Partnership with The Soufan Center
The Airey Neave Trust is collaborating on a second project with The Soufan Center to deepen understanding about the impact of sanctions and proscriptions on terrorist groups, with a focus on violent far-right actors.
The previous collaboration was on a project to assess transnational dimensions of violent far right and white supremacist extremism, with a particular focus on the United States and the United Kingdom.
The Soufan Center is an independent New York-based non-profit research body, founded by former FBI agent and counter-terror expert, Ali Soufan, who was the winner of the inaugural Airey Neave Book Prize in 2017 for his book Anatomy of Terror: From the Death of bin Laden to the Rise of the Islamic State.
Through research, interviews, and consultations with key stakeholders, TSC will assess whether the measures taken by several states – in particular, the U.K., Canada, and other Five Eyes partners – have had the desired impacts, whether on a legal, political, or operational level. To address different dimensions of the issue and offer concrete action-oriented findings and suggestions for practitioners, policymakers, and researchers, TSC will produce a series of Issue Briefs and host events to identify key challenges and successes, as well as lessons learned from other counterterrorism sanctions regimes – in particular, those aimed at ISIS and al-Qaeda. The final briefs are expected in Summer 2022.
This project builds on our collaboration with The Soufan Center in 2021 that led to the development of the October 2021 research report, “A Perfect Storm: Insurrection, Incitement, and the Violent Far-Right Movement.” This research examined the transnational aspects of the violent far-right movements in the United States and the United Kingdom, exploring their history, relationship, and trajectories following the U.S. Capitol insurrection on January 6, 2020.
Ali Soufan (centre) being presented with the inaugural Airey Neave Book Prize by Lord Evans (left), former Director-General of the British Security Service (MI5), and Julian Enoizi (right), the CEO of PooleRe