- Truls H. Tønnessen, Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI): Terrorists’ use of technology in attacks in Western Europe
- Daniel Madsen, University of Copenhagen: Ecofascism, militant accelerationism, and manifestos in the Danish Feuerkrieg division case
- Hannah Pollack Sarnecki, Swedish Defence Research Agency (FOI): A complex extremist landscape: conspiracy theories, pro-Russian propaganda, racism, misogyny and violence
Abstracts
Terrorists' use of technology in attacks in Western Europe
Truls H. Tønnessen, Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI)
Given the rapid technological development and commercialization of advanced technology, new types of technology will be made available to extremists (regardless of ideology) who can exploit the technology for malicious actions. Most assessment of the future threat of terrorism do also warn that technological development will be one of the most important driver.
At the same time, empirical studies of right-wing and Islamist terrorist plot (both launched and failed) in Western Europe have found that they have been dominated by relative technologically “simple” modus operandi – such as guns, knives and attack with vehicles. One obvious reason is counter-terrorism measures, another is tactical advice from groups such as al-Qaida and the Islamic state to use simple means.
This paper will therefore systematically study how technology have been used (or planned to be used) as part of attacks preparation and execution of terrorist plots in Western Europe from 1994 and until today. The paper study right-wing and Islamist attacks use of technology comparatively. The empirical data sources for the paper will be the two data sets developed by FFI – the Jihadi Plots in Europe Dataset (JPED) and Right-Wing Plots in Europe Dataset (RPED). The two data-sets does originally not contain information on technologies used. The paper will therefore go systematically through the cases and add available information on technology and use this as a base for analysis.
Ecofascism, militant accelerationism, and manifestos in the Danish Feuerkrieg division case
Daniel Madsen, University of Copenhagen
In the spring of 2023, the Danish court system convicted a teenager for being a part of the international terror-network Feuerkrieg Division (FKD). He was deemed guilty of trying to recruit a classmate to FKD, helping the network organizing, and being in possession of a knife. He was convicted a sentence of five and a half years prison which he immediately appealed. The appeal-case will run until May 2024, where the presumed final sentence will be carried out. The case offers a unique insight into a corner of the most violent and extreme militant international online far right milieu. A high degree of hybridization concerning the ideological basis involved threads to political Islam, antimodernist and antitechnological ideas as seen in Ted ‘Unibomber’ Kaczynskis writing, militant accelerationism and ecofascism. In this presentation Daniel Nikolaj Madsen, Ph.D. Student at the University of Copenhagen, will present the most important highlights from the case, with a special focus on the role of ecofascism and the right wings current use of ‘Targeted Violonce’-manifestos (TVM).
A complex extremist landscape: conspiracy theories, pro-Russian propaganda, racism, misogyny and violence
Hannah Pollack Sarnecki, Swedish Defence Research Agency (FOI)
In this talk, I will present some of the key findings from a study that builds on a digital ethnographical approach that describes the mobilisation of anti-democratic extremist milieus in Sweden. The organizations and loose online networks analysed in the study are multifaceted and heterogeneous and at the same time connected through various aspects of ideology. Their goal is to abolish liberal democracy by, for example, trying to create general political chaos in society through disinformation and conspiracy theories, but also through violence and threats of violence. One key finding is that the patterns of composition and the activities of extremist networks have undergone change in recent years. Today there is a complex intersection of conspiracies, disinformation, pro-Russian propaganda, racism, misogyny, extremism and violence. In Sweden, several violent acts related to anti-democratic extremist milieus have occurred, including for example, a number of school attacks and the murder of a prominent psychiatrist during a political festival, in 2022. Effective methods to counter this violence requires in-depth knowledge about the connection between violence and the ideologies that inspire and underpin it.