This PhD investigates the development of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, with a particular focus on the distinction between terrorism and insurgency. The findings have been published in five peer... Show moreThis PhD investigates the development of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, with a particular focus on the distinction between terrorism and insurgency. The findings have been published in five peer-reviewed articles, and are joined by an introductory framework and a concluding chapter. The scene-setter contextualizes the problem of terrorism in Mali, describes the fragmented landscape of jihadist groups, analyzes how Tuareg separatism led to AQIM's control of northern Mali, and illustrates how shortcomings in national and local governance fueled insecurity. The second conceptual article analyzed whether AQIM should be regarded as terrorism, insurgency or organized crime, and concluded that - at the time of writing (2016) - most indicators pointed to the group following a strategy of terrorism. A treatise on methodology investigated the discrepancy between the international community's perception of Mali pre-2012 as a stable 'posterboy for democracy', while it was Mali that suffered a near-complete collapse in 2012. It concluded that a quantitative risk approach, rather than a qualitative threat approach, contributed to this misperception. The fourth article applied the first trinity from Clausewitz’s opus On War to Operation Serval, the French military operation to oust AQIM from northern Mali in 2013. Clear political goals, contingency planning, an audacious military operation combined with luck all helped France secure an initial victory against AQIM. The final article focused on potential pathways for AQIM to end, and concluded that in 2021 AQIM followed a strategy of insurgency, while much of the international response remained rooted in the paradigm of counterterrorism. Show less
While terrorism is one of the most prominent security threats in the Western world, there is surprisingly little research that adresses the effectiveness of the instruments that are used to fight... Show moreWhile terrorism is one of the most prominent security threats in the Western world, there is surprisingly little research that adresses the effectiveness of the instruments that are used to fight it. In this doctoral dissertation national and international security expert Teun van Dongen will fill this gap by demonstrating that there is a link between the nature of a terrorist threat and the effects of the measures that are applied against it. He will outline a new way to measure coun-terterrorism effectiveness and will apply it to the counterterrorist cam_paigns against the Provisional IRA, ETA, the Weather Underground, the RAF and the jihadist movements in the UK and the Netherlands. The results show that the effect of counterterrorism measures depends to a considerable degree on the way terrorist organisations or movements are organised and on the way they interact with the population Show less
