Jihadist insurgency and the prospects for peace and security

Abstract

Modern jihadist insurgency movements pose a threat to global peace and security. Modern jihadist insurgencies are not necessarily posing new operational challenges, instead it is the ideology and belief systems justifying the use of violence that we need to understand better. The ideology fuelling modern jihadist insurgencies, motivating the fighters, acting as a tool for recruiting and support is the key strength these groups have and the one area we have yet to adequately address. We must work to better understand this ideology and how it is utilised otherwise the threat from violent jihadist movements may continue for a very long time.

Keywords:

• Jihad
• insurgency
• Daesh
• Islamic law
• religious ideology

Notes

1. TRENDS Interview with Professor Peter Neumann. Available at http://trendsinstitution.org/?p=1160.

2. Rich and Duyvesteyn, ‘The Study of Insurgency and Counterinsurgency’, 2.

3. Byman, ‘Understanding Islamic State’.

4. Wood, ‘What ISIS Really Wants’.

5. Ibid.

6. Afsaruddin, Striving in the Path of God, 270–97.

7. Bonner, Jihad in History, 10.

8. For a full discussion, see Coughlin, Catastrophic Failure.

9. Khadduri, War and Peace in the Law of Islam, 34–5.

10. Rich, ‘How Revolutionary Are Jihadist Insurgencies?’.

11. Lindekilde et al. ‘Who Goes, Why, and with What Effects’; Bakker and de Bont, ‘Belgian and Dutch Jihadist Foreign Fighters’.

12. Lindekilde et al. ‘Who Goes, Why, and with What Effects’.

13. Bakker and de Bont, ‘Belgian and Dutch Jihadist Foreign Fighters’.

14. Interview with Professor Edwin Bakker, http://trendsinstitution.org/?p=1160.

15. For discussion, see Landau-Tasseron, A Self-Profile of the Islamic State.

16. Toth, Sayyid Qutb, 5.

17. Whiteside, ‘The Islamic State and the Return of Revolutionary Warfare’.

18. Joffee, ‘Global Jihad and Foreign Fighters’.