Author: Jytte Klausen
Abstract:
This study examines how and why foreign jihadist
organizations recruit Americans to their cause and the role internet-based
proselytizing and recruitment play in stimulating homegrown terrorism.
The study analyzed the networks and organizations that
mobilize and direct Americans in committing jihadist action or that raise money
in the United States for the Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist organizations. The
report also examines the utility of social network analysis (SNA) in the study
of terrorist organizations.
The report outlines three theories about the reasons for the
growth of “homegrown” terrorism:
1. Homegrown
terrorism is a cost-efficient means to attack the United States and its allies
and is part of a globalized central command.
2. Homegrown
terrorists are volunteers to a leaderless movement, acting and training one
their own and at home.
3. Western
civil liberties provide opportunities to find safe harbor, mobilize,
proselytize, and fund raise. Homegrown recruits can operate online in both
jihadist countries and in the West.
A key finding of the study was that 2015 saw a record number
of arrests in the U.S. related to jihadist-inspired terrorism, the highest
count since the 9/11 attacks.
The study found that family members and spouses are often
the first to know when a person is about to engage in a violent
jihadist-inspired attack. American homegrown terrorists will rebel against
perceived national U.S. policies and values, the beliefs of their parents, and
against the American Muslim community that embraces the American way of life.
The study indicates that jihadist organizations changed
radically with the shift to online recruitment and organization starting in and
around 2008. The study identifies that SNA can throw light on the structures of
terrorist recruitment and organization but is incomplete in identifying the
boundaries of terrorist cells.
The findings show that opportunity, access, and persuasion
contribute to the current process of jihadist recruitment, and all three may be
found online. The results suggest that jihadists are extremely diverse and can
integrate with the global Islamist extremist movement through modern
communication technologies to push their belief system worldwide.
The research recommends that state and federal laws should
make it a duty to report suspicions about imminent criminal activity related to
terrorism. Also, it is recommended that a top-down suppression on social media
of the recruiters of extreme political violence be incorporated, rather than a
bottom-up elimination of militant social media activists.
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