On 27 October, President Donald Trump announced that on the previous night US special forces had raided a compound in Barisha, Idlib Province, Syria. In the house was Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who detonated a suicide …
Articles by: "Isaac Kfir"
Mass shootings such as those in El Paso and Las Vegas and terror attacks such as those in New Zealand and Norway, along with the rise of nationalist, anti-immigrant, populist political parties, have put the …
Between December 2015 and February 2019, 12 Australian dual citizens were stripped of their citizenship under the Australian Citizenship Act 2007 because of their involvement with terror groups. As the provisions of the act are …
My latest Strategic Insights paper provides an overview of the post-caliphate Salafi-jihadi environment, focusing on the franchising strategy of al-Qaeda and Islamic State. It finds that the threat is now less ‘top-down’ than ‘bottom-up’ and …
The logic behind Australia’s terrorism-related loss-of-citizenship provisions is meant to be brilliantly simple: if a person travels overseas to be a foreign fighter, and is a dual citizen, then under certain circumstances their Australian citizenship …
In December 2018, former Israel Defense Forces chief Benny Gantz established Hosen L’Yisrael (Israel Resilience Party) and rocked the Israeli political landscape when many started seeing him as a viable replacement for Benjamin Netanyahu. Gantz …
Australia’s counterterrorism architecture is complex, embracing hard and soft power, and it’s challenging to determine where it begins and ends. It also includes initiatives that the government rightly can’t publicise. My latest ASPI report, 18 …
Unsurprisingly, the Christchurch terror attack has brought calls for social media companies to do more to control what appears on their platforms. The perception that it’s something they can easily fix is reflected in Prime …
The recent announcement by an Australian woman, who is believed to be 24-year-old Zehra Duman from Melbourne, that she wants to return to Australia with her two children raised the usual hue and cry. Prime …
Last week, veteran Times reporter Anthony Loyd travelled to a Syrian refugee camp to interview Shamima Begum, a 19-year-old woman from Bethnal Green in London’s East End, who at the age of 15 left home …
Over recent years, the Asia–Pacific maritime security environment has become increasingly complex. Transnational serious and organised crime in the maritime domain (including illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing; piracy; and trafficking of weapons, drugs and people), …
Scott Morrison’s announcement that Australia will recognise West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel was sensible, balanced and well crafted. The prime minister avoided many of the pitfalls that could have come with such a …