Dr. Craig Whiteside
Dr. Craig Whiteside is an Associate Fellow at ICCT and an Associate Professor for the Naval War College Monterey and teaches at the Naval Postgraduate School. He is a senior associate with the Center on Irregular Warfare and Armed Groups at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island and lectures at the U.S. Air Force Special Operations School. Whiteside’s current research focuses on the doctrinal influences of the leadership of the Islamic State movement, the evolution of its political-military doctrine since 1999, and the tribal engagement strategy that fuelled its return since 2008. His doctoral research investigated the political worldview of the Islamic State of Iraq (2003-2013). He is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and Washington State University. His recent articles on the Islamic State can be found here.
In the aftermath of a terrorist attack, a series of events can ostensibly be relied on. As we mourn, the media frantically try to gather information about the attacker(s) and, upon learning that they used social media for some part of their activity, it is suggested by journalists, politicians, and pundits that they were radicalised […]
In recent years Europe has faced an increasing wave of so-called ‘lone actor’ attacks committed by jihadist terrorists. This trend has continued in 2017. For example, the attacks in London and Stockholm, which were simple but devastating in their methodology, used vehicles to run pedestrians down. While the London attacker disembarked to engage in a […]
In a March 2017 paper published by the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism—The Hague, this author introduced a framework for studying the construction of extremist identity through ideological texts. This Report will examine the framework against a historical example of the so-called Islamic State (IS) propaganda to illustrate how messaging strategies can be based on insights derived […]