About the Jebsen Center's Logo

The Jebsen Center’s logo depicts a red salamander with its back to eight panels of yellow-orange light. The salamander itself is intended to represent terrorist activity, while the abstract depiction of sunlight represents counter-terrorism efforts such as those researched, funded, and supported by the Jebsen Center. Founder and namesake Jan Henrik Jebsen chose the red salamander as a powerful metaphor for the Jebsen Center’s activities.

The red salamander, or pseudotriton ruber, secretes toxins through its skin that harm and deter predators. Its habitat is largely aquatic, but it can be found on land some distance from water in summer months, hiding beneath logs, trees, or in other shaded places. It is able to regenerate entire damaged limbs, growing a new tail, leg, or foot within weeks of being injured. The salamander’s need to remain moist and cool means that it faces death if exposed to direct sunlight for too long.

Like the red salamander, non-state terrorist groups operate in grey areas, often beyond the grasp of law enforcement and democratic states. Terrorist cells are able to operate in various environments, and their poison is the violent and deadly terrorist acts they commit. While efforts can be made to dismantle individual cells or incidents—much like overturning logs and leaves to find a salamander—these groups, too, can regenerate their components quickly and efficiently.

The goal of the global campaign against terrorism remains the complete elimination of terrorist activity. The Jebsen Center, through its philosophy of prediction, prevention, and preemption of terrorist acts, hopes to contribute to worldwide counter-terrorism efforts, helping to strengthen them into something that is as powerful against terrorists as the sun is against red salamanders.

As Jan Henrik Jebsen states, “A salamander is impossible to kill as long as it is in its element. The only way to kill it is to get it out of the water and into the sun.”