Publication

This paper examines the factors behind the success of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group and assesses whether other terrorist groups could reproduce this success. The author attributes the success of IS down to a mixture of people, money, a security vacuum, and military and governance capacity. She also contends that although no other group have the same mix of success-enabling conditions as IS, several, such as Ansar al-Sharia in Libya and al-Shabab in Somalia, will achieve some success.