Terrorism and Global Security: A Study of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) (Published)
This paper attempts to examine terrorism as a threat to global security with a particular focus on the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The ISIS was able to escalate the use of terrorism to a level beyond other terrorist groups in threatening global security. Their use of extreme violent tactics like beheadings, crucifixion and burning alive of their victims under their self-declared caliphate shocked the whole world and prompted them to rise in unison to curtail their reign of terror that spanned territories in Iraq and Syria. Terrorism has become a political weapon in the arsenal of the terrorists in terrorizing political opponents, causing fear and thereby threatening global peace and security. Status quo actors such as states often tend to abuse the term to define its actions and interests in opposition to those of the terrorists. The causes espoused by groups resorting to terrorism are varied which include ethno-nationatism and separation, left-wing revolution, religious or right-wing extremism etc. The frustration-aggression theory was used as a framework to explain these variables. The paper recommended among other options, the use of credible and actionable intelligence with military option to dismantle ISIS on a permanent basis. It concluded that until religion ceases to be a strong motivation for violence against others, terrorism will continue to pose a threat to global peace and security.
Keywords: Global Security, ISIS, Terrorism, Violence, threat
A Critical Discourse Analysis of Personal Deixis in Isis Selected Messages (Published)
Power and ideology, which are two main concerns in critical discourse analysis (CDA) approach, have become medium for each other to innervate and sustain each other in the society. Both of them can be manifested via the use of some linguistic expressions and forms. Halliday’s Systematic functional linguistic (SFL), can be applied in the sake of investigating those linguistic forms in harmony with CDA. The current article investigates the use of deixis to represent power relations and ideologies in two messages of Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi (leader of ISIS). The analysis involves CDA based on the works of van Dijk (2000 & 2008) and Fairclough (1989, 1995& 2003) in addition to Halliday’s SFL (1985 & 1994). The conclusions manifested different power relations in Al-Baghdadi messages (Allah Almighty and Al-Baghdadi, Al-Baghdadi and Non-Muslims, and Al-Baghdadi and the Muslims). Further, ideologies of principle belief, the believers’ duty and political ideologies are all identified through the use of personal deixis such the pronoun ‘I’ and the pronoun ‘we’ refer to Al-Baghdadi (the speaker) and to ISIS (his group) respectively, the pronoun ‘Him’ and the pronoun ‘He’ represent Allah Almighty. In this context, the pronoun ‘we’ has no power over anyone, while the pronoun ‘Him’ is the powerful one.
Keywords: ISIS, Ideology, Personal Deixis, Power relations, critical discourse analysis