Al Walaa' wal Baraa' is an Arabic phrase which translates to "loyalty and disavowal" and is a key concept which jihadists use to justify violent attacks. It refers to what jihadists understand as their requirement to show... Read more

On February 26, 1993, terrorists affiliated with Al Qaeda detonated a 1,336 lbs truck bomb underneath the North Tower of the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan. The bomb was intended to bring down the North Tower... Read more

The Boston Marathon Bombing was a domestic terrorist attack that occurred on April 15, 2013 in Boston, Massachusetts. Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, two Kyrgyz-American brothers of Chechen descent, created two pressure cooker bombs using instructions published by... Read more

The Charlie Hebdo terror attack occurred on January 7, 2015 in Paris, France, when two brothers forced their way into the offices of the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and opened fire, killing 12 people and injuring... Read more

Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev were domestic terrorists who committed the Boston Marathon bombing on April 15, 2013. The Kyrgyz-American brothers were radicalized in part by the lectures of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula's (AQAP) extremist cleric... Read more

Jihad is an Arabic word meaning "struggle." Jihad is one of the five pillars of Islam, and many scholars have written about its meaning and application. In a moderate context, jihad can often refer to a personal... Read more

The Garland, Texas terrorist plot, also known as the "Draw Mohammed Art Contest" plot, refers to a May 3, 2015 incident in which two men — Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi — entered the Curtis Culwell Center... Read more

Mujahid is the Arabic term for someone undertaking jihad. Many Islamist extremists will refer to themselves as the mujahideen (the plural of mujahid) to evoke religious meaning to their violence. In particular, this term is used to... Read more

The June 2016 shooting spree at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, by Omar Mateen—who killed 49 people and wounded 53 more—dwarfed in its lethality all other extremist-related murders in the decade. Mateen, who claimed his attack... Read more