Dino Krause

Europe's teenage jihadists: a growing security challenge Islamic State (IS)-related terror plots in Western Europe increasingly involve individuals under the age of 18. Central to this trend is IS’s ability to disseminate propaganda online, effectively targ...

Since 2022 there has been a dramatic increase in teenagers becoming involved in Islamic State-related terror plots in Europe. I've written a short policy brief on this phenomenon. The analysis uses data from the Jihadi Plots in Europe dataset developed by Petter Nesser
www.diis.dk/en/research/....

HTS seeks public legitimacy: How authoritarian are Syria's new rulers? Until now, the Islamist militia HTS has ruled the province of Idlib. Research shows how it dealt with protest and minorities there.

Hvor autoritære er Syriens nye herskere? Indtil de overtog magten i hele landet, havde den islamistiske milits HTS regeret provinsen Idlib i Syrien. Forskning fra denne region kan fortælle os, hvad der er i vente for resten af den syriske befolkning, skriver @dinokrause.bsky.social👇

However, I also note that the main, unresolved question regards the group's authocratic approach to governance and the fact that it has yet to prove that it is actually willing to tolerate real, political opposition and to engage in some form of power-sharing (END)

Looking ahead, I conclude somewhat optimistically, given HTS' remarkable development in recent years and its repeated willingness to adjust its policies based on public dissent (5/6)

Yet, this was largely restricted to what we call "non-maximalist" demands, f.e. release of prisoners, lifting of roadblocks, etc. When protests demanded more far-reaching changes, HTS tended to act repressively. Still, even in these cases, they sometimes made concessions if protests continued (4/6)

Especially after breaking its ties with al-Qaeda in 2016, HTS has been relatively flexible in terms of addressing public dissent. On several occasions, we could document that they fulfilled the demands voiced by protesters in large-scale, public demonstrations (3/6)

My argument is based on previous, joint work with Isak Svensson Nanar Hawach Luís Martínez Lorenzo & Daniel Finnbogason for our 'Confronting the Caliphate' book (lnkd.in/eu4mccSb), for which we studied hundreds of anti-HTS protests & conducted interviews with Syrian activists (2/6)

„Die HTS sucht öffentliche Legitimität“: Wie autoritär sind Syriens neue Machthaber? Bisher hat die islamistische Miliz HTS die Provinz Idlib regiert. Eine Studie zeigt, wie sie dort mit Protest und Minderheiten umgegangen ist.

I wrote a short piece for Tagesspiegel (in German and behind paywall, but soon available in English on diis.dk) on HTS' new transition government in Syria and what we can expect from them in terms of responding to public dissent (A short THREAD 1/6)

www.tagesspiegel.de/internationa...