Lounsbury: Understanding Terror Networks

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December 21, 2004

Understanding Terror Networks

Article I was directed to by an email:

Understanding Terror Networks
http://www.fpri.org/enotes/20041101.middleeast.sageman.understandingterrornetworks.html

A few comments.

First, the author seems to be unnecessarily and not necessarily entirely factually minimizing the Arab-Afghan roles and connexions. Minor point, and I may be wrong, but based on my prior knowledge this read as spin.

Second, although I have some reservations about the interpretation here, the author in this brief note has some interesting observations, one's that are not actually very well highlighted but useful, as for example this:
A very small subset of Salafis, the disciples of Qutb, believe they cannot create this state peacefully through the ballot-box but have to use violence. The utopia they strive for is similar to most utopias in European thought of the nineteenth to the twentieth centuries, such as the communist classless society.
Indeed the background of the violent fringe of the Salafiste movement is highly reminiscent of late 19th century European hard left movements. That is no accident.

Third, the information, or data presented is interesting but I find some analytical points defective - not entirely wrong but defective.

Taking this:
The 400 terrorists on whom I�ve collected data were the ones who actually targeted the �far enemy,� the U.S., as opposed to their own governments. I wanted to limit myself for analytical purity to that group, to see if I could identify anything different from other terrorist movements, which were far more nationalistic.
There is an issue here in this self limitation - there is a selection bias in terms of characterizing their motivations as different from the more nationalistic Salafi elements - there is an element of opportunity. I shall return to this in a moment.

Let me draw attention to the following:
Most people think that terrorism comes from poverty, broken families, ignorance, immaturity, lack of family or occupational responsibilities, weak minds susceptible to brainwashing - the sociopath, the criminals, the religious fanatic, or, in this country, some believe they�re just plain evil.

Taking these perceived root causes in turn, three quarters of my sample came from the upper or middle class. The vast majority�90 percent�came from caring, intact families. Sixty-three percent had gone to college, as compared with the 5-6 percent that�s usual for the third world. These are the best and brightest of their societies in many ways.
The data cited is unclear in terms of his characterizations of social class (I leave aside the "caring" families characterization, I have no idea how one gets data on caring in this context) and I am distrustful insofar as Upper or Middle Class in terms of MENA in my experience are slippery concepts when North American ideas are applied uncritically. The University attendance comment again raises some alarm bells for me insofar as in the Arab region Uni attendance is rather more extensive than say in Pakistan - although graduates churned out are very often unemployable.

However, returning to selection bias issue, in terms of the profile he is looking at, I suggest that there is a strong selection bias in this "international circuit capable of penetrating Western confines" to the profile he finds.

On this item:
Three-quarters were professionals or semi- professionals. They are engineers, architects, and civil engineers, mostly scientists. Very few humanities are represented, and quite surprisingly very few had any background in religion. The natural sciences predominate. Bin Laden himself is a civil engineer, Zawahiri is a physician, Mohammed Atta was, of course, an architect; and a few members are military, such as Mohammed Ibrahim Makawi, who is supposedly the head of the military committee.

Actually the French specialists in this area, Roy and Kepel, noted this phenomena a decade ago. The hard core, bloody minded puritans in the violent Salafi fringe are most frequently of a profile I would call the "religiously self educated, frustrated professional class" - frustrated not necessarily in personal terms of achievement, although whatever achievement one can register one has to put that in the context of aspirations - but in terms of what "their people" are achieving. Think back to the Left radicals of Europe and to a lesser extent North America of the 19th and early 20th centuries - leading elements were often Middle Class and above who were angered by the very real injustices and abuses of a system trying to adapt to new socio-economic realities. The same is true in my experience - personal as it is - in this region, 50 to 100 years later.

Here I want to return to the issue of poverty, achievement and motivation - and the proper analytical framework to understand this in. The market for radicalism is a complicated market, and one that is highly segmented in my opinion. I have noted in my rummaging about in the internet a distinct tendancy among our American "conservative" element to use comment like our present article to deny the issue of poverty and economic underdevelopment - for I would suppose a variety of inchoate reasons, among them religious bias (Xian maximists), simple minded 'capitalists' who some how fear frank economic analysis out of some misplaced sense that a recognition of distributional issues in economics is some commie issue rather than an emperical one that equally suggests (intelligent) market solutions - as a driver in generating people like Zaouhiri.

Anyone who has spent any time in Egypt, or even the region, but especially in Cairo - visit Eerie's little travelogue for a somewhat rapid view of the Dickensian nightmare that is Cario, although living there teaches profounder lessons [e.g. trying presenting a paper on water pricing to the Gov and hear their Econ advisor, Mubarek's econ advisor even, tell you in person, great but no way] - has no trouble understanding how general social frustration even among the successful - the so called best and brightest - can generate radicalism. The issue is, in the context of a system like that of Egypt (or Syria, or Iraq, or Libya, or as-Saudiyah .... you get the picture), that anyone who is bright and talented and has the vaguest sense of personal integrity has to be disgusted by the corrupt, venal, oligarchic, value destroying systems, and that since 1990 in the case of Egypt and the Gulf (and to a lesser extent, North Africa) has been supported by the West despite the fine speeches, well that person is as likely to become radicalized as not. Add that the "secular" systems in place are largely socio-political/economic systems that are not much more than neo-feudal theft/rent extraction and one has very nice ingrediants to see religious extremism.

I have often said to (sometimes shocked) interlocuters in my real life that my (quasi athiestic, unrepentant capitalist) self would easily be an Islamist had I grown up in these conditions.

I still believe that, however unfashionable it is post 11 September. And I agree at a level, if I may be unpolitically correct, for the underlying essential critique of the Islamists is correct. The secular regimes in the region, in their majority are (i) fake democracies, (ii) corrupt, (iii) "secular", (iv) immobile, (v) unjust.

Now, as in the case of my view of traditional Left critiques of "capitalism," they are not wrong (as in the case of distributional issues) in terms of issues but rather misplaced in terms of solutions.

The key issue which I hope our dear... I truly hate to use the word "conservative" - American Drooling Conservos (sorry to the rest of my right thinking readers, I have yet to hit upon a phrase that quite captures my frustration with the Know Nothings) ... grasp is that it is not the bloody internationally mobile terror elite that characterizes the issue, but the long term fundamental market drivers. The fundamentals are poverty and the underlying sensation of humiliation

I also know that as in the 19th century European hard Left model, that while the transient, mobile, and perhaps most bloody minded radicals are from the (rightly) morally outraged but more well-off classes

Only 13 percent were madrassa-trained and most of them come from what I call the Southeast Asian sample, the Jemaah Islamiyya (JI).
An important observation, actually, in the context of the idiocy of some "initiatives" by some Democratic Senators (or ignorant idiots) I have ranted about in the past.

However, let's recall the profile our man is looking at is likely to reflect strong, very strong selection bias to a profile that is internationally mobile in Western countries and one that likely uses the 'kharijine l-medressaat" as canon fodder and home region operatives.

As a psychiatrist, originally I was looking for any characteristic common to these men. But only four of the 400 men had any hint of a disorder. This is below the worldwide base rate for thought disorders. So they are as healthy as the general population. I didn�t find many personality disorders, which makes sense in that people who are antisocial usually don�t cooperate well enough with others to join groups. This is a well-organized type of terrorism: these men are not like Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, loners off planning in the woods. Loners are weeded out early on. Of the nineteen 9-11 terrorists, none had a criminal record. You could almost say that those least likely to cause harm individually are most likely to do so collectively

The interesting point here is the last. I refer back to the historical experience of Left radicals in Europe 100 years ago. I would hazard the opinon it is the same.

The problem is not insanity, evil or whatever.

At the time they joined jihad, the terrorists were not very religious. They only became religious once they joined the jihad. Seventy percent of my sample joined the jihad while they were living in another country from where they grew up. So someone from country A is living in country B and going after country C�the United States. This is very different from the usual terrorist of the past, someone from country A, living in country A, going after country A�s government. I want to remind that I�m addressing my sample of those who attacked the U.S., not Palestinians, Chechens, Kashmiris, etc.

In re the first two statements I am not sure are emperically true. The rest is not something I know about.

France happened to generate a lot of my sample, fourth behind Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Morocco. Eighty percent were, in some way, totally excluded from the society they lived in. Sixty-eight percent either had preexisting friendships with people already in the jihad or were part of a group of friends who collectively joined the jihad together: this is typical of the Hamburg group that did 9- 11, the Montreal group that included Ahmed Ressam, the millennial bomber. Another 20 percent had close family bonds to the jihad. The Khadr family from Toronto is typical: the father, Ahmed Saeed Khadr, who had a computer engineering degree from Ottawa and was killed in Pakistan in October 2003, got his five sons involved: all of them trained in al Qaeda camps and one has been held for killing a U.S. medic. Their mother is involved in financing the group.

Items for the takeaway. Perso connexions are key - may I say as someone in the region, knowing the culture and the languages, well no bloody motherfucing shit, what the fuck does one fucking think? This is a perso driven culture. Perso in wide relations sense, not individualistic.

So between the two, you have 88 percent with friendship/family bonds to the jihad; the rest are usually disciples of Bashir and Sungkar.[Indonessia, likley selection bias in my opinion] But that�s not the whole story. They also seem to have clustered around ten mosques worldwide that generated about 50 percent of my sample. If you add the two institutions in Indonesia, twelve institutions generated 60 percent of my sample. So, you�re talking about a very select, small group of people. This is not as widespread as people think.

The added item I have to this that I think the underlying lesson is that yes, the real hard core radicals capable of circulating in international circles are a tiny minority.

In order to really sustain your motivation to do terrorism, you need the reinforcement of group dynamics. You need reinforcement from your family, your friends. This social movement was dependent on volunteers, and there are huge gaps worldwide on those volunteers. One of the gaps is the United States. This is one of two reasons we have not had a major terrorist operation in the United States since 9/11. The other is that we are far more vigilant. We have actually made coming to the U.S. far more difficult for potential terrorists since 2001.

I think this is right, and I also think that the Islamophobia in the States, the increasing tendancy to discrminate in a rather vulgar manner against foreign visitors of non-Xian extraction is a negative net benefit reaction.

December 21, 2004

Understanding Terror Networks

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