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Research Scholar Discusses Myths About al-Qaida Terrorism

USINFO Webchat transcript August 30

Marc Sageman, an independent researcher and senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, discusses the wave of suicide terrorism associated with al-Qaida in a USINFO webchat.

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Bureau of International Information Programs
USINFO Webchat Transcript

Five Years After 9/11: Myths About al-Qaida Terrorism

Guest:  Marc Sageman
Date:   August 30, 2006
Time:   12:00 noon, 1600 GMT

IIP Moderator:  Welcome to USINFO Webchats. You are welcome to submit a question now or during the live event with Dr. Sageman beginning today at 1200 GMT.

Read his article "Common Myths about al-Qaida Terrorism" here.

Question [Sizani]:  Are all al-Qaida members Moslems or their religion is diverse?

Answer [Marc Sageman]:  Yes, so far all al-Qaeda members have been Muslims. However, their degree of devotion and their knowledge of Islam has greatly varied, from people going along with their more religious friends to people who were very devout themselves.

Q [Sizani]:  In your summation you state that "In fact, three-fourths of al-Qaida terrorists are married, and two-thirds of them have children (and many children at that)”.

Have you investigated the nature of the institutionalization of these terrorist groups? What institutional arrangements are put in place to ensure that the families of the terrorists survive, and what kind of life do these families lead after the death of their sires (I assume these individuals are also bread winners).

A:  During the Golden Age of al-Qaeda (1996 to 2001), al-Qaeda did take care of the widows of its martyrs. It assigned money to them, and allowed them to live in al-Qaeda shelters in Jalalabad and around Kandahar. However, since the elimination of the training camps and shelter in Afghanistan and the monitoring of their finances, the widows of members who killed themselves during terrorist operations are no longer compensated. They are on their own.

Q [Abhilasha]: How can we bring terrorists like Maulana Masood Azhar and Mushtaq Zargar to justice when the places they are hiding, those state governments are not co-operating? Also why is U.S. not applying pressure on these states to hand them over?

Why is there so much of criticism against one particular community, e.g. twelve Muslim Indians were detained by Dutch authorities in Amsterdam.

A:  The two individuals mentioned in your question have no warrants for arrest in the United States. So, the U.S. cannot request arrest or extradition for them. However, those who have a warrant for their arrest are being actively sought after and are being arrested worldwide.

The second part of your question does point to a shameful practice of some people in the West that assumes that all people of South Asian descent are terrorists. This, of course, stokes the feeling of being excluded and even targeted by members of these communities.

Q [Sizani]: Your findings are quite interesting. I am however curious to know what challenges confront a researcher trying to investigate such organizations.

How accessible are such groups to researchers?

A: The challenges of this type of research are great. They consist mainly in getting reliable information on the individuals and groups. So, one has to triage various sources of data. My favorite ones are captured documents, intercepted conversations and especially trial transcripts, because the defendants have a chance of providing their own version of past events through their own witnesses and the questioning of their attorneys.

To answer the second part of your question, these groups are generally not accessible to researchers because of their own security concerns. This makes the task of research more challenging, but definitely not impossible because there is so many ways to find out information in our day and age.

Q [Hebesteff]: Professor Sageman, according to your research our understanding of al-Qaida is, five years after 9/11, still largely based on myths, not on reality.

What does this tell us about all the recipes of the war against terror, which seems to be based on the impression, that the terror network recruits young, lone, poor, undereducated males and turns them into religious killing-machines?

A: Excellent point. I know I'm a psychiatrist, but, like you, I'm baffled by the surprising strength of myths in this area. This continues to prevent the U.S. government from dealing effectively with the threat. However, from my discussion with government officials, many of them understand the true nature of the threat, but they have done a poor job educating the public about it.

Q [Hebesteff]: How would you proceed in the fight against Islamic terror groups, what strategy should the West adopt in order to minimize the impact of such groups as al-Qaida on young men from Islamic countries?

A: I must preface my response by saying that I studied the causes of this terrorist threat and not effective responses. So, my suggestions are untested. But, since you give me the green light to comment, so be it. I would have a two-prong strategy: the first and urgent one is to protect people physically by arresting or eliminating the young people who are already terrorists. This is a law enforcement issue. But this is the easy task. The more complicated one is to prevent new generations from joining this terrorist social movement. This is a more comprehensive task, dealing with policy, communication, and engagement of the Muslim community to argue that terrorism is beyond acceptable behavior... The point is to concentrate on the violence part and try to negate it.

Q [Tina T.]: You say, "... since the elimination of the training camps and shelter in Afghanistan and the monitoring of their finances, the widows of members who killed themselves during terrorist operations are no longer compensated. They are on their own.” Has this affected the loyalty of those in al-Qaeda and the numbers of those that want to join?

A: Unfortunately, I have not seen a decrease in loyalty to the dream that al-Qaeda projects for these young people. These are essentially romantic young people trying to build a better world. They are ready to sacrifice themselves for this dream, for this utopia. The more they see that their fellow Muslims are being shot at and killed, the more they are ready to join this social movement. In this sense, al-Qaeda stands for a dream, and people are willing to sacrifice themselves for the greater community. So, the fact that al-Qaeda no longer provides compensation to widows of martyrs does not really matter.

Q [Hebesteff]: Did you find in your research something surprisingly unique for Islamic terrorist compared to other terroristic groups of the past, or does al-Qaida stand in a tradition of those groups?

A: Al Qaeda is most similar to the anarchists of a century ago. Like them, it is an international group, now with no formal command and control. The anarchists had a tremendous impact on world history: they killed a U.S. president, a French president, a czar, several prime ministers and triggered World War One. Most of the terrorist groups in the 20th Century were more nationalistic groups, and their behavior is quite different from al-Qaeda.

Q [Kuba]: How about education as a tool against recruitment to al-Qaeda? At some point, don't we still end up with poor young men who have no hope for the future even if most of the leadership is arrested?

The cycle just starts again.

A: I don't believe it is a matter of education. Indeed, the members of al-Qaeda are more educated than their peers. As I showed in my sample, about 62% went to college, whereas the community from which they came only sent less than 10% to college. No, the real problem here is the lack of opportunity for educated people. One of the most effective recipes for terrorism is universal education without any job prospects. This is exactly what happened in Egypt in the 1970's (the beginning of the movement that spawned al-Qaeda) and in Western Europe (where the dream of al-Qaeda is very strong).

Q [Kuba]: In your report you stated about the Hamburg group: "Eight friends collectively decided to join and traveled together to Afghanistan in two waves. The first wave became the pilots and the second wave the support group. Another fifth joined out of kinship."

Could or would this group have been compelled to do such acts if they had been more assimilated into the community around them? If they had a "kinship" with their adopted homeland?

A: It's a very good question. People are making a lot about the lack of integration into the community. However, the people who become terrorists are actually well integrated into their own networks. These networks, which were fairly well assimilated in the community, at some point became more distant from it in a process of social implosion: they stopped socializing with their old friends and only with the members of their new group.

What causes this break? I believe it is an internal discussion within the group (now facilitated by a lot of jihadi forums on the Internet), which sees itself different from the rest of society and as a vanguard of a new movement. This process of radicalization must be better understood. There is a lot of work on this now, to see how social structural conditions (lack of meaningful employment, discrimination ...) translate into subjective perception and resonance with an ideology, which is hostile to the environment

Q [Goran S. Pesic]: A central part of the war on terror is the ability of law enforcement agencies to track and/or disrupt the flow of money to terrorist organizations.

In your assessment, does the "hawala" system of monetary exchange undermine the efforts of agencies like FINTRAC (Canada's terrorist financing tracking agency)?

A [Marc Sageman]: The monitoring of financial transactions and the general monitoring of communication among suspected terrorists has effectively cut off the potential followers from the surviving leaders of al-Qaeda. These leaders basically don't know who their followers are. So, they cannot, even if they wished to do so, financially support their self-appointed followers. The only exception to this rule are the second generation Muslims of Pakistani descent, especially those whose parents come from Kashmir (specifically the Mirpur district). Because of family connection back home, these second generation Muslims can make contact with militant groups in Pakistan, who are distantly connected to al-Qaeda. These groups might get funding from al-Qaeda, but probably through face-to-face intermediaries.

If you look at most of the terrorist operations in the past three years (with the exception of the British cases I just mentioned), you realize that they were self-financed (the Hofstad group in Holland, various French groups, the Madrid bombers, the Casablanca bombers, the Toronto group...) So, I don't think the Hawala system has much impact on this wave of terrorism.

IIP Moderator: Related issues are discussed in the U.S. State Department's eJournal USA "The Global War on Terrorist Finance," which is available for viewing and download in several languages.

Q [Hebesteff]: You state that Islamic terrorist are following an utopia. But how do bombs, deaths and destruction enter into their utopia?

A: Yes, these young people are trying to build a utopia, based on their understanding of the community around the Prophet, because they believe that it was the only community in world history that was fair and just. At first, they try to build this community peacefully, but they were repressed by the Egyptian government (Qutb was executed in prison). So, a few (and it only takes a few to become terrorist) concluded that they could never build this better world peacefully, but they needed to violently overthrow the government (this was the conclusion of Qutb and Faraj). This violence requires bombs.

Basically, these are young men in a hurry, who don't mind cutting corners (violence) to achieve their aims. They believe they are fighting for a good cause, and at the end, "things will sort themselves out." In other words, the end justifies the means. This is what separates violent terrorists from people who play by the rules of society and are willing to effect changes within the social rules.

Q [Zubedah]: Every since the 9/11, various governments have used the excuse of terrorism and are now branding, long time civil war fighters as terrorists in a bid to win U.S. government support.

What is your comment on this?  Zubedah

A: Unfortunately, the fight against terrorism has provided various governments with an added justification to eliminate internal domestic dissent, especially in very autocratic regimes. The U.S. government should recognize this for what it is and distance itself from this trend. The events that happened in Uzbekistan this past year is a case in point. I believe that the U.S. government was right to distance itself from a former ally, who repressed its own population.

Thank you for discussing this important topic with me. I appreciate the feedback you provide to shape my own thoughts about it. It is through such useful discussions that we might better understand the tragedies we are faced with. I hope you have learned from my response as much as I've learned from your insightful questions. Thanks.

IIP Moderator: We would like to thank all of our participants and Dr. Sageman for taking the time to webchat with us today. The webchat is now closed. [A transcript will be available on our USINFO Webchat Station.]

Dr. Sageman's article appears in the State Department's latest eJournal USA, "Rebuilding and Resilience: Five Years After 9/11," the online publication is available for viewing and downloading.

(While guests are chosen for their expertise, the views expressed by the guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Department of State.)