Egypt about its execution of political opponents. The event piggybacked on a broader Muslim Advocacy Day organized by…
Why Egypt Works to Curb Hamas’ Influence in Gaza by Hany Ghoraba Special to IPT News The Investigative Project Egypt’s relations with Hamas have always been turbulent. Hamas was formed in 1987 as a Palestinian offshoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, and Egypt considers the Brotherhood a terrorist group. But Egypt shares a border by…
U.S. Envoy Met with Syrian Rebel Leader Who Expressed Solidarity with Al-Qaida by John Rossomando Investigative Project on Terrorism President Trump’s Special Envoy to Syria Joel Rayburn reportedly met Monday in Istanbul with a delegation that included a high-ranking pro-Turkish Syrian rebel leader who endorsed al-Qaida-linked rebels. A photo posted by the National Coalition of…
Report: Wiretaps Show Turkish Intel Supported ISIS by John Rossomando Investigative Project on Terrorism Turkish prosecution documents show that the regime of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was up to its eyeballs supporting ISIS, a new report by the London-based Investigative Journal has found. Wiretaps show that Turkey’s intelligence agency, known by its Turkish acronym MIT,…
Thousands of American Girls At Risk As Judge Strikes Down Federal FGM Ban by Abigail R. Esman Special to IPT News Investigative Project on Terrorism As her aunt held her down, the child screamed and fought desperately to escape. But even as she struggled, the woman sliced at the child’s genitals with a razor, sending…
Extraditing Gulen Would Betray American Values by John Rossomando IPT News Investigative Project on Terrorism Extraditing dissident Islamist cleric Fethullah Gulen to Turkey would be a betrayal of American values and should be permanently off the table. President Trump says that handing over Gulen to Turkey is not under consideration “at this point.” That’s not…
Violence Continues as Pakistani Islamists Protest Christian Woman’s “Blasphemy” Acquittal IPT News Investigative Project on Terrorism Thousands of Islamist demonstrators in Pakistan continue to violently protest the acquittal of Asia Bibi, a Christian woman who was falsely accused of blasphemy and spent the last eight years on death row. Protesters clashed with police, burned cars…
French Say “Non” to Islamist Performer at Bataclan by Abigail R. Esman Special to IPT News Investigative Project on Terrorism On Nov. 13, 2015, a series of Islamist terrorist attacks shook the city of Paris. One hundred thirty people were killed and hundreds others injured in coordinated shootings and a suicide bombing that hit the…
Emerging Islamist Political Clout Accelerates Europe’s Self-Islamization by Abigail R. Esman Special to IPT News Investigative Project on Terrorism Forget the beheading videos, the ISIS propaganda on social media, even the terrorist attacks themselves. Europe, says counterterrorism expert Afshin Ellian, is Islamizing itself, and in the process, the Western values on which its democracies are…
IPT Exclusive: Government-Tied Turkish Organizations Support Global Jihadists and Islamists by Abha Shankar IPT News Investigative Project on Terrorism Turkish organizations with close ties to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s administration are partnering with, and supplying aid to, global jihadists and Islamist groups, a study by the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) finds. For example, a…
Protecting Afghan Women Is A National Security Issue by Abigail R. Esman Special to IPT News Investigative Project on Terrorism There was the woman whose husband sliced off her genitalia, and then reached inside her with his hand, damaging her inner organs. There was the woman whose husband cut off her ear. More commonly, there…
Terrorists, Victims, or Both? The Children of ISIS Return by Abigail R. Esman Special to IPT News Investigative Project on Terrorism They learn to count by attending public lashings. By the age of 9, they know how to use a gun, make a bomb, and torture prisoners. They have been raised to know that Allah…
Egyptian Islamist Uses New Jersey Base to Stoke Christian Hatred by Hany Ghoraba Special to IPT News Investigative Project on Terrorism Inciting sectarian strife against Egypt’s Coptic Christians is not a novelty. Islamist propaganda targeting the Coptic Church, businesses and doctrine thrived for decades and often led to violence and prosecution. Earlier this month, a…
Tunisian Religious Reforms Challenge Egypt’s Al Azhar by Hany Ghoraba Special to IPT News Investigative Project on Terrorism Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi marched straight into a battle with Egypt’s highest Sunni authority, Al-Azhar’s mosque and university, when he proposed social and religious reforms giving women more freedom in marriage and guaranteeing them equal inheritance…
Belgium: 119 Islamic Institutions Investigated for Extremism in 2016 By IPT News Investigative Project on Terrorism Belgian authorities investigated 58 mosques and 61 Islamic associations in 2016 in an effort to counter the spread of radical Islamist ideology, according to the country’s justice minister and reported by the Brussels Times. The data suggests that one…
Malaysia Kills a Talking Point IPT News Investigative Project on Terrorism In trying to cast their faith as tolerant and accepting of others, many Muslims like to point to the Quran’s verse 2:256: “There shall be no compulsion in [acceptance of] the religion,” it begins. It’s a comforting thought. While dawa, a form of proselytizing,…
Sophisticated Australian Airplane Bombing Plot a Warning To the West by Abigail R. Esman Special to IPT News Investigative Project on Terrorism Australia’s arrest Saturday of four men suspected of plotting a terrorist attack on a commercial airliner signals more than a resurgent terror threat to airplanes. Because the alleged weapon involved smuggling explosives and…
Islamic Radicalization in the Military Surfaces Again IPT News Investigative Project on Terrorism In November 2009, U.S. Army psychiatrist Major Nidal Hasan opened fire on fellow soldiers at a Fort Hood, Texas processing facility, killing 13 people and wounding 30 others. An ensuing investigation determined Hasan had exhibited outward signs of his Islamist radicalization to…
Muslim Brotherhood Affiliate Claims Responsibility for Cairo Attack By IPT News Investigative Project on Terrorism The Muslim Brotherhood-linked Hasm Movement claimed responsibility for a deadly terrorist attack targeting Egyptian security forces in Cairo on Sunday. Its operatives detonated an “anti-vehicle explosive device” under a road “at the Maadi Autostrada south of Cairo… which led to…
Pakistani Law Makes Ramadan a Dangerous Time for Religious Minorities By Ammar Anwer Special to IPT News Investigative Project on Terrorism The unconscious man rushed to a Pakistani hospital was covered in filth. Irfan Masih was a sewer cleaner, and stricken by poisonous gases trapped inside a sewer hole. Time was of the essence. But…
When Political Correctness Places Girls in Harm’s Way by Abigail R. Esman Special to IPT News Investigative Project on Terrorism Jada was looking forward to high school in her New Jersey hometown when her father, a recent convert to Islam, decided they should move to Saudi Arabia. Jada’s mother had passed away suddenly a few…
Half of Prominent Jihadis Tied to “Non-Violent” Islamism, New Study Shows by IPT News Investigative Project on Terrorism Half of the prominent jihadists profiled in a new study by The Centre on Religion & Geopolitics had ties to supposedly non-violent Islamists prior to joining terrorist organizations. The study’s authors – Mubaraz Ahmed, Milo Comerford, and…
Karim Cheurfi: From the Cauldron of Prison to the Streets of Paris by Patrick Dunleavy IPT News Investigative Project on Terrorism The initial reports regarding Islamic terrorist Karim Cheurfi, the man responsible for the latest attack that killed French police officer Xavier Jugele and wounded several others, contained the all-too-familiar phrase – “known to authorities.”…
How Erdogan’s Victory Might Be Europe’s Defeat by Abigail R. Esman Special to IPT News Investigative Project on Terrorism Over lunch in Istanbul last week, a friend and I spoke about the upcoming Turkish referendum. “Many European Turks are likely to vote ‘yes,’” I cautioned my friend, whom I knew was planning to vote ‘no,’…
London Terrorist Followed the Jihadist’s Twisted Path From Prison to Terrorist by Patrick Dunleavy IPT News Investigative Project on Terrorism Before he drove violently into the crowd on Westminster Bridge, before plunging the knives into the police officer’s body, Khalid Masood‘s twisted path into terrorism followed an all too familiar pattern from petty crimes to…
Erdogan Critics Beware: Turkey Probably is Watching IPT News Investigative Project on Terrorism For some Americans, concerns about Russian spying and interference in its elections are growing, with new reports emerging nearly every day. But in Europe, officials are fighting off an even greater incursion from another country, which is now spying even on civilians:…
