Terrorism, tactics, and transformation: The West vs the Salafi-jihadi movement

[TomSea]

Terrorism, tactics, and transformation: The West vs the Salafi-jihadi movement - AEI
Katherine Zimmerman @KatieZimmerman November 15, 2018 | American Enterprise Institute


Key Points

    The Salafi-jihadi movement shifted to prioritizing local over global objectives during the Arab Spring. Analysts wrongly understood this as a weakening of the groups.
    Groups have hidden their true nature by hiding their ties to global jihadi groups, such as al Qaeda and the Islamic State, and by rebranding and reorganizing on the ground.
    Movement leaders design and execute attacks in ways that create doubt and ambiguity about the responsible party. This new technique exploits US counterterrorism policy, which is not designed to pursue anyone other than the individuals directly responsible for the attack.
    American officials are countering a dynamic enemy with an irrelevant and outdated strategy.

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Introduction

Battlefield innovation and adaptation are signatures of the Islamic State and al Qaeda. These groups creatively transform commercially available items into weapons, enabling them to cheaply wage lethal guerrilla-war campaigns against the most modern military in the world. They have devastatingly attacked the US and European homelands with such sophisticated weapons as box cutters. However, their evolutions and adaptations are not confined to weapons and tactics. The Salafi-jihadi movement of which they are part continuously adapts at all levels of war to changing circumstances on the ground, defeats, and new opportunities. It is an agile learning and adaptive organism.

Read more at:  http://www.aei.org/publication/terrorism-tactics-and-transformation-the-west-vs-the-salafi-jihadi-movement/