Dean C. Alexander is Director of the Homeland Security Research Program and Professor at the School of Law Enforcement and Justice Administration at Western Illinois University. He is the author of the new book, Family Terror Networks (2019), available at Amazon.com. He is also a valued member of Security’s Editorial Advisory Board.
It is dangerous to be related to a terrorist, let alone a senior terror operative. Such an association can lead to one's imminent death while participating in an attack encouraged by a family member.
There are many schemes by which to analyze the prevalence of terrorists in family units, aptly designated as family terror networks or family affiliated terrorism.
Last week President Donald Trump called on European countries to take 800 ISIS members that are in U.S. custody in Syria or “we will be forced to release them.”
In September 2017, FBI Director Christopher Wray announced that his agency had a 1,000 open domestic terrorism cases and an equal number of homegrown violent extremist investigations, such as individuals aligned with ISIS.
This article addresses lessons learned from selected mass casualty terror attacks in Western Europe (Nice, Paris, Brussels and Oslo) and the United States (Orlando, San Bernardino and Boston).
The new Donald Trump administration will attempt to manage many challenges, but cannot eliminate them. After all, these forms of political violence have existed since time immemorial and will continue for generations.
