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Reposted by Andrew Zammit

Aaron Y. Zelin @azelin.bsky.social · 9h

New Jihadology Guest Post: Who Are Nigeria’s “Newest” Jihadist Militants? by @james-barnett.bsky.social and @vincentfoucher.bsky.social jihadology.net/2025/10/15/g...

GUEST POST: Who Are Nigeria’s “Newest” Jihadist Militants?

jihadology.net

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Andrew Zammit @andrewzammit.bsky.social · 5h

I swear I’ve written almost identical threads to this one before, because we keep seeing the same ineffectual arguments recycled over and over.

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Andrew Zammit @andrewzammit.bsky.social · 5h

And that lack of an independent warrant-like requirement is where criticism is better directed IMO.

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Andrew Zammit @andrewzammit.bsky.social · 5h

The article is wrong about the INSLM report. It only recommended that ASIO’s detention powers be removed, and they have been since. It certainly did not recommend repealing the questioning powers, it recommended loosening them by removing the need for an independent (non-AG) warrant-like requiremen.

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Andrew Zammit @andrewzammit.bsky.social · 5h

The “fishing expedition“ argument falls flat when ASIO has had compulsory questioning powers for counter-terrorism for over twenty years and very rarely used them (it mostly used them in 2005, presumably in relation to Operation Pendennis). You can look up Annual Reports to see when they’re used.

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Andrew Zammit @andrewzammit.bsky.social · 5h

I’m a broken record on this but civil libertarians really need to come up with better arguments against ASIO’s questioning powers if they want anyone to listen: www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

Expanding Asio’s interrogation powers could leading to ‘fishing expeditions’, critics say

Organisations say the government’s bid to make spy agency’s post-9/11 questioning powers permanent could damage civil liberties

www.theguardian.com

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Andrew Zammit @andrewzammit.bsky.social · 1d

Bit of a shame to see similar dynamics emerging in intelligence studies.

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Andrew Zammit @andrewzammit.bsky.social · 1d

Very similar dynamics with “critical terrorism studies”. There are good articles in CTS journals but the self-professed struggles of a “critical terrorism studies” rising up against an “orthodox terrorism studies” were frequently just displays of wheel-reinventing and strawmanning.

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Reposted by Andrew Zammit

Walter Olson @walterolson.bsky.social · 22d

Critics including Elon Musk have assailed my @cato.org colleague Alex Nowrasteh's study finding that most politically motivated terrorist killings in the U.S. since 1975 have been done by persons on the right. Alex responds to the critics here and explains his methods and classifications.

Alex Responds to the Critics: Politically Motivated Terrorist Killings in the United States

The critics are mistaken

www.alexnowrasteh.com

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Andrew Zammit @andrewzammit.bsky.social · 8d

“specialist National Security Investigations (NSI) teams in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra to deal with the blurring lines between extremism, political violence, organised crime and foreign interference.” www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10...

New AFP boss warns hate crime laws may need to be strengthened further

In a wide-ranging interview as she begins as AFP commissioner, Krissy Barrett announces a new sub-terror strike force, and flags that newly written hate crime laws may need to be strengthened further.

www.abc.net.au

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Reposted by Andrew Zammit

Andy @fossilbeds.ami.social · 8d

We’re living through the rep era all over again

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Reposted by Andrew Zammit

I Nied to drink your blood! 🧛 @nied.bsky.social · 12d

Tom Clancy posting Fukuyama & NAFO memes in between QTing his trans daughter is the good timeline.

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Andrew Zammit @andrewzammit.bsky.social · 12d

Same! There can be a bit of a BlueSky consensus against liking things but I’m finding the album perfectly enjoyable. Not amazing, but fun.

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Andrew Zammit @andrewzammit.bsky.social · 12d

The Age - IS-affiliated women and children return to Australia after smuggling themselves out of Syria: www.theage.com.au/politics/fed...

Women and children return to Australia after smuggling themselves out of Syria

Relatives of Islamic State fighters who spent years stranded in Syria have smuggled themselves out of the Middle East without government support.

www.theage.com.au

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Reposted by Andrew Zammit

Dr. Marc-André Argentino @maargentino.com · 15d

It is Book Launch day for @amaramarasingam.bsky.social and My edited volume "Contemporary Far-Right Culture The Art, Music, and Everyday Practices of Violent Extremism"

www.routledge.com/Contemporary...

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Andrew Zammit @andrewzammit.bsky.social · 18d

This is great:

Henry Farrell @himself.bsky.social · 21d

www.programmablemutter.com/p/the-villag... Blueskyism and Sewerism as alternatives.

The Village and the Sewer

Behind the "Blueskyism" debate

www.programmablemutter.com

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Reposted by Andrew Zammit

Social Media Lab @socialmedialab.ca · 19d

Thanks to generative AI, "the only foolproof thing that works right now is to slow down and ask questions before sharing: If a piece of content seems shocking, divisive, or too good to be true, pause before spreading it."

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Andrew Zammit @andrewzammit.bsky.social · 18d

… or certainly not to the extent that it rebuts their conclusion which is simply: that left-wing non-state terrorism was up in the first half of 2025 that right-wing non-state terrorism was down during that time, and that this is unusual and can partly be explained by Trump’s election.

Andrew Zammit @andrewzammit.bsky.social · 18d

Mostly inclined to agree. I’ve been trying to find the strongest critiques of it and so far haven‘t found any that undermine their core argument. I’ve found some reasonable disagreements about coding (and have a few myself) but nothing that shows their coding was skewed in a specific direction…

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Andrew Zammit @andrewzammit.bsky.social · 19d

The study itself (possibly not the Atlantic article, I can’t open it) does mention that wider context for right-wing violence (in a cautious way, it doesn’t say “some of them probably just joined ICE rather than carry out their own attacks”, but kind of alludes to that logic).

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Andrew Zammit @andrewzammit.bsky.social · 19d

Sorry, I was trying to reply to John Horgan and that thread and it looks like I was somehow replying to you too. I was trying to leave you out of it after our earlier chat!

Andrew Zammit @andrewzammit.bsky.social · 19d

The only time I’ve seen the field engage in a detailed critique of CSIS data is in this article: pt.icct.nl/sites/defaul... But it doesn’t really support the effort to dispute CSIS conclusions in their recent report, as the article accuses them of having a tendency to over-count right-wing cases.

pt.icct.nl

Andrew Zammit @andrewzammit.bsky.social · 19d

… we risk acting in a way that suggests our problem is being uncomfortable with their conclusion rather than their methods.

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Andrew Zammit @andrewzammit.bsky.social · 19d

And given that our field has repeatedly used CSIS data to support our arguments that far-right terrorism has consistently posed the greatest domestic threat in the US for decades, if we start denouncing their data as unreliable the one time they say there’s been an increase in left-wing terrorism…

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Andrew Zammit @andrewzammit.bsky.social · 19d

But all the critiques I’ve found on BlueSky so far don’t actually undermine the core point of left-wing up (remembering that they did exclude some left-wing cases too) and right-wing down compared to earlier years.

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