Marc Sageman - Understanding Terror Networks

Understanding Terror Networks

Marc Sageman

PENN

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS

PHILADELPHIA

Copyright 2004 University of Pennsylvania Press

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Published by

University of Pennsylvania Press

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4011

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Sageman, Marc

Understanding Terror Networks / Marc Sageman.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-8122-3808-7 (cloth : alk. paper)

1. TerroristsSocial networks. 2. Terrorism. 3. Jihad. I. Title.

HV6431.S23 2004

303.625dc22

2003070524

A new type of terrorism threatens the world, driven by networks of fanatics determined to inflict maximum civilian and economic damages on distant targets in pursuit of their extremist goals. Armed with modern technology, they are capable of devastating destruction worldwide. They target the West, but their operations mercilessly slaughter thousands of people of all races and religions. Only a thorough understanding of these new terror networks and their social movement will enable the world to mount an effective defense.

As a step toward that understanding, this book combines fact with theory to go beyond the headlines and journalistic accounts and stimulate a more sophisticated discourse on the subject. Based on the biographies of 172 terrorists gathered from open sources, it examines this social movement, which I call the global Salafi jihad. It excavates the ideological roots of the movement and traces its evolution throughout the world. The data, broken down in terms of social, personal, and situational variables, challenge the conventional explanations of terrorism. They suggest instead that this form of terrorism is an emergent quality of the social networks formed by alienated young men who become transformed into fanatics yearning for martyrdom and eager to kill. The shape and dynamics of these networks affects their survivability, flexibility, and success.

I bring an unusual combination of experience and skills to bring to the study of terrorism. As a Foreign Service officer, I worked with Islamic fundamentalists on a daily basis during the Afghan-Soviet war, from 1986 to 1989. These interactions gave me some insight into the mujahedins beliefs and practices. I also developed an appreciation of them as human beings, which ran counter to media portrayals of them in the aftermath of September 11, 2001. I was intrigued and decided to look into this phenomenon.

After leaving the Foreign Service in 1991, I returned to medicine and completed a residency in psychiatry. I am now in private practice and keep up with the literature of this rapidly changing field. Many of the old psychodynamic theories have been largely discredited in the modern field of psychiatry owing to lack of effectiveness or any empirical backing. Yet they still have an echo in the field of terrorism, where most of the psychological commentators provide psychodynamic accounts. I am a strong supporter of the new movement in medicine to base its practice on empirical science, which has started to eliminate some of the harmful practices stemming from age-old but misguided traditions. Empiricism should also inform the social science of terrorism. My subspecialty is forensic psychiatry. I have extensive experience interviewing, analyzing, and writing and testifying about murderers. I have learned that many of our popular concepts about them are mistaken. But nothing in my experience with solitary murderers, even mass murderers, helps me understand the collective murder-suicides of September 11, 2001. Their motivations and desire for martyrdom cannot be extrapolated from what is known about common criminals.

During my medical training I also acquired a doctorate in political sociology. I studied large-scale common good organizations such as political parties, unions, professional associations, and terrorist organizations. This helps me focus on larger social patterns even in my psychiatric practice, where I try to combine the statistical and analytical tools of social science with individual case study. Advances in social network analysis provided valuable insight into some of the surprising aspects of this global terrorist network.

In addition, extensive scholarship in the social psychology of genocide perpetrators over the past four decades has shed some light on this phenomenon. For several years I have taught a seminar at the University of Pennsylvania on this topic, which has sensitized me to the contributions of psychology, sociology, and social psychology to explanations of collective violence. The first meeting of my seminar on The Moral Psychology of Holocaust Perpetrators was held on September 12, 2001. During the seminar, the analogy between the Nazis and global Salafi terrorists became increasingly obvious to my students and me. This book is a continuation of my research into the origins of collective violence.

The data in this study are strictly derived from public sources. Since I left the government, I have neither security clearance nor access to government confidential files. Much of terrorism research is done under the cloak of secrecy. Often that is for legitimate national security reasons. However, research that is conducted in secret and not subject to rigorous peer review may be flawed and reach conclusions that are deleterious in their practical implications. My past experience in the Foreign Service made me well aware that the quality of intelligence is variable and depends on good sources and analysis. The competition and collaboration that mark the scientific method are mostly absent in the government, leading officials to an unwarranted sense of confidence in their analyses. Seclusion of the intelligence-gathering process shelters it from criticism, which affects the validity and reliability of its conclusions (Taylor, 1991: 123).

This book is an attempt to stimulate new ideas and perspectives in the study of terrorism. It raises as many questions as it answers. It aims at theoretical insights and practical applications for global security. My hope is that it starts a fruitful conversation that will help both specialists and laypeople better understand.

Understanding Terror Networks

The global Salafi jihad is a worldwide religious revivalist movement with the goal of reestablishing past Muslim glory in a great Islamist state stretching from Morocco to the Philippines, eliminating present national boundaries. It preaches salafiyyah (from , the Arabic word for ancient one and referring to the companions of the Prophet Mohammed), the restoration of authentic Islam, and advocates a strategy of violent jihad, resulting in an explosion of terror to wipe out what it regards as local political heresy. The global version of this movement advocates the defeat of the Western powers that prevent the establishment of a true Islamist state.

Al Qaeda is the vanguard of this movement, which includes many other terrorist groups that collaborate in their operations and share a large support base (see Burke, 2003). Salafi ideology determines its mission, sets its goals, and guides its tactics. What sets the global Salafi jihad apart from other terrorist campaigns is its violence against foreign non-Muslim governments and their populations in furtherance of Salafi objectives.