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Mohammed Huwais / AFP / Getty The 'Softer' Side of Jihadists
Weeping, reciting poetry, singing hymns—these are all part of jihadi culture. Does appreciating that culture risk downplaying the militants’ barbarity?
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Delil Souleiman / Getty The Myth of the ISIS Female Suicide Bomber
She is almost entirely fictitious—so why are some people so keen to believe otherwise?
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Ahmad Al-Rubaye / AFP / Getty Images ISIS Will Fail, but What About the Idea of ISIS?
Despite claiming responsibility for attacks like the one in London, the group is dying. It will retain the ability to inspire.
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Yorgos Karahalis / Reuters The Dilemma Facing Ex-Muslims in Trump's America
How to challenge Islam while defending its adherents
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Carlos Barria / Reuters Trump's Travel Ban Will Not 'Help' ISIS Recruitment
The trope posits an overly simplistic understanding of jihadist radicalization, and demeans Muslims in general.
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Joe Raedle / Getty ISIS in the Caribbean
Trinidad has the highest rate of Islamic State recruitment in the Western hemisphere. How did this happen?
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Fadi Al-Assaad / Reuters What’s the Right Way to Think About Religion and ISIS?
The debate over Islam’s role echoes earlier arguments about ideology in human affairs.
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Maciej Toporowicz / Getty The Jihad Will Be Televised
The sinister narcissism of ISIS and its lone-wolf emulators
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Charles Platiau / Reuters What If Some Suicide Bombers Are Just Suicidal?
Dying for a cause—minus the cause
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Martin Meissner / AP Is There Any ‘Logic’ to Suicide Terrorism?
One theory holds that such attacks are a response to territorial losses. But maybe there's no strategy behind them at all.
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Reuters Flemming Rose: The Reluctant Fundamentalist
How the man behind the Danish cartoons crisis thinks about free speech, 10 years on
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Ali Hashisho / Reuters Reborn Into Terrorism
Why are so many ISIS recruits ex-cons and converts?
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SITE / Reuters The Shadow of Jihadi John
Is martyrdom about the afterlife? Or fame in this life?
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Reuters The Challenge of Jihadi Cool
ISIS’s countercultural appeal is real. And it must be taken seriously.
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Khalil Hassan / Reuters Yes, ISIS Is Winning the ‘War of Ideas’
The Paris attacks showed how even fringe appeal to a “microscopic minority” can do massive damage.
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Dylan Martinez / Reuters The Pre-Terrorists Among Us
Is it possible to stop terrorism before it happens?
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Reuters / Paul Spella / The Atlantic The Cyber Activists Who Want to Shut Down ISIS
Somewhere in Europe, a man who goes by the name “Mikro” spends his days and nights targeting Islamic State supporters on Twitter.
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Pascal Rossignol / Reuters ‘I Am Strange Here’: Conversations With the Syrians in Calais
“We have breakfast, we smoke, we laugh, we joke, we eat again, and after that in the night we have a try [at escaping to England]. Every night.”
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Lefteris Pitarakis / AP Pilgrims to the Islamic State
What Westerners migrating to ISIS have in common with Westerners who sympathized with communism
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Thaier Al-Sudani / Reuters What Motivates Terrorists?
It’s an important question. But is it the best one to be asking?
