ISLAMIC STUDIES

Yoram Schweitzer

(An expert on international terrorism and head of the INSS Program on Terrorism and Low Intensity Conflict, has been a researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), which incorporated the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies (JCSS), since February 2003, following a distinguished career in the Israeli intelligence community as well as in the academic world).

Oded Eran

(A senior research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies, served as director of INSS from July 2008 to November 2011, following a long career in Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other government positions).

Copyright: The Institute for National Security Studies (INSS-no 654), Israel

The shock that gripped France following the terrorist attacks in Paris in early January 2015 will probably wane as time passes. Similarly, the urgency assigned to effective handling of the danger originating on the battlefields of Syria and Iraq that threatens Western democracies will likely decline. The need to take up the challenge will be postponed to a time when the leaders of Western countries have no choice but to deal with it directly, on a broad scale, and perhaps violently. Presumably only a chain of exceptional events, i.e., showcase terrorist attacks that cause a large number of casualties, will unequivocally highlight the risk incurred in not stepping up the military struggle against the challenge to the West posed by the Islamic State organization... Read more

Simeon H.O. Alozieuwa, PhD
(Department of Defense and Security Studies, Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution, Abuja, Nigeria)

Copyright: Research Institute for European and American Studies – www.rieas.gr  - based in Athens, Greece. (Publication Date: 10 March 2014)

Introduction

Until lately, discourse on piracy in Africa revolved around the criminal activities by the hijackers in the East African waters, and symbolized mainly by their illicit activities around the Gulf of Eden and Somali Basin. The recently-released “Captain Phillips” a Hollywood portrayal of the 2009 hijacking of the MV Maersk Alabama by Somali pirates off the coast of Somalia perhaps illustrates rather poignantly this type of criminality in the region.

The face of piracy in Africa has however assumed a new dimension.  A 2013 report by the South African-based Institute for Security Studies (ISS), notes that just as large scale piracy around the Somali Basin appears on the wane, there has been an increase in piracy incidents off the West African coast, particularly, the Gulf of Guinea. Unlike the Gulf of Eden -Somali Basin piracy which revolves around commercial fishing activities and ransom, the new face of piracy in Africa around the Gulf of Guinea is about oil. .... Read more

Prof Alozieuwa Simeon Onyemachi Hilary
(Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution, Abuja, Nigeria)

Copyright: Research Institute for European and American Studies (RIEAS) - www.rieas.gr – based in Athens, Greece (Date of Publication: 25 January 2014)

Nigeria has come under serious security challenge in the last couples of years. The security dilemma is epitomized by the Jamatu’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’wati wal-Jihad, (People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet’s Teaching and Jihad) or its faction, Ansaru- all generically known as the Boko Haram (Western civilization is forbidden). …  Read more

Aguezeala Alban Chimezie
(Postgraduate Researcher, University of Indianapolis, Athens Campus)

Copyright: www.rieas.gr

Nigeria a great African nation is facing serious security challenges during the last few years. These challenges not only threaten the lives and property of its citizenry but also have implications for its territorial integrity as well as well for the entire global system. Unarguably one of the major security challenges confronting Nigeria today is the Boko Haram insurgency. Perhaps what Gregory Ochiagha calls ‘the emerging culture of death’ has assumed eccentric and ludicrous proportion in Nigeria given the activities of the Boko Haram insurgents......  Read more