The EICTP Expert Paper “Between Terror and Amok” explores the growing overlap between terrorism and rampage violence, drawing on the 2024 Magdeburg Christmas market attack and the 2025 Graz school shooting as case studies. It highlights how hybrid extremism, digital radicalization, and stochastic violence increasingly blur the lines between ideologically…
The new EICTP study “Scenarios for Turkey’s political development until 2030”, produced in cooperation with the Center for Applied Turkey Studies (CATS) at SWP Berlin, develops six possible scenarios for Turkey’s domestic and foreign policy development. Based on a sound scenario methodology, it highlights opportunities and risks for Europe, especially…
This paper explores the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) with forensic linguistic and theological analysis to decode the visual propaganda of Salafi-Jihadi groups, particularly the Islamic State (IS). Recognizing the limitations of Western-centric and orientalist paradigms in conventional Terrorism Studies, the authors advocate for a decolonized, evidence-based approach that centers…
The Islamist-motivated knife attack in Villach in February 2025 highlights the growing threat posed by online radicalization. Since the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7, 2023, Salafist-jihadist networks have stepped up their propaganda on the internet and created a “virtual caliphate” that reaches young Muslims via social media and encrypted…
The evolving threat landscape of extremism and terrorism poses a central security policy challenge for European states, demanding a comprehensive and projective strategic analysis. Unlike many conventional trend reports that simply extrapolate past developments into the future, the EICTP European Trend Report on Terrorism 2025 (ETRT) is distinguished by its…
In volume 7 of the “EICTP Vienna Research Papers on Transnational Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism”, the latest trend-setting developments and phenomena of classic extremist phenomena (left-wing and right-wing extremism as well as Islamism) are presented in a comprehensible and concise manner. In addition, currently emerging forms such as anti-institutional extremism as…
In August 2024, a terrorism plot assisted by the Islamic State, a jihadist militant group, targeting a concert of the American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift at the Ernst-Happel-Stadion in Vienna, the capital city of Austria, was uncovered and neutralised. Three males, aged 17, 18 and 19, were arrested for involvement in…
Volume VI of the Vienna Papers Series opens a broad kaleidoscope of recent manifestations of extremism in Europe from militant climate activism to violent anti-government movements as well as terrorist groups and stakeholders in Africa, Asia and the United States. The transnational aspect becomes all the more relevant in a…
Due to the (current) sharp rise in anti-Semitic attacks and crimes, particularly following the Hamas terror attack against Israel, the EICTP has set itself the task of analyzing and assessing this phenomenon on an international comparative basis. Anti-Semitism poses a threat to our liberal society and must be vigorously combated,…
Often wrongly criticized, the concept of right-wing lone-actor terrorists is plausible since it only concerns planning and execution. Often also named “lone wolves”, lone-actor terrorists definitely take part in large ideological groups and must be considered in the light of large societal contexts. In other words, white supremacy, QAnon, Reichsbürger,…
For several months now, concerted actions by climate activists in various European countries and metropolises have regularly made headlines. The protests are staged in a targeted manner through short-term, high-profile, provocative and media-accompanied disruptive actions. Polarizing protests against the existing climate policy, which in the view of climate activists is…
Dr. Wolfgang Kraushaar examines in his paper whether a radicalization has already taken place in the context of the climate protest movement or whether it is to be expected; or whether this movement could slide in parts or even as a whole into terrorism. The explosive topic shows (not only…
Prof. Dr. Eckhard Jesse describes in his paper on the climate protest movement that the protest movement shows problematic traits. This applies, on the one hand, to the unresolved relationship to violence. Although this is rejected in theory, in practice it is sometimes accepted by militant forces. Secondly, and this…
Our European democracy(s) is/are under threat, at a post-World War II historical level. This paper examines the current threats facing our European democracies, primarily at the level of analysis of homeland security. These threats and their actors are analyzed here in the thematic areas of democratic resilience, narratives and conspiracy…
Towards a New Iron Curtain By Prof. Dr. Rob de Wijk / The Hague Center for strategic Studies and Leiden University The Russian war against Ukraine will have important implications for the future European security order. Many analysts, including myself, did not believe that Putin would attack: 150.000 troops…
In 2022 the Media Mujahidin – the media operatives who work on and offline in support of Salafi-Jihadi groups – have continued to maintain a persistent presence online and conduct influence operations amongst their primary, Arabic speaking, target audience. This contrasts significantly with the dominant narrative which has been presented…
Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, which began on 24.2.2022, must be analyzed on different levels. As a result of Russia’s war of aggression with armed forces that are among the largest in the world against Ukraine as a country that is not a member of NATO, thousands of people…
The level of the threat of right-wing extremist violence and right-wing terrorism assess many European security agencies as extraordinarily high. The Dutch domestic intelligence service AIVD called 2019 “the year” of right-wing terrorist attacks worldwide. Data obtained by terrorism researchers from various sources come to long-term comparisons and show that…
Whereas records of acts of piracy reach as far back as the fourteenth-century BC, this study confines itself to the present century. Maritime terrorism, like all forms of terrorism, stems primarily from political, ideological or religious sources. Terrorists thus seek to identify and target industrial infrastructures. They may focus attention…
The onset of the Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted life all over the planet and impacted nearly every aspect of human life. With national governments thrown into confusion as how to best react to the spread of the virus while keeping up its most central functions, Islamist terrorist militias have taken…
At present, Turkey is trying to adopt a position of “active neutrality” in the war between Russia and Ukraine. A foreign policy position that Ankara has been pursuing since 2014. In concrete terms, this means that Ankara supports both states to the best of their ability. Turkey’s alliance with Ukraine…
Terrorist groups like Al Qaeda (AQ) or the Islamic State (IS) have been pro-active in using the internet as well as traditional media formats to maintain a persistent media presence with the intention to influence their target audiences. For that purpose, they project influence based on a coherent – and…
Prof. Herfried Münkler analyzes in this expert paper the reasons for Europe’s incapability to position itself as a global player. The complexity of the political order in Europe and the interplay of growing Euroscepticism, Brexit and the role of nuclear weapons in Europe’s security policy indicate the numerous gaps and…
This major research study, a collection of state of the art contributions by world-leading experts in the field on the subject of transnational terrorism and its multifaceted implications, EICTP intends to provide a first-hand account dealing with the imminent sub-conventional threats to current international security environments. Reflections introduced and elaborated…
This volume of collected analyses by some of the leading international experts in the field is dedicated to an examination and explorative in-depth assessment of the key-determinants of transnational terrorism in and beyond the era of the COVID-19 pandemic. Not only it focusses on the disruptive impact the global health…
This third volume of the “EICTP Vienna Research Papers on Transnational Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism” is dedicated to the mostly unclear future of (transnational) terrorism in its widest sense. Manifold reflections of world-wide renowned experts (Nicolas Stockhammer, Joshua Sinai, Colin P. Clarke, Gary A. Ackerman, Marc Sageman, Brian Michael Jenkins, Herfried…
The current conflict in Yemen dates back to the emergence of the Houthi movement in the early 2000s. After the fall of the Yemeni regime under president Ali Abd Allah Salih in the wake of the Arab Spring and the establishment of a transitional government under interim President Abd Rabboh…
EICTP Expert Paper: Understanding the Global Jihadist Movement Since 9/11 Western governments have committed multinational multi-billion-dollar efforts and exerted continuous military pressure to counter Islamist terrorist groups. Following such outlay of resources and sacrifice of lives, politicians, policymakers, and pundits have been keen to announce the so-called defeat and demise…
The Islamist terrorist attacks in France over the last years have moved Islamism and its impact on French society to the heart of public discussion. With the rise of ISIS in 2014 and numerous French foreign fighters joining the terrorist militia as well as alarming developments endangering social cohesion, the…
Shortly after the terror attack in Vienna on 2 November 2020, photographs and videos from eyewitnesses were circulating on social media. Sympathizers of the Islamic State (IS) quickly capitalized on the availability of such material and continued their circulation in Arabic in IS communication channels, like the platform Telegram. Following…
Shortly after the terror attack in Vienna on 2 November 2020, photographs and videos from eyewitnesses were circulating on social media. Sympathizers of the Islamic State (IS) quickly capitalized on the availability of such material and continued their circulation in Arabic in IS communication channels, like the platform Telegram. Following…
Policy Brief and analysis of the terrorist attack in Vienna in November 2020. By Nicolas Stockhammer and Peter R. Neumann. FINAL_EICTP Policy Brief Terror and lessons learnt
The South Caucasus has become the focus of attention for the international community in the wake of the renewed intense conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia. But even beyond the internal and inter-state conflicts, events in the South Caucasus as well as in the North Caucasus have at least an indirect…
State of Emergency Against the backdrop of the still ongoing global struggle to tackle the novel COVID-19 pandemic and its various impacts, some terrorist organizations and affiliates already seem to draw their strategic lessons from the destabilizing effects the crisis has revealed. Not only do they study the immense psychological…