# Presentation: 162942

## Leaderless Jihad: Radicalization in the West

- Marc Sageman
- sageman@post.harvard.edu

## Methodology of Research

- Application of scientific method to terrorism studies:
- Evidence based terrorism research
- Open source data
- Specific threat to the U.S.
- 9/11 perpetrators as index sample
- 400 biographical fragments
- Trial transcripts > OSC > Academic papers

## Poverty?: Family of origin (SES)

## Islam?: Devotion as youth

## Madrassa?: Educational background

## Naïve teenagers?: Age at joining

-  	Average Age: 25.69

## Ignorance?: Levels of education

## Religious?: Type of education

## Lack of opportunity?: Occupation

## No sex?: Marital status

## No responsibility?: Family status

## Just bad?: Criminal background

## Criminal Background

- Vast Majority: no crime
- Some major crime
- Robbery & Drugs
- Petty crime: Maghreb logistic cells
- Credit card fraud, false documents, insurance fraud
- Drug traffic (more common now)
- Rare ASPD

## Simply mad?: Mental health

- Very little evidence of mental illness
- Very little evidence of personality disorder
- No narcissism (willingness to sacrifice for the comrade & cause)
- Very little trauma in family studied: usually overprotected youths
- Overall, “good kids,” except second generation Maghreb Arabs, who lived life of petty crime

## Becoming a Terrorist

- Radicalization
- Mobilization
- Evolution of the threat

## Radicalization

- Path to political violence
- Dynamics
- Young men chasing thrills, fantasies of glory and sense of belonging to group and cause
- Bottom up process
- Four major factors
- Sense of moral outrage
- Specific interpretation
- Resonance with personal experience
- Mobilization through networks

## Moral outrage

- Major moral violation
- Anger
- Global
- Now Iraq
- Local
- Local police activity
- Activation of Muslim identity
- Global & local reinforce each other

## Interpretation

- War against Islam
- Anti-Americanism & Anti-Semitism
- NOT intellectual or Islamic scholars: attracted to sound bite Islam
- Consistency with imbedded in cultural beliefs
- National myths
- “Melting pot” v. “national essence”
- American Dream
- Equal opportunity v. economic exclusion
- Religious differences
- Tolerance for religious fundamentalism
- Supply side dominated by Saudis: Salafi fundamentalism

## Resonance w/ personal experiences

- Personal grievances (“root causes”)
- Historical legacy
- Socio-economic conditions
- Unskilled labor v. middle class professionals
- Labor markets
- Political contribution
- Welfare policies (idleness & boredom)
- Failure of top down policies
- Xenophobic backlash
- EUR v. US differences:
- 2,400 v. 60 arrested for terrorism related charges

## Place where they joined jihad

## Forming networks of trust

- Diaspora phenomenon: > 80%
- 2nd /3rd generation + young expatriates
- Friendship (pre-existing): ~ 70%
- Kinship: ~ 20%
- Spontaneous, self-organized bunches of guys (networks of trust) from the bottom up
- Self selection and Mutual self-recruitment

##  Expatriate Trajectory

-  Expatriate Trajectory

- Upwardly & geographically mobile (“best & brightest”)
- Religious, caring & middle class families
- Global citizens: 3 or 4 languages, skilled in IT
- Sent to university in the West
- Separated from traditional bonds & culture
- Homesick, lonely, marginalized & excluded from society
- Adopt Western lifestyle, without relief
- Seek friends
- Drift to mosques for companionship, not religion
- Move in together (halal food), formed cliques

## Homegrown Trajectory

- Raised in host country:
- 2nd /3rd generation & young migrants
- But ideology is foreign
- Upwardly mobile, & secular background
- Discriminated by & excluded from society
- Drop out of school
- Turn to petty crime & drugs
- Form gangs
- Resentful & reactive activation of collective identity
- Collectively drift to religion to escape situation

## Mobilization through networks

- Face to face: local homogeneity but global heterogeneity
- Neighborhood gangs (homegrown)
- Student activities (both expatriate & homegrown)
- Radical study groups (12  about half of sample)
- Gradual shift to online networks: no space or time limits
- Transformation of the threat: teenagers, women, egalitarian
- Importance of chat-rooms: virtual “invisible hand”: C2 function
- Group dynamics: increased commitment via interactivity
- Groups act as “echo chamber” encouraging mutual escalation
- For cause (script  role models) & comrades (collective identity)
- Gradual slide into violence: in-group love & out-group hate

## The Network

## Pre-existing social bonds

## Operational Links

- Bali, 2002
- Jakarta, 2003
- Singapore Plot, 2001

- Strasbourg, 1999

- France, 1995

- LAX,. 1999

- Casablanca, 2003

- Morocco, 1994

- Istanbul, 2003

**9/11/01**

- Emb, 1998

## Personal v Operational Links

## Evolution of global Islamist terror

- 1st wave: Companions of UBL: 1980s
- Afghan Arabs
- Well educated, Egyptian predominance, average age 30
- Al Qaeda Central leadership (dozens left)
- 2nd wave: Trained terrorists: 1990s to 9/11/01
- Trained in Afghanistan
- Fairly well educated, expatriate dominance, average age 25
- Al Qaeda Central (hundred)
- Transition phase: 9/11/01 to 3/03
- 3rd wave: Terrorist Wannabes: Post-Iraq generation
- No longer linked to aQ: not trained (except Brits)
- Poorly educated, homegrown dominance, average age 20
- Potentially thousands

## 3rd Wave: Leaderless Jihad

- 3rd Wave: Leaderless Jihad

- Darwinian structural evolution of process of radicalization in a hostile habitat, but enabled by the Internet
- Evolved organically into survival mode
- Internet redundancy & anonymity: survival despite hostile habitat
- Europe vulnerable: culture, social conditions & offline networks
- Self-limiting threat:
- Generational self definition in contrast to previous one
- Inability to impose discipline (C2) on wannabes
- No long term goals & strategy
- Inability to progress into offline political party (vulnerable target)
- Appeal is self-limiting
- End-state unattractive (Taliban)
- No incentive to compromise, constant push by new hothead  escalation of atrocities & loss of appeal