The Lethal Cocktail of Terrorism: The Four Necessary Ingredients that Go into Making a Terrorist & Fifty Individual Vulnerabilities/Motivations that May also Play a Role

I recently returned from an interview trip in Belgium, the European country with the highest per capita rate of foreign fighters going to Syria, young men and women who travel there sometimes for good, but mainly to join groups like ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra (the Syrian franchise of al-Qaeda). With over five hundred Belgians having gone to fight “jihad” and over one hundred foreign fighters now having returned (half of them put in prison, half returned into society) authorities there are struggling with the staggering numbers of Belgians that have been attracted into militant jihadi groups. They are wondering why and how that comes to be as well as what can be done to prevent and turn back those already entered onto the terrorist trajectory.

After interviewing almost five hundred militant jihadi terrorists, their family members, close associates, and even their hostages, from places ranging from Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Russia, Chechnya, Israel, Canada and Western Europe I think I have a pretty good idea of how and why some people get onto the terrorist trajectory. This is my explanation of the necessary ingredients for the lethal cocktail of making a terrorist along with an explanation of the individual vulnerabilities/motivations that may also play a role—depending on the context and the individuals involved.

• First there is nearly always a group. Ted Kaczynski (the Unabomber) and Chris Dorner (the former LA policeman and shooter) each formed their own manifestos and attacked on their own, but these types of true lone wolves are rare indeed. There is usually a group purporting to represent some faction of society and offering terrorism as an answer.
• Second the group offers an ideology—one that always wrongly attempts to justify terrorism and the attacking of innocent civilians for the cause.
• Third there is some level of social support that can vary widely by context. A youth thinking about joining a terrorist group in Gaza for instance is likely to have many friends who are also part of Hamas or Fatah and may chose his group the way other youth in other countries chose a football team. Whereas a youth growing up in Boston, as Tamerlan Tsarnaev did, will have to dig deeper in his community to find other like-minded individuals. Although these days with the Internet, having a phone or computer handy, means that one can quickly and easily tap into social networks supportive to terrorist groups. ISIS currently maintains a 24/7 presence on the Internet; and produces thousands of videos, posters, and memes for individuals to interact with on all the social media sites. When someone shows interest in their activities, they quickly swarm in, providing them with one-on-one attention, care and nurture that is often lacking in their own lives—to recruit them further into the group.
• Lastly there is some individual vulnerability that resonates with the first three factors—the group, its ideology and the social support provided by the group. This paper identifies fifty such factors that have to do with individual motivations and vulnerability (see Table One). And we can break these into two cases: by whether or not the person lives inside or outside a conflict zone.

According to my research, those who reside in conflict zones are most often primarily motivated by trauma and revenge as well as frustrated aspirations. They most often have family members who have been killed, raped, tortured, imprisoned or otherwise unfairly treated. They may have lost their home, territory, jobs and resources and may be living under occupation. Often there are checkpoints and conflicts that keep them from engaging in their studies or block them from steady employment.

They are angry, hurt and easily resonate to a group that offers to equip them to strike back. They often want their enemy to feel the same pain they do and even if they know their terrorist act may be futile in every other way, they may be willing to even engage in a suicide attack in order to express their outrage, make the enemy suffer similarly, and sometimes even to end their own pain. If they are highly traumatized a suicide mission may offer them psychological first aid of a short-term nature—they can honorably exit a life overtaken by psychological trauma, painful arousal states, flashbacks, horror, anger, powerlessness, survival guilt and traumatic bereavement. If the group is good at selling suicide they may even believe that they immediately go to Paradise, also earn Paradise for their family members, and that they will reunite with lost loved ones by taking their own lives in a suicide attack.

But what about those residing in non-conflict zones like Belgium? What are the individual vulnerabilities that may contribute to their entering the terrorist trajectory? There are many.

In places like Belgium where the Moroccan second and third-generation still lives uneasily segregated from their white neighbors and find themselves easily able to gain an education but less easily hired and allowed into the mainstream middleclass there can be anger over marginalization and discrimination. Unemployment, underemployment and frustrated aspirations can all lead to feelings of alienation and a longing for personal significance that a terrorist group may offer. In Belgium I found long before ISIS arose, that youth of Moroccan immigrant descent would tell me things like what Jamal said about being told at the nightclubs “Go home Moroccan” and at job interviews that his prospective employer could never hire a Moroccan for the front office, “If this country doesn’t want me I can find one that does,” he told me—referring to joining a militant jihadi movement.

Now with ISIS having declared its “caliphate” this draw is even more powerful to the socially alienated, the person falling off his tracks or unable to succeed in the society in which he lives. In the city of Brussels where the commune of Molenbeek has been labeled a hotbed of terrorism, unemployment levels for Belgian citizens of Moroccan descent hover around thirty percent. Yet, ISIS currently offers any Muslim who is finding it hard to make his life in Europe or elsewhere—a job, a wife, a sex slave, a house, perhaps even a car, and the promise of being a significant part of building the so-called “Caliphate”.

Anger over geopolitics, particularly if it is mirrored on the micro-level in one’s own life can also play a very important part in providing a fertile ground for terrorist recruitment. Hamid in Antwerp, Belgium told me that he answered the call to al Qaeda terrorist recruitment after the recruiter brought the conflict back home to local politics for him—asking if he didn’t live uneasily with his “white” Belgian neighbors and fear what might happen if things rapidly fell apart in Belgium someday as they had in the Balkans when Muslim women became mass rape victims. Terrorist groups today use video, images and the Internet to portray extreme traumas and perceived, as well as actual, injustices in conflict zones such as in Syria, Iraq, Kashmir, Palestine, and Chechnya that they argue are caused by an enemy other that the terrorist group then calls the viewer to fight against to restore justice and defend the defenseless. Al Qaeda for years argued that Islamic people, lands, and even Islam itself, were under attack by the West and therefore people all over the world had a duty to rise up and join a defensive jihad. The same is being argued today by ISIS.

In a sense these groups instill secondary trauma in the viewers of their raw and graphic videos. A Moroccan friend of the Casa Blanca bombers told me, “We all viewed these videos of the war in Iraq and what was happening in Fallujah and we began to shake from the emotions of it all.” He surmised that the terrorist recruiter of his friends referred to what they had all seen on these videos and how they could fight against it. “You see how we have nothing here and will never get jobs or be able to be married. The most we can be is drug addicts as you see us, but their recruiter cleaned them up and showed them another way.” That way was self-sacrifice, attacking in behalf of others, and terrorism. He did clean the youth he recruited of their drug addiction as well as provided purpose and significance and he used the secondary trauma that the video recruiting materials caused to put them on a path that tragically and violently ended their lives and the lives of others.

Empathy and a desire for justice are also real and serious motivators. Many young kids from around the world went to Syria because they felt no one was offering real support to the beleaguered Syrians in their uprising against Bashar Assad. Those who have studied revenge and fairness find that people all over the world will go to great lengths even depriving themselves in order to make things just. Likewise those who study gender differences in the development of values formation find that young females often put a higher value on relationships when evaluating whether or not a specific action is correct or not. When youth are shown pictures and videos that make them believe the world is unjust and they are called into movements that promise to deliver justice, this can be extremely powerful, particularly in the face of boring and insignificant lives. The opportunity to take part in and even fight and sacrifice for something heroic, to help build a utopian state such as the “caliphate,” and the idealism of youth is often preyed upon and captured by such terrorist groups.

We must also remember that for youth, developing a positive identity is one of their developmental tasks. They are in a developmental stage of moving away from their families and into society and they look to peers to give them cues about how to belong and find significance. In many ways we become the company that we keep—and a band of brothers, gang of guys or a sisterhood can be factors to pull one into a terrorist group and its ideology, simply because one wants to belong and find significance and meaning in the personal relationships offered. ISIS is particularly adept at using relationships—offered in person where they are able to use recruiters, such as in certain neighborhoods in Europe—and by offering the same over the Internet via text, chat, phone, Skype and other social media in areas where they cannot reach in person. Belonging is a powerful motivator particularly for youth who are struggling with issues of identity conflicts and perhaps for some—particularly young converts and “reverts” (i.e. those born Muslim but finding new meaning in their religion)—with what it means to be a Muslim.

For youth, the promise and allure of adventure may also beckon them powerfully as does romance and for some even the raw excitement of sex. While many claim that the allure of the virgins in Paradise are a powerful motivator, in truth I’ve never in my years of interviewing any terrorist found the virgins to be such a powerful motivator. Belief in a better afterlife certainly conveys the courage to push the button that releases them into that state of being (or nonbeing), but stronger motivators, I’ve found, are those listed above alongside the very real motivator of what I like to call, “sex now”. When young girls offer themselves as sexual partners in illicit marriages as a reward for becoming a mujahid (holy warrior) as a group of girls in the Netherlands did, and when joining the jihad makes one more attractive to the opposite sex, these sexual rewards become powerful motivators as well. I call this “sex now” and am sure it’s a whole lot more motivating than just the promise of the virgins in Paradise. Likewise don’t forget that ISIS currently offers jobs alongside the offer of wives, and sex slaves, to young men facing high unemployment in their own countries. A young man who is jobless is likely to have trouble getting girlfriends and married and may therefore be blocked from sex. With ISIS all their sexual needs are suddenly going to be satisfied. This is no small thing. And this applies both to third world countries like Tunisia, as well as European countries like Belgium, in areas where youth of Moroccan descent face up to thirty percent unemployment rates in some of their neighborhoods.

We must also remember that conflict zones also exist in microcosms in neighborhoods and even inside individual homes where family and community trauma and PTSD happening on a smaller scale can lead to a desire to escape a painful life, just like inside any other larger conflict zone. When I interviewed in London a youth worker who was pulling gang youth out of an al Qaeda cell he told me that the youth attracted into terrorism were lacking involved parents, were often themselves victims of violence, and heavily involved in drugs and criminality. They were lost, and easily fell prey to an adult who took time to take them camping where he also taught them the al Qaeda ideology. The girls found safety in the hijab, particularly when their male counterparts were told to honor them for wearing it, and both genders found comfort in the promise of Paradise if they were killed in their criminal lives. Their recruiter became a role model to them, a leader, and infused them with purpose, belonging to a greater good, meaning, significance and redirected them onto the path of militant jihad while continuing to justify their criminality against the “kafir” (unbelievers) as works in behalf of the militant group. Only someone who offered similar feelings of care and purpose to their lives could draw these kids back out, as the youth worker had.

Material incentives can also be motivators. To a young girl who does not expect to live in more than a small apartment, pictures of a grand house in Raqqa, or a luxury car, can be alluring—as can the promise of a paycheck. The ability to eat can be powerful motivators to a impoverished Syrian whose area is overtaken by ISIS as we are hearing in our ISIS Defectors Interviews Project. One thirteen-year-old girl who had been shown pictures of mansions with swimming pools during her online recruitment to ISIS said she thought she would be going to ISIS Disney land.

Any Muslim who struggles with feelings of shame or guilt over past sins—or things that were done to him or her such as rape or sexual abuse for which their culture may blame them in whole or part, engaging in militant jihad can also be motivating in that one can express anger and outrage at an enemy thereby directing their inner rage at a real target. Likewise the possibility of being “martyred” can be a means of purifying oneself as the militant jihadi ideology teaches that such an act leads to automatically gaining Paradise for themselves and their family members. For a young person who may have done drugs, engaged in illicit sexual relations, homosexuality, had an abortion, etc. the possibility to cleanse oneself totally, attain purity and be sure of the afterlife may be highly motivating.

Youth often also struggle with consolidating their gender identity. Militant jihad for young men can shore up feelings of insecurity over their manhood. There is nothing like being issued a Kalashnikov or AK-47 to instill a warrior identity and thereby increase one’s sense of manhood. Likewise for Western girls inundated with confusing and conflicting messages about how to express their sexuality, a simple traditional life style can be attractive—where everything is clearly defined and marriage, a traditional family lifestyle, and sexual safety is promised (perhaps not delivered, but promised).

Mental health issues can also contribute as motivators. In one ISIS film, a young medical student from Cardiff argues that “jihad is the cure for depression” stating that he too was depressed before he joined ISIS. Indeed action can lighten the load of a heavy depression, even action that is totally wrong-minded. A psychopathic personality may also be thrilled to join ISIS where he or she can give free rein to a desire for brutality.

All, some, or just one of these individual vulnerabilities can be active in a person along with the powerful draw of a group, its ideology and the social support that is offered by the group—either in person, or these days via the Internet. Understanding the factors making up the lethal cocktail of terrorism does not excuse those who chose to engage in abhorrent violence, but it can lead us to thoughtful solutions where we begin to see the value in engaging in and supporting nonviolent civil rights movements for beleaguered communities in Europe for instance, or stimulating employment for areas of high unemployment while also trying to diminish exposure to terrorist groups, their ideologies and whatever support they may offer in person or via the Internet. Many of us spent the last decades studying terrorists to learn to identify and understand how these factors interact to make up the lethal cocktail of terrorism. Now it’s time to engage in action to prevent and deter individuals from ever entering the terrorist trajectory, and if on it, to help change their course to get back off.

Anne Speckhard, Ph.D. is Adjunct Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Georgetown University in the School of Medicine and Director of the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism. She is author of Talking to Terrorists and coauthor of Undercover Jihadi. She was responsible for designing the psychological and Islamic challenge aspects of the Detainee Rehabilitation Program in Iraq to be applied to twenty thousand detainees and eight hundred juveniles. She also has interviewed nearly five hundred terrorists, their family members and supporters from various parts of the world including Gaza, the West Bank, Chechnya, Iraq, Jordan, Russia, Canada and many countries in Europe. Her newly released book is Bride of ISIS. Website: www.AnneSpeckhard.com

Reference for this paper: Speckhard, Anne (2016) The Lethal Cocktail of Terrorism: The Four Necessary Ingredients that Go into Making a Terrorist & Fifty Individual Vulnerabilities/Motivations that May also Play a Role. ICSVE: Brief Report, http://www.icsve.org/the-lethal-cocktail-of-terrorism–the-four-necessary-ingredients.html

ISIS Defector Reports on the Sale of Organs Harvested from ISIS held “Slaves”

Anne Speckhard, Ph.D. & Ahmet S. Yayla, Ph.D.

In February of 2015 Iraqi Ambassador, Mohamed Alhakim requested the UN Security Council to investigate the deaths of twelve doctors in Mosul, Iraq who he claimed had been killed by ISIS after refusing to remove organs from dead bodies. He also claimed that some of the bodies found were mutilated with opening in the back where the kidneys are located. “This is clearly something bigger than we think,” Ambassador Alhakim stated.[1]

“Organ theft during wars, civil wars, dirty wars, wars involving undisciplined armies is not uncommon,” Nancy Scheper-Hughes, chair of Berkeley’s doctoral program in medical anthropology and director of Organs Watch, a California based documentation and research project told CNN in response to the February claim. She also told CNN that the market in human organs is brisk commenting that, “The demand for fresh organs and tissues … is insatiable.” Scheper-Hughes added fresh kidneys from “the brain dead or from those executed with the assistance of trained organ harvesters are the blood diamonds of illicit and criminal trafficking.”[2]

U.S. State Department responded to the February 2015 claims with the following statement: “We also have no reason to doubt them given other similar atrocities that have been documented and other heinous crimes for which ISIL has proudly taken credit.” [3]

In September of 2015, former ISIS prisoner Abo Rida was reported stating that surgeons for the terror group removed kidneys and corneas from prisoners. Rida reported ISIS informing their captives that “the fate of these prisoners (was) inevitable death” and the jihadists were “more deserving” of the organs. Rida said he escaped from ISIS after a counter-terrorism raid damaged their prison, but that he was fired upon trying to escape and was only one of four who made it out alive. [4]

In December of 2015 the U.S. government revealed that it had obtained in May, via a Special Forces raid in eastern Syria, a document dated January 31, 2015 (among many others) giving the Islamic justification for harvesting organs from “infidels.” The ruling according to Reuters, states that taking organs from a living captive to save a Muslim’s life, even if it is fatal for the captive, is permissible. “The apostate’s life and organs don’t have to be respected and may be taken with impunity,” the fatwa from the Islamic State’s Research and Fatwa Committee reads. It goes on to say, “Organs that end the captive’s life if removed: The removal of that type is also not prohibited.” The Islamic State’s ruling on organ harvesting cites Islamic texts, principles and laws lending support for what the group argues, “the notion that transplanting healthy organs into a Muslim person’s body in order to save the latter’s life or replace a damaged organ with it is permissible.”[5] A U.S. government translation of the fatwa can be found here.

While the newly discovered fatwa does not offer any proof that Islamic State actually engages in organ harvesting or organ trafficking, that ISIS could be reaping financial benefits by trafficking in stolen body parts is not inconceivable. Given the numerous reports leaking about the justification for and actual activity of organ harvesting and given that it has faced set-backs in its illicit oil trade of late due to airstrikes on it, the group may need to recoup the money.

In our ISIS Defector Interview Project at the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism we were also informed by an ISIS defector in December of 2015 who maintains ties with other Islamic State cadres, both still in and out of the group that, “There is a statement now from Daesh: ‘From this point you do not kill the slaves. We need to use their bodies to make money [for organ trade].’ Basically, they are saying that the slaves are already ‘dead’. We need to make money off their bodies by selling body parts.”

While we hope it’s not true, given all the heinous acts the Islamic State cadres have already carried out, this is just one more sickening example of how un-Islamic ISIS really is.

Anne Speckhard, Ph.D. is Adjunct Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Georgetown University in the School of Medicine and Director of the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism (ICSVE). She is author of Talking to Terrorists and Bride of ISIS and coauthor of Undercover Jihadi. In 2007, Dr. Speckhard was responsible for designing the psychological and Islamic challenge aspects of the Detainee Rehabilitation Program in Iraq to be applied to twenty thousand detainees and eight hundred juveniles. She has interviewed over four hundred terrorists, their family members and supporters in various parts of the world including Gaza, the West Bank, Chechnya, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and many countries in Europe. Website: www.AnneSpeckhard.com

Ahmet S. Yayla, Ph.D. is Professor and the Chair of Sociology Department at Harran University in south of Turkey by the Syrian border. Dr. Yayla is a Research Fellow at ICSVE. Dr. Yayla served as Chief of Anti-terrorism Division at the Turkish National Police. He has earned his masters and Ph.D. degrees on the subject of terrorism and radicalization at the University of North Texas. Dr. Yayla’s research mainly focuses on terrorism, sociology, dealing with terrorism without use of force, terrorist recruitment and propaganda, radicalization (including ISIS and Al Qaeda) and violence. He has mostly authored several works on the subject of terrorism. He has also been advisor to the United States Ohio Department of Homeland Security (December 2005 to April 2006) on issues of terrorism and interacting with Muslim Communities in the United States. Dr. Yayla also witnessed at the United States Congress and Senate, Homeland Security Committee and Subcommittee on Prevention of Nuclear and Biological Attacks (October 21st, 2006) on the subject of “Local Law Enforcement Preparedness for Countering the Threats of Terrorism.”

References:

[1] Sanchez, R. (February 19, 2015). United Nations investigates claims of ISIS organ theft. CNN. http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/18/middleeast/isis-organ-harvesting-claim/ Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/18/middleeast/isis-organ-harvesting-claim/

[2] Sanchez, R. (February 19, 2015). United Nations investigates claims of ISIS organ theft. CNN. http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/18/middleeast/isis-organ-harvesting-claim/ Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/18/middleeast/isis-organ-harvesting-claim/

[3] Sanchez, R. (February 19, 2015). United Nations investigates claims of ISIS organ theft. CNN. http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/18/middleeast/isis-organ-harvesting-claim/ Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/18/middleeast/isis-organ-harvesting-claim/

[4] Burman, J. (October 1, 2015). ISIS ‘doctors’ harvesting healthy prisoners’ ORGANS and using them as living bloodbank. Express. http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/609158/ISIS-harvest-organs-Doctors-Escape-Abo-Rida-Syria-Terrorism-Surgeons Retrieved from http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/609158/ISIS-harvest-organs-Doctors-Escape-Abo-Rida-Syria-Terrorism-Surgeons and

Catholic Online. (September 30, 2015). Islamic State cutting out organs from ‘healthy’ captives to strengthen injured jihadists. http://www.catholic.org/news/international/middle_east/story.php?id=64383 Retrieved from http://www.catholic.org/news/international/middle_east/story.php?id=64383

[5] Strobel, W., Landay, J., & Stewart, P. (December 25, 2015). Exclusive: Islamic State sanctioned organ harvesting in document taken in U.S. raid. Reuters News. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-islamic-state-documents-idUSKBN0U805R20151225 Retrieved from http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-islamic-state-documents-idUSKBN0U805R20151225

This report is a publication of the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism (ICSVE) and can be found here.

Eyewitness Accounts from Recent Defectors from Islamic State: Why they Joined, What they Saw, Why they Quit

by Anne Speckhard, Ph.D. & Ahmet S. Yayla, Ph.D.

The Islamic State (IS) is the most powerful, ruthless, horrific and well-funded terrorist group in recent history. Not only has ISIS managed to take and control a significant swathe of territory, it has become a de-facto state. Since their 2014 claim of establishing a Caliphate, ISIS has also unleashed an unprecedented and prolific social media recruiting drive that has enabled them to attract up to 30,000 foreign fighters from more than one hundred countries. A steady stream of fighters continues to enter Syria and Iraq on a daily basis—with some estimates placing their number at over one thousand new recruits per month.[[i]] In addition, ISIS has created a “brand” that has been exported to over twenty hotspots around the globe. As ISIS has arisen—seemingly out of nowhere—to become a powerful foe, the West has struggled to comprehend and understand how to effectively counter it.

While a political solution in the war-torn area of Syria and Iraq is a necessary precondition to the total defeat of ISIS, discrediting the group’s ideology is also essential. Defectors from ISIS, who alongside the refugees pour out of ISIS-controlled territory, are among the most powerful first-hand voices to speak out against the group. Indeed a disillusioned cadre who can speak from experience and tell their authentic stories about life inside ISIS may be the most influential tool for preventing and dissuading others from joining ISIS.

The fight against Islamic State must take place on many fronts, including finding political solutions to the conflicts in Syria and Iraq.  Islamic State is currently winning on many fronts—social media being the most powerful in terms of involving Westerners in homegrown terrorist attacks. At present the Internet serves as a nerve center to connect ISIS activists and propagandists who have proved themselves extremely savvy, active and successful on social media in recruiting Westerners to their cause—to plot terror activity, travel to Syria and Iraq, fundraise, as well as carry out concrete action in behalf of the terrorist group’s goals. That front can be won back by discrediting their ideology and one of the most powerful ways to do that is to use voices of insiders—ISIS defectors to do so.

While it is difficult to reach ISIS defectors and also persuade them to speak out against the group, it is possible. Turkey is a country through which thousands of Westerners have funneled themselves to join ISIS and other militant groups fighting in Syria and Iraq.  Recently, disaffected cadres—ISIS defectors—are crossing in the opposite direction, back into Turkey and hiding out there hoping the long arm of ISIS does not catch them.

In recent months, Anne Speckhard, Ph.D. and Ahmet Yayla, Ph.D. of the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism (ICSVE)have begun an interview project and thus far interviewed seventeen such cadres and plan to interview more.

The project has begun to assemble a sample of ISIS defectors that can inform on the following:

1.     Motivations for joining

2.     Military and Ideological training

3.     Actual First Person Accounts of Life inside ISIS

4.     Reports on the Treatment of Women

5.     Reports on the Foreign Fighter involvement

6.     Reports on the ISIS Slave Trade

7.     Reports on the Brutality and Killing

8.     Reports on ISIS Financing

9.     Reasons for and Process of Defecting

10.  Mental Health Consequences of ISIS involvement

11.  Pictures and video that cadres have of actual events they took part in.

12.  Statements by former ISIS cadres of why they defected and why others should not join.

Thus far, all of the informants have risked their lives and undertook a gravely dangerous journey to defect from ISIS.  Some were ideological supporters right from the beginning—others less so—being more interested in money, survival, women etc., but all of our informants now despise ISIS.  All have willingly given us cautionary statements to Westerners and others who might be considering joining ISIS that along side of their first-person accounts of their lives inside ISIS will be used to discredit the terrorist group.

These interviews are now taking place in secret and recorded on tv-grade video.  Once edited and packaged for such Internet outlets as YouTube and other social media sites, they will be invaluable tools to place back on the Internet to use for prevention and dissuasion.  We can’t wait to publish these stories from the inside that we know will directly and powerfully confront the so-called “caliphate.”

Read the full report here.

Anne Speckhard, Ph.D. is Adjunct Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Georgetown University in the School of Medicine and of Security Studies in the School of Foreign Service. She served with her husband, U.S. Ambassador to Greece, Daniel Speckhard from 2007-2010 during which time a large influx of refugees made their way from Turkey to Greece. She is author of Talking to Terrorists and coauthor of Undercover Jihadi. Her newly released book is Bride of ISIS.

Dr. Speckhard was responsible for designing the psychological and Islamic challenge aspects of the Detainee Rehabilitation Program in Iraq to be applied to twenty thousand detainees and eight hundred juveniles. She also has interviewed over four hundred terrorists, their family members and supporters in various parts of the world including Gaza, the West Bank, Chechnya, Iraq, Jordan and many countries in Europe. Website: www.AnneSpeckhard.com

Ahmet S. Yayla, Ph.D. is Professor and the Chair of Sociology Department at Harran University in south of Turkey by the Syrian border. Dr. Yayla is Research Fellow at ICSVE. Dr. Yayla served as Chief of Anti-terrorism Division at the Turkish National Police. He has earned his masters and Ph.D. degrees on the subject of terrorism and radicalization at the University of North Texas.

Dr. Yayla’s research mainly focuses on terrorism, sociology, dealing with terrorism without use of force, terrorist recruitment and propaganda, radicalization (including ISIS and Al Qaeda) and violence. He has mostly authored several works on the subject of terrorism. He has also been advisor to the United States Ohio Department of Homeland Security (December 2005 to April 2006) on issues of terrorism and interacting with Muslim Communities in the United States. Dr. Yayla also witnessed at the United States Congress and Senate, Homeland Security Committee and Subcommittee on Prevention of Nuclear and Biological Attacks (October 21st, 2006) on the subject of “Local Law Enforcement Preparedness for countering the threats of terrorism”.

References: [[i]] See: Tim Mak, & Youssef, N. (March 3, 2015). IS ranks grow as fast as U.S. bombs can wipe them out. The Daily Beast. URL: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/02/03/isis-recruits-thousands-of-new-fighters-despite-u-s-bombs.html; Kirk, A. (August 12, 2015). Iraq and Syria: How many foreign fighters are fighting for Isil. The Telegraph. URL: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/islamic-state/11770816/Iraq-and-Syria-How-many-foreign-fighters-are-fighting-for-Isil.html; Neumann, P. (January 26, 2015). Foreign fighter total in Syria/Iraq now exceeds 20,000; surpasses Afghanistan conflict in the 1980s. ISCR. URL: http://icsr.info/2015/01/foreign-fighter-total-syriairaq-now-exceeds-20000-surpasses-afghanistan-conflict-1980s/ ; Schmid, Alex P.. Foreign (Terrorist) Fighter Estimates: Conceptual and Data Issues.  The Hague: ICCT, 2015, p. 11.

Mothers as Terrorists: When Mothers Kill and Die to Attain So-Called “Martyrdom” Status

Twenty-seven-year old Tashfeen Malik, the wife of Syed Farook, and the female half of the California mass murder spree, is reported to have pledged her bay’ah–or oath of loyalty–to ISIS just before donning black military-style attire, taking up arms, an IED, and heading off with her husband, Syed Farook to kill fourteen people and wound seventeen others in cold blood. What would drive a woman to violate the most basic of maternal instincts–that is to protect her own child above all else, and to protect her relationship to her child, and in doing so to become a killer and die herself?

The answer lies in the sick ideologies circulating today and embraced by terrorism groups, including ISIS, who endorse a “martyrdom” ideology. Other examples of mothers who left their children to kill themselves (while murdering others), include Palestinian Reem Riyashi–mother of two children: three-year-old son Obedia and eighteen-month-old daughter Duha. Riyashi was preceded by Chechen female bombers–also mothers, who went on so-called “martyrdom” missions also leaving their children behind.

In January of 2004, during the Second Intifada, Riyash approached the Erez checkpoint leading out of Gaza while wearing a suicide bomb. According to the IDF, she thwarted security procedures there by pretending to be crippled–claiming to have plates in her legs that would set off the metal detectors, she requested a body search instead.

As with most women, she was not suspected of being a cold-blooded killer. But when taken to the private area for her check, Riyashi defied most expectations of women and mothers. She detonated her two-kilogram bomb–killing four Israelis (two soldiers, a policeman and a civilian security worker) and wounded an additional seven Israelis and four Palestinians. Riyashi and her Hamas senders took full advantage of the trust most of us put in the female gender, as well as in this instance, of Israeli decency to a purported handicapped individual–to kill as many as possible.

Riyashi’s suicide attack shocked the world, particularly as she had posed with her small children in photos taken before her attack. The appalling photos of a mother brandishing an automatic rifle with a rocket-propelled grenade in the foreground standing alongside her young children defied all understandings of normal motherhood. In one of the photos her son is clutching what looks like a mortar shell. At the time, Hamas replying to criticism for their hard-hearted and cynical use of a mother to kill and die, protested that the pictures revealed the depth of despair among Palestinian women and their strong desire to defeat the Israeli occupation.

Riyashi was the eighth Palestinian female suicide bomber. Following the attack of Darine Abu Aisha (the second Palestinian female suicide bomber), Sheikh Yassin, the spiritual leader of Hamas, withdrew his objection to using women in such actions and switched instead to lavish praise of their involvement. He applauded Riyashi’s attack, urged other women to volunteer, and warned the Israelis to expect even more female bombers.

In many ways the Chechens and Palestinian female suicide bombers, and their supporters around the world endorsements of female involvement in terrorism, opened the doors for other female terrorists acting in behalf of conservative Islamic-related terrorists groups to join in. Following them, Al Qaeda sent white European Belgian Muriel Degaque–a wife, but not a mother–to bomb herself in Iraq, and al-Qaeda in Iraq also sent a rash of female bombers from inside Iraq to detonate themselves at various targets inside Iraq. 

ISIS, thus far, has not sent females out to “martyr” themselves but has made signs of considering it. And it is now looking as if Tashfeen Malik may have been their first ISIS inspired volunteer for that dubious “honor”.

Horrifically, three years after Riyashi bombed herself, Al-Aqsa TV, the official station of the Palestinian unity government (led by Hamas), began airing a fictionalized dramatization of Reem’s four-year-old daughter following in her mother’s footsteps. In it Duha Riyashi (played by a child actress) sings as her mother readies herself for a suicide bombing while asking in the sick lyrics of her song, “Mommy, what are you carrying in your arms instead of me?” Mourning her mother’s death in the video, the young girl finds a leftover stick of dynamite near her mother’s bedside table and picks it up as she vows to carry on, “My love will not be words. I will follow Mummy in her steps.”

Clearly to these kinds of groups, fixated on winning at all costs, and engaging in terrorism to do it–mothers and children, and the bonds between them–mean nothing, compared to carrying out acts in behalf of the “cause”.

It should also be noted, that Chechen suicide bombers–male and female–were encouraged by their ideologues to marry and have children before going on suicide missions. The logic was that they should fulfill all their “life duties,” including having children before engaging on their fantasized and final trip to Paradise.

Chechens who are fighting in Syria (who according to our ISIS defector informants in our ISIS Defectors Interviews Project) head the battles as the elite ISIS forces–the Navy SEALs, if you will–of ISIS. They follow the slogan of “Victory or Paradise,” meaning that death holds no sting and “martyrdom” is victory for them.

Indeed, if Tashfeen Malik and her husband Syed Farook were inspired by the plethora of sick, ISIS ideology that is presently on the Internet, or radicalized from more personal contact–their mindset would be the same. Death holds no sting and killing innocents is glorified.

We see evidence that the couple were preparing for what appears to be a series of attacks and were likely planning to carry them out much like the Tsarnaev’s did–starting with one target and carrying on to a bloody fight at the end–ending in death for at least the elder “true believer.”

However, it seems a workplace spat somehow triggered Syed Farook to decide to jump the gun and prematurely set into motion their series of attacks. That Syed went to work alone, got into an altercation, and then returned in battle gear with his wife to carry out his massacre–but that the couple “forgot” to bring their other bombs along to carry on as the Tsarnaev’s did from one bomb site to the next ultimately ending in the elder Tsarnaev’s death OR that they thought they could return for the other bombs seems to indicate they went off half cocked–perhaps out of nerves and anger.

Nevertheless, the couple was clearly not willing to surrender. When faced with overwhelming force–just like the Madrid train bombers, the Paris attackers and now them–they fought to the death and would likely have exploded themselves and others around them had they had their other devices along with them.

What this couple’s story underlines is that despite our wish to see females as the gentler gender, females can be lethal terrorists, that terrorist groups and now even ISIS are more than willing to make use of them, and that mothers are not an exception. Sadly, we must face that for those that have drunk the poison Kool-Aid of the “martyrdom” ideology put out by such groups as al Qaeda and ISIS–that killing and dying for the “cause” overrides every other normal instinct–including that of self-preservation and maternal love.

That is the enemy we face today. We must do everything we can to discredit and destroy this ideology and the groups that espouse it.

Anne Speckhard, Ph.D. is Adjunct Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Georgetown University in the School of Medicine and Director of the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism. She is author of Talking to Terrorists and coauthor of Undercover Jihadi. Her newly released book is Bride of ISIS. She has interviewed over four hundred terrorists, their family members and supporters in various parts of the world including Gaza, the West Bank, Chechnya, Iraq, Jordan and many countries in Europe. She was responsible for designing the psychological and Islamic challenge aspects of the Detainee Rehabilitation Program in Iraq to be applied to twenty thousand detainees and eight hundred juveniles. Website: www.AnneSpeckhard.com

The Lure of Becoming a Bride of ISIS

PIC SHOWS:  Interpol is searching for two Austrian teenaged girls who they believe have been tricked into going to Syria to fight for ISIS.

Samra Kesinovic, 17, and her friend Sabina Selimovic–two beautiful, young Bosnian immigrant girls who left their families in Vienna, Austria in 2014 are reported again today to have been beaten to death after being caught trying to flee the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa

Indeed the fates of those who join ISIS with wide and shining eyes, only to later get disillusioned, is not pretty and often ends in death, beatings, beheadings and more. What makes Westerners, particularly young girls, want to join ISIS?

The allure for Western girls, particularly from Europe, to join ISIS as brides emanates from a number of things. First, if they perceive discrimination and marginalization as standing in their way to finding success in Europe, ISIS is offering a new world order in which race, ethnicity and particularly being Muslim are no longer obstacles. They also offer for Western women a traditional life style, marriage, adventure, a home (taken from others of course) and even a car to be part of the bargain. Likewise when young Western women first express interest in joining they are typically swarmed and/or groomed for hours with painstaking attention paid to helping them buy into the ISIS worldview. Sadly when they get there the facts on the ground don’t match the reality and then they have to risk their lives to escape and may not be able to–facing the prospect of beatings and beheadings as a result.

ISIS in its call to the Caliphate is also offering a new world order in which the current geo-political conflicts will, according to ISIS, be resolved with everyone ultimately living as Muslim in a utopian life governed by Islamic ideals–heady stuff for the young who are disheartened by real injustices in the world and still believe in the possibility of utopias. The violence necessary to get there is dismissed by recruiters as necessary for revolutions to succeed and who point out the current level of violence that many innocent Muslims are enduring living under despotic regimes. Who will save the Muslim world from suffering they ask, if not Muslims themselves? Certainly the West is failing to do so they point out.

To counter the narrative that groups like al Qaeda and ISIS are currently selling, we need to address the conflict zones, particularly in Syria and Iraq with speedy and well-thought out political solutions, and back home we need a civil rights movement–at least in Europe–to encourage the integration of now sidelined second generation immigrant Muslim kids, to help them succeed and be able to see their futures in the West, instead of with a horrific and violent organization–whether or not it claims to be the true Islam. Then their passions to change the world and their desire to be self actualized can happen without the involvement of groups like ISIS or al Qaeda coming into the mix.

Anne Speckhard, Ph.D. is Adjunct Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Georgetown University in the School of Medicine and author of Talking to Terrorists, Bride of ISIS: One Young Girl’s Path into Homegrown Terrorism, and coauthor of Undercover Jihadi. She was responsible for designing the psychological and Islamic challenge aspects of the Detainee Rehabilitation Program in Iraq to be applied to twenty thousand detainees and eight hundred juveniles. She also has interviewed over four hundred terrorists, their family members and supporters in various parts of the world including Gaza, the West Bank, Chechnya, Iraq, Jordan and many countries in Europe.To see more on this topic, and to read an account based on an American girl who tried to join ISIS as a bride, see Bride of ISIS.

ISIS, Mental Illness and Stopping “Stay and Act in Place” Lone Wolf Attacks

A mentally ill person has once again been recruited into plotting for an ISIS “stay and act in place” attack in the West. This time it’s the mentally ill son of a Boston policeman, Alexander Ciccolo who was allegedly plotting to execute college students.

Mental illness, one should be clear, is not the same as impaired intellectual capacity. Ciccolo, it appears, was smart enough to study online how to collect and possibly prepare to make a bomb out of a pressure cooker (bought at Walmart). He had the pressure cooker, a variety of chemicals, two partially constructed Molotov cocktails, and an alarm clock alongside “attack planning papers” and his “jihad” paperwork”—all items found in his apartment when police searched it—according to an FBI affidavit released on July 13, 2015

Ciccolo had taken the name Abu Ali al-Amriki and was according to his neighbors a recent convert to Islam. According to the FBI, Ciccolo was first planning to make a pressure cooker bomb to conduct a terrorist attack on civilians, members of the U.S. military and law enforcement personnel. Later he changed his terrorist target to a university town and planned to attack, according to the FBI affidavit “college dorms and cafeteria, to include executions of students, which would be broadcast live via the Internet”.

Ciccolo was caught in an FBI undercover sting operation. The son of a Boston police captain who had responded to the Boston Marathon terrorist attacks, Alexander Ciccolo told the FBI undercover operative that he was inspired by those attacks and like the Tsarnaev brothers also planned to use a pressure cooker bomb. Ciccolo’s father was aware that his son was not well and alerted counter-terrorism authorities a year ago that his son “was going off the deep end” and “spouting extremist jihadist sympathies.”

Indeed, according to the FBI, Ciccolo praised the recently ISIS inspired Tunisian terrorist attack on Westerners at a beach resort calling it “awesome” and “impressive”. He also posted on his social media, according to the FBI affidavit, a picture of a dead American solider with the caption “Thank you Islamic State. Now we won’t have to deal with these kafir back in America,” (kafir referring to unbelievers).

Alexander Ciccolo told the FBI undercover operative that he was “not afraid to died for the cause”. He referred to America as “Satan” and “disgusting. As he planned for his attack he bragged to the undercover agent saying, “Allahu Akbar!!! I got the pressure cooker today.”

FBI director, James Comey announced last week that agents had arrested more than ten people with suspected ties to ISIS, foiling planned Fourth of July attacks. Officials now admit that Ciccolo’s arrest was one of these. Twenty-three-year old Ciccolo of Adams, Massachusetts was arrested on July 4th after buying two pistols and two rifles from an undercover FBI informant.

We see from this attack and others a pattern in ISIS “stay and act in place” plots that ISIS is more than happy to recruit the mentally ill into action. Michael Zehaf-Bibeau a gunman who shot a guard at a national memorial and went into the Ottawa Parliament attempting to shoot Parliamentarians was a habitual criminal offender, drug addict and mentally unstable.In June, the New York Times exposed the case of a mentally impaired girl that ISIS recruiters targeted.  Ciccolo, also was mentally ill.  After his arrest he was taken to hospital for treatment where he stabbed a nurse in the head with a pen.

Likewise, this case again highlights that relatives of violent extremists are often aware that their loved ones are radicalizing and becoming dangerous. In this case it was Ciccolo’s father who alerted the FBI that his son might be dangerous and planning a jihadi attack. I recently wrote Bride of ISIS, inspired by the real case of Shannon Conley—a Denver girl who also attempted to join ISIS and who contemplated carrying out a VIP attack inside the United States. Her father called the FBI to stop her from leaving the country to become a jihadi bride resulting in her arrest.

As the FBI works to shift through hundreds of online braggarts, we need to remember that parents, friends and relatives often know, well before authorities, who might be readying to launch an attack. And this highlights the need for hotlines as well as imams and psychologists to be on call to offer help in disengaging a potential terrorist before he carries out an attack. This makes it far easier for relatives to make an intervention than phoning authorities.  And it might also make way for interventions other than undercover sting operations that sadly may move a sick person further into committing to terrorism only to be imprisoned for long periods afterward.

Anne Speckhard, Ph.D. is Adjunct Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Georgetown University in the School of Medicine and of Security Studies in the School of Foreign Service. She is author of Talking to Terrorists and coauthor of Undercover Jihadi. She was responsible for designing the psychological and Islamic challenge aspects of the Detainee Rehabilitation Program in Iraq to be applied to twenty thousand detainees and eight hundred juveniles. She also has interviewed over four hundred terrorists, their family members and supporters in various parts of the world including Gaza, the West Bank, Chechnya, Iraq, Jordan and many countries in Europe. Her newly released book is Bride of ISIS. Website: www.AnneSpeckhard.com

The Difficulty of Predicting ISIS and al Qaeda “Stay and Act in Place” Attacks

In February of 2015 Omar el-Hussein was hunted for thirteen hours and ultimately shot dead by Danish police after killing fifty-five year old documentary filmmaker Finn Noergaard at a free speech event and a thirty-seven year old Jewish guard, Dan Uzan at a synagogue in Copenhagen. El-Hussein, the gunman was known to Danish police. He had a criminal history that included violence and weapons offenses. In fact he had only been released from prison fourteen days previously.

It appears now that he planned his event (which was a simpler copycat of the Charlie Hebdo shootings) in the days after his release, Googling “Krudttonden” the place of the first attack only one to two days before his attack. This was where Lars Vilks the infamous artist who had drawn the Prophet and others were participating in an event organized by Vilks entitled Art, Blasphemy and Freedom of Expression. El-Hussein’s brother allegedly bought a bullet-proof vest for him as well during those days. After the first shooting, el-Hussein escaped in a taxi and hid out in an Internet café where he then began an Internet search for the synagogue where he carried out his second attack.

The speed by which today’s terrorists radicalize into extremist mindsets and take lethal action is mind-boggling and presents a nightmare for today’s security officials. The police chief in Denmark was fired in May, only months after the shootings—after being held responsible for not anticipating such action.

Sadly though, this type of attack is likely to continue in all Western countries and is very hard to predict. Thousands of disgruntled individuals log on to the Internet to find excuses to vent their anger. Youth in particular are searching for identity, purpose, significance and if they are angry about injustices—perceived or real—they gravitate to justifications and equipping to channel and express their rage.

Groups like ISIS and al Qaeda are waiting and willing to provide for such individuals the other three elements of the four making up the lethal cocktail of terrorism that I identified in my four hundred interviews of terrorists and their family members and close associates (reported upon in Talking to Terrorists). These four elements are: 1) a group; 2) it’s ideology that wrongly tries to justify striking out at civilians in violence; 3) social support for joining and believing the ideology and this all combines with 4) the person’s own individual motivations and vulnerabilities.

El-Hussein had just been released from prison and had a violent background and access to weapons. He is also identified as being the son of Palestinian refugee parents, and may have already been exposed to violent ideologies promoting so-called “martyrdom” missions. These should have been red flags to police and if authorities were also aware of his radicalization–which there appeared to be clues too as well, these are all flags to his possibility of enacting terrorism.

Prison is a place where folks can easily be radicalized. Prisoners are generally bored and angered at being locked up, are surrounded by criminal thinkers and may be exposed to extremist thinkers and their ideologies. Many are vulnerable, long for belonging and may gravitate easily to a group that promises them some kind of future—even if it’s only in the afterlife—and even more so if it offers protection in the here and now.  A lot of extremist groups that work in prisons protect one another and if they are Muslim, pray regularly together, so there is a deep sense of belonging, sense of purpose and protection that may have been missing in childhood and adulthood.

We know now that terrorists are acting with less and less lead-time these days. Part of that is because troubled and lost people are getting radicalized over the Internet with the so-called “university of jihad” as my now deceased friend Reuven Paz liked to call it.  Over the Internet, the potential terrorists, i.e. person with vulnerabilities and motivations to strike out in hate can find all they need to radicalize, equip themselves, and strike out. But even before ISIS and groups like them became so adept at social media we saw individuals volunteering themselves to terrorist groups—among Palestinians and Chechens for instance and enacting terrorism very quickly. This is because the ideology of “martyrdom” and violent propaganda has seeped into the wider culture and there has been a wider acceptance of terrorist violence as means for powerless people to strike out in anger against so called oppressors or in the case of Muslim groups against those who insult Islam. We saw a similar attack in Texas only days ago in the U.S., although we still need to learn the radicalization profile there.

The facts are that many people are angry and hurt and can easily expose themselves to a terrorist group and ideology that attempts to justify violent responses to their problems and by glorifying such actions offers them a sense of meaning, significance and purpose along with belonging, perhaps some protection and friendship it can channel all their anger and concern over injustices done to them over their lifetime into a focused hatred and terrorist action. And this can happen fast.

For Muslims who join extremist groups and who have low ego strengths, the unnecessary baiting and provoking actions of drawing the Prophet as a pig, or a terrorist, can also be an overwhelming insult that can trigger him or her to activate quickly into violence if an extremist group is behind them with the “justification” for violent action and suggestions for how to enact violence. In most of our open democratic societies the exposure to terrorist groups and their ideologies are readily available over the Internet and so are weapons that can be easily procured so they can move fast and act in a matter of days or weeks as el-Hussein did. Once a vulnerable person has taken on the extremist mindset and decided he doesn’t mind dying for it he can activate and become lethal nearly instantly. The Internet these days makes finding information so easy, and guns are sadly readily available in many of our societies.

Denmark has been leading the way on trying to de-radicalize and disengage those who take on the ISIS ideology but here we see a case that was not recognized until the actor became lethal. It’s horrible but just underlines the fact that we need to do much more on terrorist prevention—by delegitimizing the acceptance in all sectors of society, but particularly with youth, that using terrorist violence for any cause is ever justified and by identifying those who have taken on such ideologies and intervening in meaningful and effective ways before they act.

Anne Speckhard, Ph.D. is Adjunct Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Georgetown University in the School of Medicine and of Security Studies in the School of Foreign Service. She is author of Talking to Terrorists and coauthor of Undercover Jihadi. She was responsible for designing the psychological and Islamic challenge aspects of the Detainee Rehabilitation Program in Iraq to be applied to twenty thousand detainees and eight hundred juveniles.  She also has interviewed over four hundred terrorists, their family members and supporters in various parts of the world including Gaza, the West Bank, Chechnya, Iraq, Jordan and many countries in Europe.

The ISIS “Attack and Stay in Place” Meme and the “Why” Behind the Charlie Hebdo Attacks

While a manhunt is underway for Cherif and Said Kouachi, the alleged assailants in the Charlie Hebdo attacks Wednesday, Westerner are asking themselves what to expect in terms of further such attacks, what actually motivates them, who is behind them and what, if any, the limits of free speech should be. While it is still unclear if the Charlie Hebdo attacks were organized by any terror group—they appeared coordinated and well carried out—or self organized, with the inspiration of groups like al Qaeda or ISIS, it is sure that more such attacks are coming.

The current ISIS meme that is replicating itself virally over the Internet via Twitter, Facebook and other social media, builds upon the ideology laid down by al Qaeda—namely that Islam, Islamic people and Islamic lands are under attack by the West and that Muslims need to band together and enact terrorist attacks to fight back. The current ISIS meme euphorically claims the Caliphate has been re-established, that all are welcome and that all have a duty to jihad.

Jihad according to ISIS, as Anwar Awlaki so persuasively argued, is the never ending duty to fight in behalf of Islam, never ceasing, until the end times—which ISIS claims are right around the corner. (It should be noted that Awlaki was killed by a drone strike but is still alive and well and still inspiring countless acts of terrorism via the Internet). The ISIS meme also offers those who would like to join them to take hijra (i.e. migration) to Syria and Iraq to come to live a “pure” Islamic life and take part in building the new “utopian” state. And unlike al Qaeda that heavily vetted anyone who wanted to come and had many barriers to joining, ISIS welcomes all. Indeed an estimated 15,000 foreign fighters have already joined their ranks, with estimates of 800 from France and 300 from the U.S.

Perhaps most chilling for those of us in the West, is that the current ISIS meme also offers for those who for whatever reason cannot migrate and join them in Syria and Iraq, the possibility to stay and act in place. These are the new “homegrown” terrorists who take part in simple, but lethal, small scale attacks such as in Ottawa where we saw one homegrown terrorist use a car to mow down and kill two soldiers and another to take a rifle into the Canadian Parliament attempting a massacre. Three such driving attacks have occurred in France in the last month.

And as long as the ISIS meme keeps replicating itself in the minds of young disillusioned, marginalized, and even mentally ill Muslims in the West, these attacks will continue to occur and grow in numbers. One should recognize that the strongest memes are those that replicate themselves well—often even at the expense of their host. In the case of ISIS, the meme requires that the host be willing to self-sacrifice in behalf of the group and its cause to supposedly win the ultimate rewards of paradise. And a small number of, but yet far too many, Muslims who can’t find their way to belong to society, feel rejected or lack purpose in their lives, who want adventure or to bolster their sense of manhood, or who are angered by geopolitics and insults to their religion are buying on to that belief. And if left unstopped, they will continue to cause death and destruction in the West.

Motivations for joining terrorist groups in France and all of Europe for that matter have a lot to do with both politics and living conditions. I lived for seven years in Belgium and traveled into the banlieues in Paris and also throughout Belgium, the Netherlands and the UK asking Muslims about their living conditions and the causes of radicalization. In Paris I was told that the French “liberte, egalite and fraternite” (liberty, equality and brotherhood) which is the motto of France does not apply to them. Trapped in the banlieues of Paris they felt the police discriminated against and mistreated them, that jobs, leisure life and housing were not equally available to them.

Indeed my interpreter in Paris, a Ph.D. in psychology told me she could not rent an apartment in any nice area given she was of Algerian descent. As soon as a prospective landlord saw her, the place she had come to inquire about was suddenly no longer available. I heard the same about jobs and I watched in Belgium at least, as young Moroccan descent men coming to dance in the evenings at the nightclubs and trying to integrate into the Belgian clubbing culture were systematically told by the bouncers, “Go home Moroccans.” While discrimination is illegal in the EU, unlike in the U.S. it is a very bureaucratic process to pursue a case and the penalties are negligible. There is no million-dollar settlement like the U.S. “Denny’s case” where a black man was not served coffee in a timely fashion and won a settlement against the firm for prejudicial treatment.

Interestingly, Europe also has more limited free speech laws than the U.S. In many European countries inciting hatred among religious groups or blatant insults to religion are not allowed in the press. Yet the Danish cartoons were not held to that law. And European Muslims have not managed to organize themselves into having an anti-defamation league like the Jewish people have.

In response to the Danish cartoons, Dyab Abou Jahjah, then head of the Arab European League had a cartoonist retaliate by making a cartoon of Anne Frank in bed with Hitler. He felt that might make people understand how he felt and think again about insulting his sacred values. Other Muslims engaged in a boycott of Danish products. Today Abou Jahjah tweeted, “I am not Charlie, I am Ahmed the dead cop. Charlie ridiculed my faith and culture and I died defending his right to do so.” That’s something to reflect on as well.

Being insensitive to the sacred values of others is an issue. Muslims are sensitive to their Prophet being depicted at all, much less in unfavorable ways, and their scriptures instruct them to use violence to defend their faith. Sensitivity to the faith of others and holding the laws up in a consistent way as far as prohibiting insults to religion may be as important as other ways of fighting terrorism.

Foreign and military policies are also important. I heard many Muslims in Europe decry the U.S. led invasions into Iraq and Afghanistan. We need to think hard about any of our military actions that make it easier for Muslims to buy into the narrative that Islam, Islamic people and Islamic lands are under attack. Drone kills of civilians is one such policy—even if it rids us of some terrorist leaders. Using “ghost planes”, rendition, secret prisons and keeping detainees in Guantanamo is another.

Ultimately the lethal cocktail of terrorism relies on the interaction of a group, its ideology, the social support that exists for both, and the vulnerabilities of individuals who are exposed to the group and its ideology. While it’s unlikely we will defeat ISIS anytime soon, we can work to delegitimize its ideology, poking holes in its claims and showing what is actually happening in Iraq and Syria and de-glamourizing the call to jihad. And we can identify vulnerable persons and begin to redirect them to other ways of answering their needs and concerns. But these things take time, resources and thoughtful approaches. Until our governments commit to spending on thoughtful counter terrorism prevention, intervention and redirection, committing resources as they do for military kinetic solutions we won’t see an end to either ISIS or “stay in place” attacks.

Anne Speckhard, Ph.D. is Adjunct Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Georgetown University in the School of Medicine and of Security Studies in the School of Foreign Service She is author of Talking to Terrorists and coauthor of Undercover Jihadi. She was responsible for designing the psychological and Islamic challenge aspects of the Detainee Rehabilitation Program in Iraq to be applied to twenty thousand detainees and eight hundred juveniles.  She also has interviewed over four hundred terrorists, their family members and supporters in various parts of the world including Gaza, the West Bank, Chechnya, Iraq, Jordan and many countries in Europe.

Terrorism as the Short-Term Psychological “Fix” for Mental Illness

A sixteen-hour siege in Sydney, Australia ended today with the gunman and two hostages killed, three others seriously injured. The suspect identified by New South Wales police as Man Haron Monis is a fifty-year old self-proclaimed cleric who came to Australia on asylum from Iran in 1996 and was currently out on bail with a lengthy criminal sentence. His previous lawyer refers to Monis as “a damaged goods individual who’s done something outrageous.”

Monis, like Tamerlan Tsarnaev before him—who attacked in Boston with his homemade bombs—were both asylum seekers legitimately granted asylum from parts of the world where torture, war, killing and mistreatment are commonplace. Each over a period of years of unsuccesfully integrating into their new country fell prey to the lure of terrorist ideologies and there are likely others like them.

It’s clear that ISIS, whose flag Mr. Monis demanded be brought to display in the Lindt chocolate café that he overtook, is more than happy to use such mentally deranged and “damaged” individuals to act in place as lone wolf terrorists to advance their campaign against Western nations. The October 2014 Parliament attacks in Ottawa were also staged by a habitual offender and drug addict, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, from Montreal who was thought by his circle to have mental illness issues.

Indeed, terrorist groups do not often recruit their regular cadres from among the mentally ill, as to do so would mean they rely upon unstable actors. But for lone wolf and self organized suicide attacks mentally ill people do just fine—and the short term fix that the terrorist group offers them in terms of deranged purpose and directed hate serves the group while offering short term psychological “first aid” to individuals who usually die as a result.

So how can we head these kind of attacks off? As Western countries who open their doors to asylum seekers we need to be aware of the mental health burdens of those who legitimately seek and receive asylum and that these are persons who are particularly vulnerable for mental illness and for terrorist recruitment as they are confused about identity, belonging and purpose.

In the case of Australia, five percent of asylum seekers come by boat and are held in grim circumstances when they arrive. They can take over a year to be processed, often in abysmal conditions, that greatly exacerbates their mental suffering and may even turn them against the country that grants them asylum. During the time that they are held in detention—often in close quarters and overcrowded conditions—their mental health often rapidly deteriorates. And in the time they are held, they often also mix with others who may hold extremist ideas who may influence them.

Mental health professionals who work with such populations know that if asylum seekers were tortured in their home country their rates of psychiatric diagnoses and medication seeking sharply increase even over a period of only three months of being held in detention and that for asylum seekers being held over six months puts them under deep psychiatric strain.

Thus an important lesson to be learned is that asylum seekers often have been deeply wounded—thus their reason for fleeing their home countries—and are in need of quick processing and mental health support. If they are giving out such signals are Mr. Monis was of criminality and hatred—or mental instability as Michael Zehaf-Bibeau was—or of failure to succeed and attraction to extremist groups as Tamerlan Tsarnaev was—one can assume that they are easy prey for a group like ISIS or al Qaeda to convince to “act in place” as a lone wolf terrorists.

While ISIS holds sway and has a strong social media presence with its heady and utopian claims of a caliphate, these kind of cases are only going to increase. And in the case of American recruits they can be especially lethal as a result of easy access to assault rifles and other types of weaponry.

The answer to preventing such acts—in addition to defeating and delegitimizing ISIS—is that if we are going to allow asylum seekers into our countries we also need to be aware of their mental health needs and offer them real and meaningful help so that they don’t accept psychiatric fixes in the form of hateful ideologies that capture their minds and direct them to act out their mental illness upon all of us.

Anne Speckhard, Ph.D. is Adjunct Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Georgetown University in the School of Medicine and of Security Studies in the School of Foreign Service She is author of Talking to Terrorists and coauthor of Undercover Jihadi. She was responsible for designing the psychological and Islamic challenge aspects of the Detainee Rehabilitation Program in Iraq to be applied to twenty thousand detainees and eight hundred juveniles. She also has interviewed over four hundred terrorists, their family members and supporters in various parts of the world including Gaza, the West Bank, Chechnya, Iraq, Jordan and many countries in Europe.

Islamic State, Sex Jihad and Sexual Slavery

Stories of Jihad al nikah or “sex jihad” have surfaced repeatedly since the uprising and conflicts in Syria. These stories include accusations of young women being recruited to rebel groups including, al Nusra and now Islamic State, for servicing the fighters via multiple short-term (muta) marriages and basically prostitution. Although echoed last year by a high level Tunisian official, it appears, the jihad al nikah stories are lacking evidence and may have arisen as Russian media propaganda efforts in support of the Syrian government-to discredit the rebels.

That said, the Islamic State has been more than willing to make use of women for the sexual service of their cadres. These women however, are captives, not voluntary members who come to join. The IS leaders have allowed their men to gang rape Christian and Yezidi women claiming that according to their interpretations of Islamic scriptures and tradition, their religion allows them to used the captured women to be sexually exploited, raped and sold as concubines and wives to Islamic State men. And the IS leaders have used them as a reward and appeal to their men’s baser instincts—making claims that the spoils of war are many-including sexual.

Indeed a recent pamphlet put out by IS and translated by MEMRI details the Islamic rules, as interpreted by IS, including full permission to rape captured women… “If she is a virgin, he [her master] can have intercourse with her immediately after taking possession of her…”

The Islamic State has also made concerted efforts to recruit women to their cause using Western women already there to Tweet out the “advantages” to potential female recruits of living in so called marital “purity” in the the claimed Utopian state. Marrying a jihadi fighter is glorified by these women who state that women are coming to support the men fighting there in behalf of the “Caliphate”, create families and community along the lines of the original Companions of the Prophet. While not at this point being called into the battle, these women are led to believe they can gain their highest honor by supporting a fighter who dies in battle as a “martyr”.

And Western women are answering the call. Similar to young men from the West who have joined the hundreds of youth from European and Northern American countries to join IS, Western women who have gone also appear to be off their track emotionally, occupationally and are generally lost in their daily lives. They appear to be pulled into the “jihad” in Iraq and Syria in a desire for life meaningfulness, adventure, purity and for love. In a process of social contagion, they are also often following brothers or men they already know who left before them.

It still remains to be seen if the roles of women voluntarily joining the movement will transition over time. Many conservative Islamic groups have found that when they were boxed in and under heavy security scrutiny that it was to their advantage to send women as suicide operatives across checkpoints that their men could not as easily pass. This happened in the Palestinian conflict and also in the first iteration of al Qaeda in Iraq and may again occur. Thus as the conflicts unfold we watch in interest for what the roles of women in the Islamic State will be. Likewise how Western females attracted to IS feel when they see their non-Islamic sisters being raped and forced into sexual slavery also remains to be seen. Hopefully it will cause them to think again.

Anne Speckhard, Ph.D. is Adjunct Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Georgetown University in the School of Medicine and of Security Studies in the School of Foreign Service. She is author of Talking to Terrorists and coauthor of Undercover Jihadi. She was responsible for designing the psychological and Islamic challenge aspects of the Detainee Rehabilitation Program in Iraq to be applied to twenty thousand detainees and eight hundred juveniles. She also has interviewed over four hundred terrorists, their family members and supporters in various parts of the world including Gaza, the West Bank, Chechnya, Iraq, Jordan and many countries in Eur