Foreign Fighters and the Radicalization of Local<i>Jihad:</i>Interview Evidence from Swedish<i>Jihadists</i>

Nilsson, Marco

doi:10.1080/1057610x.2015.1005459

Cited by 32 publications

(25 citation statements)

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“…16 Two recent studies substantiate the claim that Muslim foreign fighters from Europe are motivated, in part, by a sense of duty toward suffering Muslims. 17 Threat to transnational identity, however, is insufficient to explain who eventually heeds the clarion call to join a distant conflict. While the civil conflicts in Syria and Iraq have attracted foreign fighters from across the globe, a closer look at recruitment at the national level suggests that volunteerism is geographically clustered, not randomly diffused, which is indicative of a network effect.…”

Section: Explanations Of Foreign Fighter Recruitmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social Network Analysis of German Foreign Fighters in Syria and Iraq

Reynolds¹,

Hafez

2017

Terrorism and Political Violence

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Section: Explanations Of Foreign Fighter Recruitmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social Network Analysis of German Foreign Fighters in Syria and Iraq

Reynolds¹,

Hafez

2017

Terrorism and Political Violence

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“…Many of those who traveled to Afghanistan and Bosnia were predominantly motivated by a desire to help the local Sunni Muslims resist oppression. 19 These grievances have a long history in the jihadi movement. As Georges argued, the jihadi movement has not only been dependent on theological justifications for its actions and goals, but has also nurtured itself with the suffering of Muslims and a sense of victimhood.…”

Section: Generational and Strategic Variation In The Use Of Takfirmentioning

confidence: 99%

Jihadiship: From Radical Behavior to Radical Beliefs

Nilsson

2018

Studies in Conflict & Terrorism

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Jihadism is a complex social phenomenon that changes people, but not always uniformly. This article argues that cognitive and behavioral radicalization can be seen as a discursive journey or jihadiship involving (e)merging ideas, problems, and solutions that change with encounters with new circumstances-both material and immaterial. The differences observed between various generations of jihadists are one manifestation of this complexity. Especially in a jihadi group, the processes of radicalization are bound to continue and take new forms, compared with those experienced in the West. Another example of the complexity of jihadiship is that not only can radical ideas lead to radical behavior, but also radical behavior can increasingly give rise to radical ideas in jihadi groups. ARTICLE HISTORYWhy do some Muslims residing in the West become radicalized, harboring extremist beliefs and a desire for fast and fundamental sociopolitical change (i.e., cognitive radicalization) and even resorting to violence to achieve this change (i.e., behavioral radicalization)? 1 Can knowledge of this radicalization process help us understand the prospects and challenges of deradicalization when fighters return from foreign conflict zones? Personal and collective grievances, networks and interpersonal ties, political and religious ideologies, and enabling environments and support structures have been associated with radicalization. 2 Still, we know little about Islamic radicalization in the West and the results of various studies are sometimes conflicting, often as concerns the role of education, class, family situation, and prior criminality. 3 Even less is known about why people become deradicalized. 4 The possible variables associated with radicalization are many. One group of scholars, with roots in French sociology, concentrates on sociological background factors such as globalization and the dissolution of traditional communities and identities. From this perspective, radicalization takes place when individuals try to reconstruct their identities in a hostile and perplexing world. In particular, second-generation Muslim immigrants can experience a double sense of non-belonging, if they do not feel part of their parents' communities in their home countries and experience socioeconomic exclusion and racism in the West. 5 This can lead them to opt for an identity involving membership in the abstract community of the ummah, the global Muslim nation, whom the jihadist group claims to represent.

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“…On the other hand, the fact that the suffering of Muslims abroad plays a major role in violent radicalization (see above) emphasizes the presence of empathy in terrorists. Indeed, it seems that empathy for the Ummah (the world wide Muslim community) acts as a primary motivation for the holy war waged by Muslim extremists (Nilsson, 2015). The deprivation experienced by Muslims worldwide, thus, not only leads to feelings of anger, frustration, and injustice, as mentioned before, but also to empathy among Muslims who are not experiencing these sufferings themselves (Awan, 2008;Van San, 2015).…”

Section: Empathymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…One aspect of terrorist organizations that is often overlooked and seems to be polar opposite to the stereotype of the coldblooded terrorist, is the strong sense of brotherhood that many individuals experience in these organizations (Nasiri, 2007;Nilsson, 2015). Indeed, friendship and kinship are recurrent influences in the path towards violent radicalization and terrorism (Hamm, 2009;Bakker, 2006).…”

Section: Empathymentioning

confidence: 99%