Changes in Muslim Nations' Centrality Mined from Open-Source World Jihad News: A Comparison of Networks in Late 2010, Early 2011, and Post-Bin Laden

This research analyzes the changes in Muslim nation (MN) networks and semantic networks associated with Jihad linked with three recent periods: 1) the late 2010 period, the early 2011 Muslim Middle East and North Africa uprisings and 3) the takedown of Osama Bin Laden. Mined were transcripts of web sites, broadcasts, newspapers, and other content captured for 46 Muslim nations. Results show that Somalia made the largest move upward across the three periods, increasing 21 times in network centrality. Iran is consistently in the top 2 positions. The network increased in link strength and in degree but became less structured in the early uprising period, and continued the decline in structure in the post-Bin Laden period, results consistent with crisis effects. Words paired with 'jihad' that increased and decreased in the early uprising and post-Bin Laden periods revealed messages that reflected major changes in substantive content in the three periods. The results appear to have face validity, and demonstrate how mining open-sources for inter-nation networks and for semantic networks about a topic of interest, in this case: 'jihad, " can provide quantitative evidence with statistical tests that have intelligence and security implications.