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Laura Mansfield is the pseudonym [1] for an American author specializing in counter-terrorism, the Middle East, Islam, and Islamic terrorism. She is the former Associate Director of the Northeast Intelligence Network. Mansfield writes for various online publications including WorldNetDaily and FrontPageMag.
Mansfield is fluent in written and spoken Arabic, and has spent nearly seven years living in the Middle East, working for a wide range of clients including a U.S. Embassy, the United States Agency for International Development, and international corporations. She was active in the embassy warden system, acting as a liaison between the embassy security office and her employer during the 1985 Beirut hijacking.[ citation needed ]
Mansfield heads the Strategic Translations and Analysis service which specializes in monitoring and translating Arabic language bulletin boards, news media and communiques from alleged radical Islamists.[ citation needed ]
Mansfield frequently appears on a wide array of mainly-US networks such as CNN and CNN International, Fox News, Fox News UK, Israel National Radio, BBC, and CBN as well as numerous radio stations across the US such as KGO Radio News in San Francisco, America at Night, WDEL, WFED, WTOP, the Laurie Roth Show, the Tom Bauerle Show, and the Carl Wigglesworth Show, as well as working for many unnamed Fortune 500 companies.[ citation needed ]
She was featured in the headlines in May 2004, as the investigator alleged to have originally downloaded the videotape of Nick Berg's murder from the Al-Ansar website. [2]
Mansfield was the subject of a prominent feature on Arabiya TV in 2005 and was involved in communications with the web-based radical Irhabi 007. [3]
In 2006, Mansfield spoke on the dangers of teaching about Islam in public schools. [4]
In 2007, Mansfield was featured on Yahoo! front page.[ citation needed ]
CNN has featured purported Osama Bin Laden videos [5] from Laura Mansfield.
Mansfield believes that "the War on Terror began nearly a quarter of a century earlier (than Sept 11th 2001), with the Islamic Revolution in Iran" and that "[r]adical Islam had declared War on America" [6] [7] and has stated her belief that Islamists were behind the Oklahoma City bombing [8] based on what she said was a "daily planner" from "Boot Camp - Class of 2000", although the judge in Timothy McVeigh's trial ruled a defence on these grounds inadmissible as speculation.
Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violence during peacetime or in the context of war against non-combatants. There are various different definitions of terrorism, with no universal agreement about it. Different definitions of terrorism emphasize its randomness, its aim to instill fear, and its broader impact beyond its immediate victims.
Jemaah Islamiyah was a Southeast Asian Islamist militant group based in Indonesia, which was dedicated to the establishment of an Islamic state in Southeast Asia. On 25 October 2002, immediately following the JI-perpetrated 2002 Bali bombings, JI was added to the UN Security Council Resolution 1267.
Ayman Mohammed Rabie al-Zawahiri was an Egyptian-born pan-Islamist militant and physician who served as the second general emir of al-Qaeda from June 2011 until his death in July 2022. He is best known for being one of the main orchestrators of the September 11 attacks.
Islamic terrorism refers to terrorist acts carried out by fundamentalist militant Islamists and Islamic extremists.
Nicholas Evan Berg was an American freelance radio-tower repairman who went to Iraq after the United States' invasion of Iraq. He was abducted and beheaded according to a video released in May 2004 by Islamist militants in response to the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse involving the United States Army and Iraqi prisoners. The CIA claimed Berg was murdered by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The decapitation video was released on the internet, reportedly from London to a Malaysian-hosted homepage by the Islamist organization Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad.
Adam Yahiye Gadahn was an American senior operative, cultural interpreter, spokesman and media advisor for the Islamist group al-Qaeda, as well as prolific noise musician. Beginning in 2004, he appeared in a number of videos produced by al-Qaeda as "Azzam the American". Gadahn, who converted to Islam in 1995 at a California mosque, was described as "homegrown," a term used by scholars and government officials for Western citizens "picking up the sword of the idea" to commit attacks in the West. American intelligence officials allege that he inspired the 2007 Osama bin Laden video.
Internet Haganah is a "global intelligence network dedicated to confronting Internet activities by Islamists and their supporters, enablers and apologists."
Amir Taheri is an Iranian-born journalist, author, intellectual, scholar of Middle Eastern politics and activist based in Europe. His writings focus on the Middle East affairs and topics related to Islamic terrorism. He is the current Chairman of Gatestone Institute in Europe.
Terrorism in Saudi Arabia has mainly been attributed to Islamic extremists. Their targets included foreign civilians—Westerners affiliated with its oil-based economy—as well as Saudi Arabian civilians and security forces. Anti-Western attacks have occurred in Saudi Arabia dating back to 1995. Saudi Arabia itself has been accused of funding terrorism in other countries, including Syria.
A series of bombings occurred on 1 October 2005 in Bali, Indonesia. Bombs were detonated at two sites in Jimbaran Beach resort and in Kuta 30 km (19 mi) away, both in south Bali. The attack claimed the lives of 20 people and injured more than 100 others. The attack was known in Indonesia as the second Bali bombings to distinguish it from the 2002 attacks.
Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys (English: Hassan Dahir Aweys (Somali: Xasan Daahir Aweys, is a Somali Islamist political figure.
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, born Ahmad Fadeel al-Nazal al-Khalayleh, was a Jordanian militant jihadist who ran a training camp in Afghanistan. He became known after going to Iraq and being responsible for a series of bombings, beheadings, and attacks during the Iraq War, reportedly "turning an insurgency against US troops" in Iraq "into a Shia–Sunni civil war". He was sometimes known by his supporters as the "Sheikh of the slaughterers".
The term Talibanization refers to a type of Islamist practice that emerged following the rise of the Taliban movement in Afghanistan, where other religious groups or movements come to follow or imitate the strict practices of the Taliban.
The Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, known by the French acronym GSPC, was an Algerian islamist terrorist faction in the Algerian Civil War founded in 1998 by Hassan Hattab, a former regional commander of the Armed Islamic Group (GIA). After Hattab was ousted from the organization in 2003, the group officially pledged support for al-Qaeda, and in January 2007, the group officially changed its name to the "Al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb" (AQIM).
The September 11, 2007 Osama bin Laden video appeared five days after the September 6, 2007, Osama bin Laden video, on the sixth anniversary of the September 11 attacks. It is the second video produced by As-Sahab purportedly featuring a eulogy by Osama bin Laden to the 9/11 hijacker Waleed al-Shehri.
Takfir wal-Hijra, was the popular name given to a radical Islamist group Jama'at al-Muslimin founded by Shukri Mustafa which emerged in Egypt in the 1960s as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. Although the group was crushed by Egyptian security forces after it murdered an Islamic scholar and former government minister in 1977, it is said to have "left an enduring legacy" taken up by some Islamist radicals in "subsequent years and decades."
The Global Islamic Media Front (GIMF) is an Islamist propaganda organization that is associated with the terrorist group, al-Qaeda, and other jihadist groups. The GIMF is known by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as an "underground media" organization. The GIMF specializes in production of jihadist material for distribution. It is one of several organizations that jihadists use to spread information via the Internet, including the well-known As-Sahab. Their slogan that is used on their materials is "Observing Mujahideen News and Inspiring the Believers." There is no indication who the leader of this organization is.
Islamism has existed in the United Kingdom since the 1970s, and has become widely visible and a topic of political discourse since the beginning of the 21st century.
The fight against terrorisminAzerbaijan is one of Azerbaijan's declared priorities. International organizations banned as terrorist include Al Qaeda, Al-Nusra Front, Jamaat, Hizb ut-Tahrir, Islamic International Brigade, ISIS, Jeyshullah, and PKK. According to the Global Terrorism Database, seven people have been killed and over 20 injured in terrorist attacks from 2000 to 2015.