41 terrorist plots since Sept. 11, four of them before operational stage.
Major Groups Engaged in Terrorism in the Name of Islam, 2000-2013 Attacks
Deaths
Injuries
RESPONDING TO MUSLIM RADICALIZATION
Source: Institute of Economics and Peace
12185
8763
8585
9115 8081
3440
3111
2757 1759
1089
Al-Qaida
750
Taliban
are women and six are converts. However, according to the FBI, these people are a fraction of the suspects being tracked or under government surveillance. In 2014, FBI Director James Comey said the figure will be many times more than 100, but could not give a precise estimate because they are “so hard to track.” Only nine of 35 people returning from serving with terrorist groups abroad engaged in plots aimed at targets in the United States, two of which succeeded — the 2013 Boston Marathon bombers, the Tsarnov brothers, who allegedly trained in Dagestan; and in 2010, Faisal Shahzad, who trained with militants in Pakistan, unsuccessfully attempted to detonate a car bomb in New York City’s Times Square. Despite the increase in terrorist activity in the name of Islam abroad, few Muslim Americans are joining and fewer are returning from terrorist training camps. Financial support from Muslim Americans for such so-called jihad remains low. “Muslim Americans have little contact with terrorist activities in the United States or overseas,” according to the Triangle Center report. University of Maryland’s START Center found there has been more radicalization of people from the American far right than from among Muslims in the United States. A 2010 study, “Anti-Terror Lessons of Muslim-Americans,” jointly produced by the Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, concluded that American mosques deter the spread ISLAMIC HORIZONS MAY/JUNE 2015
Boko Haram
492
ISIL
“Radicalization is complex. Yet a thinlysourced, reductionist view of how people become terrorists has gained unwarranted legitimacy in some counterterrorism circles. … Only by analyzing what we know about radicalization and the government’s response to it can we be sure that these reactions are grounded in fact rather than stereotypes and truly advance our efforts to combat terrorism,” according to New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice 2011 report, “Rethinking Radicalization.” Some officials within law enforcement agencies and much of the mainstream media have developed simplistic theories of how Muslim Americans may become radicalized.
ONE OF THE BEST ANTIDOTES TO RADICALIZATION IS BETTER SOCIAL INTEGRATION AND ACCEPTING THE FACT THAT RESPONSIBILITY TOWARD CITIZENSHIP MUST ACCOMPANY THE ASSERTION OF RIGHTS. of extremism by building youth programs, sponsoring anti-violence forums and often placing renewed scrutiny on the curriculum being taught. It was a Muslim street vendor who thwarted the Times Square bomber, and Muslims in Irvine, California, concerned about incitement of violence by a fellow Muslim reported him to the police, only to later learn that he was an FBI informant. It was the leadership of the Islamic Center in Jacksonville, Florida, that reported to the FBI a person who was attempting to recruit youth to join jihad in the Middle East. It was the so-called underwear bomber’s father, worried that his son posed a threat, who reported him to the authorities. This father placed the safety of others over his own paternal instincts. The largest single source of initial information-involved tips from Muslim Americans. A 2011 Muslim Public Affairs Council study reported that Muslim communities helped foil 14 out of
These theories suggest the path to terrorism has a fixed trajectory with identifiable markers. They posit the existence of a “religious conveyor belt” that leads from grievance or personal crisis to religiosity to the adoption of radical beliefs to finally terrorism. Little empirical evidence supports such a theory. However, actual connections to terrorist activity may be discernible, if community members and its leadership remain alert. For example, Sheldon Bell from Jacksonville, Florida, was reported to law enforcement not because he dressed conservatively or followed religious rituals meticulously. Rather, he came to the authorities’ attention because a parent, concerned that his son was being encouraged to join violent jihad in Syria, reported Bell. The assumed link between religiosity and terrorism alienates the very community whose cooperation is crucial to defend against terrorists who claim to act in the name of Islam. “Can a community 47