CNN has been hawking this story of Younes Delefortrie as From Altar Boy to ISIS Fighter Here is my interview of Younes from February 2016 Excerpted from ISIS Defectors: Inside Stories of the ISIS Terrorist Caliphate - Chapter Fourteen Download…
By: Allison McDowell-Smith, Ph.D., Anne Speckhard, Ph.D. & Ahmet S. Yayla, Ph.D. as published in the Journal of Deradicalization (PDF here) Abstract ISIS recruits on a 24/7 basis in over 21 languages over the Internet using videos, memes, tweets and…
by Asaad H. Almohammad, Ph.D. & Anne Speckhard, Ph.D. This week U.S. Colonel Joseph E. Scrocca, a coalition public affairs officer and spokesman for the American-led command, declared from Baghdad that the Tabqa Dam (a.k.a., al-Thawra or Euphrates Dam) and the…
by Anne Speckhard, Ph.D. Download the PDF here Hundreds of thousands of children around the world have been seduced and forced into being child soldiers and cadres in the service of armed and violent groups. Many have been successfully treated…
The Jihad in Jordan: Drivers of Radicalization into Violent Extremism in Jordan By Anne Speckhard, Ph.D. Download PDF EXECUTIVE SUMMARY It is estimated that since the start of the Syrian conflict in 2011, over 30,000 foreign fighters have joined Sunni…
By Anne Speckhard as published in The Hill My neighbor is a Syrian refugee. Frankly, he is the profile of the Syrian no one wants: male, of fighting age, Sunni. But he is anything but dangerous — in fact he…
by Anne Speckhard, Ph.D. On International Women’s Day it seems important to recognize strong women and the unique characteristics of women to play important roles in defeating terrorism. In the past days, taking part in the Institute for Defense Studies…
by Anne Speckhard, Ph.D. Iranian Ambassador Hossein Sheikhoislam, currently serving as Advisor to the Foreign Minister of Iran has a long history of studying different forms of governance. Studying at Berkeley, University of California, he witnessed the 1979 Iranian revolution…
by Ahmet S. Yayla, Ph.D. and Anne Speckhard, Ph.D. Like every other recent technological advancement, commercial aerial drones entered to our daily lives swiftly for a variety of practical uses. Drones have become widely available and fairly inexpensive over the…
by Anne Speckhard, Ph.D. & Grace Wakim “The Chechen fighter next to me shot and killed an old man who was walking toward us with two baskets,” shared a recently interviewed ISIS returnee imprisoned in the Balkans in our ISIS…