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JASON BURKE ON ISLAMIC MILITANCY
British journalist Jason Burke, one of the more perceptive writers on the issues of Islam, Islamism and the war on terror, has chosen five books on Islamic militancy for The Browser. And among the...
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MYTHS AND REALITIES OF 9/11
A recent poll by the Pew Trust showed that virtually every American can remember where they were on the morning of 11 September 2001. Most recognize the profound changes that 9/11 has wrought to the...
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THE TERRORISTS THAT ARE AND THE TERRORISTS THAT AREN’T
When is a terrorist not a terrorist? When, apparently, he is ‘our’ terrorist. Last week Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, a professor at Tehran’s technical university, and deputy director of commerce at the...
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AMERICA IS NOT BOTSWANA
John Kiriakou, a former CIA officer, was charged this week with espionage for disclosing to journalists classified information about the capture and torture of Abu Zubaydah, a suspected al-Qaeda...
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TO RENDITION JUSTICE
By next Monday William Hague and Phillip Hammond could be behind bars. In December, the Court of Appeal ruled that the foreign and defence secretaries had by February 20th to produce before the court a...
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FAREWELL, FIRST AMENDMENT?
in 2004, Tarek Mehanna traveled from America to Yemen with a friend. He claims he was searching out schools at which to study classical Islamic law. The US government insists that he was looking for a...
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ON THE POETRY OF THE TALIBAN
Everything has gone from the world, The world has become empty again. Human animal. Humanity animality. Everything has gone from the world, I don’t see anything now. All that I see is My imagination....
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OUT OF BOUNDS
As a coda to my previous post on abuse and how to deal with it, I am republishing this essay on changing notions of incitement that was first published in Index on Censorship in 2008. The essay was...
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ON NUANCE AND ITS BAGGAGE
On Monday I chaired an illuminating discussion called ‘Inside the Mind of the Taliban’ with Alex Strick van Linschoten, Felix Kuehn and Jason Elliot. Strick van Linschoten and Kuehn, who until recently...
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REASONING ABOUT TERROR
Ken Livingstone, the former Mayor of London, has stirred up controversy with his claim, on Iran’s Press TV, that behind the Boston bombings lay anger about Western foreign policy and its attitudes to...
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REFLECTIONS ON WOOLWICH
1 It was a mad, barbarous attack, more akin to a particularly savage form of street violence than to a politically motivated act. What was striking about the incident was not just its depravity but the...
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MYTHS OF RADICALISATION
How do we stop young Muslims becoming radicalized? That has been the question posed by many politicians, policy makers, analysts and journalists in the aftermath of the killing of Lee Rigby in Woolwich...
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THE MAKING OF A BRITISH JIHADI
As a follow-up to my earlier post on ‘Myths of radicalisation’, which questioned the conventional narrative about how some Muslims get drawn to jihadism, here is an extract from my book From Fatwa to...
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SYRIA: MORALITY AND REALITY
First, the British parliament rejects David Cameron’s demand for an immediate military strike on Syria. Then, Barack Obama, seemingly all set to bomb Syria, decides to postpone any action until it...
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THE WAR OF THE CYNICS
There are two wars being fought over Syria. There is a civil war on the streets of Homs and Aleppo and Ma’loula and Damascus, a war played out in the currency of bombs and bullets and (possibly) sarin....
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CAST OUT BEYOND THE EMBRACE OF THE LAW
In January, the British Home Secretary, Theresa May, introduced a last-minute measure to the government’s Immigration Bill that would enable her to remove the citizenship of any terror suspects whose...
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A BROTHERHOOD INQUIRY IN BAD FAITH
This is my latest column for the International New York Times is on David Cameron’s inquiry into the Muslim Brotherhood. The full version I will publish on Pandaemonium next month. Imagine that an...
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THE MONSTER THAT ISRAEL HELPED CREATE
There is a terrible irony in Israel’s current assault on Gaza. More than 200 Palestinians have died in an onslaught supposedly aimed at weakening Hamas and degrading its capacity to fire rockets into...
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BRITAIN’S DANGEROUS TRIBALISM
From ‘Britain’s Dangerous New Tribalism’, my latest column for the International New York Times: This exodus to Syria has led non-Muslims to point an accusing finger at Muslim communities. Last month,...
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WHY NO OUTRAGE OVER YEMEN?
Sophia Dingli is a lecturer in International Relations at the University of Hull. In this article she questions why Western commentators, who have been vocal about the Israel’s attack on Gaza and the...
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