Leaderless Jihad West Point Ctc Summaries
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ALL FEl INFflRNITIuII CONTAINED NEPEIN Tl1JCLPSIFIED DATE O1 LI 5l DIm1shn WEST POINT CTC SUMMARIES IC LEADERLESS JIHAD Terror Networks in the Twenty-First Century flivcrsit\ Pclms\ 1\ jnia Press 2015 The Islamist terrorist threat is radicalization Dr Marc Sageman MD global rapidly evolving process Islamic terror networks of the twenty-first century are before it reaches its Ph.D is forensic psychia more fluid and violent end The most effective trist and government coun becoming independent unpredictable than their more structured forebears that conducted countermeasure to tcrtcrrorism consultant He This book builds combat the homegrown holds various academic and die 9/11 attacks The present direat in the West has upon Dr Sagemans terrorist threat is evolved from infiltration outside trained includ by terronsts to the professional positions previous volume interrupt Scholar in Residence against ivhom international cooperation and border radicalization process ing at Understanding Ter before effective it reaches its the York Police protection are to homegrown self-financed New Depart ror 1\Tetlrorks 2004 vioient end Senior Fellow the self-trained terrorists Dr Sageman describes this ment at and utilizes die same scattered network of wannabes Research In global homegrown Porcign Policy approach of apply- as leaderless ihad The that form this stitute and Clinical Assistant groups ing the scientific method to the study of terronsm movement are physically uncoimected from al Qaeda Professor at the University Whereas in his book the author worked from previous of oth and eacb other yet form violent virtual social move Pennsylvania among dataset of 172 terrorist subjects in .LeaderleisJilad ment Ihe most effective countermeasure to combat ers Dr Sageman joined the he has built database of over 501 terrorists from this homegrown terronsm threat is to the Central Intelligence Agency mterrupt which to draw conclusions in 1984 He spent year on UNDERSTANDING THE PATH TO RADICALISM the Afghan Task Force then Dr with anecdotal about he faced second Pakistani went to Islamabad from 1987 Sageman begms an story as generation growmg Ahrned Oniar Saeed the man convicted of in London Whde media accounts of to 1989 where he ran the Sheikh up typically U.S midatcral with kidnapping WinY Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl fer simplistic model to explain why one chooses programs The author follows his hfe from accounts of his Dr that the trne is the Afghan Muj alacdin and early terrorism Sageman argues story chddhood from and friends later nuanced and different New Delhi from 19899 In famdy to accounts much more complex Despite of Omar Skedebs life from fellow nunates Ins accounts from fellow nid even 1991 he resigned from the dunug fiunily friends nunates Several accounts in the mediahe Omar himself to his toward violence agency to return to medicine impnsonment explain path was such nice the conventional wisdom Oinars reveals the of the radicalization Since 1994 he has been in the gnybetray story centrality that there is with terror In this book Dr seeks to private practice of forensic inherenily something wrong process Sageman develop ists Other accounts Omars terrorist career into this radicalization and devise and clinical psychiatry and explain insights process as the natural result of ahenation and discrimination recommendations to it has had the opportunity to practical interrupt evaluate about 500 murder HOW TO STUDY TERRORISM IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY ers Afier 9/11 Dr Sageman Dr that the fruitftd method for for that seeks Sageman argues most middle-range analytical approach began collecting biographi the study of terrotism and the radicalization process to bridge the gap between biographical micro-level cal material on about 500 al involves the of the scientific accounts of terrorist and broad Qaeda terrorists to test the rigorous application subjects sociological method using such tools as statistics sampling theory macro level explanations of tcrronsm This middle validity of the conventional survey techniques measurement and data analysis range approach anns to study the relationships of wisdom on terrorism He is The scientific method helps avoid biases inherent in terrorists in context their relationship with each the author of the bestselling several common approaches to the study of terrotism other their relationship with ideas present their Understanding Terror Networks Por example the popular biographical approach as environment and their relationship with people and University of Pennsylvania seen ni the previous chapters stor1 of Aluned Oiuar organizations outside of their group Press 2004 Saeed Sheikh overly emphasizes the individual and In LeaderlessJihad the author limits the scope of his ignores situational factors On the other hand study to what he terms global Islamist terrorists broad root causes approach examining the social of which the is al most recognizable quantity Qaeda conditions that lead individuals to become terrorists and its affiliated social movement As he puts it the is ovedy deterministic and static Dr Sageman calls ACLURM046386 FB1045286 LEADERLESS HOW TO STUDY TERRORISM IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY CONT 500 in his for the Memorial Institute trir the Prevention of Itirrorisms Itir subjects sample are the men responsible Sep- MIFF tember 11 2001 attacks and all those who like them threaten ronsm Knowledge Base or the National Counterterrorism Centers the United States and the West behalf uf World Incidence these incident-based un larger community NCTC Tracking System the vanguard trying to establish certnn vision of an Islamist tools lend themselves to the stndy of certain general trends in utopia Dr Sageman constructed this data set from scratch utiliz- terrorism such as the frequency of terrorist operarions They ing captured documents court records investigative journalism typically do not offer the appropriate level of granularity to study academic publications and other open source informarion While the radicalizarion process the authors primary goal he could have used an existing open source database such as the THE GLOBALIZATION OF JIHADI TERROR In chapter two Dc Sageman makes distincrion between al Qaeda author also notes that there is tremendous diversity of beliefs and the orgairization and the broader jihadi social movement While doctrines widun fins Salafi movement Must Salafis advocate die he feels that using the term al Qaeda to describe both the social peaceful transformation of society through face-to-face preach movement and the specific organizarion muddles our thinking on ing Otherssuch as the Egyprian Muslim Brotherhoodcall the subject he fears itis too late to overcome popular usage of the for the creation of vanguard polirical party to compete at the term Al Qaeda originally referred to the name of the organization polls Over rime some factions of this movement eschewed the formed by Osama bin Laden whose members swore allegiance ballot box and missionary work beheving the state could never him and his heutenants Dr be These instead chose bqyatin Arabic to designated Sage captured through peaceful means groups man argues that this corewhat he calls al Qaeda Centralhas violence to broadcast their message faded in in result of the of importance recent years as closing Among those who called for violent jihad debate emerged training camps in Afghanistan the halt of financial transfers and in the 970s about whether to focus their efforts on the near the capture or killing of key personnel However while al Qaeda local the far Israeli enemy the ruler or enemy the state at Central is constrained the looser social movement is expanding that time Sayyid Qutb and his main disciple Muhammad Abdcl The al Qaeda social movement consists of informal terrorist Salam Faraj were two of the most eloquent thinkers to advocate networks the that mobihze take violent across globe people to up violent jihadist tacrics at this rime Paraj argued that the move jihad Whdc these groups are not linked organizarionally they ment could not take on the far enemy unril the near enemy was are part of larger terrorist campaign and are linked together by defeated However by die mid-1990s die followers of Qutb and mutual of and feelings sobdarity general ideology had overthrown of their and became Paraj not any governments Dr Sageman contrasts the al Qaeda brand of terronsm with earher frustrated hardline faction emerged from this movement which terrorist that included and that the far this the but movements anarchism anti-colonialism argued enemyin ease \Mist especially Al left-wing radicalism Qaedas terronsm like other fourth wave the United States and Prancewas propping up the near enemy religions terrorist movements is built ou the belief that the world Those jihadis that took up the strategy of expelling the far enemy has decayed into morass of greed and moral depravity While from the Middle East comprise theg/sboillslamist terrorists and are most global jihadists today generally follow Salafist ideology the primary subjects of this book Groups that continue to target referring to revivahst Islamist ideology that blames Western the near enemysuch as Hamas or Hezbollahare beyond the influence for corrnpring the virtuous Muslim communitythe scope of the authors study THE JIHADISTS PROFILE In this chapter Dc Sageinan walks through some of the most invasion generation The most visible portion of this wave arc common myths about what drives individuals to terrorism and second and third generation inamigrants in Europe