Vidino: Jihadi Networks in Europe

The Jamestown Foundation's Terrorism Monitor today published an article by Lorenzo Vidino in which he outlined Current Trends in Jihadi Networks in Europe. The patterns of action he identifies include.

Independent Terrorist versus Part of a Terror Network

The Independent Terrorist, or exemplar of Sudden Jihad Syndrome, fascinates many observers. But the reality ranges along a continuum from Independent actors to those who have traveled to Chechnya, Algeria, Mali or Pakistan and trained in the Jihad camps there.

Jihadist Travel Plans

While some Jihadists see their home areas as a field for terrorism, most travel away from home to wage Jihad. Some travel elsewhere in Europe, or to lesser known destinations like Somalia. But most travel to Afghanistan and Pakistan, or to Iraq, to fight Americans. Those from the Nordic and Germanic countries (plus England) go to Afghanistan, those from the Latin countries go to Iraq.

Jihad and Rap Music

Jihad in Europe, rather than being inspired by pure religious fervor, seems to be driven by the glamor, access to drugs, and easy money associated with a nihilistic, criminal life. Most European Jihadists are not driven by love of Islam, but by hatred for the society in which they live. Transmission of this pattern overwhelmingly takes place in prison, where irreligious prisoners are converted to Jihadist Islam by committed Jihad recruiters.

Leaving the Urbs

In the south of Europe, Muslim immigrants working in agriculture are ministered to by wandering Deobandi or Wahabist imams with radical messages. In some places, these missions have spawned not only radical mosques but isolated radical communes that engage in smuggling of Jihadists and money to Iraq.

Eastern Europe

Radical and Wahabi influence is widespread in Kosovo and Bosnia and the rest of the Balkans, and it is growing.

Read the whole thing.


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