The Greek security forces cooperate with the Israeli intelligence services to counter terrorist activities on their national territory.

Belgian authorities take continuous measures to counter terrorist activities on their national territory.

Dr. Andreea Stoian Karadeli – independent researcher based in Turkey, Associate Fellow at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy - GCSP (Global Fellowship Initiative), Jean-Paul Rouiller – head of the Terrorism-Joint Analysis Group (T-JAG) at the GCSP and Jean-Pierre Keller – senior analyst and deputy at T-JAG / GCSP, in the light of their common CT-related projects, analyzed the extremist groups’ responses to the current COVID-19 crisis and the ways in which they exploited the pandemic, in an interview to the Geostrategic Pulse.

Wars, long-term conflicts, the fight against foreign occupations, the feeling of solidarity with the people of the oppressed community are just a few of the factors that have determined, in history, the evolution of the "foreign fighter" phenomenon. Heroes ready to sacrifice themselves for "noble" causes have been on the battlefield since the emergence of nineteenth-century nations in countries like Greece, the United States, Spain, Palestine, Afghanistan, the former Yugoslavia and Somalia (Colgan & Hegghammer, 2011; Hennessy, 2012). But this was only the first stage of the phenomenon.

The Egyptian Israeli peace process during 1977-1979 was a shock to the jihadist movement in Egypt, that had been under repression ever since Nasser’s political rule. Encouraged by the success of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, the Egyptian jihadists - inspired by the ideologue Muhammad Abd Al-Salam Faraj and advised by colonel Al-Zumar (an intelligence officer) - decided to assassinate the president Anwar Al-Sadat during the military parade dedicated to the celebration of the Yom Kippur War. The attempt was to be accompanied by a popular revolt. Even though the revolutionary project failed, the assassination of Sadat had a major impact on the history of the Middle East: the Arab-Israeli peace process would stop, and the jihadists involved in the conspiracy would leave for Afghanistan and to the USA, becoming the decisive factor behind the birth of Al-Qaeda and the plan to strike down the New York twin towers.

In 1929, five years after the fall of the Ottoman Empire and of the centuries old institution of Islamic Caliphate, caused by the blows of the winning empires from the 1st World War and by the reformism of the “father of modern Turkey” Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, in Ismailia, Egypt, a theologian and imam, Hassan Al-Banna, founded the Muslim Brotherhood. The movement was meant to be an Islamic organization intended to stand against the British imperial rule over Egypt.

”Something very big has just happened.” This was the phrase that president Trump posted on Twitter on the night between the 26th and 27th of October. He didn’t provide any details but promised that the next day would make a clarifying statement.

Compared to other policy fields, the involvement of the European Union (EU) in counter-terrorism is a relatively recent development. Traditionally, European countries faced with a terrorist threat, such as the United Kingdom (UK), Italy, Spain and West Germany, addressed it largely on their own. One of the main reasons for this lack of European cooperation was the commonly held view that each European state was confronted by a distinct threat

In this article, we highlight the need for a multidisciplinary approach, together with the use of complex tools from the EU and the Member States to combat terrorism and the phenomenon of radicalization in prison. Our aim is to identify the main vulnerabilities to the extension of the two phenomena into a universal prison. Our analysis captures the main risks to the post-detention reintegration process, thus emphasizing the need to individualize the instruments and programs of disengagement and de-radicalization. Referring to the EU’s efforts to combat terrorism, we identify the main shortcomings represented by the lack of a unitary, coherent and transnational approach that would facilitate the exchange of information and expertise between Member States.

It will soon be two years since 9 December 2017 when Iraq’s former Prime Minister, Haidar Al-Abadi, triumphantly and solemnly announced the liberation of his country’s entire territory from the presence of the terrorist-jihadist organization, “The Islamic State” (DA‘ISH in Arabic) and consequently the end of the war against the terrorist-jihadist phenomenon in the land situated between the Tigris and the Euphrates.