Islamic terrorism (also known as Islamist terrorism or radical Islamic terrorism) refers to terrorist acts with religious motivations carried out by fundamentalist militant Islamists and Islamic extremists.[1][2][3]

Incidents and fatalities from Islamic terrorism have been concentrated in eight Muslim-majority countries (Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia, and Syria),[4] while four Islamic extremist groups (Islamic State, Boko Haram, the Taliban, and al-Qaeda) were responsible for 74% of all deaths from terrorism in 2015.[5][6] The annual number of fatalities from terrorist attacks grew sharply from 2011 to 2014 when it reached a peak of 33,438, before declining to 13,826 in 2019.[7]

Since at least the 1990s, these terrorist incidents have occurred on a global scale, affecting not only Muslim-majority countries in Africa and Asia, but also Russia, Australia, Canada, Israel, India, the United States, China, the Philippines, Thailand, and countries within Europe. Such attacks have targeted both Muslims and non-Muslims,[8] with one study finding 80% of terrorist victims to be Muslims.[9][10] In a number of the worst-affected Muslim-majority regions, these terrorists have been met by armed, independent resistance groups,[11] state actors and their proxies, and elsewhere by condemnation by prominent Islamic figures.[12][13][14] Journalists have also become targets of Islamic terrorism, particularly for the depiction of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, with the Charlie Hebdo shooting being protested by millions in France.

Justifications given for attacks on civilians by Islamic extremist groups come from their interpretations of the Quran,[3] the hadith,[15][16] and sharia law.[3] These include retribution by armed jihad for the perceived injustices of unbelievers against Muslims;[17] the belief that the killing of many self-proclaimed Muslims is required because they have violated Islamic law and are disbelievers (takfir);[18] the overriding necessity of restoring and purifying Islam by establishing sharia law, especially by restoring the Caliphate as a pan-Islamic state (especially ISIS);[19] the glory and heavenly rewards of martyrdom;[16] the supremacy of Islam over all other religions.[Note 1]

The use of the phrase "Islamic terrorism" is disputed. In Western political speech, it has variously been called "counter-productive", "highly politicized, intellectually contestable" and "damaging to community relations", by those who disapprove of the characterization 'Islamic'.[22][23][24]

Terminology

George W. Bush and Tony Blair (US president and UK Prime Minister respectively at the time of the September 11 attacks) repeatedly stated that the war against terrorism has nothing to do with Islam.[25] Others inside and out of the Islamic world who oppose its use on the grounds there is no connection between Islam and terrorism include Imran Khan, the prime minister of Pakistan, and academic Bruce Lawrence.[26][27] Former US president Barack Obama explained why he used the term "terrorism" rather than "Islamic terrorism" in a 2016 townhall meeting saying, "There is no doubt, ... terrorist organisations like Al-Qaeda or ISIL – They have perverted and distorted and tried to claim the mantle of Islam for an excuse for basically barbarism and death ... But what I have been careful about when I describe these issues is to make sure that we do not lump these murderers into the billion Muslims that exist around the world ..."[28]

It has been argued that "Islamic terrorism" is a misnomer for what should be called "Islamist terrorism".[29]

In January 2008, the US Department of Homeland Security Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties issued a report titled "Terminology to Define the Terrorists: Recommendations from American Muslims",[30] which opened with

Words matter. The terminology that senior government officials use must accurately identify the nature of the challenges that face our generation. [...] At the same time, the terminology should also be strategic – it should avoid helping the terrorists by inflating the religious bases and glamorous appeal of their ideology.

The office "consulted with some of the leading U.S.-based scholars and commentators on Islam to discuss the best terminology to use when describing the terrorist threat." Among the experts they consulted,

[t]here was a consensus that the [US Government] should avoid unintentionally portraying terrorists, who lack moral and religious legitimacy, as brave fighters, legitimate soldiers, or spokesmen for ordinary Muslims. Therefore, the experts counseled caution in using terms such as, "jihadist," "Islamic terrorist," "Islamist," and "holy warrior" as grandiose descriptions.

History

Pre-20th century

Others such as Ibn Warraq claim that from the beginning of Islam, "violent movements have arisen" such as the Kharijites,[31] Sahl ibn Salama, Barbahari, Kadizadeli movement, Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, etc., "seeking to revive true Islam, which its members felt had been neglected in Muslim societies, who were not living up to the ideals of the earliest Muslims".[32] The 7th century Kharijites, according to some, started from an essentially political position but developed extreme doctrines that set them apart from both mainstream Sunni and Shi'a Muslims. The group was particularly noted for adopting a radical approach to takfir, whereby they declared Muslim opponents to be unbelievers and therefore worthy of death,[33] and also by their strong resemblance to contemporary ISIL.[34]

1960s–1970s

During the era of the anti-colonial struggle in North Africa and the Middle East, and coinciding with the creation of Israel in 1948, a series of Marxist-Leninist and anti-imperialist movements swept throughout the Arab and Islamic world. These movements were nationalist and revolutionary, but not Islamic. However, their view that terrorism could be effective in reaching their political goals generated the first phase of modern international terrorism. In the late 1960s, Palestinian secular movements such as Al Fatah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) began to target civilians outside the immediate arena of conflict. Following Israel's victory over Arab forces in 1967, Palestinian leaders began to realize that the Arab world was unable to defeat Israel in the battlefield. At the same time, lessons drawn from the Jewish struggle against the British in Palestine and revolutionary movements across Latin America, North Africa and Southeast Asia, motivated the Palestinians to turn away from guerrilla warfare towards urban terrorism. These movements were secular in nature, though their international reach served to spread terrorist tactics worldwide.[35] Moreover, the Arab Cold War between mostly US-aligned conservative Islamic monarchies (Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Jordan) and Soviet-aligned secular national-revolutionary governments (Egypt, Syria, Algeria, Libya, Iraq) inspired a growth of religiously motivated Islamic movements in the Middle East, supported by Saudi Arabia, which came into conflict with the predominant secular (Nasserist and Ba'athist) nationalist ideologies at the time.[35][36]

The year 1979 is widely considered a turning point in the rise of religiously motivated radicalism in the Muslim world. Several events (the Soviet-Afghan War and unprecedented support from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the US for anti-Soviet jihadists; the Iranian Revolution and subsequent Iran-Iraq War as well as Khomeini's active support for Shia groups resisting the Israeli occupation of Lebanon; the Grand Mosque seizure in Mecca and subsequent Wahhabization of the Saudi government; and the Egypt–Israel peace treaty that was highly unpopular in some sections of the Muslim world) are thought to be crucial for the proliferation of Islamist terrorism in the next decade.[37]

According to Bruce Hoffman of the RAND Corporation, in 1980, 2 out of 64 terrorist groups were categorized as having religious motivation while in 1995, almost half (26 out of 56) were religiously motivated with the majority having Islam as their guiding force.[38][35]

1980s–1990s

The Soviet–Afghan War and the subsequent anti-Soviet mujahedin war, lasting from 1979 to 1989, started the rise and expansion of terrorist groups. Since their beginning in 1994, the Pakistani-supported Taliban militia in Afghanistan has gained several characteristics traditionally associated with state-sponsors of terrorism, providing logistical support, travel documentation, and training facilities. Since 1989 the increasing willingness of religious extremists to strike targets outside immediate country or regional areas highlights the global nature of contemporary terrorism. The 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, and the 11 September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, are representative of this trend.[35]

2000s–2010s

According to research by the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag, between 11 September 2001 and 21 April 2019, there were 31,221 Islamist terrorism attacks, in which at least 146,811 people were killed. Many of the victims were Muslims, including most of the victims who were killed in attacks involving 12 or more deaths.[39][40][41]

2010s

According to the Global Terrorism Index, deaths from terrorism peaked in 2014 and have fallen each year since then until 2019 (the last year the study had numbers for), making a decline of more than half (59% or 13,826 deaths) from their peak. The five countries "hardest hit" by terrorism continue to be Muslims countries—Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Syria and Somalia. [Note 2]

Attacker profiles and motivations

The motivation of Islamic terrorists has been disputed. Some (such as Maajid Nawaz, Graeme Wood, and Ibn Warraq) attribute it to extremist interpretations of Islam;[43][44][32] others (Mehdi Hasan) to some combination of political grievance and social-psychological maladjustment;[45] and still others (such as James L. Payne and Michael Scheuer) to a struggle against "U.S./Western/Jewish aggression, oppression, and exploitation of Muslim lands and peoples".[46]

Religious motivation

Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, in their book, The Age of Sacred Terror, argue that Islamic terrorist attacks are motivated by religious fervor. They are seen as "a sacrament ... intended to restore to the universe a moral order that had been corrupted by the enemies of Islam." Their attacks are neither political nor strategic but an "act of redemption" meant to "humiliate and slaughter those who defied the hegemony of God".[47]

According to Indonesian Islamic leader Yahya Cholil Staquf in a 2017 Time interview, within the classical Islamic tradition the relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims is assumed to be one of segregation and enmity. In his view extremism and terrorism are linked with "the basic assumptions of Islamic orthodoxy" and that radical Islamic movements are nothing new. He also added that Western politicians should stop pretending that extremism is not linked to Islam.[48][49]

According to journalist Graeme Wood "much of what" one major Islamic terror group -- ISIS -- "does looks nonsensical except in light of a sincere, carefully considered commitment to returning civilization to a seventh-century legal environment" of Muhammad and his companions, "and ultimately to bringing about the apocalypse" and Judgement day. ISIS group members insist "they will not—cannot—waver from governing precepts that were embedded in Islam by the Prophet Muhammad and his earliest followers".[50]

Shmuel Bar argues that while the importance of political and socioeconomic factors in Islamist terrorism is not in doubt, "In order to comprehend the motivation for these acts and to draw up an effective strategy for a war against terrorism, it is necessary to understand the religious-ideological factors — which are deeply embedded in Islam."[51]

Examining Europe, two studies of the background of Muslim terrorists—one of the UK and one of France—found little connection between terrorist acts performed in the name of Islam and the religious piety of the operatives. A "restricted" 2008 UK report of hundreds of case studies by the domestic counter-intelligence agency MI5 found that there was no "typical profile" of a terrorist, and that

[f]ar from being religious zealots, a large number of those involved in terrorism do not practise their faith regularly. Many lack religious literacy and could actually be regarded as religious novices. Very few have been brought up in strongly religious households, and there is a higher than average proportion of converts. Some are involved in drug-taking, drinking alcohol and visiting prostitutes. MI5 says there is evidence that a well-established religious identity actually protects against violent radicalisation.[52]

However, while the motivation of the individuals directly involved in carrying out the terror attacks are not necessarily religious and may stem from other reasons, religiously motivated organizations and governments are very often behind such attacks. Fundamentalist organizations and governments often encourage, fund, assist, incentivize or reward the actions of individuals they recognize as susceptible to be coerced into committing terror attacks, thus using people who are not always religiously motivated themselves to achieve religious ends. Hamas, for example, is known for paying the families of imprisoned terrorists and of suicide bombers. The Islamic Republic of Iran intends billions of US dollars annually for militia fighters and terrorists,[53] exploiting the extreme economic difficulties faced by people in countries such as Yemen, Lebanon and Syria by offering them cash in exchange for terror activity.[54]

A 2015 "general portrait" of "the conditions and circumstances" under which people living in France become "Islamic radicals" (terrorists or would-be terrorists) by Olivier Roy (see above) found radicalisation was not an "uprising of a Muslim community that is victim to poverty and racism: only young people join, including converts".[55]

Roy believes terrorism/radicalism is "expressed in religious terms" because

  1. most of the radicals have a Muslim background, which makes them open to a process of re-Islamisation ("almost none of them having been pious before entering the process of radicalisation"), and[55]
  2. jihad is "the only cause on the global market". If you kill in silence, it will be reported by the local newspaper; "if you kill yelling 'Allahu Akbar', you are sure to make the national headlines". Other extreme causes—ultra-left or radical ecology are "too bourgeois and intellectual" for the radicals.[55]

Somewhat in contradiction to this, a study surveying Muslims in Europe to examine how much Islamist ideology increases support for terrorism, found that "in Western countries affected by homegrown terrorism ... justifying terrorism is strongly associated with an increase in religious practice". (This is not the case in European "countries where Muslims are predominant"—Bosnia, Albania, etc. -- where the opposite seems to be true, i.e. the more importance respondents assigned to religion in their life, the less likely they were to "justifying political violence".)[56]

Denominations/Ideologies

Most strains of thought/schools/sects/movements/denominations/traditions of Islam do not support or otherwise associate themselves with terrorism.[Note 3] According to Mir Faizal, only three sects or movements of Islam—the Sunni sects of Salafi, Deobandi, and Barelvi.[Note 4]—have been associated with violence against civilians.[57] Of the three, only Salafi Islam—specifically Salafi jihadism Islam—can be called involved in global terrorism, as it is connected with Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Boko Haram and other groups. (Terrorism among some members of the Barelvi sect is limited to attacks on alleged blasphemers in Pakistan, and the terrorism among Deobandi groups has "almost no" influence beyond Afghanistan, Pakistan and Indian.)[57] Another sect/movement known as Wahhabism (intertwined with non-jihadist Salafism) has been accused of being the ideology behind Islamic terrorist groups,[58] but Al Qaeda and other terrorists are more commonly described as following a fusion of Qutbism and Wahhabism.[59][60][61]

Outside of these sects or religious movements, the religious ideology of Qutbism has influenced Islamic terrorism, along with religious themes and trends including Takfir, suicide attacks, and the belief that Jews and Christians are not People of the Book but infidels/kafir waging "war on Islam". (These ideas are often related and overlapping.)

Qutbism

Qutbism is named after Egyptian Islamist theoretician Sayyid Qutb, who wrote a manifesto (known as Milestones), while in prison. Qutb is said to have laid out the ideological foundation of Salafi jihadism (according to Bruce Livesey);[62] his ideas are said to have formed "the modern Islamist movement" (according to Gilles Kepel);[Note 5] which along with other "violent Islamic thought", became the ideology known as "Qutbism that is the "center of gravity" of al-Qaeda and related groups (according to U.S. Army Colonel Dale C. Eikmeier).[43] Qutb is thought to be a major influence on Al-Qaeda #2 leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri.[64][Note 6]

In his manifesto (called "one of the most influential works in Arabic of the last half century"),[67] Qutb preached:

  • the absolute necessity of enforcement of sharia law ("even more necessary than the establishment of the Islamic belief", without which Islam does not exist);[68]
  • the need for violent jihad as well as preaching to bring back sharia law and spread Islam, (a vanguard "movement" will use "physical power and Jihad",[69] to remove "material obstacles");[70]
  • that offensive jihad—attacking non-Muslim territory—ought not neglected by true Muslims in favor of defensive jihad, (this "diminish[s] the greatness of the Islamic way of life",[71] and is the work of those who have been "defeated by the attacks of the treacherous Orientalists!"[72] Muslims should not let lack of non-Muslim aggression stop them from waging Jihad to spread sharia law because "truth and falsehood cannot coexist on earth" in peace.[73]
  • a loathing of "the West" (a "rubbish heap ... filth ... hollow and worthless");[74]
  • ... which is deliberately undermining Islam (pursuing a "well-thought-out scheme" to "demolish the structure of Muslim society");[75]
  • ... despite the fact it "knows" it is inferior to Islam (It "knows that it does not possess anything which will satisfy its own conscience and justify its existence", so that when confronted with the "logic, beauty, humanity and happiness" of Islam, "the American people blush");[76]
  • and a loathing and hatred of Jews ("world Jewry, whose purpose is to eliminate ... the limitations imposed by faith and religion, so that Jews may penetrate into body politics of the whole world and then may be free to perpetuate their evil designs [such as] usury, the aim of which is that all the wealth of mankind end up in the hands of Jewish financial institutions ...").[77]

Eikmeier summarizes the tenets of Qutbism as being:

  • A belief that Muslims have deviated from true Islam and must return to "pure Islam" as originally practiced during the time of Muhammad.
  • The path to that "pure Islam" is only through a literal and strict interpretation of the Quran and Hadith, along with implementation of Muhammad's commands.
  • Muslims should interpret the original sources individually without being bound to follow the interpretations of Islamic scholars.
  • Any interpretation of the Quran from a historical, contextual perspective is a corruption, and that the majority of Islamic history and the classical jurisprudential tradition is mere sophistry.[43]

While Sayyid Qutb preached that all of the Muslim world had become apostate or jahiliyah, he did not specifically takfir or call for the execution of any apostates, even those governing non-sharia governments [Note 7] Qutb did however emphasize that "the organizations and authorities" of the putatively Muslim countries were irredeemably corrupt and evil[79] and would have to be abolished by "physical power and Jihad",[79] by a "vanguard"[80] movement of true Muslims.[81]

One who did argue this was Muhammad abd-al-Salam Faraj, the main theoretician of the Islamist group that assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. who in his book Al-Farida al-gha'iba (The Neglected Duty), cited a fatwa issued in 1303 CE by the celebrated strict medieval jurist Ibn Taymiyyah. He had ruled that fighting and killing of the Mongol invaders who were invading Syria was not only permitted but obligatory according to Sharia. This was because the Mongols did not follow sharia law, and so even though they had converted to Islam (Ibn Taymiyyah argued) they were not really Muslims.[82] Faraj preached that rulers such as Anwar Sadat were "rebels against the Laws of God [the shari'ah]",[83][84] and "apostates from Islam" who have preserved nothing of Islam except its name.[85]

Wahabism/Salafism

Another Islamic movement accused of being involved in terrorism is known as Wahabism.[86][87][88][89][58]

Sponsored by oil exporting power Saudi Arabia, Wahabism is deeply conservative and anti-revolutionary (its founder taught that Muslims are obliged to give unquestioned allegiance to their ruler, however imperfect, so long as he leads the community according to the laws of God),[90][91] Nonetheless, this ideology and its sponsors have been accused of assisting terrorism both

Up until at least 2017 or so (when Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman declared Saudi Arabia was returning to "moderate Islam"),[101] Saudi Arabia spent many billions, not only through the Saudi government but through Islamic organizations, religious charities, and private sources,[102] on dawah wahhabiya, i.e. spreading the Wahhabi interpretation of Islam,[103] This funding incentivized Muslim "schools, book publishers, magazines, newspapers, or even governments" around the world to "shape their behavior, speech, and thought in such a way as to incur and benefit from Saudi largesse," and so propagate Wahhabi doctrines;[104]

The hundreds of Islamic colleges and Islamic centers, over a thousand mosques and schools for Muslim children, it financed [Note 8] often featured Wahhabi-friendly curriculum and religious materials[107][108][109] such as textbooks explaining that all forms of Islam except Wahhabism were deviation,[110] or the twelfth grade Saudi text that "instructs students that it is a religious obligation to do 'battle' against infidels in order to spread the faith".[111]

Wahhabi-friendly works distributed for free "financed by petroleum royalties" included those of Ibn Taymiyyah[112] (author of the fatwa mentioned above against rulers who do not rule by sharia law).[83][84]

Not least, the successful 1980–1990 jihad against Soviet occupation of Afghanistan—that inspired non-Afghan jihad veterans to continue jihad in their own country or other—benefited from billions of dollars in Saudi financing, as well as "weaponry and intelligence". [113]

Religious interpretations

The "root cause" of Muslim terrorism is extremist ideology, according to Pakistani theologian Javed Ahmad Ghamidi, specifically the teachings that:

  • "Only Muslims have the right to rule, non-Muslims are meant to be subjugated";
  • "Modern nation states are unIslamic and constitute kufr (disbelief)";
  • the only truly Islamic form of state is a unified Muslim Caliphate;
  • "when Muslims obtain power they will overthrow non-Muslim governments and rule";
  • "The punishment of kufr (disbelief) and irtidad (apostasy) is death and must be implemented".[114]

Other authors have noted other elements of extremist Islamic ideology.

Martyrdom/Istishhad

Terror attacks requiring the death of the attacker are generally referred to as suicide attacks/bombings by the media, but when done by Islamists their perpetrators generally call such an attack Istishhad (or in English "martyrdom operation"), and the suicide attacker shahid (pl. shuhada, literally 'witness' and usually translated as 'martyr'). The idea being that the attacker died in order to testify his faith in God, for example while waging jihad bis saif (jihad by the sword). The term "suicide" is never used because Islam has strong strictures against taking one's own life.

According to author Sadakat Kadri, "the very idea that Muslims might blow themselves up for God was unheard of before 1983, and it was not until the early 1990s that anyone anywhere had tried to justify killing innocent Muslims who were not on a battlefield." After 1983 the process was limited among Muslims to Hezbollah and other Lebanese Shi'a factions for more than a decade.[115]

Since then, the "vocabulary of martyrdom and sacrifice", videotaped pre-confession of faith by attackers have become part of "Islamic cultural consciousness", "instantly recognizable" to Muslims (according to Noah Feldman), while the tactic has spread through the Muslim world "with astonishing speed and on a surprising course".

First the targets were American soldiers, then mostly Israelis, including women and children. From Lebanon and Israel, the technique of suicide bombing moved to Iraq, where the targets have included mosques and shrines, and the intended victims have mostly been Shiite Iraqis. ... [In] Afghanistan, ... both the perpetrators and the targets are orthodox Sunni Muslims. Not long ago, a bombing in Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand Province, killed Muslims, including women, who were applying to go on pilgrimage to Mecca. Overall, the trend is definitively in the direction of Muslim-on-Muslim violence. By a conservative accounting, more than three times as many Iraqis have been killed by suicide bombings in just three year (2003–6) as have Israelis in ten (from 1996–2006). Suicide bombing has become the archetype of Muslim violence – not just to Westerners but also to Muslims themselves.[116]

Jihadist comparisons of life and death

Below are jihadist statements comparing life and death:

  • "We love death like our enemies love life" (Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on Al-Aqsa TV in 2014)[117]
  • "The Americans love Pepsi-Cola, we love death." (Afghan jihadist Maulana Inyadullah addressing a British reporter in 2001)[118]
  • "The world is but a passage ... what is called life in this world is not life but death" (Ayatollah Khomeini in 1977, commemorating his son's death)[119]
  • "...The sons of the land of the two holiest sites [Mecca and Medina] ... I say this to you, These youths love death as you love life" (Osama bin Laden addressing U.S. Secretary of Defense William Perry in 1996 fatwa)[120]
Justification for killing noncombatants

Al Qaeda justification for the killing of civilian bystanders following its first attack (see above) based on a Ibn Taymiyyah's fatwa was described by author Lawrence Wright,

Ibn Taymiyyah had issued a historic fatwa: Anyone who aided the Mongols, who bought goods from them or sold to them or was merely standing near them, might be killed as well. If he is a good Muslim, he will go to Paradise; if he is bad, he will go to hell, and good riddance. Thus the dead tourist and the hotel worker [killed by Al-Qaeda] would find their proper reward.[121]

An influential tract Management of Savagery (Idarat at-Tawahhush), explains away mass killing in part by the fact that even "if the whole umma [community of Muslims] perishes they would all be martyrs".[122][123] Similarly, author Ali A. Rizvi has described the chat room reaction of a Taliban supporter to his (Rizvi's) condemnation of the 2014 Peshawar school massacre—that the 132 school children the Taliban slaughtered were "not dead" because they had been killed "in the way of God ... Don't call them dead. They are alive, but we don't perceive it" (citing, Quran 3:169 Never think of those martyred in the cause of Allah as dead. In fact, they are alive with their Lord, well provided for—), and maintaining that those whose Islamic faith is "pure" would not be upset with the Taliban's murder of children either.[124]

"War against Islam"

A tenant of Qutbism and other militant Islamists is that Western policies and society are not just un-Islamic or exploitive, but actively anti-Islamic, or as it is sometimes described, waging a "war against Islam". Islamists (such as Qutb) often identify what they see as a historical struggle between Christianity and Islam, dating back as far as the Crusades,[125] among other historical conflicts between practitioners of the two respective religions.

In 2006, Britain's then head of MI5 Eliza Manningham-Buller said of Al-Qaeda that it "has developed an ideology which claims that Islam is under attack, and needs to be defended". "This," she said "is a powerful narrative that weaves together conflicts from across the globe, presenting the West's response to varied and complex issues, from long-standing disputes such as Israel/Palestine and Kashmir to more recent events as evidence of an across-the-board determination to undermine and humiliate Islam worldwide."[126] She said that the video wills of British suicide bombers made it clear that they were motivated by perceived worldwide and long-standing injustices against Muslims; an extreme and minority interpretation of Islam promoted by some preachers and people of influence; their interpretation as anti-Muslim of UK foreign policy, in particular the UK's involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan."[126]

In his call for jihad, Osama bin Laden almost invariably described his enemies as aggressive and his action against them as defensive.[127]

Enmity towards non-Muslims

In addition to its alleged aggression, Islamist militants, scholars, and leaders support attacks on Christians and Jews on the theological grounds that they are infidels, and on Western society on the grounds that its secularism and rampant free expression have led to the proliferation of pornography, immorality, homosexuality, feminism, etc..

An Islamist (Karam Kuhdi) arrested in Egypt in 1981 for his part in a campaign of robbing and killing Christian goldsmiths explained his reasoning to police interrogating him and surprised by his non-mainstream beliefs. Kuhdi told them that he and others did not hold with the conventional Islamic doctrine that Christians were "people of the book" and dhimmi subject to protection, but instead were infidels subject to violent jihad. (Tourists—often non-Muslim—were also a common target of Islamic terrorists in Egypt.) Kuhdi quoted Quranic verses: 'Those who say that God is Jesus, son of Mary, are infidels' and 'combat those of the people of the book who are infidels', explaining the Islamists view that the infidels are "the people of the book, since they have not believed in this book".[128]

According to a doctrine known as al-wala' wa al-bara' (literally, "loyalty and disassociation"), Wahhabi founder Abd al-Wahhab argued that it was "imperative for Muslims not to befriend, ally themselves with, or imitate non-Muslims or heretical Muslims", and that this "enmity and hostility of Muslims toward non-Muslims and heretical had to be visible and unequivocal".[129]

This principle has been emphasized by Ayman al-Zawahiri (leader of al-Qaeda since June 2011), Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi (Jihadi theorist), Hamoud al-Aqla al-Shu'aybi (conservative Sudi scholar who supported the 9/11 attacks), and a number of Salafi preachers, Ahmad Musa Jibril, Abdullah el-Faisal.[130]

After the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting was described as a "hate crime", (the 49 victims murdered allegedly in vengeance for American airstrikes against Daesh were customers of an LGBT nightclub),[131] the official Daesh magazine Dabiq responded: "A hate crime? Yes. Muslims undoubtedly hate liberalist sodomites, .... An act of terrorism? Most definitely. Muslims have been commanded to terrorize the disbelieving enemies of Allah."[132][130]

Although bin Laden almost always emphasized the alleged oppression of Muslims by America and Jews when talking about the need for jihad in his messages, in his "Letter to America", he answered the question, "What are we calling you to, and what do we want from you?" with

We call you to be a people of manners, principles, honour, and purity; to reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling's, and trading with interest (...) You separate religion from your policies, (...) You are the nation that permits Usury, which has been forbidden by all the religions (...) You are a nation that permits the production, trading and usage of intoxicants (...) You are a nation that permits acts of immorality (...) You are a nation that permits gambling in its all forms. (...) You use women to serve passengers, visitors, and strangers to increase your profit margins. You then rant that you support the liberation of women.[133]

Takfir

According to traditional Islamic law, the blood of someone who leaves Islam is "forfeit"—i.e. they are condemned to death.[78] This applies not only to self-proclaimed ex-Muslims, but to those who still believe themselves to be Muslims but who (in the eyes of their accusers) have deviated too far from orthodoxy. [Note 9]

Many contemporary liberal/modernist/reformist Muslims believe killing appostates to be in violation of the Quranic injunction 'There is no compulsion in religion....' (Q.2:256), but even earlier generations of Islamic scholars warned against making such accusations (known as takfir), without great care and usually reserved the punishment of death for "extreme, persistent and aggressive" proponents of religious innovation (bidʻah).[136] The danger, according to some (such as Gilles Kepel), was that "used wrongly or unrestrainedly, ... Muslims might resort to mutually excommunicating one another and thus propel the Ummah to complete disaster."[78]

Kepel noted that some of Qutb's early followers believed that his declaration that the Muslim world has reverted to pre-Islamic ignorance (Jahiliyyah), should be taken literally and everyone outside of their movement takfired;[63] and Wahhabis has been known for their willingness to takfir non-Wahhabi Muslims.[137][138]

Since the last half of the 20th century, a "central ideology"[139] of insurgent Wahhabist/Salafi jihadist groups[140] has been the "sanctioning" of "violence against leaders" of Muslim majority states[139] who do not enforce sharia (Islamic law) or are otherwise "deemed insufficiently religious".[139] Some insurgent groups -- Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya of Egypt, and later GIA, the Taliban, and ISIL) -- are thought to have gone even further, applying takfir and its capital punishment against not only to Sunni government authorities and Shia Muslims, but to ordinary Sunni civilians who disagree with/disobeyed insurgent policies such as reinstituting slavery.

In 1977, the group Jama'at al-Muslimin (known to the public as Takfir wal-Hijra), kidnapped and later killed an Islamic scholar and former Egyptian government minister Muhammad al-Dhahabi. The founder of Jama'at al-Muslimin, Shukri Mustaf had been imprisoned with Sayyid Qutb, and had become one of Qutb's "most radical" disciples.[141] He believed that not only was the Egyptian government apostate, but so was "Egyptian society as a whole" because it was "not fighting the Egyptian government and had thus accepted rule by non-Muslims".[142] While police broke up the group, it reorganized with thousands of members,[143] some of whom went on to help assassinate the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat,[144] and join the Algerian Civil War and Al-Qaeda.[145] During the 1990s, a violent Islamic insurgency in Egypt, primarily perpetrated by Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, targeted not only police and government officials but also civilians, killing or wounding 1106 persons in one particularly bloody year (1993).[146]

In the brutal 1991–2002 Algerian Civil War, takfir of the general Algerian public was known to have been declared by the hardline Islamist Armed Islamic Group of Algeria (GIA). The GIA amir, Antar Zouabri claimed credit for two massacres of civilians (Rais and Bentalha massacres), calling the killings an "offering to God" and declaring impious the victims and all Algerians who had not joined its ranks.[147] He declared that "except for those who are with us, all others are apostates and deserving of death,"[148] (Tens, and sometimes hundreds, of civilians were killed in each of a series of massacres that started in April 1998.[149] However, how many murders were the doing of GIA and how many of the security forces—who had infiltrated the insurgents and were not known for their probity—is not known.)[150][151]

In August 1998 the Taliban insurgents slaughtered 8000 mostly Shia Hazara non-combatants in Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan. Comments by Mullah Niazi, the Taliban commander of the attack and newly installed governor, declared in a number of post-slaughter speeches from Mosques in Mazar-i-Sharif: "Hazaras are not Muslim, they are Shi'a. They are kofr [infidels]. The Hazaras killed our force here, and now we have to kill Hazaras. ... You either accept to be Muslims or leave Afghanistan. ...",[152] indicated that along with revenge, and/or ethnic hatred, takfir was a motive for the slaughter.

From its inception in 2013 to 2020, directly or through affiliated groups, Daesh), "has been responsible for 27,947 terrorist deaths", the majority of these have been Muslims,[Note 10] "because it has regarded them as kafir".[153]

One example of Daesh takfir is found in the 13th issue of its magazine Dabiq, which dedicated "dozens of pages ... to attacking and explaining the necessity of killing Shia", who the group refers to by the label Rafidah

Initiated by a sly Jew, [the Shia] are an apostate sect drowning in worship of the dead, cursing the best companions and wives of the Prophet, spreading doubt on the very basis of the religion (the Qur'ān and the Sunnah), defaming the very honor of the Prophet, and preferring their "twelve" imāms to the prophets and even to Allah! ...Thus, the Rāfidah are mushrik [polytheist] apostates who must be killed wherever they are to be found, until no Rāfidī walks on the face of earth, even if the jihād claimants despise such...[154]

Daesh not only called for the revival of slavery of non-Muslims (specifically of the Yazidi minority group), but declared takfir on any Muslim who disagreed with their policy.

Yazidi women and children [are to be] divided according to the Shariah amongst the fighters of the Islamic State who participated in the Sinjar operations ... Enslaving the families of the kuffar and taking their women as concubines is a firmly established aspect of the Shariah that if one were to deny or mock, he would be denying or mocking the verses of the Koran and the narrations of the Prophet ... and thereby apostatizing from Islam.[19]

Starting in 2013, Daesh began "encouraging takfir of Muslims deemed insufficiently pure in regard of tawhid (monotheism)". The Taliban were found "to be "a 'nationalist' movement, all too tolerant" of Shia.[155] In 2015 ISIL "pronounced Jabhat al-Nusrat -- then al-Qaida's affiliate in Syria -- an apostate group."[155]

Interpretations of the Qur'an and Hadith

Donald Holbrook, a Research Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, analyzes a sample of 30 works by jihadist propagandists for references to Islamic scripture that justifies the objectives of violent jihad.[15] An-Nisa (4:74–75) is quoted most frequently; other popular passages are At-Taubah (9:13–15, 38–39, 111), Al-Baqarah (2:190–191, 216), and Surah 9:5:

But when these months, prohibited (for fighting), are over, slay the idolaters wheresoever you find them, and take them captive or besiege them, and lie in wait for them at every likely place. But if they repent and fulfill their devotional obligations and pay the zakat, then let them go their way, for God is forgiving and kind.

Holbrook notes that the first part "slay the idolaters ..." is oft quoted but not the limiting factors at the end of the ayat.[15]

Jihad and Islamic jurisprudence

Techniques of war are restricted by classical Islamic jurisprudence, but its scope is not. Bernard Lewis states that ultimately Jihad ends when the entire world is brought under Islamic rule and law.[156] Classical Islamic jurisprudence imposes, without limit of time or space, the duty to subjugate non-Muslims, (according to Lewis).[157] Wael Hallaq writes that some radical Islamists go beyond the classical theory to insist that the purpose of jihad is to overthrow regimes oppressing Muslims and bring non-Muslims to convert to Islam. In contrast, Islamic modernists–who Islamists despise–view jihad as defensive and compatible with modern standards of warfare.[158] To justify their acts of religious violence, jihadist individuals and networks resort to the nonbinding genre of Islamic legal literature (fatwa) developed by jihadi-Salafist legal authorities, whose legal writings are shared and spread via the Internet.[3]

Al-Qaeda

While Islamic opponents of attacks on civilians have quoted numerous prophetic hadith and hadith by Muhammad's first successor Abu Bakr,[159] Al-Qaeda believes its attacks are religiously justified. After its first attack on a US target that killed civilians instead (a 1992 bombing of a hotel in Aden Yemen), Al Qaeda justified the killing of civilian bystanders through an interpretation (by one Abu Hajer) based on medieval jurist Ibn Taymiyyah (see above).

In a post-9/11 work, "A Statement from Qaidat al-Jihad Regarding the Mandates of the Heroes and the Legality of the Operations in New York and Washington", Al-Qaeda provided a more systematic justification—one that provided "ample theological justification for killing civilians in almost any imaginable situation."[17] Among these justifications are that America is leading the countries of the West in waging war on Islam, which (al-Qaeda alleges) targets "Muslim women, children and elderly". This means any attacks on America are a defense of Islam, and any treaties and agreements between Muslim majority states and Western countries that would be violated by attacks are null and void. Other justifications for killing and situations where killings is allowed based on precedents in early Islamic history include: killing non-combatants when it is too difficult to distinguish between them and combatants when attacking an enemy "stronghold" (hist), and/or non-combatants remain in enemy territory; killing those who assist the enemy "in deed, word, mind", this includes civilians since they can vote in elections that bring enemies of Islam to power; necessity of killing in the war to protect Islam and Muslims; when the prophet was asked whether Muslim fighters could use the catapult against the village of Taif, even though the enemy fighters were mixed with a civilian population, he indicated in the affirmative; killing women, children and other protected groups is allowed when they serve as human shields for the enemy; killing of civilians is permitted if the enemy has broken a treaty. [17]

Supporters of bin Laden have pointed to reports according to which the Islamic prophet Muhammad attacked towns at night or with catapults, and argued that he must have condoned incidental harm to noncombatants, since it would have been impossible to distinguish them from combatants during such attacks.[160][161] These arguments were not widely accepted by Muslims.[161]

Management of Savagery

Al-Qaeda's splinter groups and competitors, Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, are thought to have been heavily influenced[162][163][164][165][166] by a 2004 work on jihad entitled Management of Savagery (Idarat at-Tawahhush), written by Abu Bakr Naji[166] and intended to provide a strategy to create a new Islamic caliphate by first destroying "vital economic and strategic targets" and terrifying the enemy with cruelty to break its will.[167]

The tract asserts that "one who previously engaged in jihad knows that it is naught but violence, crudeness, terrorism, deterrence and massacring,"[168] and that even "the most abominable of the levels of savagery" of jihad are better "than stability under the order of unbelief"—those orders being any regime other than ISIL.[162][169] Victims should not only be beheaded, shot, burn alive in cages or gradually submerged until drowned, but these events should be publicized with videos and photographs.[170]

The Jurisprudence of Blood
The Houthi flag, with the top saying "God is the greatest", the next line saying "Death to America", followed by "Death to Israel", followed by "A curse upon the Jews", and the bottom saying "Victory to Islam".

Some observers[18][171][172] have noted the evolution in the rules of jihad—from the original "classical" doctrine to that of 21st-century Salafi jihadism.[166] According to the legal historian Sadarat Kadri,[171] during the last couple of centuries, incremental changes in Islamic legal doctrine (developed by Islamists who otherwise condemn any bid'ah (innovation) in religion), have "normalized" what was once "unthinkable".[171] "The very idea that Muslims might blow themselves up for God was unheard of before 1983, and it was not until the early 1990s that anyone anywhere had tried to justify killing innocent Muslims who were not on a battlefield."[171]

The first or the "classical" doctrine of jihad which was developed towards the end of the 8th century, emphasized the "jihad of the sword" (jihad bil-saif) rather than the "jihad of the heart",[173] but it contained many legal restrictions which were developed from interpretations of both the Quran and the Hadith, such as detailed rules involving "the initiation, the conduct, the termination" of jihad, the treatment of prisoners, the distribution of booty, etc. Unless there was a sudden attack on the Muslim community, jihad was not a "personal obligation" (fard 'ayn); instead it was a "collective one" (fard al-kifaya),[174] which had to be discharged "in the way of God" (fi sabil Allah),[175] and it could only be directed by the caliph, "whose discretion over its conduct was all but absolute."[175] (This was designed in part to avoid incidents like the Kharijia's jihad against and killing of Caliph Ali, since they deemed that he was no longer a Muslim).[18] Martyrdom resulting from an attack on the enemy with no concern for your own safety was praiseworthy, but dying by your own hand (as opposed to the enemy's) merited a special place in Hell.[176] The category of jihad which is considered to be a collective obligation is sometimes simplified as "offensive jihad" in Western texts.[177]

Based on the 20th-century interpretations of Sayyid Qutb, Abdullah Azzam, Ruhollah Khomeini, al-Qaeda and others, many if not all of those self-proclaimed jihad fighters believe that defensive global jihad is a personal obligation, which means that no caliph or Muslim head of state needs to declare it. Killing yourself in the process of killing the enemy is an act of martyrdom and it brings you a special place in Heaven, not a special place in Hell; and the killing of Muslim bystanders (nevermind Non-Muslims), should not impede acts of jihad. Military and intelligent analyst Sebastian Gorka described the new interpretation of jihad as the "willful targeting of civilians by a non-state actor through unconventional means."[172]

Islamic theologian Abu Abdullah al-Muhajir has been identified as one of the key theorists and ideologues behind modern jihadist violence.[166][178][179][180] His theological and legal justifications influenced Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaeda member and former leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, as well as several other jihadi terrorist groups, including ISIL and Boko Haram.[166][178][179][180] Zarqawi used a 579-page manuscript of al-Muhajir's ideas at AQI training camps that were later deployed by ISIL, known in Arabic as Fiqh al-Dima and referred to in English as The Jurisprudence of Jihad or The Jurisprudence of Blood.[166][178][179][180][181] The book has been described by counter-terrorism scholar Orwa Ajjoub as rationalizing and justifying "suicide operations, the mutilation of corpses, beheading, and the killing of children and non-combatants".[166] The Guardian's journalist Mark Towsend, citing Salah al-Ansari of Quilliam, notes: "There is a startling lack of study and concern regarding this abhorrent and dangerous text [The Jurisprudence of Blood] in almost all Western and Arab scholarship".[180] Charlie Winter of The Atlantic describes it as a "theological playbook used to justify the group's abhorrent acts".[179] He states:

Ranging from ruminations on the merits of beheading, torturing, or burning prisoners to thoughts on assassination, siege warfare, and the use of biological weapons, Muhajir's intellectual legacy is a crucial component of the literary corpus of ISIS—and, indeed, whatever comes after it—a way to render practically anything permissible, provided, that is, it can be spun as beneficial to the jihad. [...] According to Muhajir, committing suicide to kill people is not only a theologically sound act, but a commendable one, too, something to be cherished and celebrated regardless of its outcome. [...] neither Zarqawi nor his inheritors have looked back, liberally using Muhajir's work to normalize the use of suicide tactics in the time since, such that they have become the single most important military and terrorist method—defensive or offensive—used by ISIS today. The way that Muhajir theorized it was simple—he offered up a theological fix that allows any who desire it to sidestep the Koranic injunctions against suicide.[179]

Clinical psychologist Chris E. Stout also discusses the al Muhajir-inspired text in his essay, Terrorism, Political Violence, and Extremism (2017). He assesses that jihadists regard their actions as being "for the greater good"; that they are in a "weakened in the earth" situation that renders Islamic terrorism a valid means of solution.[181]

Economic motivation

Osama in November 2001
Osama Bin Laden, the founder of multinational terrorist group Al-Qaeda, in November 2001.

Following the 9/11 attack, commentators noted the poverty of Afghanistan, and speculated that blame might partly fall on a lack of a "higher priority to health, education, and economic development" funding by richer countries,[182] and "stagnant economies and a paucity of jobs" in poorer countries.[183]

Among the acts of oppression against Muslims by the United States and its allies alleged by the head of Al-Qaeda, are economic exploitation. In a 6 October 2002 message by Osama bin Laden 'Letter to America', he alleges

You steal our wealth and oil at paltry prices because of your international influence and military threats. This theft is indeed the biggest theft ever witnessed by mankind in the history of the world. ... If people steal our wealth, then we have the right to destroy their economy.[184][185]

In a 1997 interview, he claimed that "since 1973, the price of petrol has increased only $8/barrel while the prices of other items have gone up three times. The oil prices should also have gone up three times but this did not happen",[186][Note 11] (On the other hand, in an interview five weeks after the destruction the World Trade Center towers his operation was responsible for, bin Laden described the towers as standing for—or "preaching"—not exploitation or capitalism, but "freedom human Rights, and equality".)[188]

In 2002, academics Alan B. Krueger and Jitka Maleckova found "a careful review of the evidence provides little reason for optimism that a reduction in poverty or an increase in educational attainment would by themselves, meaningfully reduce international terrorism."[189] Alberto Abadie found "the risk of terrorism is not significantly higher for poorer countries, once other country-specific characteristics are considered", but instead seems to correlate with a country's "level of political freedom".[190]

Martin Kramer has argued that while terrorist organizers are seldom poor, their "foot-soldiers" often are.[191] Andrew Whitehead states that "poverty creates opportunity" for terrorists, who have hired desperate poor children to do grunt work in Iraq and won the loyalty of poor in Lebanon by providing social services.[192]

Western foreign policy

Many believe that groups like Al-Qaeda and ISIS which are reacting to aggression by non-Muslim (especially US) powers, and that religious beliefs are overstated if not irrelevant in their motivation. According to a graph by U.S. State Department, terrorist attacks escalated worldwide following the United States' 2001 invasion of Afghanistan and 2003 invasion of Iraq.[193] Dame Eliza Manningham Buller, the former head of MI5, told the Iraq inquiry, the security services warned Tony Blair launching the War on Terror would increase the threat of terrorism.[193] Robert Pape has argued that at least terrorists utilizing suicide attacks—a particularly effective[194] form of terrorist attack—are driven not by Islamism but by "a clear strategic objective: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from the territory that the terrorists view as their homeland".[195] However, Martin Kramer, who debated Pape on origins of suicide bombing, stated that the motivation for suicide attacks is not just strategic logic but also an interpretation of Islam to provide a moral logic. For example, Hezbollah initiated suicide bombings after a complex reworking of the concept of martyrdom. Kramer explains that the Israeli occupation of the South Lebanon Security Zone raised the temperature necessary for this reinterpretation of Islam, but occupation alone would not have been sufficient for suicide terrorism.[196] "The only way to apply a brake to suicide terrorism," Kramer argues, "is to undermine its moral logic, by encouraging Muslims to see its incompatibility with their own values."[196]

Breaking down the content of Osama bin Laden's statements and interviews collected in Bruce Lawrence's Messages to the World (Lawrence shares Payne's belief in US imperialism and aggression as the cause of Islamic terrorism), James L. Payne found that 72% of the content was on the theme of "criticism of U.S./Western/Jewish aggression, oppression, and exploitation of Muslim lands and peoples" while only 1% of bin Laden's statements focused on criticizing "American society and culture".[46]

Former CIA analyst Michael Scheuer argues that terrorist attacks (specifically al-Qaeda attacks on targets in the United States) are not motivated by a religiously inspired hatred of American culture or religion, but by the belief that U.S. foreign policy has oppressed, killed, or otherwise harmed Muslims in the Middle East,[197] condensed in the phrase "They hate us for what we do, not who we are." U.S. foreign policy actions Scheuer believes are fueling Islamic terror include: the US–led intervention in Afghanistan and invasion of Iraq; Israel–United States relations, namely, financial, military, and political support for Israel;[198][199][200][201] U.S. support for "apostate" police states in Muslim nations such as Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, and Kuwait;[202] U.S. support for the creation of an independent East Timor from territory previously held by Muslim Indonesia; perceived U.S. approval or support of actions against Muslim insurgents in India, the Philippines, Chechnya, and Palestine.[203]

Maajid Nawaz and Sam Harris argue that in many cases there is simply no connection between acts of Islamic extremism and Western intervention in Muslim lands.

Nawaz: ... What does killing the Yazidi population on Mount Sinjar have to do with US foreign policy? What does enforcing headscarves (tents in fact) on women in Waziristan and Afghanistan, and lashing them, forcing men to grow beards under threat of a whip, chopping off hands, and so forth, have to do with US foreign policy?
Harris: This catalogue of irrelevancy could be extended indefinitely. What does the Sunni bombing of Shia and Ahmadi mosques in Pakistan have to with Israel or US foreign policy?[204]

Nawaz also argues that suicide bombers in non-Muslim majority countries such as the 7 July 2005 bombers can be said to motivated by ideology not by any desire to compel UK military to withdraw from "their homeland", as they were born and raised in Yorkshire. They had never set foot in Iraq and do not speak its language.[44]

Socio-psychological motivations

Socio-psychological development

A motivator of violent radicalism (not just found in Al-Qaeda and ISIS) is psychological development during adolescence.[205] Cally O'Brien found many terrorists were "not exposed to the West in a positive context, whether by simple isolation or conservative family influence, until well after they had established a personal and social identity." Looking at theories of psychological personal identity Seth Schwartz, Curitis Dunkel and Alan Waterman found two types of "personal identities" susceptible to radicalization leading to terrorism:

  1. "Foreclosed and authoritarian" — Principally conservative Muslims who are often taught by their family and communities from early childhood to not deviate from a strict path and to either consider inferior or hate outside groups. When exposed to (alien) western culture, they are likely to judge it relative to their perception of the correct order of society, as well as perceive their own identities and mental health to be at risk.[206][207][205]
  2. "Diffuse and aimless" — Principally converts whose lives are characterized by "aimlessness, uncertainty and indecisiveness" and who have neither explored different identities nor committed to a personal identity. Such people are "willing to go to their deaths for ideas [such as jihadism] that they have appropriated from others" and that give their lives purpose and certainty.[207][205]

Characteristics of terrorists

In 2004, a forensic psychiatrist and former foreign service officer, Marc Sageman, made an "intensive study of biographical data on 172 participants in the jihad" in his book Understanding Terror Networks.[208] He concluded social networks, the "tight bonds of family and friendship", rather than emotional and behavioral disorders of "poverty, trauma, madness, [or] ignorance", inspired alienated young Muslims to join the jihad and kill.[209]

According to anthropologist Scott Atran, a NATO researcher studying suicide terrorism, as of 2005, the available evidence contradicts a number of simplistic explanations for the motivations of terrorists, including mental instability, poverty, and feelings of humiliation.[210] The greatest predictors of suicide bombings—one common type of terror tactic used by Islamic terrorists—turns out to be not religion but group dynamics. While personal humiliation does not turn out to be a motivation for those attempting to kill civilians, the perception that others with whom one feels a common bond are being humiliated can be a powerful driver for action. "Small-group dynamics involving friends and family that form the diaspora cell of brotherhood and camaraderie on which the rising tide of martyrdom actions is based".[211] Terrorists, according to Atran, are social beings influenced by social connections and values. Rather than dying "for a cause", they might be said to have died "for each other".[210]

In a 2011 doctoral thesis, anthropologist Kyle R. Gibson reviewed three studies documenting 1,208 suicide attacks from 1981 to 2007 and found that countries with higher polygyny rates correlated with greater production of suicide terrorists.[212][213] Political scientist Robert Pape has found that among Islamic suicide terrorists, 97 percent were unmarried and 84 percent were male (or if excluding the Kurdistan Workers' Party, 91 percent male),[214] while a study conducted by the U.S. military in Iraq in 2008 found that suicide bombers were almost always single men without children aged 18 to 30 (with a mean age of 22), and were typically students or employed in blue-collar occupations.[215] In addition to noting that countries where polygyny is widely practiced tend to have higher homicide rates and rates of rape, political scientists Valerie M. Hudson and Bradley Thayer have argued that because Islam is the only major religious tradition where polygyny is still largely condoned, the higher degrees of marital inequality in Islamic countries than most of the world causes them to have larger populations susceptible to suicide terrorism, and that promises of harems of virgins for martyrdom serves as a mechanism to mitigate in-group conflict within Islamic countries between alpha and non-alpha males by bringing esteem to the latter's families and redirecting their violence towards out-groups.[216]

Along with his research on the Tamil Tigers, Scott Atran found that Palestinian terrorist groups (such as Hamas) provide monthly stipends, lump-sum payments, and massive prestige to the families of suicide terrorists.[217][218] Citing Atran and other anthropological research showing that 99 percent of Palestinian suicide terrorists are male, that 86 percent are unmarried, and that 81 percent have at least six siblings (larger than the average Palestinian family size), cognitive scientist Steven Pinker argues in The Better Angels of Our Nature (2011) that because the families of men in the West Bank and Gaza often cannot afford bride prices and that many potential brides end up in polygynous marriages, the financial compensation of an act of suicide terrorism can buy enough brides for a man's brothers to have children to make the self-sacrifice pay off in terms of kin selection and biological fitness (with Pinker also citing a famous quotation attributed to evolutionary biologist J. B. S. Haldane when Haldane quipped that he would not sacrifice his life for his brother but would for "two brothers or eight cousins").[219]

In 2007, scholar Olivier Roy described the background of the hundreds of global (as opposed to local) terrorists who were incarcerated or killed and for whom authorities have records, as being surprising in a number of ways: The subjects frequently had a Westernized background; there were few Palestinians, Iraqis, or Afghans "coming to avenge what is going on in their country"; there was a lack of religiosity before radicalization through being "born again" in a foreign country; a high percentage of subjects had converted to Islam; their backgrounds were "de-territorialized "—meaning, for example, they were "born in a country, then educated in another country, then go to fight in a third country and take refuge in a fourth country"; and their beliefs about jihad differed from traditional ones—i.e. they believed jihad to be permanent, global, and "not linked with a specific territory."[220] Roy believes terrorism/radicalism is "expressed in religious terms" among the terrorists studied because

  1. most of the radicals have a Muslim background, which makes them open to a process of re-Islamisation ("almost none of them having been pious before entering the process of radicalisation"), and[55]
  2. jihad is "the only cause on the global market". If you kill in silence, it will be reported by the local newspaper; "if you kill yelling 'Allahu Akbar', you are sure to make the national headlines". Other extreme causes—ultra-left or radical ecology are "too bourgeois and intellectual" for the radicals.[55]

Author Lawrence Wright described the characteristic of "displacement" of members of the most famous Islamic terrorist group, al-Qaeda:

What the recruits tended to have in common—besides their urbanity, their cosmopolitan backgrounds, their education, their facility with languages, and their computer skills—was displacement. Most who joined the jihad did so in a country other than the one in which they were reared. They were Algerians living in expatriate enclaves in France, Moroccans in Spain, or Yemenis in Saudi Arabia. Despite their accomplishments, they had little standing in the host societies where they lived.[221]

This profile of global Jihadists differs from that found among more recent local Islamist suicide bombers in Afghanistan. According to a 2007 study of 110 suicide bombers by Afghan pathologist Dr. Yusef Yadgari, 80% of the attackers studied had some kind of physical or mental disability. The bombers were also "not celebrated like their counterparts in other Muslim nations. Afghan bombers are not featured on posters or in videos as martyrs."[222] Daniel Byman, a Middle East expert at the Brookings Institution, and Christine Fair, an assistant professor in peace and security studies at Georgetown University, argue that many of the Islamic terrorists are foolish and untrained, perhaps even untrainable, with one in two Taliban suicide bombers killing only themselves.[223]

Studying 300 cases of people charged with jihadist terrorism in the United States since 11 September 2001, author Peter Bergen found the perpetrators were "generally motivated by a mix of factors", including "militant Islamist ideology;" opposition to "American foreign policy in the Muslim world; a need to attach themselves to an ideology or organization that gave them a sense of purpose"; and a "cognitive opening" to militant Islam that often was "precipitated by personal disappointment, like the death of a parent".[224]

However, two studies of the background of Muslim terrorists in Europe—one of the UK and one of France—found little connection between religious piety and terrorism among the terrorist rank and file. A "restricted" report of hundreds of case studies by the UK domestic counter-intelligence agency MI5 found that

[f]ar from being religious zealots, a large number of those involved in terrorism do not practise their faith regularly. Many lack religious literacy and could actually be regarded as religious novices. Very few have been brought up in strongly religious households, and there is a higher than average proportion of converts. Some are involved in drug-taking, drinking alcohol and visiting prostitutes. MI5 says there is evidence that a well-established religious identity actually protects against violent radicalisation.[52]

A 2015 "general portrait" of "the conditions and circumstances" under which people living in France become "Islamic radicals" (terrorists or would-be terrorists) by Olivier Roy (see above) found radicalisation was not an "uprising of a Muslim community that is victim to poverty and racism: only young people join, including converts".[55]

Refutations, criticisms and explanations for decline

Refuting Islamic terrorism

Along with explaining Islamic terrorism, many observers have attempted to point out their inconsistencies and the flaws in their arguments, often suggesting means of de-motivating potential terrorists.

Princeton University Middle Eastern scholar Bernard Lewis argues that although bin Laden and other radical Islamists claim they are fighting to restore shariah law to the Muslim world, their attacks on civilians violate the classical form of that Islamic jurisprudence. The "classical jurists of Islam never remotely considered [jihad] the kind of unprovoked, unannounced mass slaughter of uninvolved civil populations".[225] In regard to the September 11 attacks Lewis noted,

Being a religious obligation, jihad is elaborately regulated in sharia law, which discusses in minute detail such matters as the opening, conduct, interruption and cessation of hostilities, the treatment of prisoners and noncombatants, the use of weapons, etc.[226] Similarly, the laws of Jihad categorically preclude wanton and indiscriminate slaughter.[227] The warriors in the holy war are urged not to harm non-combatants, women and children, "unless they attack you first". ... A point on which they insist is the need for a clear declaration of war before beginning hostilities, and for proper warning before resuming hostilities after a truce. What the classical jurists of Islam never remotely considered is the kind of unprovoked, unannounced mass slaughter of uninvolved civil populations that we saw in New York two weeks ago. For this there is no precedent and no authority in Islam.[228]

Similarly, Timothy Winter writes that the proclamations of bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri "ignore 14 centuries of Muslim scholarship", and that if they "followed the norms of their religion, they would have had to acknowledge that no school of mainstream Islam allows the targeting of civilians."[229]

Researcher Donald Holbrook notes that while many jihadists quote the beginning of the famous sword verse (or ayah):

  • But when these months, prohibited (for fighting), are over, slay the idolaters wheresoever you find them, and take them captive or besiege them, and lie in wait for them at every likely place. ...

... they fail to quote and discuss limiting factors that follow,

  • ".... But if they repent and fulfill their devotional obligations and pay the zakat, then let them go their way, for God is forgiving and kind."

showing how they are (Holbrook argues) "shamelessly selective in order to serve their propaganda objectives."[15]

The scholarly credentials of the ideologues of extremism are also "questionable".[43] Dale C. Eikmeier notes

With the exception of Abul Ala Maududi and Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, none of Qutbism's main theoreticians trained at Islam's recognized centers of learning. Although a devout Muslim, Hassan al-Banna was a teacher and community activist. Sayyid Qutb was a literary critic. Mohammed Abdul-Salam Farag was an electrician. Ayman al-Zawahiri is a physician. Osama bin Laden trained to be a businessman.[43]

Michael Sells and Jane I. Smith (a professor of Islamic Studies) write that barring some extremists like al-Qaeda, most Muslims do not interpret Qur'anic verses as promoting warfare today but rather as reflecting historical contexts.[230][231] According to Sells, most Muslims "no more expect to apply" the verses at issue "to their contemporary non-Muslim friends and neighbors than most Christians and Jews consider themselves commanded by God, like the Biblical Joshua, to exterminate the infidels."[230]

In his book No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam, Iranian-American academic Reza Aslan argues that there is an internal battle currently taking place within Islam between individualistic reform ideals and the traditional authority of Muslim clerics.[232] The struggle is similar to that of the 16th-century reformation in Christianity, and in fact is happening when the religion of Islam is as "old" as Christianity was at the time of its reformation.[233] Aslan argues that "the notion that historical context should play no role in the interpretation of the Koran—that what applied to Muhammad's community applies to all Muslim communities for all time—is simply an untenable position in every sense."[234]

Despite their proclaimed devotion to the virtue of Sharia law, Jihadists have not always avoided association with the pornography of the despised West. The Times (London) newspaper has pointed out that Jihadists were discovered by one source to have sought anonymity through some of the same dark networks used to distribute child pornography—quite ironic given their proclaimed piety.[235] Similarly, Reuters news agency reported that pornography was found among the materials seized from Osama bin Laden's Abbottabad compound that was raided by U.S. Navy SEALs.[236]

Takfir

Despite the fact that a founding principle of modern violent jihad is the defense of Islam and Muslims, most victims of attacks by Islamic terrorism ("the vast majority" according to one source—J.J. Goldberg)[237] are self-proclaimed Muslims. Many if not all Salafi-Jihadi groups practice takfir—i.e. proclaim that some self-proclaimed Muslims (especially government officials and security personnel) are actually apostates deserving of death.

Furthermore, the more learned salafi-jihadi thinkers and leaders are (and were), the more reluctance they are/were to embrace takfir (according to a study by Shane Drennan).[238] The late Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, "the godfather of the Afghan jihad", for example, was an Islamic scholar and university professor who avoided takfir and preached unity in the ummah (Muslim community). The Islamic education of Al-Qaeda's number two leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was early and much more informal—he was not a trained scholar—and al-Zawahiri expanded the definition of kafir to include many self-proclaimed Muslims. He has maintained that civilian government employees of Muslim states, security forces and any persons collaborating or engaging with these groups are apostates, for example.[238]

Two extreme takfiris -- Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Sunni jihadist leader in Iraq, and Djamel Zitouni, leader of the Algerian Armed Islamic Group of Algeria (GIA) during the Algerian civil war—had even broader definitions of apostasy and less religious knowledge. Al-Zarqawi was a petty criminal who had no religious training until he was 22 and limited training thereafter. Famous for bombing targets other jihadis thought off limits,[239] his definition of apostates included all Shia Muslims and "anyone violating his organization's interpretation of Shari'a".[238] Djamel Zitouni was the son of a chicken farmer with little Islamic education. He famously expanded the GIA's definition of apostate until he concluded the whole of Algerian society outside of the GIA "had left Islam". His attacks led to the deaths of thousands of Algerian civilians.[238]

De-radicalization

Evidence that more religious training may lead to less extremism has been found in Egypt. That country's largest radical Islamic group, al-Jama'a al-Islamiyya — which killed at least 796 Egyptian policemen and soldiers from 1992 to 1998 — renounced bloodshed in 2003 in a deal with the Egyptian government where a series of high-ranking members were released (as of 2009 "the group has perpetrated no new terrorist acts"). A second group Egyptian Islamic Jihad made a similar agreement in 2007. Preceding the agreements was program where Muslim scholars debated with imprisoned group leaders arguing that true Islam did not support terrorism.[240]

Muslim attitudes toward terrorism

The opinions of Muslims on the subject of attacks on civilians by Islamist groups vary. Fred Halliday, a British academic specialist on the Middle East, argues that most Muslims consider these acts to be egregious violations of Islam's laws.[241] Muslims living in the West denounce the 11 September attacks against United States, while Hezbollah contends that their rocket attacks against Israeli targets are defensive jihad by a legitimate resistance movement rather than terrorism.[242][243]

Views of modern Islamic scholars

In reference to suicide attacks, Hannah Stuart notes there is a "significant debate among contemporary clerics over which circumstance permit such attacks." Qatar-based theologian, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, criticized the 9/11 attacks but previously justified suicide bombings in Israel on the grounds of necessity and justified such attacks in 2004 against American military and civilian personnel in Iraq. According to Stuart, 61 contemporary Islamic leaders have issued fatawa permitting suicide attacks, 32 with respect to Israel. Stuart points out that all of these contemporary rulings are contrary to classical Islamic jurisprudence.[244]

Charles Kurzman and other authors have collected statements by prominent Muslim figures and organizations condemning terrorism.[12] In September 2014, an open letter to ISIS by "over 120 prominent Muslim scholars" denounced that group for "numerous religious transgressions and abominable crimes".[245][246]

Huston Smith, an author on comparative religion, argued that extremists have hijacked Islam, just as has occurred periodically in Christianity, Hinduism and other religions throughout history. He added that the real problem is that extremists do not know their own faith.[247]

Ali Gomaa, former Grand Mufti of Egypt, stated not only for Islam but in general: "Terrorism cannot be born of religion. Terrorism is the product of corrupt minds, hardened hearts, and arrogant egos, and corruption, destruction, and arrogance are unknown to the heart attached to the divine."[248]

A 600-page legal opinion (fatwa) by Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri condemned suicide bombings and other forms of terrorism as kufr (unbelief),[249] stating that it "has no place in Islamic teaching and no justification can be provided for it, or any kind of excuses or ifs or buts."[250] Iranian Ayatollah Ozma Seyyed Yousef Sanei has preached against suicide attacks and stated in an interview: "Terror in Islam, and especially Shiite, is forbidden."[251][252]

A group of Pakistani clerics of Jamaat Ahl-e-Sunnah (Barelvi movement) who were gathered for a convention denounced suicide attacks and beheadings as un-Islamic in a unanimous resolution.[253] On 2 July 2013 in Lahore, 50 Muslim scholars of the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) issued a collective fatwa against suicide bombings, the killing of innocent people, bomb attacks, and targeted killings. It considers them to be forbidden.[254]

Opinion surveys

  • Gallup conducted tens of thousands of hour-long, face-to-face interviews with residents of more than 35 predominantly Muslim countries between 2001 and 2007. It found that more than 90% of respondents condemned the killing of non-combatants on religious and humanitarian grounds.[13] John Esposito, using poll data from Gallup, wrote in 2008 that Muslims and Americans were equally likely to reject violence against civilians. He also found that those Muslims who support violence against civilians are no more religious than Muslims who do not.[255]
  • An earlier poll, conducted in 2005 by the Fafo Foundation in the Palestinian Authority, found that 65% of respondents supported the 9/11 attacks.[256]
  • A subsequent Gallup poll released in 2011 suggested "that one's religious identity and level of devotion have little to do with one's views about targeting civilians... it is human development and governance—not piety or culture—that are the strongest factors in explaining differences in how the public perceives this type of violence." The same poll concluded that populations of countries in the Organisation of the Islamic Conference were slightly more likely to reject attacks on civilians in all cases, both military and individual, than those in non-member countries.[257]
  • Pew Research surveys in 2008, show that in a range of countries—Jordan, Pakistan, Indonesia, Lebanon, and Bangladesh—there have been substantial declines in the percentages saying suicide-bombings and other forms of violence against civilian targets can be justified to defend Islam against its enemies. Wide majorities say such attacks are, at most, rarely acceptable. The shift of attitudes against terror has been especially dramatic in Jordan, where 29% of Jordanians were recorded as viewing suicide-attacks as often or sometimes justified (down from 57% in May 2005). In the largest majority-Muslim nation, Indonesia, 74% of respondents agree that terrorist attacks are "never justified" (a substantial increase from the 41% level to which support had risen in March 2004); in Pakistan, that figure is 86%; in Bangladesh, 81%; and in Iran, 80%.[13]
  • In Pakistan, despite the recent rise in the Taliban's influence, a poll conducted by Terror Free Tomorrow in Pakistan in January 2008 tested support for al-Qaeda, the Taliban, other militant Islamist groups and Osama bin Laden himself, and found a recent drop by half. In August 2007, 33% of Pakistanis expressed support for al-Qaeda; 38% supported the Taliban. By January 2008, al-Qaeda's support had dropped to 18%, the Taliban's to 19%. When asked if they would vote for al-Qaeda, just 1% of Pakistanis polled answered in the affirmative. The Taliban had the support of 3% of those polled.[13]
  • A December 2008 poll conducted in Osama bin Laden's home country of Saudi Arabia showed that his compatriots have dramatically turned against him, his organisation, Saudi volunteers in Iraq, and terrorism in general. Indeed, confidence in bin Laden has fallen in most Muslim countries in recent years.[13]
  • A poll conducted among Palestinians following the Hamas October 7 attacks, show that a 70% of the Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza supported the attacks.[258]

Tactics

Suicide attacks

Hezbollah were the first to use suicide bombers in the Middle East.[35] An increasingly popular tactic used by terrorists is suicide bombing.[259] This tactic is used against civilians, soldiers, and government officials of the regimes the terrorists oppose. A recent clerical ruling declares terrorism and suicide bombing as forbidden by Islam.[260] However, groups who support its use often refer to such attacks as "martyrdom operations" and the suicide-bombers who commit them as "martyrs" (Arabic: shuhada, plural of "shahid"). The bombers, and their sympathizers often believe that suicide bombers, as martyrs (shaheed) to the cause of jihad against the enemy, will receive the rewards of paradise for their actions.

Hijackings

Islamic terrorism sometimes employs the hijacking of passenger vehicles. The most infamous were the "9/11" attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people on a single day in 2001, effectively ending the era of aircraft hijacking.

Hostage taking, kidnappings and executions

Along with bombings and hijackings, Islamic terrorists have made extensive use of highly publicised kidnappings and executions (i.e. ritualized murders), often circulating videos of the acts for use as propaganda. A frequent form of execution by these groups is decapitation, another is shooting. In the 1980s, a series of abductions of American citizens by Hezbollah during the Lebanese Civil War resulted in the 1986 Iran–Contra affair. During the chaos of the Iraq War, more than 200 kidnappings foreign hostages (for various reasons and by various groups, including purely criminal) gained great international notoriety, even as the great majority (thousands) of victims were Iraqis. In 2007, the kidnapping of Alan Johnston by Army of Islam resulted in the British government meeting a Hamas member for the first time.

Motivations

Islamist militants, including Boko Haram, Hamas, al-Qaeda and the ISIS, have used kidnapping as a method of fundraising, as a means of bargaining for political concessions, and as a way of intimidating potential opponents.[261]

As political tactic

An example of political kidnapping occurred in September 2014, in the Philippines. The German Foreign Ministry reported that the Islamist militant group Abu Sayyaf had kidnapped two German nationals and was threatening to kill them unless the German government withdraw its support for the war against ISIS and also pay a large ransom.[262] In September 2014 an Islamist militant group kidnapped a French national in Algeria and threatened to kill the hostage unless the government of France withdrew its support for the war against ISIS.[263]

Islamist self-justifications

According to the International Business Times, in October 2014 the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) released a five-point justification of its right to take non-Muslims hostage, and decapitate, ransom or enslave them.[264] British Muslim cleric Anjem Choudary told The Clarion Project that kidnapping and even beheading hostages is justified by Islam.[265]

ISIL also published an article entitled, 'The revival (of) slavery before the Hour (of Judgement Day)', in its online magazine, "Dabiq", justifying its kidnapping of Yazidi women and forcing them to become sex slaves or concubines: "One should remember that enslaving the families of the kuffar—the infidels—and taking their women as concubines is a firmly established aspect of the Shariah, or Islamic law."[266]

Abubakar Shekau, the leader of the Nigerian extremist group Boko Haram, said in a 2014 interview claiming responsibility for the 2014 Chibok kidnapping of 270+ schoolgirls, "Slavery is allowed in my religion, and I shall capture people and make them slaves".[267]

Kidnapping as revenue

Nasir al-Wuhayshi leader of the Islamist militant group Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula describes kidnapped hostages as "an easy spoil... which I may describe as a profitable trade and a precious treasure."[268]

A 2014 investigation, by journalist Rukmini Maria Callimachi published in The New York Times demonstrated that between 2008 and 2014, Al Qaeda and groups directly affiliated with al-Qaeda took in over US$125 million from kidnapping, with $66 million of that total paid in 2013 alone. The article showed that from a somewhat haphazard beginning in 2003, kidnapping grew into the group's main fundraising strategy, with targeted, professional kidnapping of civilians from wealthy European countries—principally France, Spain and Switzerland—willing to pay huge ransoms. US and UK nationals are less commonly targeted since these governments have shown an unwillingness to pay ransom.[268]

Boko Haram kidnapped Europeans for the Ransom their governments would pay in the early 2010s.[269][270][271] For example, in the spring of 2013, Boko Haram kidnapped and within 2 months released a French family of 7 and 9 other hostages in exchange for a payment by the French government of $3.15 million.[272]

According to Yochi Dreazen writing in Foreign Policy, although ISIS received funding from Qatar, Kuwait and other Gulf oil states, "traditional criminal techniques like kidnapping", are a key funding source for ISIS.[273] Armin Rosen writing in Business Insider, kidnapping was a "crucial early source" of funds as ISIS expanded rapidly in 2013.[274] In March, upon receiving payment from the government of Spain, ISIS released 2 Spanish hostages working for the newspaper El Mundo, correspondent Javier Espinosa and photographer Ricardo Garcia Vilanova, who had been held since September 2013.[275] Philip Balboni, CEO of GlobalPost told the press that he had spent "millions" in efforts to ransom journalist James Foley, and an American official told the Associated Press that demand from ISIS was for 100 million ($132.5).[276] In September 2014, following the release of ISIS Beheading videos of journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, British Prime Minister David Cameron appealed to members of the G7 to abide by their pledges not to pay ransom "in the case of terrorist kidnap".[277]

Holding foreign journalists as hostages is so valuable to ISIS that Rami Jarrah, a Syrian who has acted as go-between in efforts to ransom foreign hostages, told the Wall Street Journal that ISIS had "made it known" to other militant groups that they "would pay" for kidnapped journalists.[278] ISIS has also kidnapped foreign-aid workers and Syrians who work for foreign-funded groups and reconstruction projects in Syria.[278] By mid-2014, ISIS was holding assets valued at US$2 billion.[279]

Kidnapping as psychological warfare

Boko Haram has been described as using kidnapping as a means of intimidating the civilian population into non-resistance.[280][281]

According to psychologist Irwin Mansdorf, Hamas demonstrated effectiveness of kidnapping as a form of psychological warfare in the 2006 capture of the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit when public pressure forced the government of Israel to release 1027 prisoners, including 280 convicted of terrorism by Israel, in exchange for his release.[282] According to The New York Times, "Hamas has recognized the pull such incidents have over the Israeli psyche and clearly has moved to grab hostages in incidents such as the death and ransoming of Oron Shaul."[283]

Internet recruiting

In the beginning of the 21st century, emerged a worldwide network of hundreds of web sites that inspire, train, educate and recruit young Muslims to engage in jihad against the United States and other Western countries, taking less prominent roles in mosques and community centers that are under scrutiny.

Examples of organizations and acts

The "black flag of Jihad", used by various Islamist organisations since the late 1990s, consists of a white-on-black shahada.

Some prominent Islamic terror groups and incidents include the following:

Africa

In the 1990s, a distinct pattern of jihadist attacks in East Africa emerged. In 2006, the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) defeated Somali warlords which resulted in an armed jihadist movement controlling a territory of their own. The ICU was later militarily defeated and al-Shabaab was formed from its remnants. Al-Shabaab would later ally itself with al-Qaeda. In 2017, the EUISS noted an increased frequency of jihadist violence in an arc extending across borders from the Red Sea to the Gulf of Guinea.[284]

Algeria

The Armed Islamic Group, active in Algeria between 1992 and 1998, was one of the most violent Islamic terrorist groups, and is thought to have takfired the Muslim population of Algeria. Its campaign to overthrow the Algerian government included civilian massacres, sometimes wiping out entire villages in its area of operation. It also targeted foreigners living in Algeria, killing more than 100 expatriates in the country. In recent years it has been eclipsed by a splinter group, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), now called Al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb.[285]

Burkina Faso

In January 2016, terrorists from Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) shot and killed 30 people at the Splendid Hotel in Ouagadougou.[286]

In an August 2017 Ouagadougou attack, 19 people were killed, and 25 others were injured when al-Qaeda's Maghreb jihadists affiliates opened fire on a Turkish restaurant and hotel.

During the March 2018 Ouagadougou attacks, terrorists affiliated with Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb killed 8 people and injured more than 85.

The terrorist organization Ansar ul Islam is active in Burkina Faso and has conducted assassinations, looting, attacks on police and has closed hundreds of schools.[286]

Egypt

Egypt has faced Islamist violence in repeated attacks since the 2011 Arab Spring uprising.[287]

On 17 November 1997, a splinter group of the al-Jama'a al-Islamiyya, an Egyptian Islamist organization, carried out the Luxor massacre where 62 people were killed. Most of the killed were tourists.[288]

On 29 December 2017 in Cairo, a gunman opened fire at the Coptic Orthodox Church of Saint Menas and a nearby shop owned by a Coptic man. Ten citizens and a police officer were killed around ten people were injured in the attack which was claimed by the Islamic state.[289][290]

Kenya

During the 1990s, Muslims in Kenya received religious radical instruction from Al-Qaeda and Somali group l-Itihad al-Islami (AIAI). AIAI sought to create an Islamic government over Somalia and the Ogaden region in Ethiopia. In Kenya, it recruited among Somalis in Kenya living in the North Eastern Province and the Eastleigh district in Nairobi.[291]

On 7 August 1998, Al-Qaeda attacked the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi in an attack that claimed 213 lives.[291]

On 28 November 2002, Al-Qaeda militants attacked an Israeli-owned hotel in Mombasa where 15 were killed. Militants also fired shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles at an airliner which escaped unharmed.[291]

On Saturday 21 September 2013, four Al-Shabaab militants attacked a shopping mall in Nairobi, shooting and throwing grenades at shoppers. The civilian death toll was 61, along with six soldiers and five of the attackers.[292]

In 2015, 147 people were killed by Al-Shabaab militants during the Garissa University College attack.[293]

After Al-Shabaab abducted foreign aid workers and tourists in Kenya, Kenyan troops were sent to Somalia in October 2011 to pursue al-Shabab militants. In the wake of the intervention, Kenya has suffered a number of attacks carried out both by al-Shabaab militants as well as Kenyan Muslim recruited by radical clerics in North-Eastern and Coast provinces.[291]

Mali

Mauritius

In 2011, Mauritian shop-keeper Reaz Lauthan travelled to Syria to join Islamic State and participate in the war. In Mauritius Reaz Lauthan had established Al Muhajiroun, an organisation which promoted the relinquishment of Islamic traditions that originated from India. However Lauthan's group disintegrated and he made his way to Syria. He returned to Mauritius in 2012 and befriended members of a new Islamic group called Hizb ul Tahrir. He died in 2013 in Syria soon after returning there to participate in Islamic State's activities. 4 other Mauritians had attempted to join Reaz Lauthan in Syria but were refused entry at the Turkish border.[294]

In August 2014, Mauritians Mohammed Iqbal Golamaully, aged 48, and his wife, Nazimabee Golamaully, aged 45, provided financial support to their nephew Zafirr Golamaully who had left Mauritius in March 2014 to fight for Islamic State in Syria after travelling via Dubai and Turkey. The couple was eventually jailed in 2016. Zafirr Golamaully's sister Lubnaa also left Mauritius to join him in Syria. Hospital director Mohammed Iqbal Golamaully had also encouraged Lubnaa to become familiar with the new gun that Zafirr had purchased for her. Mohammed Iqbal Golamaully also instructed Lubnaa to "revolutionise the Islamic Concept amongst our close relatives". Using a pseudonym "Abu Hud" Zafirr Golamaully posted hate messages on Twitter following the terrorist attack against magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris in January 2015. On other social media sites Zafirr Golamaully used pseudonym "Paladin of Jihad" to provide advice to would-be jihadists on how to avoid deportation by Turkish immigration officials.[295][296][297][298]

In December 2015, Islamic State issued a video on social media which showed Mauritian citizen Yogen Sundrun who used his pseudonym Abu Shuaib Al Afriqi to claim that IS fighters will liberate Mauritius soon. The video prominently featured a flag of Daesh. Yogen Sundrun also urged other Mauritians, especially nurses and doctors, to travel to the lands of Islamic State. In 2014, Yogen Sundrun had released an earlier video, intended for South Africans at the time of Eid, and encouraging them to join the "Caliphate of Daesh". In that video he held his daughter in his arms and stated "This is my fifth daughter in the Khilafah, praise be God. Brothers and sisters, I don't have the words to express myself about the happiness to be here…". Around him children held fire-arms.[299]

During the night of Sunday 29 May 2016 and the following morning, several gunshots were fired at the French Embassy located in the capital city Port Louis. Graffiti was also painted by the attackers on the front fence of the compound which referred to Islamic State and claims that their prophet Abu Bakr Baghdadi had been insulted.[300][301]

Following the murder of Manan Fakhoo in January 2021, who was shot dead in Beau-Bassin by hitmen riding a motorbike, Javed Meetoo, a resident of Vallee Pitôt and member of Daesh (Islamic State), was arrested and charged with "harbouring terrorist" on 14 March 2022.[302][303] In March 2021, Yassiin Meetou had confessed that he had assisted shooter Ajmal Aumeeruddy and Ajam Beeharry of Camp Yoloff by transporting them and their motorbike to shoot Manan Fakhoo.[304]

Morocco

The majority of the perpetrators directly and indirectly involved in the 2004 Madrid train bombings were Moroccans. In the aftermath of that attack, Morocco became a focus of attention for anti-terrorist authorities in Spain.[305]

While Morocco is generally seen as a secure destination for tourists as the last terrorist attack happened in 2011 where 17 people were killed by bomb at a restaurant in Marrakesh, over 1600 people have travelled from Morocco to join the Islamic State in the Syrian Civil War. Moroccan authorities initially ignored the people who joined ISIS but later on realised they could return to commit terrorist offences in Morocco. As a result, the Bureau Central d'Investigations Judiciaires (BCIJ) was formed.[306]

In the 2013–2017 period, anti-terrorist authorities in Morocco, in cooperation with their counterparts in Spain, conducted up to eleven joint operations against jihadist cells and networks.[305]

In 2016, the government developed a strategy to further adherence to the Maliki Islamic school of thought. The authorities removed Quranic passages that were deemed too violent from religious education textbooks. As a result, the textbooks were reduced to 24 lessons from the 50 lessons they had before.[305][307]

In 2017, it was estimated that 1623 Moroccans and 2000 Moroccan-Europeans had travelled to join the Islamic State caliphate in the Syrian Civil War, which along with other fighters from MENA countries contributed a significant force to ISIS.[305]

According to a researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies, Moroccan authorities appear to have a good grip on the jihadist situation and cooperates with European and US authorities. Moroccans are overrepresented in "diaspora terrorism", that is terrorism which takes place outside the borders of Morocco. For example, two Moroccans were behind the 2017 London Bridge attack and a Moroccan killed people by driving his van into pedestrians in La Rambla in the 2017 Barcelona terrorist attacks.[306]

Mozambique

Mozambique has seen an Islamist insurgency and terror attacks, by Ansar al-Sunna and ISIL, starting with October 2017, in the Cabo Delgado Province. By December 2020, more than 3,500 people have been killed and more than 400,000 people have been displaced.

Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon insurgency by Boko Haram

Boko Haram is an Islamic extremist group based in northeastern Nigeria which began violent attacks in 2009, also active in Chad, Niger and northern Cameroon. In the 2009–2018 period, more than 27,000 people have been killed in the fighting in the countries around Lake Chad.[308][309]

A study from June 2021 by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) estimates that nearly 350,000 have been killed by the Boko Haram insurgency.[310]

Boko Haram consists of two factions, one is led by Abubakar Shekau and it uses suicide bombings and kill civilians indiscriminately. The other is named Islamic State West Africa Province and it generally attacks military and government installations.[309]

Somalia and the Horn of Africa

Al-Shabaab is a militant jihadist terrorist group based in East Africa, which emerged in 2006 as the youth wing of the Islamic Courts Union. A number of foreign jihadists have gone to Somalia to support al-Shabaab. In 2012, it pledged allegiance to the militant Islamist organization Al-Qaeda. It is a participant in the Somali Civil War, and is reportedly being used by Egypt to destabilize Ethiopia, and attracting converts from predominantly Christian Kenya.[308]

In 2010, the group killed 76 people watching the 2010 World Cup in Uganda.[311]

In 2017, al-Shabaab was estimated to have about 7000–9000 fighters. It has imposed a strict Sharia law in areas it controls, such as stoning adulterers and amputating hands of thieves.[308]

Sudan

Tanzania

Tunisia

On 11 April 2002, a Tunisian Al-Qaeda operative used a truck bomb to attack the El Ghriba synagogue on Djerba island. The attack killed 19 people and injured 30 and was planned by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and financed by a Pakistani resident of Spain.[312][313]

On 18 March 2015, three militants attacked the Bardo National Museum in the Tunisian capital city of Tunis, and took hostages. Twenty-one people, mostly European tourists, were killed at the scene, and an additional victim died ten days later. Around fifty others were injured.[314][315][316] Two of the gunmen, Tunisian citizens Yassine Labidi and Saber Khachnaoui were killed by police. Police treated the event as a terrorist attack.[317][318]

In June 2015, a mass shooting claimed by the Islamic State was carried out at a hotel by Seifeddine Rezgui. Thirty-eight people were killed, the majority of whom were tourists from the United Kingdom.[319]

Uganda

Central Asia

Afghanistan

According to Human Rights Watch, Taliban and Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin forces have "sharply escalated bombing and other attacks" against civilians since 2006. In 2006, "at least 669 Afghan civilians were killed in at least 350 armed attacks, most of which appear to have been intentionally launched at civilians or civilian objects".[320]

Kyrgyzstan

Kyrgyz-American brothers Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev were responsible for the Boston Marathon bombing.

Tajikistan

The government blamed the IMU (Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan) for training those responsible for carrying out a suicide car bombing of a police station in Khujand on 3 September 2010. Two policemen were killed and 25 injured.[321]

Uzbekistan

On 16 February 1999, six car bombs exploded in Tashkent, killing 16 and injuring more than 100, in what may have been an attempt to assassinate President Islam Karimov. The IMU was blamed.[322]

The IMU launched a series of attacks in Tashkent and Bukhara in March and April 2004. Gunmen and female suicide bombers took part in the attacks, which mainly targeted police. The violence killed 33 militants, 10 policemen, and four civilians.[323] The government blamed Hizb ut-Tahrir,[324] though the Islamic Jihad Union (IJU) claimed responsibility.[325]

Furkat Kasimovich Yusupov was arrested in the first half of 2004, and charged as the leader of a group that had carried out the 28 March bombing on behalf of Hizb ut-Tahrir.[326]

On 30 July 2004, suicide bombers struck the entrances of the US and Israeli embassies in Tashkent. Two Uzbek security guards were killed in both bombings.[327] The IJU again claimed responsibility.[325]

Foreign commentators on Uzbek affairs speculated that the 2004 violence could have been the work of the IMU, Al-Qaeda, Hizb ut-Tahrir, or some other radical Islamic organization.[328][329]

East Asia

China

South Asia

Bangladesh

In Bangladesh, the group Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh was formed sometime in 1998, and gained prominence in 2001.[330] The organization was officially banned in February 2005 after attacks on NGOs, but struck back in August when 300 bombs were detonated almost simultaneously throughout Bangladesh, targeting Shahjalal International Airport, government buildings and major hotels.[331][332]

The Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT), also called Ansar Bangla is an Islamic extremist organization in Bangladesh, implicated in crimes including some brutal attacks and murders of atheist bloggers from 2013 to 2015 and a bank heist in April 2015.[333]

Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (Arabic: حركة الجهاد الإسلامي, Ḥarkat al-Jihād al-Islāmiyah, meaning "Islamic Jihad Movement", HuJI) is an Islamic fundamentalist organisation most active in South Asian countries of Pakistan, Bangladesh and India since the early 1990s. It was banned in Bangladesh in 2005.

India

Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Al Badr & Hizbul Mujahideen are militant groups seeking accession of Kashmir to Pakistan from India.[334] The Lashkar leadership describes Indian and Israel regimes as the main enemies of Islam and Pakistan.[335] Lashkar-e-Toiba, along with Jaish-e-Mohammed, another militant group active in Kashmir are on the United States' foreign terrorist organizations list, and are also designated as terrorist groups by the United Kingdom,[336] India, Australia[337] and Pakistan.[338] Jaish-e-Mohammed was formed in 1994 and has carried out a series of attacks all over India.[339][340] The group was formed after the supporters of Maulana Masood Azhar split from another Islamic militant organization, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen. Jaish-e-Mohammed is viewed by some as the "deadliest" and "the principal terrorist organization in Jammu and Kashmir".[341] The group was also implicated in the kidnapping and murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl.[341] All these groups coordinate under leadership of Syed Salahuddin's United Jihad Council.

Some major bomb blasts and attacks in India were perpetrated by Islamic militants from Pakistan, e.g., the 2008 Mumbai attacks and 2001 Indian Parliament attack.

2006 Mumbai train bombings killed 209 people and injured 700 more. It was carried out by banned Students Islamic Movement of India terrorist groups.[342]

Pakistan

Sri Lanka

The 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings, orchestrated by the National Thowheeth Jama'ath,[343] were the deadliest terrorist attack in the country since its civil war ended on 16 May 2009. The bombings killed 269 people and injured more than 500.

Southeast Asia

Indonesia

Philippines

The Abu Sayyaf Group, also known as al-Harakat al-Islamiyya, is one of several militant Islamic-separatist groups based in and around the southern islands of the Philippines, in Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (Jolo, Basilan, and Mindanao) where for almost 30 years various Muslim groups have been engaged in an insurgency for a state, independent of the predominantly Christian Philippines. The name of the group is derived from the Arabic ابو, abu ("father of") and sayyaf ("Swordsmith").[344] Since its inception in the early 1990s, the group has carried out bombings, assassinations, kidnappings and extortion in their fight for an independent Islamic state in western Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago with the stated goal of creating a pan-Islamic superstate across southeast Asia, spanning from east to west; the island of Mindanao, the Sulu Archipelago, the island of Borneo (Malaysia, Indonesia), the South China Sea, and the Malay Peninsula (Peninsular Malaysia, Thailand and Myanmar).[345] The U.S. Department of State has branded the group a terrorist entity by adding it to the list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.[345]

Thailand

Most of the terrorist incidents in Thailand are related to the South Thailand insurgency.

Europe

Planned and foiled Jihadist terror attacks in Europe. Numbers for 2017 and 2018 are preliminary.[346]

Lethal attacks on civilians in Europe which have been credited to Islamist terrorism include the 2004 bombings of commuter trains in Madrid, where 191 people were killed, the 7 July 2005 London bombings, also of public transport, which killed 52 commuters, and the 2015 Charlie Hebdo shooting, in Paris, where 12 people were killed in response to the satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo depicting cartoons of Muhammad. On 13 November 2015 the French capital suffered a series of coordinated attacks, claimed by ISIS, that killed 129 people in restaurants, the Bataclan theatre and the Stade de France.[347]

Out of 1,009 arrests for terrorism in 2008, 187 were in relation to Islamist terrorism. The report showed that the majority of Islamist terror suspects were second or third generation immigrants.[348]

In 2009, a Europol report showed that more than 99% of terrorist attacks in Europe over the last three years were, carried out by non-Muslims.[348] Swedish economist Tino Sanandaji has criticised the use of statistics where the number of attacks are counted instead of the number of killed, since 79% of terrorist deaths 2001–2011 in Europe were due to Islamic terrorism. Therefore, statistics focusing on the number of attacks instead of the number killed are exploited by those who wish to trivialise the phenomenon.[349] The great difference in the number of attacks versus the number of killed is that separatist attacks in Spain, typically involve vandalism and not killing. So in statistics, the global terrorist plot leading to the 9/11 attack and a party headquarters being vandalised and painted with slogans by domestic terrorists each count as one terrorist attack.[349] According to a report by Europol on terrorism in the European Union, in 2016 "nearly all reported fatalities and most of the casualties were the result of jihadist terrorist attacks." A majority of about two-thirds of all terrorist-related arrests in the EU were also jihadist-related.[350]

The majority of deaths by terrorism in Europe from 2001 to 2014 were caused by Islamic terrorism, not including Islamic terrorist attacks in European Russia.[351]

According to the British think tank[352] ICSR, up to 40% of terrorist plots in Europe are part-financed through petty crime such as drug-dealing, theft, robberies, loan fraud and burglaries. Jihadists use ordinary crime as a way to finance their activity and have also argued this to be the "ideologically correct" way to wage jihad in non-Muslim lands.[353]

The pattern of jihadist attacks in 2017 led Europol to conclude that terrorists preferred to attack people rather than causing property damage or loss of capital.[354]

According to Europol, the jihadist attacks in 2017 had three patterns:[355]

The agency's report also noted that jihadist attacks had caused more deaths and casualties than any other type of terrorist attack, that such attacks had become more frequent, and that there had been a decrease in the sophistication and preparation of the attacks.[354]

According to Susanne Schröter, the 2017 attacks in European countries showed that the military defeat of the Islamic State did not mean the end of Islamist violence. Schröter also wrote that the events in Europe looked like a delayed implementation of jihadist strategy formulated by Abu Musab al-Suri in 2005, where an intensification of terror should destabilise societies and encourage Muslim youth to revolt. The expected civil war never materialised Europe, but did occur in other regions such as North Africa and the Philippines.[356]

In April 2018, EU anti-terror coordinator estimated there to be 50,000 radicalized Muslims living in Europe.[357]

Austria

Belgium

In the 1990s Belgium was a transit country for Islamist terrorist groups like the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria (GIA) and the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group (GICM).[358]

Belgium has a population of 11 million including large numbers of immigrants from Muslim countries. 100,000 Moroccan citizens live in Belgium, often descended from Moroccans recruited to work in the mining industry in the 1960s; a small fraction of the children and grandchildren of the immigrant generation have been attracted to Militant Islamism and jihad. A tiny fraction of this large Muslim population has participated in terrorist attacks.[359] In a report by the Combating Terrorism Center, of the 135 individuals surveyed in connection with terrorism, there were 12 different nationalities. Of those 65% had Belgian citizenship and 33% were either Moroccan citizens or had ancestral roots there.[360]

In 2016, Belgian researcher estimated that about 562 individuals had travelled to become foreign fighters in the Syrian and Iraqi Civil Wars, the majority of whom joined the Islamic State with others joining the al-Qaida-affiliated group Al-Nusra Front.[361] The majority of those who went to the Syria in the 2012-2016 time span were of Moroccan descent according to U.S. and Belgian authorities.[362]

Belgium has been the base of operations for a number of terrorist attacks in the 2010s, including the November 2015 Paris attacks.[359] It has also been the place where some Islamist militants developed militant views before going to the Middle East to fight with ISIS.[359]

In June 2016, with 451 fighters having travelled to join the Syrian Civil War, Belgium had the highest number of foreign fighters per capita.[358]

The November 2015 Paris attacks in France were coordinated and planned from Belgium. The overall leader of that terrorist cell was believed to be Mohamed Belkaid, an Islamic State operative from Algeria who previously had lived in Sweden. Belkaid was killed in a shootout in the Foret district of Brussels, during which Belkaid was firing on police to allow Salah Abdeslam to escape. Salah Abdeslam was arrested a few days later and the surviving members of the cell, including brothers Najim Laachraoui and Khalid and Ibrahim Bakraoui (previously armed robbers) launched the 2016 Brussels bombings targeting Brussels airport and metro killing 32.[358]

Terrorism experts regard Islamic State activities in Europe's Francophone area as a single, French-Belgian junction of ISIS activity and attacks.[363]

Finland

The ICCT report from April 2016 showed that at least 70 individuals had left Finland to enter the conflict zone and the majority joined jihadist groups in Syria and Iraq. They started leaving in the 2012-13 time span and the male-female ratio was about 80-20%.[364]

The first terrorist attack in Finland was the 2017 Turku attack where Abderrahman Bouanane, a failed asylum seeker from Morocco, stabbed two women to death and wounded eight other people in his stabbing attack.[365]

Islamic militants constituted the majority of those under surveillance by the Finnish Security Intelligence Service (SUPO) in 2020 and Finland is portrayed as an enemy state in Islamic State propaganda. The Foreign fighters in the Syrian and Iraqi Civil Wars movement has amplified transnational contacts for the Islamist movements in Finland. A number of militants have arrived from the conflict zone in Syria and the Al-Hawl refugee camp and constitute both a short and long term security threat.[366][367]

France

France had its first occurrences with religious extremism in the 1980s due to French involvement in the Lebanese Civil War. In the 1990s, a series of attacks on French soil were executed by the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria (GIA).

In the 1990–2010 time span, France experienced repeated attacks linked to international jihadist movements.[305] Le Monde reported on 26 July 2016 that "Islamist Terrorism" had caused 236 dead in France in the preceding 18-month period.[368]

In the 2015–2018 timespan in France, 249 people been killed in terrorist attacks and 928 wounded in a total of 22 terrorist attacks.[369]

The deadly attacks in 2015 in France changed the issue of Islamist radicalization from a security threat to also constitute a social problem. Prime minister François Hollande and prime minister Manuel Valls saw the fundamental values of the French republic being challenged and called them attacks against secular, enlightenment and democratic values along with "what makes us who we are".[305]

Although jihadists in the 2015-onward timeframe legitimized their attacks with a narrative of reprisal for France's participation in the international coalition fighting the Islamic State, Islamic terrorism in France has other, deeper and older causes. The main reasons France suffers frequent attacks are, in no particular order:[370]

  • France's secular domestic policies (Laïcité) which jihadists perceive to be hostile towards Islam. Also, France's status as an officially secular nation and jihadists label France as "the flagship of disbelief".[370]
  • France has a strong cultural tradition in comics, which in the context Muhammad cartoons is a question of freedom of expression.[371]
  • France has a large Muslim minority[371]
  • France's foreign policy towards Muslim countries and jihadist fronts. France is seen as the spearhead directed against jihadist groups in Africa, just as the United States is seen as the main force opposing jihadist groups elsewhere. France's former foreign policies such as that as its colonization of Muslim countries is also brought up in jihadist propaganda, for example, that the influence of French education, culture and political institutions had served to erase the Muslim identity of those colonies and their inhabitants.[372]
  • Jihadists consider France as a strong proponent of disbelief. For instance, Marianne, the national emblem of France, is considered as "a false idol" by jihadists and the French to be "idol worshippers". France also has no law against blasphemy and an anticlerical satirical press which is less respectful towards religion than that of the US or the United Kingdom. The French nation state is also perceived as an obstacle towards establishing a caliphate.[372]

In 2020 two Islamic terrorist attacks were foiled by authorities, bringing the total to 33 since 2017 according to Laurent Nuñez, the director of CNRLT, who declared that Sunni Islamist terrorism was a prioritised threat. Nuñez drew parallels between the three attacks of 2020 which all were attacks on "blasphemy and the will to avenge their prophet".[373]

Germany

In the 2015–2020 time span, there were 9 Islamic terrorist attacks and thwarted terrorist plots where at least one of the perpetrators had entered Germany as an asylum seeker during the European migrant crisis. The Islamic terrorists entered Germany either without identity documents or with falsified documents. The number of discovered plots began to decline in 2017. In 2020 German authorities noted that the majority of the asylum seekers entered Germany without identification papers during the crisis and security agencies considered unregulated immigration as problematic from a security aspect.[374]

Italy

Despite its proximity to the Middle East and North Africa, relatively porous borders, and a large influx of migrants from Muslim majority countries, Italy has not experienced the same surge in radicalization as other European countries. Just 125 individuals with ties to Italy left to join jihadist groups, compared with Belgium's 470 and Sweden's 300 such individuals in the same period from their much smaller populations. Since the September 11 attacks in 2001, there have been a small number of plots either thwarted or failed. Two individuals born in Italy have been involved in terrorist attacks, Youssef Zaghba one of the trio of attackers in the June 2017 London Bridge attack while ISIS sympathizer Tomasso Hosni attacked soldiers at Milan's Central station in May 2017.[305]

Deportation (expulsion) of suspects who are foreign nationals has been the cornerstone of Italy's preventive counter-terrorism strategy against jihadists.[375] Deportees are prohibited from re-entering Italy and the entire Schengen Area for at least five years. This measure is particularly effective because in Italy, unlike in other Western European countries, many radicalized Muslims are first-generation immigrants without Italian citizenship. As elsewhere in Europe, prison inmates show signs of radicalization while incarcerated. In 2018, 41 individuals were deported upon release.[375] Of the 147 people deported from 2015 to 2017, all were related to Islamist radicalization and 12 were imams.[376] From January 2015 to April 2018, 300 individuals were expelled from Italian soil.[305] The vast majority of the deportees come from North Africa, with most of the deportees come from Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt. A noted group came from the Balkans, with 13 individuals from Albania, 14 from Kosovo and 12 from Macedonia. A smaller group were from Asia, with Pakistanis constituting the largest group.[376]

Netherlands

Main article: Jihadism
See also: Islamic terrorism § Europe

Jihadists oppose Dutch society and the Dutch government[377] and hold intolerant and anti-democratic views.[378]

In 2009, the AIVD reported that armed Islamic extremists in Somalia received support from individuals in the Netherlands. In the years leading up to 2006, there was an increase in radical activity which among other events manifested itself in the assassination of Theo van Gogh in 2004 by the Hofstad Network. In the years after 2006 radical activities diminished despite continued military presence by Dutch forces in Afghanistan and material deemed provocative by Muslims, such as Geert Wilder's film Fitna. While Islamist networks earlier had a strong local base of support centered around charismatic leaders, several of those leaders were arrested and deported by Dutch authorities or they left the country voluntarily. This led to reduced recruiting to those networks.[379]

According to the Dutch General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD) in 2018, there are about 500 active supporters and thousands of sympathisers in the Netherlands.[380]

In 2015 the AIVD reported that jihadists exploited the boundaries in the Dutch legal framework, by testing the limits of civil rights such as freedom of speech.[378]

In 2017 AIVD approximated the number of female jihadists in the Netherlands to be about 100 and at least 80 women had left the Netherlands to join the conflict, the majority of whom joined ISIS.[381] Jihadist women in the Netherlands encourage both men and women to believe in their ideology by entering into discussions online and offline as well as spreading jihadist propaganda. Jihadist women also help travellers to conflict zones by providing material support or putting them in touch with facilitators. They also help by hiding the fact that someone has left to join a conflict zone.[377]

In the 2012 – November 2018 period, above 310 individuals had travelled from the Netherlands to the conflict in Syria and Iraq. Of those 85 had been killed and 55 returned to the Netherlands. Of the surviving Dutch foreign fighters in the region, 135 are fighters in the conflict zone and three quarters are members of ISIS. The remaining quarter have joined Al-Qaeda affiliated groups such as Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham or Tanzim Hurras al-Deen.[382]

Attacks in the Netherlands

Norway

In 2012, two men were sentenced in Oslo to seven and a half years in jail for an attack against Mohammad-cartoonist Kurt Westergaard. This was the first sentence under the new anti-terror legislation. A third man was freed from the accusation of terrorism, but was sentenced for helping with explosives and he received a fourth-month prison sentence.[388]

Poland

In 2015, the terrorist threat level was zero, on its scale which has four levels plus the "zero level". About 20–40 Polish nationals had travelled to the conflict zone in Syria-Iraq.[389]

Russia

Beslan school victim photos

Politically and religiously motivated attacks on civilians in Russia have been traced to separatist sentiment among the largely Muslim population of its North Caucasus region, particularly in Chechnya, where the central government of the Russian Federation has waged two bloody wars against the local secular separatist government since 1994. In the Moscow theater hostage crisis in October 2002, three Chechen separatist groups took an estimated 850 people hostage in the Russian capital; at least 129 hostages died during the storming by Russian special forces, all but one killed by the chemicals used to subdue the attackers (whether this attack would more properly be called a nationalist rather than an Islamist attack is in question). In the September 2004 Beslan school hostage crisis more than 1,000 people were taken hostage after a school in the Russian republic of North Ossetia–Alania was seized by a pro-Chechen multi-ethnic group aligned to Riyad-us Saliheen Brigade of Martyrs; hundreds of people died during the storming by Russian forces.[390]

Since 2000, Russia has also experienced a string of suicide bombings that killed hundreds of people in the Caucasian republics of Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetia, as well as in Russia proper including Moscow. Responsibility for most of these attacks was claimed by either Shamil Basayev's Islamic-nationalist rebel faction or, later, by Dokka Umarov's pan-Islamist movement Caucasus Emirate which is aiming to unite most of Russia's North Caucasus as an emirate since its creation in 2007.[391] Since the creation of the Caucasus Emirate, the group has abandoned its secular nationalist goals and fully adopted the ideology of Salafist-takfiri Jihadism[392] which seeks to advance the cause of Allah on the earth by waging war against the Russian government and non-Muslims in the North Caucasus, such as the local Sufi Muslim population, whom they view as mushrikeen (polytheists) who do not adhere to true Islamic teachings. In 2011, the U.S. Department of State included the Caucasus Emirate on its list of terrorist organisations.[393]

Spain

Jihadists were present in Spain from 1994, when an al-Qaeda cell was established.[394] In 1996, the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria (GIA), an organisation affiliated with al-Qaeda, founded a cell in the province of Valencia.[395] In the 1995–2003 period, slightly over 100 people were arrested for offences related to militant salafism, an average of 12 per year.[394]

In 2004, Madrid commuters suffered the 2004 Madrid train bombings, which were perpetrated by remnants of the first al-Qaeda cell, members of the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group (GICM) plus a gang of criminals turned into jihadists.[394]

In the period 2004–2012, there were 470 arrests, an average of 52 per year and four times the pre-Madrid bombings average which indicated that the jihadist threat persisted after the Madrid attack. In the years after the Madrid attack, 90% of all jihadists convicted in Spain were foreigners, mainly from Morocco, Pakistan and Algeria, while 7 out of 10 resided in the metropolitan areas of Madrid or Barcelona. The vast majority were involved in cells linked to organisations such as al-Qaeda, the GICM, the Algerian Salafist group Group for Preaching and Combat which had replaced the GIA, and Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan.[394]

In the period 2013, jihadism in Spain transformed to be less overwhelmingly associated with foreigners. Arrests 2013–2017 show that 4 out of 10 arrested were Spanish nationals and 3 out of 10 were born in Spain. Most others had Morocco as a country of nationality or birth with its main focus among Moroccan descendants residing in the North African cities of Ceuta and Melilla. The most prominent jihadist presence was the province of Barcelona.[394] In 2013 and 2014 there were cells associated with Al-Nusra Front, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.[394]

In 2017, a terrorist cell based in the province of Barcelona carried out the vehicle-ramming 2017 Barcelona attacks, even if their original plans were on a larger scale.[394]

The 2023, Algeciras church attacks was treated as Islamic terrorism by the Audiencia Nacional.[396]

Sweden

See also: Islam in Sweden and Islamic terrorism in Europe

According to the Swedish Defence University, since the 1970s, a number of residents of Sweden have been implicated in providing logistical and financial support to or joining various foreign-based transnational Islamic militant groups. Among these organizations are Hezbollah, Hamas, the GIA, Al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, Al-Shabaab, Ansar al-Sunna and Ansar al-Islam.[397]

In the 2000s, Islamists in Sweden were not primarily seeking to commit attacks in Sweden, but were rather using Sweden as a base of operations against other countries and for providing logistical support for groups abroad.[398]

In 2010, the Swedish Security Service estimated that a total of 200 individuals were involved in the Swedish Islamist extremist environment. According to the Swedish Defence University, most of these militants were affiliated with the Islamic State, with around 300 people traveling to Syria and Iraq to join the group and Al-Qaeda associated outfits like Jabhat al-nusra in the 2012–2017 period[397] and some have financed their activities with funds from the Swedish state welfare systems.[399] In 2017, Swedish Security Service director Anders Thornberg stated that the number of violent Islamic extremists residing in Sweden to number was estimated to be "thousands".[400] The Danish Security and Intelligence Service judged the number of jihadists in Sweden to be a threat against Denmark since two terrorists arriving from Sweden had already been sentenced in the 2010 Copenhagen terror plot.[401] Security expert Magnus Ranstorp has argued that efforts to improve anti-terror legislation has been hampered by human rights activists such as Ywonne Ruwaida, Mehmet Kaplan and the organisation Charta 2008. A change in the activism occurred in the 2013–2014 time frame due to the number of Swedish citizens travelling to join the Islamic State. He also stated that some of the loudest activists have withdrawn from public debate after being exposed for harassing women in the metoo campaign.[402]

The issue has also led to problematic relationship between Sweden and Turkey in the context of Swedish decision to join NATO in 2022, a request that has been delayed by Turkey due to Turkish view that Sweden is not doing enough to prevent organizations Turkey sees as terrorist from operating in Sweden (see Swedish anti-terrorism bill (2023)).[403][404][405][406]

Islamic terror attacks in Sweden

In 2010, Taimour Abdulwahab al-Abdaly, an Iraqi-born Swedish citizen, attempted to kill Christmas shoppers in Stockholm in the 2010 Stockholm bombings. According to investigations by FBI, the bombing would likely have killed between 30 and 40 people had it succeeded, and it is thought that al-Abdaly operated with a network.[407]

In April 2017 Rakhmat Akilov, a 39-year-old rejected asylum seeker born in the Soviet Union and a citizen of Uzbekistan, drove a truck down a pedestrian area in Stockholm and killed five people and injured dozens of others in the 2017 Stockholm truck attack. He has expressed sympathy with extremist organizations, among them the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).[408]

Balkans

Middle East/West Asia

Turkey

Historians have said that militant Islamism first gained ground among Kurds before its appeal grew among ethnic Turks and that the two most important radical Islamist organizsations have been an outgrowth of Kurdish Islamism rather than Turkish Islamism.[409] The Turkish or Kurdish Hizbullah is a primarily Kurdish group has its roots in the predominantly Kurdish southeast of Turkey and among Kurds who migrated to the cities in Western Turkey.[409] The members of the İBDA-C were predominantly Kurds, most members if not all are ethnic Kurds like its founder, as in the Hizbullah. The İBDA-C stressed its Kurdish roots, and is fighting Turkish secularism, and is also anti-Christian. The Hizbula reestablished in 2003 in southeastern Turkey and "today its ideology might be more widespread than ever among Kurds there".[409] The influence of these groups confirms "the continuing Kurdish domination of Turkish islamism". Notable Kurdish Islamists include also[410](an Iraqi Kurd born in Sudan) co-founder of the Islamist terrorist network al-Qaeda. There is a strong Kurdish element in Turkish radical Islamism.[409] Kurdish and Turkish Islamists have also co-operated together, one example being the 2003 Istanbul bombings, and this co-operation has also been observed in Germany, as in the case of the Sauerland terror cell. Political scientist Guido Steinberg stated that many top leaders of Islamist organizations in Turkey fled to Germany in the 2000s, and that the Turkish Hizbullah has also "left an imprint on Turkish Kurds in Germany".[409] Also many Kurds from Iraq (there are about 50,000 to 80,000 Iraqi Kurds in Germany) financially supported Kurdish-Islamist groups like Ansar al Islam.[409] Many Islamists in Germany are ethnic Kurds (Iraqi and Turkish Kurds) or Turks. Before 2006, the German Islamist scene was dominated by Iraqi Kurds and Palestinians, but since 2006 Kurds and Turks from Turkey are dominant.[409]

Hezbollah in Turkey (unrelated to the Shia Hezbollah in Lebanon) is a Sunni terrorist group accused of a series of attacks, including the November 2003 bombings of two synagogues, the British consulate in Istanbul and HSBC bank headquarters that killed 58.[411] Hizbullah's leader, Hüseyin Velioğlu, was killed in action by Turkish police in Beykoz on 17 January 2000. Besides Hizbullah, other Islamic groups listed as a terrorist organization by Turkish police counter-terrorism include Great Eastern Islamic Raiders' Front, al-Qaeda in Turkey, Tevhid-Selam (also known as al-Quds Army), and Kalifatstaat ("Caliphate State", Hilafet Devleti). Islamic Party of Kurdistan and Hereketa İslamiya Kurdistan are also Islamist groups active against Turkey, however unlike Hizbullah they're yet to be listed as active terrorist organizations in Turkey by Turkish police counter-terrorism.[412]

Iraq

The area that has seen some of the worst terror attacks in modern history has been Iraq as part of the Iraq War. In 2005, there were more than 400 incidents of suicide bombing attacks, killing more than 2,000 people.[413] In 2006, almost half of all reported terrorist attacks in the world (6,600), and more than half of all terrorist fatalities (13,000), occurred in Iraq, according to the National Counterterrorism Center of the United States.[414]

Israel and the Palestinian territories

Hamas ("zeal" in Arabic and an acronym for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya) grew in power and began attacks on military and civilian targets in Israel at the beginning of the First Intifada in 1987.[415] The 1988 charter of Hamas calls for the destruction of Israel.[416] Hamas's armed wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, was established in mid 1991[417] and claimed responsibility for numerous attacks against Israelis, principally suicide bombings and rocket attacks. Hamas has been accused of sabotaging the Israeli-Palestine peace process by launching attacks on civilians during Israeli elections to anger Israeli voters and facilitate the election of harder-line Israeli candidates.[418] Hamas has been designated as a terrorist group by Canada, the United States, Israel, Australia, Japan, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and Human Rights Watch. It is banned in Jordan. Russia does not consider Hamas a terrorist group as it was "democratically elected".[419] During the Second Intifada (September 2000 through August 2005) 39.9 percent of the suicide attacks were carried out by Hamas.[420] The first Hamas suicide attack was the Mehola Junction bombing in 1993.[421] Hamas claims its aims are "To contribute in the effort of liberating Palestine and restoring the rights of the Palestinian people under the sacred Islamic teachings of the Holy Quran, the Sunna (traditions) of Prophet Mohammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) and the traditions of Muslims rulers and scholars noted for their piety and dedication."[417]

Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine is a Palestinian Islamist group based in the Syrian capital, Damascus, and dedicated to waging jihad to eliminate the state of Israel. It was formed by Palestinian Fathi Shaqaqi in the Gaza Strip following the Iranian Revolution which inspired its members. From 1983 onward, it engaged in "a succession of violent, high-profile attacks" on Israeli targets. The Intifada which "it eventually sparked" was quickly taken over by the much larger Palestine Liberation Organization and Hamas.[422] Beginning in September 2000, it started a campaign of suicide bombing attacks against Israeli civilians. The PIJ's armed wing, the Al-Quds brigades, has claimed responsibility for numerous terrorist attacks in Israel, including suicide bombings. The group has been designated as a terrorist organization by several Western countries.

Popular Resistance Committees is a coalition of a number of armed Palestinian groups opposed to what they regard as the conciliatory approach of the Palestinian Authority and Fatah towards Israel. The PRC is especially active in the Gaza Strip, through its military wing, the Al-Nasser Salah al-Deen Brigades.[423] The PRC is said to have an extreme Islamic worldview and operates with Hamas and the Islamic Jihad movement. The PRC has carried out several attacks against Israeli civilians and soldiers including hundreds of shooting attacks and other rocket and bombing attacks.[424]

Other groups linked with Al-Qaeda operate in the Gaza Strip including: Army of Islam, Abdullah Azzam Brigades, Jund Ansar Allah, Jaljalat and Tawhid al-Jihad.

Lebanon

Hezbollah first emerged in 1982, as a militia during the 1982 Lebanon War.[425][426] Its leaders were inspired by the Ayatollah Khomeini, and its forces were trained and organized by a contingent of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.[427] Hezbollah's 1985 manifesto listed its three main goals as "putting an end to any colonialist entity" in Lebanon, bringing the Phalangists to justice for "the crimes they [had] perpetrated", and the establishment of an Islamic regime in Lebanon.[428][429] Hezbollah leaders have also made numerous statements calling for the destruction of Israel, which they refer to as a "Zionist entity... built on lands wrested from their owners."[428][429]

Hezbollah, which started with only a small militia, has grown to an organization with seats in the Lebanese government, a radio and a satellite television-station, and programs for social development.[430] They maintain strong support among Lebanon's Shi'a population, and gained a surge of support from Lebanon's broader population (Sunni, Christian, Druze) immediately following the 2006 Lebanon War,[431] and are able to mobilize demonstrations of hundreds of thousands.[432] Hezbollah along with some other groups began the 2006–2008 Lebanese political protests in opposition to the government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora.[433] A later dispute over Hezbollah preservation of its telecoms network led to clashes and Hezbollah-led opposition fighters seized control of several West Beirut neighborhoods from Future Movement militiamen loyal to Fouad Siniora. These areas were then handed over to the Lebanese Army.[434]

A national unity government was formed in 2008, in Lebanon, giving Hezbollah and its opposition allies control of 11 of 30 cabinets seats; effectively veto power.[435] Hezbollah receives its financial support from the governments of Iran and Syria, as well as donations from Lebanese people and foreign Shi'as.[436][437] It has also gained significantly in military strength in the 2000s.[438] Despite a June 2008 certification by the United Nations that Israel had withdrawn from all Lebanese territory,[439] in August, Lebanon's new Cabinet unanimously approved a draft policy statement which secures Hezbollah's existence as an armed organization and guarantees its right to "liberate or recover occupied lands". Since 1992, the organization has been headed by Hassan Nasrallah, its Secretary-General. The United States, Canada, Israel, Bahrain,[440][441][442] France,[443] Gulf Cooperation Council,[444] and the Netherlands regard Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, while the United Kingdom, the European Union[445] and Australia consider only Hezbollah's military wing or its external security organization to be a terrorist organization. Many consider it, or a part of it, to be a terrorist group[446][447] responsible for blowing up the American embassy[448] and later its annex, as well as the barracks of American and French peacekeeping troops and dozens of kidnappings of foreigners in Beirut.[449][450] It is also accused of being the recipient of massive aid from Iran,[451] and of serving "Iranian foreign policy calculations and interests",[449] or serving as a "subcontractor of Iranian initiatives"[450] Hezbollah denies any involvement or dependence on Iran.[452] In the Arab and Muslim worlds, on the other hand, Hezbollah is regarded as a legitimate and successful resistance movement that drove both Western powers and Israel out of Lebanon.[453] In 2005, the Lebanese Prime Minister said of Hezbollah, it "is not a militia. It's a resistance."[454]

Fatah al-Islam is an Islamist group operating out of the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in northern Lebanon. It was formed in November 2006, by fighters who broke off from the pro-Syrian Fatah al-Intifada, itself a splinter group of the Palestinian Fatah movement, and is led by a Palestinian fugitive militant named Shaker al-Abssi.[455] The group's members have been described as militant jihadists,[456] and the group itself has been described as a terrorist movement that draws inspiration from al-Qaeda.[455][456][457] Its stated goal is to reform the Palestinian refugee camps under Islamic sharia law,[458] and its primary targets are the Lebanese authorities, Israel and the United States.[455]

Saudi Arabia

Syria

Yemen

North America

Canada

According to recent government statements, Islamic terrorism is the biggest threat to Canada.[459] The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) reported that terrorist radicalization at home is now the chief preoccupation of Canada's spy agency.[460] The most notorious arrest in Canada's fight on terrorism, was the 2006 Ontario terrorism plot in which 18 Al-Qaeda-inspired cell members were arrested for planning a mass bombing, shooting, and hostage taking terror plot throughout Southern Ontario. There have also been other arrests mostly in Ontario involving terror plots.[461]

United States

United Airlines Flight 175 explodes after being flown into the South Tower of the World Trade Center during the 11 September terrorist attacks.

Between 1993 and 2001, the major attacks or attempts against U.S. interests stemmed from militant Islamic jihad extremism except for the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.[462] On 11 September 2001, nearly 3,000 people were killed in New York City, Washington, DC, and Stonycreek Township near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, during the September 11 attacks organized by 19 al-Qaeda members and largely perpetrated by Saudi nationals, sparking the War on Terror. Former CIA Director Michael Hayden considers homegrown terrorism to be the most dangerous threat and concern faced by American citizens today.[463] As of July 2011, there have been 52 homegrown jihadist extremist plots or attacks in the United States since the 11 September attacks.[464]

One of the worst mass shootings in U.S. history was committed by a Muslim against LGBT people. Omar Mateen, in an act motivated by the terrorist group Islamic State, shot and murdered 49 people and wounded more than 50 in a gay nightclub, Pulse, in Orlando, Florida.[465]

Oceania

Australia

New Zealand

South America

Argentina

The 1992 attack on Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, was a suicide bombing attack on the building of the Israeli embassy of Argentina, located in Buenos Aires, which was carried out on 17 March 1992. Twenty-nine civilians were killed in the attack and 242 additional civilians were injured. A group called Islamic Jihad Organization, which has been linked to Iran and possibly Hezbollah,[466] claimed responsibility.

An incident from 1994, known as the AMIA bombing, was an attack on the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (Argentine Israelite Mutual Association) building in Buenos Aires. It occurred on 18 July and killed 85 people and injured hundreds more.[467] A suicide bomber drove a Renault Trafic van bomb loaded with about 275 kilograms (606 lb) of ammonium nitrate fertilizer and fuel oil explosive mixture,[468][469] into the Jewish Community Center building located in a densely constructed commercial area of Buenos Aires. Prosecutors Alberto Nisman and Marcelo Martínez Burgos formally accused the government of Iran of directing the bombing, and the Hezbollah militia of carrying it out.[470][471] The prosecution claimed that Argentina had been targeted by Iran after Buenos Aires' decision to suspend a nuclear technology transfer contract to Tehran.[472]

On 18 January 2015, Nisman was found dead at his home in Buenos Aires,[473][474] one day before he was scheduled to report on his findings, with supposedly incriminating evidence against high-ranking officials of the then-current Argentinian government including former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.[475][476][477]

Transnational

Al-Qaeda's stated aim is the use of jihad to defend and protect Islam against Zionism, Christianity, the secular West, and Muslim governments such as Saudi Arabia, which it sees as insufficiently Islamic and too closely tied to the United States.[478][479][480][481] Formed by Osama bin Laden and Muhammad Atef in the aftermath of the Soviet–Afghan War in the late 1980s, al-Qaeda called for the use of violence against civilians and military of the United States and any countries that are allied with it.

Organizations

See also

Wikiquote has quotations related to Islamic terrorism.

References

Notes

  1. ↑ which is encapsulated in the formula "Islam is exalted and nothing is exalted above it".[20] Also World Assembly of Muslim Youth "which has publicly stated that one of its educational goals is to arm the Muslim youth with full confidence in the supremacy of the Islamic system over other systems."[21]
  2. ↑ An indication that Islamic terrorism has at least paced the general decline in deaths from terror is that "one of the more worrying trends" in terrorism over the five year period from 2014–2019, is (non-Islamic) far-right terrorism.[42]
  3. ↑ Shia Muslims have been involved in violence primarily at the state level[57] (Hezbollah attacks on Israeli targets and Iran's use of shaheeds against Saddam Hussien's Iraq for example). The small Quranist (Muslims who follow only Quran) and Ahmadi groups (who believe jihad should be peaceful) have "zero history of violence".
  4. ↑ Faizal calls these groups "sects", Wikipedia calls them "movements".
  5. ↑ Kepel wrote that "the modern Islamist movement"[63] was "rebuilt" around "the ideas" of Qutb, rebuilt because the Muslim Brotherhood was crushed after 1954 by the regime of Gamal Abdel Nasser. In 1954 another a second unsuccessful assassination was attempted against Egypt's prime minister (Gamal Abdel Nasser), and blamed on the "secret apparatus" of the Brotherhood. The Brotherhood was again banned and this time thousands of its members were imprisoned.
  6. ↑ Qutbism has been used as a close relative,[65][66] or variety of Salafi jihadism.
  7. ↑ (Qutb wrote Milestones in prison and "died before he could fully explain his theories" and clear up "his use of the term jahiliyya and its dire consequence, takfir")[78]
  8. ↑ One estimate is that during the reign of King Fahd (1982 to 2005), over $75 billion was spent in efforts to spread Wahhabi Islam. The money was used to establish 200 Islamic colleges, 210 Islamic centers, 1,500 mosques, and 2,000 schools for Muslim children in Muslim and non-Muslim majority countries.[105] According to diplomat and political scientist Dore Gold, this funding was for non-Muslim countries alone.[106]
  9. ↑ (The punishment is agreed on by all the schools of fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) both Sunni and Shia,[134] and has traditionally been undisputed.)[135]
  10. ↑ according to Jamileh Kadivar based on estimates from Global Terrorism Database, 2020; Herrera, 2019; Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights & United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) Human Rights Office, 2014; Ibrahim, 2017; Obeidallah, 2014; 2015[153]
  11. ↑ (This claim seems to be based on incorrect facts — the price of wheat did not increase three fold from 1973–1997 — and the questionable assumption that the demand and price for oil would continue to rise at a steady rate after the Arab Oil Embargo raised it by four fold in a short period.)[185][187]

Citations

  1. ↑ Norton, Richard A.; Kéchichian, Joseph A. (2009). "Terrorism". In Esposito, John L. (ed.). The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-530513-5.(subscription required)
  2. ↑ Thomas Hegghammer (2013). "Terrorism". In Böwering, Gerhard; Crone, Patricia (eds.). The Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. pp. 545–547.
  3. 1 2 3 4 French, Nathan S. (2020). "A Jihadi-Salafi Legal Tradition? Debating Authority and Martyrdom". And God Knows the Martyrs: Martyrdom and Violence in Jihadi-Salafism. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 36–69. doi:10.1093/oso/9780190092153.003.0002. ISBN 978-0-19-009215-3. LCCN 2019042378.
  4. ↑ "Global Terrorism Index Report 2015" (PDF). Wayback Machine. Institute for Economics and Peace. November 2015. p. 10. Archived from the original (PDF) on 23 November 2015. Retrieved 13 January 2022.
  5. ↑ Global Terrorism Index 2016 (PDF). Institute for Economics and Peace. 2016. p. 4. Archived from the original (PDF) on 17 November 2016. Retrieved 13 January 2022.
  6. ↑ "Egypt's Counterinsurgency Success in Sinai". The Washington Institute. Retrieved 12 February 2022.
  7. ↑ "Global Terrorism Index 2020: Measuring the Impact of Terrorism" (PDF). Vision of Humanity. Institute for Economics & Peace. p. 15. Retrieved 6 May 2021.
  8. ↑ Siddiqui, Mona (23 August 2014). "Isis: a contrived ideology justifying barbarism and sexual control". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 24 August 2014. Retrieved 7 January 2015.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  9. ↑ The study was conducted by a French non-governmental organization. Ritchie, Hannah; Hasell, Joe; Appel, Cameron; Roser, Max (28 July 2013). "Terrorism". Our World in Data.
  10. ↑ "Overwhelming majority of terror victims are Muslims". Overwhelming majority of terror victims are Muslims. Retrieved 31 October 2020.
  11. ↑ Constanze Letsch (November 2014). "Kurdish peshmerga forces arrive in Kobani to bolster fight against Isis". The Guardian. Retrieved 7 January 2015.
  12. 1 2 Charles Kurzman. "Islamic Statements Against Terrorism". UNC.edu. Retrieved 31 January 2017.
  13. 1 2 3 4 5 Fawaz A. Gerges (14 May 2009). "Al-Qaida today: a movement at the crossroads". Archived from the original on 25 October 2014. Retrieved 7 January 2015.
  14. ↑ Christine Sisto (23 September 2014). "Moderate Muslims Stand against ISIS". National Review. Retrieved 7 January 2015.
  15. 1 2 3 4 Holbrook, Donald (2010). "Using the Qur'an to Justify Terrorist Violence". Perspectives on Terrorism. Terrorism Research Initiative and Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence. 4 (3).
  16. 1 2 Holbreook, Donald (2014). The Al-Qaeda Doctrine. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 30ff, 61ff, 83ff. ISBN 978-1-62356-314-1.
  17. 1 2 3 Wiktorowicz, Quintan; Kaltner, John (Summer 2003). "Killing in the Name of Islam: Al-Qaeda's Justification for September 11" (PDF). Middle East Policy. X (2): 85–90. Retrieved 12 August 2019.
  18. 1 2 3 Poljarevic, Emin (2021). "Theology of Violence-oriented Takfirism as a Political Theory: The Case of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS)". In Cusack, Carole M.; Upal, M. Afzal (eds.). Handbook of Islamic Sects and Movements. Brill Handbooks on Contemporary Religion. Vol. 21. Leiden and Boston: Brill Publishers. pp. 485–512. doi:10.1163/9789004435544_026. ISBN 978-90-04-43554-4. ISSN 1874-6691.
  19. 1 2 Wood, Graeme (March 2015). "What ISIS Really Wants". The Atlantic. Washington, D.C. Archived from the original on 16 February 2015. Retrieved 30 October 2020.
  20. ↑ Yohanan, Friedmann (2003). Morgan, David (ed.). Tolerance and Coercion in Islam: Interfaith Relations in the Muslim tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-82703-4. OCLC 57256339.
  21. ↑ van Natta Jr., Don (17 September 2003). "Flow of Saudis' Cash to Hamas Is Scrutinized". The New York Times. Retrieved 11 August 2019.
  22. ↑ Jackson, Richard (2007). "Constructing Enemies: 'Islamic Terrorism' in Political and Academic Discourse". Government and Opposition. 42 (3): 394–426. doi:10.1111/j.1477-7053.2007.00229.x. ISSN 0017-257X. S2CID 143513477.
  23. ↑ Shmuel Bar. "The Religious Sources of Islamic Terrorism". Hoover Institution.
  24. ↑ Anthony H. Cordesman (17 October 2017). "Islam and the Patterns in Terrorism and Violent Extremism". Center for Strategic and International Studies.
  25. ↑ Bar, Shmuel (1 June 2004). "The Religious Sources of Islamic Terrorism". Hoover Institute. Retrieved 12 August 2019.
  26. ↑ "Islam has no connection with terrorism: Imran Khan". Global Village Space. 2 June 2019. Retrieved 8 August 2019.
  27. ↑ "Islam has no connection with terrorism: Prof. Bruce Lawrence". Siasat Daily. 22 February 2013. Retrieved 8 August 2019.
  28. ↑ Diaz, Daniella (29 September 2016). "Obama: Why I won't say 'Islamic terrorism'". CNN. Retrieved 11 August 2019.
  29. ↑ Courty, Audrey; Rane, Halim (1 October 2018). "Why the media needs to be more responsible for how it links Islam and Islamist terrorism". The Conversation. Retrieved 8 August 2019.
  30. ↑ "Terminology to Define the Terrorists: Recommendations from American Muslims" (PDF). U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Retrieved 15 July 2021.
  31. ↑ Ibn Warraq (2017). "9 The First Terrorists? Kharijites, Violence, and the Demand for the Purification of Islam of Its Unpious Accretions". The Islam in Islamic Terrorism : the importance of Beliefs, Ideas, and Ideology (First ed.). London, UK: New English Review Press. ISBN 978-1-943003-08-2.
  32. 1 2 Ibn Warraq (2017). The Islam in Islamic Terrorism : the importance of Beliefs, Ideas, and Ideology (First ed.). London, UK: New English Review Press. p. 18. ISBN 978-1-943003-08-2.
  33. ↑ Mohamad Jebara More Mohamad Jebara. "Imam Mohamad Jebara: Fruits of the tree of extremism". Ottawa Citizen.
  34. ↑ KHAN, SHEEMA (29 September 2014). "Another battle with Islam's 'true believers'". The Globe and Mail.
  35. 1 2 3 4 5 John Moore. "The Evolution of Islamic Terrorism: an Overview". PBS Frontline.
  36. ↑ Baba, Noor Ahmad (17 November 1992). "Nasser's Pan-Arab Radicalism and the Saudi Drive for Islamic Solidarity : A Response for Security". India Quarterly. 48 (1/2): 1–22. doi:10.1177/097492849204800101. JSTOR 45072440. S2CID 157470830.
  37. ↑ "AP Analysis: Climactic events in 1979 shaped modern Mideast". Associated Press News. 19 January 2019.
  38. ↑ Hoffman, Bruce (1999). "Two: Terrorism Trends and Prospects". Countering the New Terrorism (PDF). Rand Corporation. p. V. Retrieved 12 August 2019.
  39. ↑ "18 Jahre Terror". Die Welt. 28 April 2019. Retrieved 18 June 2019.
  40. ↑ "Næsten 150.000 har mistet livet i islamistiske angreb". jyllands-posten.dk. 1 May 2019. Retrieved 4 May 2019.
  41. ↑ "Næsten 150.000 har mistet livet i islamistiske angreb". kristeligt-dagblad.dk. 1 May 2019. Retrieved 18 June 2019.
  42. ↑ Porterfield, Carlie (25 November 2020). "Terrorism Deaths Decline Worldwide, But Far-Right Attacks Are On The Rise". Forbes. Retrieved 5 May 2021.
  43. 1 2 3 4 5 Eikmeier, Dale C. (Spring 2007). "Qutbism: An Ideology of Islamic-Fascism". Parameters. XXXVII (1): 85–98. Archived from the original on 9 June 2007.
  44. 1 2 Nawaz, Maajid; Hasan, Mehdi (4 July 2012). "Age of extremes: Mehdi Hasan and Maajid Nawaz debate". New Statesman. London: Wayback Machine. Archived from the original on 14 July 2012. Retrieved 13 January 2022.
  45. ↑ Hasan, Mehdi (29 March 2017). "You Shouldn't Blame Islam for Terrorism. Religion Isn't a Crucial Factor in Attacks". The Intercept. Retrieved 12 August 2019.
  46. 1 2 PAYNE, JAMES L. (2008). "What Do the Terrorists Want?" (PDF). Independent Review. Retrieved 8 August 2019.
  47. ↑ Daniel Benjamin; Steven Simon (2002). The Age of Sacred Terror. Random House. p. 40. ISBN 978-0-7567-6751-8.
  48. ↑ "Orthodox Islam and Violence 'Linked' Says Top Muslim Scholar". Time. Retrieved 27 December 2017. Western politicians should stop pretending that extremism and terrorism have nothing to do with Islam. There is a clear relationship between fundamentalism, terrorism, and the basic assumptions of Islamic orthodoxy. So long as we lack consensus regarding this matter, we cannot gain victory over fundamentalist violence within Islam. Radical Islamic movements are nothing new. They've appeared again and again throughout our own history in Indonesia. The West must stop ascribing any and all discussion of these issues to "Islamophobia." Or do people want to accuse me—an Islamic scholar—of being an Islamophobe too?
  49. ↑ "F.A.Z. exklusiv: Terrorismus und Islam hängen zusammen". Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (in German). 18 August 2017. ISSN 0174-4909. Retrieved 27 December 2017.
  50. ↑ WOOD, GRAEME (March 2015). "What ISIS Really Wants". The Atlantic. Retrieved 9 August 2019.
  51. ↑ Bar, Shmuel, "The Religious Sources of Islamic Terrorism", Policy Review, June/July 2004
  52. 1 2 Travis, Alan (20 August 2008). "MI5 report challenges views on terrorism in Britain". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 6 November 2015.
  53. ↑ "Iran spends $7 billion per year on terror network".
  54. ↑ "Exclusive: IRGC Officers Pocket Millions Intended As Salaries For Proxies". Iran International. 16 November 2023.
  55. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Roy, Olivier (18 December 2015). "What is the driving force behind jihadist terrorism?". Inside Story. ISSN 1837-0497. Retrieved 25 February 2016.
  56. ↑ Egger, Clara; Magni-Berton, Raul (2021). "The Role of Islamist Ideology in Shaping Muslims Believers' Attitudes toward Terrorism: Evidence from Europe". Studies in Conflict & Terrorism. 44 (7): 581–604. doi:10.1080/1057610X.2019.1571696.
  57. 1 2 3 Jacobsen, Scott Douglas (12 March 2019). "Is There a Link between Islam and Terrorism?". good men project. Retrieved 9 August 2019.
  58. 1 2 Choksy, Carol E. B.; Jamsheed K. Choksy (May–June 2015). "The Saudi Connection: Wahhabism and Global Jihad". World Affairs. Archived from the original on 9 May 2015.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  59. ↑ Ayoob, Muhammad (2008). The Many Faces of Political Islam: Religion and Politics in the Muslim World. University of Michigan Press. p. 58. doi:10.3998/mpub.189346. hdl:10356/90575. ISBN 978-0-472-09971-9. JSTOR 10.3998/mpub.189346. Retrieved 31 May 2021..
  60. ↑ Moussalli, Ahmad. "Wahhabism, Salafism and Islamism: Who is the Enemy?" A Conflict Forum Monograph (January 2009). 10.
  61. ↑ International Crisis Group. "Understanding Islamism." Middle East Report, no. 37 (2 March 2005). 2.
  62. ↑ Livesey, Bruce (25 January 2005). "The Salafist Movement". PBS. Archived from the original on 28 June 2011.
  63. 1 2 Kepel, Jihad, 2002, p. 32
  64. ↑ Lawrence Wright (2006). The Looming Tower. Knopf. ISBN 0-375-41486-X. p.37
  65. ↑ Manne, Robert (2017). The Mind of the Islamic State. NY: Prometheist Books. pp. 17–22. ISBN 978-1-63388-371-0. Retrieved 9 March 2021.
  66. ↑ Shultz, Richard (2008). Global Insurgency Strategy and the Salafi Jihad Movement. Colorado: USAF Institute for National Security Studies. Retrieved 9 March 2021.
  67. ↑ The Age of Sacred Terror by Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, New York : Random House, c2002, p.63
  68. ↑ Qutb, Milestones, p.89, 9
  69. ↑ Qutb, Milestones, p.55
  70. ↑ Qutb, Milestones, p.59
  71. ↑ Qutb, Milestones, p.71
  72. ↑ Qutb, Milestones, p.69
  73. ↑ Qutb, Milestones, p.65
  74. ↑ Qutb, Milestones, p.139, 136
  75. ↑ Qutb, Milestones, p.116
  76. ↑ Qutb, Milestones, p.7, 139
  77. ↑ Qutb, Milestones, p.110-111
  78. 1 2 3 Kepel, Gilles; Jihad: the Trail of Political Islam, London: I.B. Tauris, 2002, page 31
  79. 1 2 Sayyid Qutb, Milestones, p.55
  80. ↑ Sayyid Qutb, Milestones, p.12
  81. ↑ Sayyid Qutb, Milestones, p.101-103
  82. ↑ Kepel, Gilles, The Prophet and the Pharaoh, (2003), p.194-197
  83. 1 2 Faraj, al-Farida al-gha'iba, (Amman, n.d.), p.28, 26; trans. Johannes Jansen, The Neglected Duty, (New York, 1986)
  84. 1 2 Cook, David, Understanding Jihad by David Cook, University of California Press, 2005 p.192, 190
  85. ↑ Kepel, Gilles, The Prophet and the Pharaoh, (2003), p.197
  86. ↑ Naval Postgraduate Naval Postgraduate School (19 March 2015). Wahhabism: Is It a Factor in the Spread of Global Terrorism?. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. ISBN 978-1-5089-3613-8.
  87. ↑ Charles Allen (1 March 2009). God's Terrorists: The Wahhabi Cult and the Hidden Roots of Modern Jihad. Da Capo Press, Incorporated. ISBN 978-0-7867-3300-2.
  88. ↑ Natana J. DeLong-Bas (2007). Wahhabi Islam: From Revival and Reform to Global Jihad. I.B.Tauris. pp. 4–. ISBN 978-1-84511-322-3.
  89. ↑ "How Saudi Wahhabism Is the Fountainhead of Islamist Terrorism". HuffPost. 20 January 2015.
  90. ↑ "Saudi Arabia. Wahhabi Theology". Wayback Machine. Library of Congress Country Studies. 1992. Archived from the original on 7 November 2004. Retrieved 13 January 2022.
  91. ↑ House, Karen Elliott (2012). On Saudi Arabia : Its People, past, Religion, Fault Lines and Future. Knopf. p. 27. Not only is the Saudi monarch effectively the religious primate, but the puritanical Wahhabi sect of Islam that he represents instructs Muslims to be obedient and submissive to their ruler, however imperfect, in pursuit of a perfect life in paradise. Only if a ruler directly countermands the commandments of Allah should devout Muslims even consider disobeying. 'O you who have believed, obey Allah and obey the Messenger and those in authority among you. [surah 4:59]'
  92. ↑ Dillon, Michael R. (September 2009). Wahhabism: Is It a Factor in the Spread of Global Terrorism? (PDF). Naval Post Graduate School. p. 72. Archived (PDF) from the original on 18 May 2021. Retrieved 18 May 2021.
  93. ↑ Commins, David (2009). The Wahhabi Mission and Saudi Arabia (PDF). I.B.Tauris. p. 141. [MB founder Hasan al-Banna] shared with the Wahhabis a strong revulsion against western influences and unwavering confidence that Islam is both the true religion and a sufficient foundation for conducting worldly affairs ... More generally, Banna's [had a] keen desire for Muslim unity to ward off western imperialism led him to espouse an inclusive definition of the community of believers. ... he would urge his followers, 'Let us cooperate in those things on which we can agree and be lenient in those on which we cannot.' ... A salient element in Banna's notion of Islam as a total way of life came from the idea that the Muslim world was backward and the corollary that the state is responsible for guaranteeing decent living conditions for its citizens.
  94. ↑ Kepel, Gilles (2006). Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam. I.B. Tauris. p. 51. ISBN 978-1-84511-257-8. Well before the full emergence of Islamism in the 1970s, a growing constituency nicknamed 'petro-Islam' included Wahhabi ulemas and Islamist intellectuals and promoted strict implementation of the sharia in the political, moral and cultural spheres; this proto-movement had few social concerns and even fewer revolutionary ones.
  95. ↑ Roy, Olivier (1994). The Failure of Political Islam. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 117. ISBN 978-0-674-29141-6. Retrieved 2 April 2015 – via Internet Archive. The Muslim Brothers agreed not to operate in Saudi Arabia itself, but served as a relay for contacts with foreign Islamist movements. The MBs also used as a relay in South Asia movements long established on an indigenous basis (Jamaat-i Islami). Thus the MB played an essential role in the choice of organisations and individuals likely to receive Saudi subsidies. On a doctrinal level, the differences are certainly significant between the MBs and the Wahhabis, but their common references to Hanbalism ... their rejection of the division into juridical schools, and their virulent opposition to Shiism and popular religious practices (the cult of 'saints') furnished them with the common themes of a reformist and puritanical preaching. This alliance carried in its wake older fundamentalist movements, non-Wahhabi but with strong local roots, such as the Pakistani Ahl-i Hadith or the Ikhwan of continental China.
  96. ↑ Kepel, Gilles (2004). The War for Muslim Minds: Islam and the West. Harvard University Press. p. 156. ISBN 978-0-674-01575-3. Retrieved 4 April 2015. In the melting pot of Arabia during the 1960s, local clerics trained in the Wahhabite tradition joined with activists and militants affiliated with the Muslims Brothers who had been exiled from the neighboring countries of Egypt, Syria and Iraq ... The phenomenon of Osama bin Laden and his associates cannot be understood outside this hybrid tradition.
  97. ↑ Al-Rasheed, Madawi (2010). A History of Saudi Arabia. Cambridge University Press. p. 233. ISBN 978-0-521-74754-7.
  98. ↑ Cordesman, Anthony H. (31 December 2002). Saudi Arabia Enters The 21st Century: IV. Opposition and Islamic Extremism Final Review (PDF). CSIS. pp. 6–7. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 26 November 2015.
  99. ↑ The Taliban were responsible for 4,990 terrorist deaths in 2019, according to the Global Terrorism Index 2020, an 18 per cent decrease from 2018. "Global Terrorism Index 2020" (PDF). Vision of Humanity. Institute for Economics & Peace. p. 15. Retrieved 18 May 2021.
  100. ↑ LICHTBLAU, ERIC (23 June 2009). "Documents Back Saudi Link to Extremists". The New York Times. Retrieved 17 August 2014. The new documents, provided to The New York Times by the lawyers, are among several hundred thousand pages of investigative material obtained by the Sept. 11 families and their insurers as part of a long-running civil lawsuit seeking to hold Saudi Arabia and its royal family liable for financing Al Qaeda.
  101. ↑ "Crown prince says Saudis want return to moderate Islam". BBC. 25 October 2017. Retrieved 18 May 2021.
  102. ↑ House, Karen Elliott (2012). On Saudi Arabia: Its People, Past, Religion, Fault Lines and Future. Knopf. p. 234. ISBN 978-0-307-47328-8. To this day, the regime funds numerous international organizations to spread fundamentalist Islam, including the Muslim World League, the World Assembly of Muslim Youth, the International Islamic Relief Organization, and various royal charities such as the Popular Committee for Assisting the Palestinian Muhahedeen, led by Prince Salman bin Abdul-Aziz, now minister of defense, who often is touted as a potential future king [and who became king in 2015]. Supporting da'wah, which literally means 'making an invitation' to Islam, is a religious requirement that Saudi rulers feel they cannot abandon without losing their domestic legitimacy as protectors and propagators of Islam. Yet in the wake of 9/11, American anger at the kingdom led the U.S. government to demand controls on Saudi largesse to Islamic groups that funded terrorism.
  103. ↑ Lacey, Robert (2009). Inside the Kingdom: Kings, Clerics, Modernists, Terrorists, and the Struggle for Saudi Arabia. Viking. p. 95. ISBN 978-0-670-02118-5. The Kingdom's 70 or so embassies around the world already featured cultural, educational, and military attaches, along with consular officers who organized visas for the hajj. Now they were joined by religious attaches, whose job was to get new mosques built in their countries and to persuade existing mosques to propagate the dawah wahhabiya.
  104. ↑ Abou El Fadl, Khaled (2005). The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam from the Extremists. Harper San Francisco. p. 74. ISBN 978-0-06-056339-4. A wide range of institutions, whether schools, book publishers, magazines, newspapers, or even governments, as well as individuals, such as imams, teachers, or writers, learned to shape their behavior, speech, and thought in such a way as to incur and benefit from Saudi largesse. In many parts of the Muslim world, the wrong type of speech or conduct (such as failing to veil or advocate the veil) meant the denial of Saudi largesse or the denial of the possibility of attaining Saudi largesse, and in numerous contexts this meant the difference between enjoying a decent standard of living or living in abject poverty.
  105. ↑ Ibrahim, Youssef Michel (11 August 2002). "The Mideast Threat That's Hard to Define". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 4 September 2014. Retrieved 21 August 2014. ... money that brought Wahabis power throughout the Arab world and financed networks of fundamentalist schools from Sudan to northern Pakistan.
  106. ↑ Gold, Dore (2003). Hatred's Kingdom: How Saudi Arabia Supports the New Global Terrorism. Regnery. p. 126.
  107. ↑ Lynch III, Thomas F. (29 December 2008). "Sunni and Shi'a Terrorism Differences that Matter" (PDF). gsmcneal.com. Combating Terrorism Center at West Point. p. 30. Retrieved 31 October 2014. Although Sunni‐extremist fervor dissipates the further one travels from the wellsprings of Cairo and Riyadh, Salafist (and very similar Wahhabi) teaching is prominently featured at thousands of worldwide schools funded by fundamentalist Sunni Muslim charities, especially those from Saudi Arabia and across the Arabian Peninsula.
  108. ↑ Malbouisson, Cofie D. (2007). Focus on Islamic issues. Nova Publishers. p. 26. ISBN 978-1-60021-204-8.
  109. ↑ Cordesman, Anthony H. (2002). Saudi Arabia Enters The 21st Century: IV. Opposition and Islamic Extremism Final Review (PDF). Center for Strategic and International Studies. pp. 17–18. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 31 October 2015. Many aspects of the Saudi curriculum were not fully modernized after the 1960s. Some Saudi textbooks taught Islamic tolerance while others condemned Jews and Christians. Anti-Christian and anti-Jewish passages remained in grade school textbooks that use rhetoric that were little more than hate literature. The same was true of more sophisticated books issued by the Saudi Ministry of Islamic Practices. Even the English-language Korans available in the hotels in the Kingdom added parenthetical passages condemning Christians and Jews that were not in any English language editions of the Koran outside Saudi Arabia.
  110. ↑ Husain, Ed (2007). The Islamist: Why I Joined Radical Islam in Britain, What I Saw Inside and Why I Left. Penguin. p. 250. My Saudi students gave me some of their core texts from university classes. They complained that regardless of their subject of study, they were compelled to study 'Thaqafah Islamiyyah' (Islamic Culture) ... These books were published in 2003 (after a Saudi promise in a post-9/11 world to alter their textbooks) and were used in classrooms across the country in 2005. I read these texts very closely: entire pages were devoted to explaining to undergraduates that all forms of Islam except Wahhabism were deviation. There were prolonged denunciations of nationalism, communism, the West, free mixing of the sexes, observing birthdays, even Mother's Day
  111. ↑ Saudi Arabia's Curriculum of Intolerance (PDF). Center for Religious Freedom of Freedom House with the Institute for Gulf Affairs. 2006. p. 9. Retrieved 10 November 2015.
  112. ↑ Kepel, Gilles (2004). The War for Muslim Minds. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. p. 158. ISBN 978-0-674-01575-3. Starting in the 1950s, religious institutions in Saudi Arabia published and disseminated new editions of Ibn Taymiyya's works for free throughout the world, financed by petroleum royalties. These works have been cited widely: by Abd al-Salam Faraj, the spokesperson for the group that assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981; in GIA tracts calling for the massacre of 'infidels'during the Algerian civil war in the 1990s; and today on Internet sites exhorting Muslim women in the west to wear veils as a religious obligation.
  113. ↑ Rashid, Ahmed (2000). Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil, and Fundamentalism in Central Asia. London: I.B. Tauris. p. 130.
  114. ↑ Jahangir, Junaid (18 January 2017). "Freedom Of Speech Does Not Mean Freedom To Hate". HuffPost. Retrieved 6 April 2017. Islamic grand teacher, Javed Ahmad Ghamidi, who is in self-imposed exile due to death threats, has clearly stated that the root cause of Muslim terrorism is religious ideology.
  115. ↑ Kadri, Sadakat (2012). Heaven on Earth: A Journey Through Shari'a Law from the Deserts of Ancient Arabia ... macmillan. p. 168. ISBN 978-0-09-952327-7.
  116. ↑ Noah Feldman, "Islam, Terror and the Second Nuclear Age", The New York Times, October 29, 2006
  117. ↑ Weber, Joseph (September 2020). "13. The Glory of the Shahid". Divided Loyalties: Young Somali Americans and the Lure of Extremism. MSU Press. ISBN 978-1-62895-407-4. Retrieved 15 July 2021.
  118. ↑ Blair, David (24 September 2001). "The Americans love Pepsi-Cola, we love death". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 11 January 2022. Retrieved 15 July 2021.
  119. ↑ Figueira, Daurius (November 2004). The Al Qaeda Discourse of the Greater Kufr. iUniverse. ISBN 978-0-595-33613-5. Retrieved 15 July 2021.
  120. ↑ bin Laden, Osama. "Declaration of Jihad Against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holiest Sites. (Expel the infidels from the Arab Peninsula). A message from Usamah Bin Muhammad Bin Ladin" (PDF). Combating Terrorism Center. p. (Document page 3). Retrieved 15 July 2021.
  121. ↑ [source: testimony of Jamal al-Fadl, U.S. v. Usama bin Laden, et.al., quoted in Looming Tower, by Lawrence Wright, NY, Knopf, 2006, 174-5
  122. ↑ Najji, Management of Savagery, p.76; quoted in ...
  123. ↑ Gerges, Fawaz A. (18 March 2016). "The World According to ISIS". Foreign Policy Journal. Retrieved 17 August 2019.
  124. ↑ POWELL, CALEB (December 2017). "Leaving The Faith, THE SUN INTERVIEW, Ali Rizvi". The Sun Magazine. Retrieved 26 August 2019.
  125. ↑ Qutb, Sayyid (1982). Milestones. Iowa: Mother Mosque Foundation. pp. 159–160. ISBN 0-911119-42-6. Enemies of the Believers may wish to change this struggle into an economic or political ... struggle so that the Believers become confused concerning the true nature of the struggle and the flame of belief in their hearts becomes extinguished ... We see an example of this today in the attempts of Christendom to try to deceive us by distorting history and saying that the Crusades were a form of imperialism. The truth of the matter is that the latter-day imperialism is but a mask for the crusading spirit, since it is not possible for it to appear in its true form, as it was possible in the Middle Ages.
  126. 1 2 Manningham-Buller, Eliza (10 November 2006). "Transcript of speech: The International Terrorist Threat to the UK". ICJS Research. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 4 August 2016.
  127. ↑ KNAPP, MICHAEL G. (Spring 2003). "The Concept and Practice of Jihad in Islam" (PDF). Parameters. Wayback Machine: 90. Archived from the original (PDF) on 17 May 2017. Retrieved 14 January 2022.
  128. ↑ Kepel, Gilles, The Prophet and the Pharaoh, (2003), p.208-209
  129. ↑ Abou El Fadl, Khaled (2005). The Great Theft: Wrestling Islam from the Extremists. Harper San Francisco. pp. 49, 50. Significantly, Abd al-Wahhab also insisted that it was a sign of spiritual weakness for Muslims to care for or be interested in non-Muslim beliefs or practices. Pursuant to a doctrine known as al-wala' wa al-bara' (literally, the doctrine of loyalty and disassociation), Abd al-Wahhab argued that it was imperative for Muslims not to befriend, ally themselves with, or imitate non-Muslims or heretical Muslims. Furthermore, this enmity and hostility of Muslims toward non-Muslims and heretical had to be visible and unequivocal. For example, by not being the first to greet a non-Muslim, orby ever wishing a non-Muslim peace.
  130. 1 2 Gilliam, Joshua (15 February 2018). "Why They Hate Us An Examination of al-wala' wa-l-bara' in Salafi-Jihadist Ideology". Military Review. Retrieved 1 June 2021.
  131. ↑ Blinder, Alan; Robles, Frances; Pèrez-Peña, Richard (16 June 2016). "Omar Mateen Posted to Facebook Amid Orlando Attack, Lawmaker Says". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 18 June 2016. Retrieved 18 June 2016.
  132. ↑ "Why We Hate You & Why We Fight You" (PDF). Dabiq. No. 15. July 2016. p. 30. Retrieved 2 February 2018.
  133. ↑ Full text: bin Laden's 'letter to America' accessed 24 May 2007
  134. ↑ Abul Ala Mawdudi (1 January 1994). "Chapter one. The Problem of the Apostate's Execution from a Legal Perspective". The Punishment of the Apostate According to Islamic Law. The Voice of the Martyrs.
  135. ↑ Schirrmacher, Christine (2020). "Leaving Islam". In Enstedt, Daniel; Larsson, Göran; Mantsinen, Teemu T. (eds.). Handbook of Leaving Religion (PDF). Brill. p. 85. Retrieved 6 January 2021.
  136. ↑ Lewis, Bernard (1995). The Middle East: a Brief History of the Last 2000 Years. Touchstone. p. 229. ISBN 978-0-684-83280-7.
  137. ↑ Halverson, Jeffry R. (2010). Theology and Creed in Sunni Islam: The Muslim Brotherhood, Ash'arism, and Political Sunnism. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 48–49. ISBN 978-0-230-10658-1.
  138. ↑ Esposito, John L.; Emad El-Din Shahin, eds. (2013). "Islam and power in Saudi Arabia". The Oxford Handbook of Islam and Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 412–413. ISBN 978-0-19-539589-1.
  139. 1 2 3 "Takfiri". Oxford Islamic Studies Online. Retrieved 18 December 2020.
  140. ↑ Oliveti, Vincenzo; Terror's Source: the Ideology of Wahhabi-Salafism and its Consequences, Birmingham: Amadeus Books, 2002
  141. ↑ "Transcript | Al Qaeda's New Front | FRONTLINE". PBS.
  142. ↑ Mili, Hayder (29 June 2006). "Jihad Without Rules: The Evolution of al-Takfir wa al-Hijra". Terrorism Monitor. 4 (13). Retrieved 18 December 2015.
  143. ↑ Wright, Robin Sacred Rage, 1985, p.181
  144. ↑ Rabasa, Angel (2009). Radical Islam in East Africa. Rand Corporation. p. 70. ISBN 978-0-8330-4679-6.
  145. ↑ Islamist Terrorism and Democracy in the Middle East By Katerina Dalacoura, p.113
  146. ↑ Murphy, Caryle Passion for Islam : Shaping the Modern Middle East: the Egyptian Experience, Scribner, 2002, pp. 82-3
  147. ↑ Kepel, Jihad, 2002: p.272-3
  148. ↑ El Watan, 21 January (quoted in Willis 1996)
  149. ↑ Nesroullah Yous; Salima Mellah (2000). Qui a tué a Bentalha?. La Découverte, Paris. ISBN 978-2-7071-3332-8.
  150. ↑ Entre menace, censure et liberté: La presse privé algérienne se bat pour survivre, 31 March 1998
  151. ↑ Ajami, Fouad (27 January 2010). "The Furrows of Algeria". New Republic. Retrieved 4 June 2015.
  152. ↑ "THE MASSACRE IN MAZAR-I SHARIF". Human Rights Watch. 1 November 1998. Retrieved 25 December 2020.
  153. 1 2 Kadivar, Jamileh (18 May 2020). "Exploring Takfir, Its Origins and Contemporary Use: The Case of Takfiri Approach in Daesh's Media". Contemporary Review of the Middle East. 7 (3): 259–285. doi:10.1177/2347798920921706. S2CID 219460446.
  154. ↑ Pillalamarri, Akhilesh (29 January 2016). "Revealed: Why ISIS Hates the Taliban". The Diplomat. Retrieved 26 December 2020.
  155. 1 2 Bunzel, Cole (February 2019). "Ideological Infighting in the Islamic State". Perspectives on Terrorism. 13 (1): 12–21. JSTOR 26590504. Retrieved 17 December 2020.
  156. ↑ Lewis, Bernard, The Middle East: A Brief History of the Last 2000 Years, pp. 233–34
  157. ↑ Lewis, Bernard, The Political Language of Islam, p. 73
  158. ↑ Wael B. Hallaq (2009). Sharī'a: Theory, Practice, Transformations. Cambridge University Press. pp. 338–39. ISBN 978-1-107-39412-4.
  159. ↑ Wiktorowicz, Quintan; Kaltner, John (Summer 2003). "Killing in the Name of Islam: Al-Qaeda's Justification for September 11" (PDF). Middle East Policy. X (2): 86. Retrieved 12 August 2019.
  160. ↑ Wiktorowicz, Quintan; Kaltner, John (Summer 2003). "Killing in the Name of Islam: Al-Qaeda's Justification for September 11" (PDF). Middle East Policy. X (2): 85–90. Retrieved 12 August 2019.
  161. 1 2 Peters, Rudolph; Cook, David (2014). "Jihād". The Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam and Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-973935-6.
  162. 1 2 McCoy, Terrence (12 August 2014). "The calculated madness of the Islamic State's horrifying brutality". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2 December 2015.
  163. ↑ Crooke, Alastair (30 August 2014). "The ISIS' 'Management of Savagery' in Iraq". The World Post. Retrieved 2 December 2015.
  164. ↑ Hassan, Hassan (8 February 2015). "Isis has reached new depths of depravity. But there is a brutal logic behind it". The Guardian. Retrieved 10 February 2015.
  165. ↑ McCoy, Terrence (12 August 2014). "The calculated madness of the Islamic State's horrifying brutality". The Washington Post. Retrieved 1 September 2014.
     • Crooke, Alastair (30 June 2014). "The ISIS' 'Management of Savagery' in Iraq". HuffPost.
     • Hassan, Hassan (8 February 2015). "Isis has reached new depths of depravity. But there is a brutal logic behind it". The Guardian.
  166. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Ajjoub, Orwa (2021). The Development of the Theological and Political Aspects of Jihadi-Salafism (PDF). Lund: Swedish South Asian Studies Network (SASNET) at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Lund University. pp. 1–28. ISBN 978-91-7895-772-9. Archived (PDF) from the original on 10 February 2021. Retrieved 6 July 2021.
  167. ↑ Wright, Lawrence (16 June 2014). "ISIS's Savage Strategy in Iraq". The New Yorker. Retrieved 1 September 2014.
  168. ↑ NEGUS, STEVE (1 April 2015). "'ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror,' and More". The New York Times. Retrieved 3 December 2015.
  169. ↑ Atran, Scott; Hamid, Nafees (16 November 2015). "Paris: The War ISIS Wants". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved 20 November 2015.
  170. ↑ Lee, Ian; Hanna, Jason (12 August 2015). "Croatian ISIS captive reportedly beheaded". CNN. Retrieved 12 August 2015.
  171. 1 2 3 4 Kadri, Sadakat (2012). Heaven on Earth: A Journey Through Shari'a Law from the Deserts of Ancient Arabia. London: Macmillan Publishers. pp. 172–175. ISBN 978-0-09-952327-7.
  172. 1 2 Gorka, Sebastian (3 October 2009). "Understanding History's Seven Stages of Jihad". Combating Terrorism Center. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 1 November 2015.
  173. ↑ Lewis, Bernard (1988). The Political Language of Islam. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 72. ISBN 0-226-47693-6 – via Internet Archive.
  174. ↑ Khadduri, Majid (1955). "5. Doctrine of Jihad" (PDF). War and Peace in the Law of Islam. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 60. Archived from the original (PDF) on 28 November 2015. Retrieved 26 October 2015. [Unlike the five pillars of Islam, jihad was to be enforced by the state.] ... 'unless the Muslim community is subjected to a sudden attack and therefore all believers, including women and children are under the obligation to fight—[jihad of the sword] is regarded by all jurists, with almost no exception, as a collective obligation of the whole Muslim community,' meaning that 'if the duty is fulfilled by a part of the community it ceases to be obligatory on others'.
  175. 1 2 Kadri, Sadakat (2012). Heaven on Earth: A Journey Through Shari'a Law from the Deserts of Ancient Arabia. London: Macmillan Publishers. pp. 150–151. ISBN 978-0-09-952327-7.
  176. ↑ Lewis, Bernard (2003) [1967]. The Assassins, a radical sect in Islam. Basic Books. p. xi–xii. ISBN 978-0-7867-2455-0. Retrieved 13 October 2015.
  177. ↑ Edwards, Richard; Zuhur, Sherifa (12 May 2008). The Encyclopedia of the Arab-Israeli Conflict: A Political, Social, and. ABC-CLIO. p. 553. ISBN 978-1-85109-842-2.
  178. 1 2 3 Bunzel, Cole (18 February 2016). "The Kingdom and the Caliphate: Duel of the Islamic States" (PDF). Carnegie Papers. Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 265: 1–43. Archived (PDF) from the original on 28 March 2016. Retrieved 5 July 2021.
  179. 1 2 3 4 5 al-Saud, Abdullah K.; Winter, Charlie (4 December 2016). "Abu Abdullah al-Muhajir: The Obscure Theologian Who Shaped ISIS". The Atlantic. Washington, D.C. Archived from the original on 12 June 2018. Retrieved 28 September 2020.
  180. 1 2 3 4 Townsend, Mark (13 May 2018). "The core Isis manual that twisted Islam to legitimise barbarity". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on 9 June 2018. Retrieved 5 July 2021.
  181. 1 2 Stout, Chris E. (2018) [2017]. "The Psychology of Terrorism". Terrorism, Political Violence, and Extremism: New Psychology to Understand, Face, and Defuse the Threat. Santa Barbara, California: Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 5–6. ISBN 978-1-4408-5192-6. OCLC 994829038.
  182. ↑ Stern, Jessica (November 2001). "John Harvard's Journal: Talking about Terrorism". Harvard Magazine (November–December 2001). Retrieved 31 August 2019.
  183. ↑ Sachs, Susan (14 October 2001). "A NATION CHALLENGED: WHO SEETHES, AND WHY; Despair Beneath the Arab World's Rage". The New York Times. Retrieved 31 August 2019.
  184. ↑ bin Laden, Osama. "Full text: bin Laden's 'letter to America'". The Guardian. Retrieved 31 August 2019.
  185. 1 2 Swanson, Elmer. "Muslims are starving to death and the United States is stealing their oil". Gems of Islamism. Retrieved 31 August 2019.
  186. ↑ bin Laden in an interview with Hamid Mir, Pakistan, 18 March 1997. Quoted on p.230 of The New Jackals : Ramzi Yousef, Osama Bin Laden and the Future of Terrorism by Simon Reeve, 1999.
  187. ↑ "Wheat Prices – 40 Year Historical Chart". Macrotrends. Retrieved 3 June 2021.
  188. ↑ Osama bin Laden interviewed by Tayser Allouni, Al Jazeera, 21 October 2001, in Messages to the World: the Statements of Osama bin Laden, ed. Bruce Lawrence, translated by James Howarth (London, Verso, 2005), 112
  189. ↑ Krueger, Alan B.; Maleckova, Jitka (24 June 2002). "Does Poverty Cause Terrorism" (PDF). The New Republic. Retrieved 31 August 2019.
  190. ↑ Abadie, Alberto (September 2005). "Poverty, Political Freedom, and the Roots of Terrorism". American Economic Review. (NBER Working Paper No. 10859. 95 (4): 50–56. Retrieved 31 August 2019.
  191. ↑ Lieber, Robert James (2005). The American Era: Power and Strategy for the 21st Century. Cambridge University Press. p. 118. ISBN 978-0-521-85737-6. Retrieved 31 August 2019.
  192. ↑ Andrew Whitehead, "Does Poverty Cause Terrorism?", Homeland Security Policy Institute, 21 August 2007
  193. 1 2 Rees, John (7 January 2015). "What you need to know about terrorism and its causes: a graphic account". Wayback Machine. stopwar.org.uk. Archived from the original on 11 January 2015. Retrieved 14 January 2022.
  194. ↑ For example, according to Pape, from 1980 to 2003 suicide attacks amounted to only 3% of all terrorist attacks, but accounted for 48% of total deaths due to terrorism—this excluding 9/11 attacks, from Pape, Dying to Win, (2005), p. 28
  195. ↑ McConnell, Scott (2005). "The Logic of Suicide Terrorism". The American Conservative magazine. The American Conservative. Archived from the original on 22 June 2006. Retrieved 25 June 2006.
  196. 1 2 "Suicide Terrorism in the Middle East: Origins and Response". Washingtoninstitute.org. Archived from the original on 12 January 2009. Retrieved 25 April 2010.
  197. ↑ Scheuer (2004), p. 9
    "The focused and lethal threat posed to U.S. national security arises not from Muslims being offended by what America is, but rather from their plausible perception that the things they most love and value—God, Islam, their brethren, and Muslim lands—are being attacked by America."
  198. ↑ "US Support for Israel prompted 9/11". The Australian. Wayback Machine. Agence France-Presse. 14 September 2009. Archived from the original on 11 April 2014. Retrieved 14 January 2022.
  199. ↑ Mearsheimer, John J.; Walt, Stephen (2007). The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 978-0-374-17772-0.
  200. ↑ "Six shot, one killed at Seattle Jewish federation". Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Wayback Machine. 27 July 2006. Archived from the original on 8 March 2012. Retrieved 14 January 2022.
  201. ↑ Purdy, Matthew (25 February 1997). "The Gunman Premeditated The Attack, Officials Say". The New York Times.
  202. ↑ "Frontline: Al Qaeda's New Front: Interviews: Michael Scheuer". PBS. 25 January 2005. Retrieved 8 March 2008. Bin Laden has had success because he's focused on a limited number of U.S. foreign policies in the Muslim world, policies that are visible and are experienced by Muslims on a daily basis: our unqualified support for Israel; our ability to keep oil prices at a level that is more or less acceptable to Western consumers. Probably the most damaging of all is our 30-year support for police states across the Islamic world: the Al Sauds and the Egyptians under [Hosni] Mubarak and his predecessors; the Algerians; the Moroccans; the Kuwaitis. They're all police states.
  203. ↑ Scheuer (2004), pp. 11–13
  204. ↑ Harris, Sam; Nawaz, Maajid (2015). Islam and the Future of Tolerance: A Dialogue. Harvard University Press. p. 57. ISBN 978-0-674-08870-2. Retrieved 8 August 2019.
  205. 1 2 3 Rizvi, Ali A. (2016). The Atheist Muslim. NY: St. Martin's Press. pp. 88–93. ISBN 978-1-250-09444-5.
  206. ↑ Cally O'Brien, "Eriksonian Identity Theory in Counterterrorism" Journal of Strategic Security, v.3, n.3 (2010): 29
  207. 1 2 Seth J. Schwartz, Curtis S. Dunkel, and S. Waterman, "Terrorism: an Identity Theory Perspective", Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, v.32, n.6 (2009): 537-59
  208. ↑ Sageman (2004)
  209. ↑ Marc Sageman (11 September 2001). "Understanding Terror Networks". Upenn.edu. Retrieved 25 April 2010.
  210. 1 2 Burke, Jason (23 October 2010). "Talking to the Enemy by Scott Atran – [book] review". The Observer. Retrieved 19 October 2014.
  211. ↑ Atran, Scott (2006). "The Moral Logic and Growth of Suicide Terrorism". The Washington Quarterly, Center for Strategic and Int'l Studies, MIT. 29: 138, 144. Retrieved 26 August 2019.
  212. ↑ Harmon, Vanessa; Mujkic, Edin; Kaukinen, Catherine; Weir, Henriikka (2018). "Causes & Explanations of Suicide Terrorism: A Systematic Review". Homeland Security Affairs. NPS Center for Homeland Defense and Security. 25.
  213. ↑ Gibson, Kyle R. (2011). "The Roles of Operational Sex Ratio and Young-Old Ratio in Producing Suicide Attackers". University of Utah.
  214. ↑ Pape, Robert (2003). "The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism" (PDF). American Political Science Review. Cambridge University Press. 97 (3): 343–361. doi:10.1017/S000305540300073X. hdl:1811/31746. S2CID 1019730.
  215. ↑ "U.S. study draws portrait of Iraq bombers". USA Today. Gannett. 15 March 2008. Retrieved 27 February 2020.
  216. ↑ Hudson, Valerie M.; Thayer, Bradley (2010). "Sex and the Shaheed: Insights from the Life Sciences on Islamic Suicide Terrorism". International Security. MIT Press. 34 (4): 48–53. JSTOR 40784561.
  217. ↑ Atran, Scott (2003). "Genesis of Suicide Terrorism" (PDF). Science. American Association for the Advancement of Science. 299 (5612): 1534–1539. Bibcode:2003Sci...299.1534A. doi:10.1126/science.1078854. PMID 12624256. S2CID 12114032.
  218. ↑ Atran, Scott (2006). "The moral logic and growth of suicide terrorism" (PDF). The Washington Quarterly. Taylor & Francis. 29 (2): 127–147. doi:10.1162/wash.2006.29.2.127. S2CID 154382700.
  219. ↑ Pinker, Steven (2011). The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined. New York: Penguin Group. pp. 353–358. ISBN 978-0143122012.
  220. ↑ "Olivier Roy Interview (2007): Conversations with History". Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley. 3 May 2007. Archived from the original on 15 July 2010. Retrieved 25 April 2010.
  221. ↑ Wright, Loming Tower (2006), p. 304
  222. ↑ "Disabled Often Carry Out Afghan Suicide Missions". NPR.org. NPR. Retrieved 25 April 2010.
  223. ↑ Byman, Daniel; Christine Fair (July–August 2010). "The Case for Calling Them Nitwits". Atlantic Magazine. Archived from the original on 10 June 2010. Retrieved 8 July 2010.
  224. ↑ Bergen, Peter (15 June 2016). "Why Do Terrorists Commit Terrorism?". The New York Times. Retrieved 16 June 2016.
  225. ↑ Lewis, Bernard, 'Islam: The Religion and the People' (2009). pp. 53, 145–50
  226. ↑ Bukhari 50:891
  227. ↑ Quran (8:12)
  228. ↑ Bernard Lewis (27 September 2001). "Jihad vs. Crusade". Opinionjournal.com. Retrieved 4 August 2016.
  229. ↑ "Abdal-Hakim Murad, Bin Laden's Violence is a Heresy Against Islam". Islamfortoday.com. Archived from the original on 3 January 2010. Retrieved 25 April 2010.
  230. 1 2 Sells, Michael (8 August 2002). "Understanding, Not Indoctrination". The Washington Post. Internet Archive. Archived from the original on 27 October 2002. Retrieved 21 January 2022.
  231. ↑ Jane I. Smith (2005). "Islam and Christianity". Encyclopedia of Christianity. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-522393-4.
  232. ↑ Shasha, David (January 2002). "No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam". International Journal of Kurdish Studies. Internet Archive. Archived from the original on 11 June 2009. Retrieved 21 January 2022.
  233. ↑ Author of No god but God: The Origins, Evolution and Future of Islam to speak on campus Archived 24 July 2007 at the Wayback Machine. Stanford University press release. Published 20 October 2006. Retrieved 7 May 2009.
  234. ↑ 'No god but God': The War Within Islam (Book Review) |By Max Rodenbeck| nytimes.com| 29 May 2005
  235. ↑ "Dangerous and depraved: paedophiles unite with terrorists online – Times Online". 2 June 2010. Archived from the original on 2 June 2010. Retrieved 21 January 2022.
  236. ↑ Exclusive: Pornography found in bin Laden hideout: officials Archived 27 November 2015 at the Wayback Machine, "Reuters", 13 May 2011
  237. ↑ Goldberg, J.J. (9 November 2017). "The Islam-Terrorism Connection — It's Not What You Think". Forward. Retrieved 17 August 2019.
  238. 1 2 3 4 DRENNAN, SHANE (June 2008). "Constructing Takfir". Combating Terrorism Center. 1 (7). Retrieved 13 August 2019.
  239. ↑ Cambanis, Thanassis (3 October 2015). "Book Review. 'Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS' by Joby Warrick". The Boston Globe. Retrieved 29 October 2015.
  240. ↑ DeAngelis, Tori (November 2009). "Understanding terrorism". Monitor on Psychology. 40 (10). Retrieved 31 August 2019.
  241. ↑ Halliday, Fred: Islam and the Myth of Confrontation: Religion and Politics in the Middle East (New York: I.B. Tauris, 2003), 107
  242. ↑ "Statement of purpose". Almashriq.hiof.no. 20 March 1998. Retrieved 25 April 2010.
  243. ↑ "Hizbullah: Views and Concepts". Almashriq.hiof.no. 20 June 1997. Retrieved 25 April 2010.
  244. ↑ Hannah Stuart (2014). Marco Lombardi (ed.). Countering Radicalization and Violent Extremism Among Youth to Prevent Terrorism. IOS Press. pp. 74–76. ISBN 978-1-61499-469-5.
  245. ↑ "The Danger of Takfir (Excommunication): Exposing IS' Takfiri Ideology". css.ethz.ch. Center for Security Studies. Archived from the original on 26 August 2019. Retrieved 26 August 2019.
  246. ↑ "Open Letter to AL-Baghdadi". lettertobaghdadi. Archived from the original on 8 February 2015. Retrieved 26 August 2019.
  247. ↑ "Man of faiths: Preeminent religion scholar Huston Smith reflects on Judaism and Chasing the Divine". Jewish News Weekly of Northern California. Jweekly.com. 25 June 2009. Retrieved 25 April 2010.
  248. ↑ "Terrorism has no religion". 8 July 2013. Retrieved 25 August 2013.
  249. ↑ Jerome Taylor (3 March 2010). "Sheikh issues fatwa against all terrorists". The Independent. London. Retrieved 9 April 2010.
  250. ↑ "Top Islamic scholar issues 'absolute' fatwa against terror". National Post. 3 March 2010. Retrieved 25 April 2010.
  251. ↑ "Leading Iranian Cleric Calls on Regime to Avoid War With Israel". Haaretz. 2012. Retrieved 3 August 2016.
  252. ↑ "Interview Grand Ayatollah Yusef Saanei". PBS/Frontline. 2 May 2002. Retrieved 3 August 2016.
  253. ↑ "Top Pak clerics declare suicide attacks un-Islamic". The Times of India. 17 May 2009. Retrieved 3 August 2016.
  254. ↑ "Fatwa issued against suicide bombings, targeted killings and terrorism". Lahore. 2 July 2013.
  255. ↑ "Excerpt: 'Who Speaks for Islam?'". NPR. 4 March 2008.
  256. ↑ 65% of Palestinians Applaud Terror Attacks on US and Europe Arutz Sheva
  257. ↑ "Views of Violence". Gallup. 8 September 2011. Retrieved 31 January 2016.
  258. ↑ Joffre, Tzvi (13 December 2023). "Palestinians largely support October 7 massacre, deny atrocities - poll". The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved 13 December 2023.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  259. ↑ "The_MIPT_Terrorism_Annual" (PDF). tkb.org. Archived from the original (PDF) on 29 November 2007. Retrieved 6 February 2008.
  260. ↑ Casciani, Dominic (2 March 2010). "Muslim scholar condemns terrorism". BBC News.
  261. ↑ Shay, Shaul (December 2013). Global Jihad and the Tactic of Terror Abduction: A Comprehensive Review of Islamic Terrorist Organizations. Sussex Academic Press. ISBN 978-1-84519-611-0.
  262. ↑ Thomas, Andrea (24 September 2014). "Germany Confirms Kidnapping of Two Citizens by Islamist Group in Philippines". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 7 October 2014.
  263. ↑ Willsher, Kim (23 September 2014). "Algerian Islamists threaten to execute hostage unless France halts Isis attacks". The Guardian. Retrieved 4 August 2016.
  264. ↑ Johnlee, Varghese (6 October 2014). "ISIS Lists Out 5 Islamic Reasons to Justify Beheading Alan Henning and other Captives". International Business Times. Retrieved 13 October 2014.
  265. ↑ Mauro, Ryan. "UK's Anjem Choudary Justifies Beheading of James Foley". Internet Archive. Archived from the original on 3 September 2014. Retrieved 4 February 2022.
  266. ↑ Abdelaziz, Salma (13 October 2014). "ISIS states its justification for the enslavement of women". CNN. Retrieved 13 October 2014.
  267. ↑ Lister, Tim (5 June 2015). "Boko Haram: The essence of terror". CNN. Retrieved 13 May 2014.
  268. 1 2 Callimachi, Rukmini Maria (29 July 2014). "Paying Ransoms, Europe Bankrolls Qaeda Terror". The New York Times. Retrieved 4 September 2014.
  269. ↑ Hill, J.N.C. (30 July 2014). "Boko Haram, the Chibok Abductions and Nigeria's Counterterrorism Strategy". Combating Terrorism Center. West Point Military Academy. Archived from the original on 4 September 2014. Retrieved 4 September 2014.
  270. ↑ Kington, Tom (10 March 2012). "Nigerian kidnappers 'received ransom downpayment'". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 5 September 2014. Retrieved 4 September 2014.
  271. ↑ BBCnigeria (1 June 2012). "Italian Abducted in Nigeria Freed". BBC. Retrieved 4 September 2014.
  272. ↑ Caulderwood, Kathleen (16 May 2014). "Fake Charities, Drug Cartels, Ransom and Extortion: Where Islamist Group Boko Haram Gets Its Cash". International Business Times. Retrieved 29 September 2014.
  273. ↑ Dreazen, Yochi. "ISIS Uses Mafia Tactics to Fund Its Own Operations Without Help From Persian Gulf Donors". Foreign Policy. Archived from the original on 17 June 2014. Retrieved 4 September 2014.
  274. ↑ Rosen, Armin (20 August 2014). "ISIS Has Been Taking Foreign Hostages Since The Very Beginning – And Getting Paid For Them". Business Insider. Retrieved 4 September 2014.
  275. ↑ BBCMarch (30 March 2014). "Syria crisis: Spanish journalists freed after ISIS kidnapping". BC. Retrieved 4 September 2014.
  276. ↑ CBSNews (21 August 2014). "Multiple kidnappings for ransom funding ISIS, source says". CBS News. Retrieved 4 September 2014.
  277. ↑ Elliott, Francis (5 September 2014). "European allies shamed over ransom payments". The Times. Retrieved 7 May 2021.
  278. 1 2 Malas, Nour (22 August 2014). "Hostage-Taking Central to Islamic State Strategy in Syria". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 4 September 2014.
  279. ↑ Chulov, Martin (16 June 2014). "Iraq arrest that exposed wealth and power of Isis jihadists". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 16 June 2014. Retrieved 17 June 2014.
  280. ↑ Hill, Jonathan N.C. (30 July 2014). "Boko Haram, the Chibok Abductions and Nigeria's Counterterrorism Strategy". Combating Terrorism Center at West Point. Archived from the original on 4 September 2014. Retrieved 4 September 2014.
  281. ↑ Marina Lazreg, "Consequences of Political Liberalisation and Sociocultural Mobilisation for Women in Algeria, Egypt and Jordan", in Anne-Marie Goetz, Governing Women: Women's Political Effectiveness in Contexts of Democratisation and Governance Reform (New York: Routledge/UNRISD, 2009), p. 47.
  282. ↑ Gorzewski, Andreas (22 July 2014). "Hamas uses kidnapping as a strategic tool". Deutsche Welle. Retrieved 4 August 2016.
  283. ↑ Kershner, Isabel; Jodi Rudoren (22 July 2014). "A Blast, a Fire and an Israeli Soldier Goes Missing". The New York Times. Retrieved 4 August 2016.
  284. ↑ Arnould, Valérie (2017). African futures: Horizon 2025. Strazzari, Francesco,, Institute for Security Studies (Paris, France). Paris. p. 47. ISBN 9789291986316. OCLC 1006747525.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  285. ↑ Kepel, Gilles, Jihad, (2003)
  286. 1 2 "Burkina Faso: Islamistische Gefahr aus dem Innern" (in German). Deutsche Welle. 20 October 2017. Retrieved 18 March 2019.
  287. ↑ Welle (www.dw.com), Deutsche. "Egypt kills 40 suspected militants after tourist bus attack | DW | 29 December 2018". Deutsche Welle. Retrieved 20 March 2019.
  288. ↑ "Fearing the worst". Al-Ahram Weekly. 5 May 2005. Archived from the original on 24 September 2013. Retrieved 2 May 2014.
  289. ↑ "رسميًا.. داعش يُعلن مسؤوليته عن هجوم كنيسة مارمينا بحلوان". Retrieved 30 December 2017.
  290. ↑ "Mass funeral to be held for Helwan church victims: Coptic Orthodox Church – Egypt Independent". 29 December 2017. Retrieved 30 December 2017.
  291. 1 2 3 4 "Terrorist Attacks in Kenya Reveal Domestic Radicalization". Combating Terrorism Center at West Point. 29 October 2012. Retrieved 18 March 2019.
  292. ↑ "The Nairobi Attack and Al-Shabab's Media Strategy". Combating Terrorism Center at West Point. 24 October 2013. Retrieved 18 March 2019.
  293. ↑ "Kenya university attack kills 147". 3 April 2015. Retrieved 18 March 2019.
  294. ↑ "Avant Yogen Sundrun: Reaz Lauthan, un Mauricien en Syrie…". L'Express. 12 December 2015. Retrieved 12 December 2015.
  295. ↑ Press Association (3 October 2016). "South London couple plead guilty to funding nephew fighting for Isis". The Guardian. Retrieved 4 October 2016.
  296. ↑ Swann, Steve (22 November 2016). "Couple jailed for funding Islamic State fighter nephew". BBC News. Retrieved 22 November 2016.
  297. ↑ "Djihadistes mauriciens: des amis de Zafirr et Lubnaa Golamaully racontent". L'Express. 8 October 2016. Retrieved 8 October 2016.
  298. ↑ Abel, Vinesen (5 October 2016). "Zafirr et Lubnaa Golamaully, deux ex-élèves de collèges d'élite devenus terroristes". L'Express. Retrieved 5 October 2016.
  299. ↑ Arouff, Jean Paul; Harelle, Audrey (9 December 2015). "Dans une vidéo de propagande: un Mauricien appelle à rejoindre Daech". L'Express. Retrieved 9 December 2015.
  300. ↑ "Gunshots fired at French Embassy in Mauritius". Africa News. 30 May 2016. Retrieved 30 May 2016.
  301. ↑ Descours, Guillaume (30 May 2016). "Île Maurice: des coups de feu tirés contre l'ambassade de France". Le Figaro. Retrieved 30 May 2016.
  302. ↑ "Meurtre de Manan Fakoo: Le prédicateur islamiste Javed Meetoo". Zinfos. Retrieved 15 February 2021.
  303. ↑ Lovina Sophie, Lovina Sophie (15 March 2022). "Assassinat de Manan Fakhoo: Javed Meetoo inculpé sous le "Prevention of Terrorism Act"". L'Express. Retrieved 15 March 2022.
  304. ↑ "Manan Fakhoo assassination: an investigator offers the status of "star witness" to Yassiin Meetou". Mauritius News & L'Express. Retrieved 27 March 2021.
  305. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Vidino; et al. (2018). De-Radicalization in the Mediterranean – Comparing Challenges and Approaches (PDF). Milano: ISPI. pp. 13–15, 24, 26, 35–36, 42–43, 48, 62–63, 69–70. ISBN 9788867058198.
  306. 1 2 "Hundreder af tikkende bomber i landet, som Islamisk Stat styrede udenom i syv år". jyllands-posten.dk. 20 December 2018. Retrieved 23 December 2018.
  307. ↑ "FOCUS – Morocco reforms religious education to fight extremism". France 24. 13 December 2016. Retrieved 27 December 2018.
  308. 1 2 3 "Who are Somalia's al-Shabab?". BBC News. 22 December 2017. Retrieved 4 January 2019.
  309. 1 2 "Chad troops kill 17 Boko Haram militants after 6 killed in Lake Chad attacks". The Defense Post. 29 September 2018. Retrieved 18 March 2019.
  310. ↑ "Northeast Nigeria insurgency has killed almost 350,000 – UN". Reuters. 24 June 2021. Retrieved 13 February 2022.
  311. ↑ "In prison with al-Shabab: What drives Somali militants?". BBC News. 5 October 2013. Retrieved 4 January 2019.
  312. ↑ Reinares, Fernando (2016). Al-Qaeda's Revenge: The 2004 Madrid Train Bombings. Columbia University Press. p. 88. ISBN 978-0-231-80140-9.
  313. ↑ "Fifteen Years after the Djerba Synagogue Bombing". Combating Terrorism Center at West Point. 14 April 2017. Retrieved 18 March 2019.
  314. ↑ "The Latest: French President Mourns Tunisia Victims". The New York Times. 18 March 2015. Archived from the original on 20 March 2015. Retrieved 4 February 2022.
  315. ↑ "Museum attack a 'great calamity' for Tunisia's young democracy". Los Angeles Times. 18 March 2015. Retrieved 19 March 2015.
  316. ↑ Death toll rises to 23 Archived 5 January 2018 at the Wayback Machine, MSN. Retrieved 19 March 2015.
  317. ↑ "21 dead in Tunisia attack, Including Gunmen". Al Jazeera. Retrieved 19 March 2015.
  318. ↑ Marszal, Andrew (18 March 2015). "Gunmen 'take hostages' in attack on Tunisia parliament". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 18 March 2015. Retrieved 18 March 2015.
  319. ↑ "Scores killed in terror attack on Tunisian beach resort". France 24. 26 June 2015. Retrieved 19 March 2019.
  320. ↑ The Human Cost: The Consequences of Insurgent Attacks in Afghanistan. April 2007. Volume 19, No. 6(C). Human Rights Watch/
  321. ↑ "Car Bomber Kills 2 in Tajikistan". The Moscow Times. 6 September 2010. Retrieved 3 August 2016.
  322. ↑ Polat, Abdumannob; Butkevich, Nickolai (28 November 2000). "Unraveling the Mystery of the Tashkent Bombings: Theories and Implications". Archived from the original on 11 June 2003. Retrieved 9 February 2016.
  323. ↑ "Central Asia Report: 7 April 2004". RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty.
  324. ↑ Peimani, Hooman (21 April 2004). "Uzbekistan's reaction to Tashkent bombings generate doubts on efficacy". cacianalyst.org. Archived from the original on 17 June 2004.
  325. 1 2 Saidazimova, Gulnoza (6 September 2007). "Germany: Authorities Say Uzbekistan-Based Group Behind Terrorist Plot". RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty. Archived from the original on 11 September 2007.
  326. ↑ Pannier, Bruce (27 July 2004). "Uzbekistan: 'Terror' Trial Likely To Hold Few Surprises". Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Archived from the original on 13 December 2008.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  327. ↑ "US FBI joins Uzbek blast inquiry". BBC News. 3 August 2004. Retrieved 4 August 2016.
  328. ↑ Rotar, Igor (19 May 2005). "Terrorism in Uzbekistan: A self-made crisis". Terrorism Monitor, Jamestown Foundation. 2 (8). Retrieved 4 August 2016.
  329. ↑ Knox, Kathleen (2004). "Uzbekistan: Who's Behind The Violence?". No. 18 – JRL 8147. Johnson's Russia List. Archived from the original on 4 April 2004.
  330. ↑ Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), from South Asia Terrorism Portal
  331. ↑ Hossain, Maneeza (16 February 2006). "The Rising Tide of Islamism in Bangladesh". defenddemocracy.org. Archived from the original on 5 April 2006.
  332. ↑ The Columbia World Dictionary of Islamism, Columbia University Press (2007), pp. 69–70
  333. ↑ "Ansarullah Bangla Team banned". dhakatribune.com. 25 May 2015. Archived from the original on 27 May 2015.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  334. ↑ "Lashkar-e-Toiba". dictionary.com. 2003. Archived from the original on 11 August 2004. Retrieved 27 August 2006.
  335. ↑ Mir, Amir (2005). "The jihad lives on". Asia Times Online Ltd. Archived from the original on 11 March 2005. Retrieved 24 June 2006.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  336. ↑ "Speech by the Prime Minister the Rt Hon Tony Blair MP to the Confederation of Indian Industry Bangalore, India 5 January 2002". britishhighcommission.gov. January 2002. Archived from the original on 23 November 2007. Retrieved 24 June 2006.
  337. ↑ Thompson, Geoff (13 May 2004). "Is Lashkar-e-Toiba still operating in Pakistan?". PM. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 5 August 2016.
  338. ↑ "Wars and Armed Conflicts: Current Situation". Peace Pledge Union. 27 July 2002. Archived from the original on 19 December 2005. Retrieved 25 June 2006.
  339. ↑ "SOUTH ASIA | Jaish-e-Mohammad: A profile". BBC News. 6 February 2002. Retrieved 25 April 2010.
  340. ↑ "Attack May Spoil Kashmir Summit". Spacewar.com. Retrieved 25 April 2010.
  341. 1 2 "Foreign Terrorist Organizations" (PDF). fas.org. Retrieved 6 February 2008.
  342. ↑ Desk, Internet (11 September 2015). "All you need to know about the 7/11 Mumbai train blasts". The Hindu. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 29 August 2019.
  343. ↑ Bradsher, Keith; Garcia, Sandra E. (22 April 2019). "Local Group is Blamed for Attacks, but Sri Lanka Suspects 'International Network'". The New York Times.
  344. ↑ "FBI updates most wanted terrorists and seeking information – War on Terrorism Lists" (Press release). FBI National Press Office. 24 February 2006. Archived from the original on 5 August 2009.
  345. 1 2 "Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG)". MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base. Archived from the original on 27 August 2006. Retrieved 20 September 2006.
  346. ↑ Nesser, Petter (5 December 2018). "Europe hasn't won the war on terror". Politico. Retrieved 9 December 2018.
  347. ↑ Dearden, Lizzie (15 November 2015). "Paris attack: Isis warns 'This is just the beginning' after killing at least 127 people in French capital". The Independent. Retrieved 17 November 2015.
  348. 1 2 "EU Terrorism Situation and Trend Report TE-SAT 2009" (PDF). Europol. 2009. p. 21. Retrieved 29 July 2015.
  349. 1 2 "Islamists caused overwhelming majority of terrorist deaths in Europe during last decade". Tino Sanandaji blog. 20 February 2011.
  350. ↑ EU Terrorism Situation and Trend Report (TE-SAT) 2017. Europol. 2017. p. 10. ISBN 978-9295200791.
  351. ↑ "Daily chart: Terror attacks". The Economist. 15 January 2015.
  352. ↑ Archetti, Cristina (29 October 2012). Understanding Terrorism in the Age of Global Media: A Communication Approach. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 103. ISBN 978-0-230-36049-5. The London think tank, International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence (ICSR) [...]
  353. ↑ "Criminal Pasts, Terrorist Futures: European Jihadists and the New Crime-Terror Nexus / ICSR". The International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence. 11 October 2016. Retrieved 14 July 2018.
  354. 1 2 European Union Terrorism Situation and Trend Report 2018 (TE SAT 2018) (PDF). Europol. 2018. pp. 5–9, 22–25, 35–36. ISBN 978-92-95200-91-3. Archived from the original (PDF) on 20 June 2018. Retrieved 23 June 2018.
  355. 1 2 3 4 European Union Terrorism Situation and Trend Report 2018 (TE SAT 2018) (PDF). Europol. 2018. p. 4. ISBN 978-92-95200-91-3. Archived from the original (PDF) on 20 June 2018. Retrieved 23 June 2018.
  356. ↑ Storm, Linde. "Dschihadisten als Elitetruppe des Islams. Eine klare Ablehnung dieser Position durch islamische Verbände in Deutschland fehlt / Von Susanne Schröter". normativeorders.net (in German). Archived from the original on 27 October 2018. Retrieved 1 December 2018.
  357. ↑ "El coordinador antiterrorista de la UE: "Lo de Barcelona volverá a pasar, hay 50.000 radicales en Europa"". ELMUNDO (in Spanish). Retrieved 9 September 2018.
  358. 1 2 3 van Ostaeyen, Pieter (June 2016). "Belgian Radical Networks and the Road to the Brussels Attacks". Combating Terrorism Center at West Point. Archived from the original on 8 September 2018. Retrieved 15 August 2020.
  359. 1 2 3 Schreuer, Milan (21 June 2017). "Brussels Train Station Bombing Renews Focus on Belgium as Jihadist Base". New York Times. Retrieved 26 June 2017.
  360. ↑ Van Vlierden, Guy; Lewis, Jon; Rassler, Don (February 2018). These circumstances contributes to private businesses having difficulties operating in the area (PDF). Combating Terrorism Center. p. 1. Archived from the original (PDF) on 24 February 2018. Retrieved 24 February 2018.
  361. ↑ Burke, Jason (22 March 2016). "Why did the bombers target Belgium?". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 10 March 2019.
  362. ↑ "When It Comes To Radicalization In Belgium, Turks and Moroccans Are Different". NPR.org. Retrieved 10 March 2019. More than 500 Belgians have left for Syria since 2012 and most of them, according to Belgian and U.S. officials, have been of Moroccan descent.
  363. ↑ Brisard, Jean-Charles (10 November 2016). "The Islamic State's External Operations and the French-Belgian Nexus". Combating Terrorism Center Sentinel. Retrieved 20 June 2017.
  364. ↑ "The Foreign Fighters Phenomenon in the European Union". The International Centre for Counter-Terrorism - The Hague (ICCT). April 2016. p. 44. Retrieved 31 August 2016.
  365. ↑ Rosendahl, Jussi (15 June 2018). "Knife attacker sentenced to life by a Finnish court". Reuters. Retrieved 4 April 2021.
  366. ↑ "Terrorhotbedömning". Skyddspolisens årsbok (in Swedish). Retrieved 4 April 2021.
  367. ↑ "Den radikala islamistiska terrorismen efter kalifatet". Skyddspolisens årsbok (in Swedish). Archived from the original on 24 April 2021. Retrieved 4 April 2021.
  368. ↑ "Le terrorisme islamiste a fait 236 morts en France en 18 mois". Le Monde (in French). 26 July 2016. Retrieved 27 July 2016. De l'attaque de « Charlie Hebdo » et de l'« Hyper casher » en janvier 2015 à la mort du père Jacques Hamel à Saint-Etienne-de-Rouvray, mardi 26 juillet, ce sont 236 personnes qui ont perdu la vie dans des attentats et attaques terroristes
  369. ↑ Dec 12, Jonathon Gatehouse · CBC News · Posted; December 12, 2018 2:23 PM ET | Last Updated. "By the numbers: France's battle against terror | CBC News". Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Archived from the original on 4 April 2019. Retrieved 23 April 2019. 22 — the number of terror incidents on French soil since the beginning of 2015. / 249 — the number of dead in those attacks. / 928 — the number of wounded.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  370. 1 2 Koninkrijksrelaties, Ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken en (14 December 2017). "Jihadist women, a threat not to be underestimated – Publication – pdf". AIVD. p. 5. Archived from the original on 1 December 2018. Retrieved 1 December 2018.
  371. 1 2 "Därför är Frankrike så hårt terrordrabbat". Expressen (in Swedish). Retrieved 4 November 2020.
  372. 1 2 Bindner, Laurence (2018). "Jihadists' Grievance Narratives against France". Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism Studies: 4–8. doi:10.19165/2018.2.01.
  373. ↑ "Terrorisme: deux attentats islamistes déjoués en 2020, 33 depuis 2017". RTL.fr (in French). Retrieved 10 January 2021.
  374. ↑ "Terroristen "kein Massenphänomen" in der Flüchtlingskrise". Merkur.de (in German). 20 July 2020. Retrieved 28 July 2020.
  375. 1 2 ispisito (14 December 2018). "The measure of expulsions for extremism". ISPI. Retrieved 21 December 2018.
  376. 1 2 Marone, Francesco (13 March 2017). "The Use of Deportation in Counter-Terrorism: Insights from the Italian Case". International Center for Counter-Terrorism.
  377. 1 2 Koninkrijksrelaties, Ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken en (14 December 2017). "Jihadist women, a threat not to be underestimated - Publication - pdf". AIVD. p. 5. Archived from the original on 1 December 2018. Retrieved 1 December 2018.
  378. 1 2 Koninkrijksrelaties, Ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken en (30 June 2014). "Summary of report 'Transformation of jihadism in the Netherlands' - Publication - AIVD". english.aivd.nl. Archived from the original on 5 January 2019. Retrieved 5 January 2019.
  379. ↑ Våldsbejakande islamistisk extremism i Sverige (in Swedish). Stockholm: Säkerhetspolisen. 2010. p. 75. ISBN 978-91-86661-02-1. OCLC 941475506.
  380. ↑ Koninkrijksrelaties, Ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken en (9 November 2018). "The legacy of Syria: global jihadism remains a threat to Europe". english.aivd.nl. Archived from the original on 1 December 2018. Retrieved 1 December 2018.
  381. ↑ Koninkrijksrelaties, Ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken en (18 December 2017). "Women play significant role in jihadism". english.aivd.nl. Archived from the original on 1 December 2018. Retrieved 1 December 2018.
  382. ↑ Syria's Legacy - Global jihadism remains a threat to Europe. General Intelligence and Security Service. 2018. p. 8. Archived from the original on 1 December 2018.
  383. ↑ Rosman, Cyril (11 December 2018). "Toestand van slachtoffer 'terreursteker' Amsterdam CS is 'catastrofaal'". Algemeen Dagblad (in Dutch). Retrieved 13 November 2019.
  384. ↑ "Knivman i Amsterdam ville hämnas skymfandet av islam". svenska.yle.fi (in Swedish). Retrieved 19 January 2019.
  385. ↑ "Jihadist knifeman shot in nine seconds". BBC News. 5 September 2018. Retrieved 7 November 2018.
  386. ↑ "Suspect in stabbing". usnews.com.
  387. ↑ "Gökmen T. krijgt levenslang voor aanslag in Utrechtse tram". nu.nl (in Dutch). 20 March 2020. Retrieved 20 March 2020.
  388. ↑ "Terror-Prozess in Oslo: Haftstrafen für geplanten Mord an Mohammed-Zeichner". Der Spiegel. 30 January 2012. Retrieved 9 September 2018.
  389. ↑ Van Ginkel, Bibi; Boutin, Bérénice; Chauzal, Grégory; Dorsey, Jessica; Jegerings, Marjolein; Paulussen, Christophe; Pohl, Johanna; Reed, Alastair; Zavagli, Sofia (1 April 2016). "The Foreign Fighters Phenomenon in the European Union. Profiles, Threats & Policies". Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism Studies: 46. doi:10.19165/2016.1.02.
  390. ↑ Foreign Affairs, January/February 2008, p. 74, "The Myth of the Authoritarian Model"
  391. ↑ "Changing face of terror in Russia". Financial Times. Archived from the original on 10 December 2022. Retrieved 7 January 2015.
  392. ↑ "Salafist-Takfiri Jihadism: the Ideology of the Caucasus Emirate". 3 September 2014. Archived from the original on 3 September 2014. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
  393. ↑ "Designation of Caucasus Emirate". U.S. Department of State. Retrieved 7 January 2015.
  394. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Vidino; et al. (2018). DE-RADICALIZATION IN THE MEDITERRANEAN – Comparing Challenges and Approaches (PDF). Milano: ISPI. pp. 24, 35–37. ISBN 9788867058198.
  395. ↑ Checa, A.; Rallo, A. (29 April 2007). "La célula de Al Qaida que atentó en Casablanca se gestó en Valencia". Las Provincias (in Spanish). Vocento. Retrieved 10 April 2019.
  396. ↑ Ortega Dolz, Patricia; López Fonseca, Óscar; Canas, Jesús A. (25 January 2023). "Un hombre mata a un sacristán y deja al menos cuatro heridos en un ataque con arma blanca en dos iglesias de Algeciras" [A man kills a sexton and leaves at least four wounded in a blade attack in two churches in Algeciras]. El País (in Spanish). Retrieved 27 January 2023.
  397. 1 2 Linus Gustafsson Magnus Ranstorp (2017). Swedish Foreign Fighters in Syria and Iraq (PDF). Swedish Defence University. pp. 23–34, 13. Retrieved 12 November 2017.
  398. ↑ "EU Terrorism Situation and Trend Report TE-SAT 2009" (PDF). Europol. 2009. p. 21. Retrieved 29 July 2015.
  399. ↑ M. Normark, M. Ranstorp & F. Ahlin (2017). Finansiella aktiviteter kopplade till personer från Sverige och Danmark som anslutit sig till terrorgrupper i Syrien och Irak mellan 2013 – 2016 (PDF). Swedish Defence University / Centrum för asymmetriska hot- och terrorismstudier (CATS). p. 1. Archived from the original (PDF) on 8 September 2017. Nuvarande beteendemönster präglas framförallt av innovativ insamlingsverksamhet och utnyttjande av de statliga bidragssystemen
  400. ↑ "Säpo: Tusindvis af voldelige islamister bor i Sverige". DR (in Danish). Retrieved 5 December 2017.
  401. ↑ "PET: Truslen mod Danmark kan komme fra Sverige". DR (in Danish). Retrieved 5 December 2017.
  402. ↑ "Stark lobby och få dåd i Sverige". Skånska Dagbladet (in Swedish). 28 December 2017. Retrieved 28 December 2017.
  403. ↑ Wintour, Patrick (14 June 2022). "Turkey threatens year's delay to Swedish and Finnish entry to Nato". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 18 June 2022. Retrieved 18 June 2022.
  404. ↑ "Erdogan says Turkey not supportive of Finland, Sweden joining NATO". reuters. 13 May 2022.
  405. ↑ SCF (2 February 2023). "Sweden proposes tougher anti-terror laws in response to Turkey's demands". Stockholm Center for Freedom. Retrieved 9 April 2023.
  406. ↑ "Analysis | Why Turkey Is Still Blocking Sweden From Joining NATO". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 9 April 2023.
  407. ↑ "Bomben skulle ha dödat 40 personer". Svenska Dagbladet (in Swedish). 5 December 2011.
  408. ↑ "Uzbek suspect in Swedish attack sympathized with Islamic State: police" Archived 20 May 2017 at the Wayback Machine. Reuters. 10 April 2017. Retrieved 12 April 2017.
  409. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
    • German Jihad: On the Internationalisation of Islamist Terrorism by Guido Steinberg. Columbia University Press, 2013
  410. ↑ Mamdouh Mahmud Salim
  411. ↑ Kohlmann, Evan (25 November 2003). "Terrorized Turkey: Pointing fingers at al Qaeda". National Review. Archived from the original on 17 February 2004.
  412. ↑ "Türkiye'de Halen Faaliyetlerine Devam Eden Başlıca Terör Örgütleri" [Current Operations Continuing in Turkey – Major Terrorist Organizations]. egm.gov.tr (in Turkish). Archived from the original on 27 August 2002.
  413. ↑ Atran, Scott (2006). "The Moral Logic and Growth of Suicide Terrorism" (PDF). The Washington Quarterly. 29 (2): 131. doi:10.1162/wash.2006.29.2.127. S2CID 154382700. Archived from the original (PDF) on 23 June 2015.
  414. ↑ Report on Terrorist Incidents – 2006 6600 out of 14000
  415. ↑ p. 154, Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam by Gilles Kepel (2002)
  416. ↑ "The Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas)". Mideastweb.org. Retrieved 25 April 2010.
  417. 1 2 "About us". Al-Qassam Brigades Information Office. Retrieved 15 July 2016
  418. ↑ Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam by Gilles Kepel, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, (2002), p. 331
  419. ↑ Waked, Ali; Roee Nahmias (9 February 2006). "Putin: Hamas not a terror organization". Ynet. Israel. Archived from the original on 24 March 2006. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
  420. ↑ Benmelech, Efraim; Berrebi, Claude (Summer 2007). "Human Capital and the Productivity of Suicide Bombers" (PDF). Journal of Economic Perspectives. 21 (3): 223–38. doi:10.1257/jep.21.3.223. ISSN 0895-3309. Archived from the original (PDF) on 7 July 2010.
  421. ↑ Katz, Samuel (2002). The Hunt for the Engineer. Lyons Press. ISBN 978-1585747498. p. 74.
  422. ↑ p. 122, Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam by Gilles Kepel
  423. ↑ Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict (15 September 2009). "Human Rights in Palestine and Other Occupied Arab Territories" (PDF). London: The Guardian. Retrieved 15 July 2016.
  424. ↑ "The Popular Resistance Committees: Hamas' New Partners? – Lt. Col. (res.) Jonathan D. Halevi". Retrieved 15 July 2016.
  425. ↑ Jamail, Dahr (20 July 2006). "Hezbollah's transformation". Asia Times. Archived from the original on 20 July 2006. Retrieved 23 October 2007.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  426. ↑ "Who are Hezbollah". BBC News. 21 May 2008. Retrieved 15 August 2008.
  427. ↑ Shatz, Adam (29 April 2004). "In Search of Hezbollah". The New York Review of Books. Archived from the original on 3 May 2004. Retrieved 14 August 2006.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  428. 1 2 "The Hizballah Program" (PDF). StandWithUs. Archived from the original (PDF) on 29 October 2007. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
  429. 1 2 Stalinsky, Steven. "An Islamic Republic Is Hezbollah's Aim" Archived 10 November 2007 at the Wayback Machine. The New York Sun. 2 August 2006. 1 November 2007.
  430. ↑ Deeb, Lara (31 July 2006). "Hizballah: A Primer". Middle East Report. Archived from the original on 20 June 2010. Retrieved 31 July 2006.
  431. ↑ "Briefing: Lebanese Public Opinion". September–October 2006. Archived from the original on 18 January 2012. Retrieved 8 October 2007.
  432. ↑ "Huge Beirut protest backs Syria". BBC News. 8 March 2005. 7 February 2007.
  433. ↑ Ghattas, Kim (1 December 2006). "Political ferment in Lebanon". BBC News. Retrieved 15 August 2008.
  434. ↑ "Lebanese army moves into W. Beirut after Hezbollah takeover". Haaretz. Archived from the original on 12 May 2008. Retrieved 10 May 2008.
  435. ↑ "Hezbollah (a.k.a. Hizbollah, Hizbu'llah)". Council on Foreign Relations. 13 September 2008. Archived from the original on 13 September 2008. Retrieved 15 September 2008.
  436. ↑ UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (29 March 2006). "Lebanon: The many hands and faces of Hezbollah". Retrieved 17 August 2006.
  437. ↑ "Iranian official admits Tehran supplied missiles to Hezbollah". Haaretz. 4 August 2006. Retrieved 7 January 2015.
  438. ↑ Frykberg, Mel (29 August 2008). "Mideast Powers, Proxies and Paymasters Bluster and Rearm". Middle East Times. Archived from the original on 2 September 2008. Retrieved 29 August 2008. And if there is one thing that ideologically and diametrically opposed Hezbollah and Israel agree on, it is Hezbollah's growing military strength.
  439. ↑ "Security council endorses secretary-general's conclusion on Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon as of 16 June". United Nations Security Council. 18 June 2000. Retrieved 29 September 2006.
  440. ↑ "Bahrain's parliament declares Hezbollah a terrorist group". The Jerusalem Post. 26 March 2013.
  441. ↑ Spangler, Timothy (25 March 2011). "Bahrain complains over Hezbollah comments on protests". The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved 22 November 2011.
  442. ↑ "Bahrain arrests bombing suspects and blames Hezbollah". Reuters. 6 November 2012. Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 1 July 2017.
  443. ↑ "Jewish Leaders Applaud Hezbollah Terror Designation by France | Jewish & Israel News". Algemeiner.com. 4 April 2013. Retrieved 18 August 2014.
  444. ↑ "GCC: Hezbollah terror group". Arab News. 3 June 2013. Retrieved 3 June 2013.
  445. ↑ Kanter, James; Rudoren, Jodi (22 July 2013). "European Union Adds Military Wing of Hezbollah to List of Terrorist Organizations". The New York Times.
  446. ↑ Roy, Olivier, The Failure of Political Islam, Harvard University Press, (1994), p. 115
  447. ↑ Pape, Robert, Dying to Win, Random House, 2005, p. 129
  448. ↑ Ranstorp, Magnus, Hizb'allah in Lebanon, St. Martins Press, 1997 pp. 89–90
  449. 1 2 Ranstorp, Magnus, Hizb'allah in Lebanon, St. Martins Press, 1997, p. 54
  450. 1 2 Kepel, Gilles, Jihad, (2002), p. 129
  451. ↑ Ranstorp, Magnus, Hizb'allah in Lebanon, St. Martins Press, 1997, p. 127
  452. ↑ Ranstorp, Magnus, Hizb'allah in Lebanon: The Politics of the Western Hostage Crisis, p. 60
  453. ↑ "Middle East News – Hezbollah's transformation". Asia Times Online Atimes.com. 20 July 2006. Archived from the original on 20 July 2006. Retrieved 25 April 2010.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  454. ↑ "Hezbollah disarmament unclear". CNN. 7 May 2005. Retrieved 5 August 2006.
  455. 1 2 3 International Herald Tribune (15 March 2007). Archived 15 May 2008 at the Wayback Machine
  456. 1 2 Le Figaro (16 April 2007). "Fatah Al-Islam: the new terrorist threat hanging over Lebanon" Archived 6 June 2007 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 20 May 2007.
  457. ↑ "Lebanon Camp Fighting". Reuters.com.
  458. ↑ Reuters (20 May 2007). "Facts about militant group Fatah al-Islam". Retrieved 20 May 2007.
  459. ↑ "Harper says 'Islamicism' biggest threat to Canada". CBC News – Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.ca. 6 September 2011. Retrieved 16 October 2011.
  460. ↑ Macleod, Ian (14 March 2008). "CSIS focuses on homegrown terrorism threat". Ottawa Citizen. Archived from the original on 17 March 2008. Retrieved 16 October 2011.
  461. ↑ Seymour, Andrew (26 August 2010). "RCMP say homegrown terror suspects were preparing to build IEDs". Ottawa Citizen. Retrieved 16 October 2011.
  462. ↑ United States. Federal Bureau of Investigation; Terrorist Research and Analytical Center (U.S.) (2007). Terrorism in the United States 2002–2005 (PDF) (2 ed.). U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation. p. 43.
  463. ↑ Yager, Jordy (25 July 2010). "Former intel chief: Homegrown terrorism is a 'devil of a problem'". The Hill.
  464. ↑ Saslow, Eli (12 July 2011). "A one-man mission to stop homegrown Somali terrorism in U.S." The Seattle Times. Archived from the original on 22 September 2011. Retrieved 12 July 2011.
  465. ↑ Ellis, Ralph; Ashley Fantz; Faith Karimi; Eliott C. McLaughlin (13 June 2016). "Orlando shooting: 49 killed, shooter pledged ISIS allegiance". CNN. Retrieved 3 August 2016.
  466. ↑ "Interviews – Robert Baer – Terror And Tehran". PBS Frontline. 2 May 2002. Retrieved 7 January 2015.
  467. ↑ "AMIA Bombing Commemorated", Dateline World Jewry, World Jewish Congress, September 2007
  468. ↑ "AMIA Attack in Argentina". ADL.
  469. ↑ "Discursos". OAS. August 2009. Retrieved 4 March 2013.
  470. ↑ "Iran, Hezbollah charged in 1994 Argentine bombing". Daily Jang. 25 October 2006. Archived from the original on 1 September 2007. Retrieved 25 October 2006.
  471. ↑ "Iran charged over Argentina bomb". BBC News. 25 October 2006. Archived from the original on 7 November 2006. Retrieved 25 October 2006.
  472. ↑ Acusan a Irán por el ataque a la AMIA, La Nación, 26 October 2006
  473. ↑ "Muerte de Nisman: la media hora que es un agujero negro en la causa" [Nisman's death: the half-hour which is a black hole in the case]. Infojus Noticias (in Spanish). Ifnojus Noticias. 11 February 2015. Retrieved 8 July 2015. El médico de Swiss Medical...no tenía dudas de que se trataba de una muerte violenta...
  474. ↑ "Los enigmas del caso Nisman" [The mysteries of the Nisman case]. La Nacion (in Spanish). 9 March 2015. Archived from the original on 8 July 2018. Retrieved 8 July 2015. 23 hs – Llega la ambulancia de Swiss Medical y constantan la muerte.
  475. ↑ "Argentine ex-president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner charged with treason". The Washington Post.
  476. ↑ "Cristina Kirchner faces investigation over alleged cover-up of bombing". El Pais. 30 December 2016.
  477. ↑ "Argentinian lawyer Alberto Nisman was murdered, police report finds". The Guardian. 6 November 2017.
  478. ↑ "Full transcript of bin Ladin's speech". Al Jazeera. 1 November 2004. Archived from the original on 14 November 2006.
  479. ↑ Michael, Maggie (29 October 2004). "Bin Laden, in statement to U.S. people, says he ordered Sept. 11 attacks". The San Diego Union-Tribune. Associated Press. Archived from the original on 3 September 2012. Retrieved 4 August 2016.
  480. ↑ "Excerpts: Bin Laden video". BBC News. 29 October 2004. Retrieved 4 August 2016.
  481. ↑ Langhorne, R. (2006). The Essentials of – Global Politics. Hodder Arnold.

Bibliography

Further reading

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.