How to Make a Terrorist: The Psychohistorical Aspect of Radicalization

Who the Radical Is Depends on Your Perspective

The term “radical” or the process of becoming “radicalized” has different interpretations based on the geopolitical context, era, and social settings they are used in. The U.K. Home Office describes radicalization as the process by which people come to support terrorism and aggressive extremism. And, in some cases, join terrorist groups. This rather specific definition may partly be due to the fact that since 2012 over 700 British citizens have traveled to Syria in order to join or support ISIS. Another 600 were prevented by authorities in the U.K. from making similar journeys into ISIS-controlled territories.

A more general definition of radicalization is the process by which an individual or group comes to adopt extreme political, social, or religious ideals that reject or undermine the status quo. This process can lead groups or individuals to adopt both violent and nonviolent methods to address their grievances.

In this context the term “radical” can be applied to someone who fights against an oppressive and unfair status quo, both real and perceived. Martin Luther King, Jr. incorporated elements of Gandhi’s nonviolent civil disobedience along with deeply held Christian convictions for social justice into his movement. However, at the height of the Civil Rights Movement he was considered to

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be a radical and was called “the most dangerous Negro in the country” by the FBI and others in the government. This was partly due to his revolutionary vision that identified with the poor and his suspected links to communism.

Furthermore, elements within the government were agitated by his unrepentant opposition to America’s tactics and continued involvement in the Vietnam War, as well as his crusade against global imperialism. This close scrutiny by the FBI started after his “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington, DC in 1963 and continued until his assassination in 1968. Based on the political environment, a peaceful activist like MLK, Jr. can be labeled as a “radical” for preaching tolerance and social justice.

Radicalization Enters the Digital Age

Today, ISIS is one of many extremist groups that target their audiences around the world to join their fight against “infidels.” Besides spreading propaganda, these groups also use the Internet to encourage a sense of community, helping extremists coordinate and communicate with each other, donate to their groups, and even learn how to make bombs and other weapons. A prime example is the online magazine, Inspire. This publication began in July 2010 and was one of the first of its kind written specifically in English to target audiences in Europe and America. Besides translating bin Laden’s speeches into English, it also contained articles such as “Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom.” This magazine was found on the Tsarnaev brothers’ computer, the same men who prepared the pressure cookers used in the Boston Marathon attacks of 2013.

One of the reasons why Inspire was such a hit in the West was due to its editor, Samir Khan, a naturalized American who grew up in the U.S. He was known for his humor, sarcasm, and use of everyday American language, which helped connect with his audience online. One of his first articles was titled “I Am Proud to Be a Traitor to America.” That article included his reasoning for turning his back on America, including statements like, “What they [the American government] have done and continue to do in the Muslim lands is what I felt, totally unacceptable to my religion” (Suzanne Kelly, CNN, “Samir Khan: Proud to be an American Traitor,” September 30, 2011).

Ben Venzke is the CEO of IntelCenter, an intelligence related company working with several governments. He explained

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that what makes Inspire especially dangerous is that the primary goal of the magazine is to inspire individuals to not just travel to Yemen to join the group, but also to provide them with the inspiration and the ideological framework, and to include instructions for building a bomb or conducting a shooting.

ISIS has a powerful and multipronged online presence, including its own magazine called Dabiq. In comparing Inspire with Dabiq, a report by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) found that Dabiq concentrates on maintaining a strong media brand and disseminating propaganda to promote radicalism among distant operatives, sympathizers, and foreign fighters. However, Inspire had a strong focus on training.

In 2015, ISIS, along with its sympathizers, sent out over 40,000 tweets in a single day. A study conducted by the Brookings Institute estimated that just between September and December 2014 there were at least 46,000 different ISIS-related Twitter accounts active online. Besides promoting ideology, ISIS incorporates itself into various tweet-specific hashtags that are rather innocuous, such as the World Cup, in an attempt to create a sense of community and to widen its audience.

The Curious Case of Ariel Bradley

Terrorist radicalization targets include people like Ariel Bradley, who grew up in America’s Bible belt. Born in Tennessee in 1985 to a poor working class white family, Ariel was homeschooled by her evangelical Christian mother. Her early years were punctuated with turbulent relationships with her parents, a history of drug abuse, and episodes of running away from home. She also had several relationships with older men, often molding herself into whatever she thought they wanted her to be. One of her friends said, “She was always looking for that sense of belonging.” Another acquaintance added, “When I first met her she was a Christian, and then she was a socialist, and then she was an atheist, and then a Muslim” (Ellie hall, Buzzfeed, “How One Young Woman Went From Fundamentalist Christian To ISIS Bride,” July 20, 2015).

Her interest in Islam was sparked by a crush she had on a Muslim coworker she met in 2010. By 2011, she decided to convert but wanted to be devout and follow a strict, literal interpretation of the faith, similar to the way she was raised as a Christian. Soon after converting she rushed into a marriage with an Iraqi man

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she met online who had been living in Sweden. This marriage led to two children, one born in America and the other in Syria, where she moved with her husband, who became an ISIS fighter in 2013. In Syria, she was active on Twitter, writing about how she felt “blessed” to be there and was proud to be married to an ISIS fighter.

While there is no evidence of her taking up arms, she did praise the 2015 killing of five U.S. military personnel by Mohammad Abdulazeez in Tennessee by tweeting that what he did was a gift. Ariel’s transformation from a fundamentalist Christian to an ISIS supporter reinforces research that states that a person’s emotional needs and a desire for identity and community can be the overriding factors that push them to join extremist organizations, much more than any religious quest.

Anwar al-Awlaki: Extremist Recruiter

An interesting aspect regarding Anwar al-Awlaki is that during the brief period he was the imam of the Dar Al-Hijrah mosque in Virginia he was considered by many to be the voice of moderation. Days after 9/11, al-Awlaki publicly condemned the attacks and was not known to hold or profess radical views, at least not publicly.

Instead of being seen as a fiery radical extremist, al-Awlaki was known for his charming nature, his ability to communicate eloquently in English, and he was described by a mosque spokesman as having “allure.” This public persona of being a moderate helped him get an invitation to the Pentagon on February 5, 2002 as a featured guest lecturer.

However, few outside of the FBI knew he had already been under their surveillance since 1999 because of his interactions with radicals associated with the bin Laden network. He fled to the U.K. in 2002 and finally to Yemen in 2004. By 2008 he began to openly support extremist groups like al-Shabaab and in 2009 published “44 Ways to Support Jihad,” in which he argued that Muslims in Western countries must support violent jihad. As stated by Peter Bergen in his book, United States of Jihad (2016), since 9/11 there have been around 330 Americans charged or convicted of jihadist extremism, with more than 80 admitting to be influenced by al-Awlaki and at least seven who traveled to Yemen or corresponded directly with him. Al-Awlaki and his 16 year old son were killed by U.S. drones in 2011 after President Obama signed an executive

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order to assassinate him.

Historical Perspective in Defining Terrorism

One of the problems with defining terrorism is that the label of a terrorist is not static. Salman Akhtar, a psychoanalyst, has defined it as being “time bound.” As political loyalties shift, today’s terrorist becomes tomorrow’s hero. A freedom fighter can become a terrorist, or a terrorist can become a peacemaker. It is impossible to define exactly when that role changes. Bin Laden was originally seen as a freedom fighter when he and the pre Taliban militants (mujahedeen) were committing atrocities toward the (pro-Soviet) Afghan government. Later, he was declared a “terrorist” when he redirected his “holy war” away from the Soviets and turned it toward Western interests.

Yasser Arafat, on the other hand, was originally labeled a terrorist and a “child murderer.” However, after he agreed to sit at the peace table, his image in the Western news media became more “civilized,” and he became a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize.

One of the first contemporary terrorist organizations in the United States could be considered the Ku Klux Klan. However, the members usually have not been identified as terrorists, “just racists.” Clinical literature indicates that when victims of violence are in relatively lower power or socioeconomic classes of society, acts of aggression against them are not usually labeled as terrorism. An example could be the 4,700 lynchings of blacks by whites that are documented in U.S. history.

The 1946 bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem Is another example. The bombing left 91 dead, including 54 civilians along with several British officers. This paramilitary action was conducted by a self-proclaimed Zionist organization called Irgun under the leadership of Menachem Begin, and it was labeled an act of terrorism by the British government. The targets of the attack were the offices of the British Mandate headquartered in the hotel. Irgun was one of several Jewish militant movements that adopted radical means to fight for a Jewish homeland. The bombing was justified as a response to British military attempts in disrupting this struggle and to force an end to the colonization of Palestine by foreign occupiers.

Although Irgun claimed it did not target civilians and tried to reduce causalities by calling the hotel and others nearby to warn them about the bomb, the end result was the killing of civilians.

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Years later, Begin was elected Prime Minister of Israel and in 1978 both Begin and Anwar Sadat were awarded Nobel Peace Prizes for their work on a peace treaty. Bringing to light actions taken by Begin is not an attempt to justify the actions taken by radical or extremists groups today. Instead, it is to highlight that radicalization and the use of violence are not limited to one particular ethnicity or religion. To quote Sir Peter Ustinov: “Terrorism is the war of the poor, and war is the terrorism of the rich.” Irgun members who actively participated in the King David Hotel bombing were hailed as “freedom fighters” and some were even decorated as heroes by the Israeli government.

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