Understanding Kashmir and Kashmiris, by Christopher Snedden Tesing Journal pic
testging image thumnail- Bipandeep Sharma
- 2025
Counter Terrorism
About Centre
Members:
As the origins, scope and impact of terrorism and violent extremism extend beyond conventional security and military paradigms — covering religious, political, socio-economic, demographic and at times historical vectors— the onus for developing effective and comprehensive counter-terrorism and counter-radicalization campaigns falls within the purview of eminent research institutes like the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA).
It is for this reason that the MP-IDSA has established the Counter Terrorism Centre, which will look into various aspects of terrorism as well as ways of developing effective counter-terrorism strategies and campaigns. In addition to studying the complexities involved in the process of terrorism, the centre would seek to develop counter radicalisation and counter terror financing strategies and programmes.
The Purpose
The purpose of MP-IDSA’s Counter Terrorism Centre is four-fold:
The Mission
To be the premier counter-terrorism center of the country in terms of research and analyses, for developing policy studies and campaigns through enhanced connectivity and network with relevant institutions, forces, experts and officials at the regional, national and international levels.
Terror Tracker is a newsletter that zeroes in on recent terrorism-related activities and issues unfolding around the world. It even tracks and analyzes various counter-terrorism measures and campaigns at the international level. With particular focus on the South Asian region, the newsletter seeks to inform and update policy makers, security forces as well as the general public about the changing contours of the highly elusive, yet ever lurking global threat.
nfluence Operations refers to the use of non-military means of Ipsychological, informational and political influence and subversion to undermine the security and governance of a targeted country. Revolutionised by 21st century Information Communication Technology (ICT), Influence Operations (or simply IOs) have today developed into a highly insidious, cost-effective and often non-attributable forms of hybrid warfare.
Was it influenced by the overall emphasis on Islam in Pakistani state politics? What is the role of history and politics in fuelling religious passions in the area? What has led to the survival of TTP despite humongous efforts of the Pakistan Army to decimate it? What are the future portents of such a movement? What impact is it likely to have on Pakistani society and politics?
The volume makes an attempt to understand the context in which Pakistani Taliban or TTP, as it is called now, came into being, the enabling factors that made the growth of TTP possible, the formation and growth of TTP as a militant organisation, its leadership and its activities over the years, its ideological orientation and its worldview, its aims and objectives, its relationship with other militant groups in and outside Pakistan and the efforts of the Pakistani establishment to come to terms with such a phenomenon. There is an attempt to analyse the process and study its implications for Pakistan and the region.
The indoctrination of these extremist ideologies lead to transformation of law-abiding citizens into violent extremists, a process known as radicalisation. This book proposes ways and techniques for reversing this process of radicalisation by taking the fight to the terrorists in the ideological domain. It proposes ways for developing and launching counter-narrative campaigns against radicalisation in order to drain the ideological swamp from which terrorist organisations continue to rear their ugly heads. This book specifically provides conceptual insights into developing counter-narratives against jihadist organisations, like Al Qaeda, ISIS and Pakistan-based terror groups.
The killing of Qassem Soleimani in 2020 again brought the religio-cultural significance of ‘martyrdom’ into limelight in Iran. He got recognized as the ‘Defender-Martyr of Holy Shrine’ given his role against ISIS in protecting the Shi’i holy shrines. This article analyses the relationship between ‘shrines and ‘martyrdom’ in Iran’s strategy against ISIS.
People often complain that Islamic scholars do little more than condemn the inhuman acts of so-called jihadist groups and fall short of delivering strong, incontrovertible rebuttals against the vicious narratives of terrorist groups, like Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (IS). It has also been stated that the ever-rearing Hydra-like heads of terrorism will have to be endlessly severed until genuine Islamic scholarship drains the very swamp of irreligious radicalism from which the monstrosity continually raises new and ugly distortions.
The Indian strategic community has for long debated aspects of jihadist radicalisation in the country—particularly over its origins, causes, extent, trajectory and possible counter-measures. This article posits that in the absence of clear perspectives, the incipient threat of jihadist radicalisation has the potential to metastasise and snowball quickly, as has been witnessed in other parts of the world in recent times.
In recent years, rising instances of home-grown terrorism, lone-wolf operations and growing polarisation within societies have upstaged the global military struggle against major transnational terrorist organisations. As the dissemination of radical ideas and related violence increases, over 40 governments around the world have decided to develop their own counter-radicalisation and de-radicalisation programmes, in keeping with their socio-political and cultural particularities.
The new radicals in Pakistan have challenged the old Islamists as represented by the religious political parties on the nature of state and the means to capture state power. These new radicals reject the ‘bottom up’ approach followed by the traditional Islamic political parties and prefer a ‘top down’ approach. Their ideological inspiration and reference point is Afghanistan under Taliban.
In the European security calculus, terrorism has become one of the key strategic threats. Alarmingly, the continent has also become a centre of radical Islamist propaganda and activism, with a number of European countries worried over the potential of their own 'home-grown' religious extremists. Latest studies indicate a disturbing trend of a section of the youth, generally belonging to the Muslim communities of West African and South Asian origin from a poor or middle class socioeconomic background, embracing extremism and terrorism in Europe.
