Following the previous part of our analyses, we will start by reflecting on the fact how come, Muslim Americans are much less likely to engage in terrorist acts.

Anyone who has lived on both sides of the Atlantic is stuck by how differently Americans and Europeans think about themselves and their countries. These differing cultural perspectives may either enhance or undermine people's receptivity to certain ideas, depending on how consistent those ideas are with their underlying beliefs. This has important ramifications for the rates of acceptance of the conviction that the West is engaged in a war against Islam within the different Muslim communities.

When thinking about themselves, Americans often use the metaphor of a melting pot, while Europeans talk of a defining essence, around which their respective nations have been created. Such essence-based nationalism is promoted through the creation of a grand historical narrative, which celebrates national heroes-Joan of Arc and Napoleon for France; Nelson and Wellington for Britain; Bismarck for Germany; Garibaldi for Italy. These myths were so powerful that young men were willing to die for them. This sense of belonging to these imagined communities" in Europe reached its peak between 1870 and 1945, when Europe was torn by a succession of nationalistic wars.

In reality, all European nations are the results of mass migrations and mixed ethnic groups. What is a Frenchman? Is he a Gaul; a Frank, the name of the Germanic tribe that gave its name to the country; a Briton; a Basque; a Roman; an Ostrogoth; a Visigoth, a Vandal, a Viking, or Norman? France is the result of mixed migrant ethnic groups bounded by easily protected physical boundaries. Likewise, what is an Englishman? Is he an Angle, the name of the tribe that gave its name to the country; a Saxon; a Celt; Welsh; a Scot; a Norman or Viking-- Europeans seem reluctant to admit their ethnic diversity and cling to the myth of this national essence.

Selective history, as promoted through national pride, thus is a burden for Europe for it excludes outsiders that apparently do not fit into this mythical essence. Such exclusion can be couched in an affirmation of national values, as in "We have to maintain our Dutch (French, German, British ... ) values." But all too often, this just means, "We have to keep our Asian, African, and now also Muslim, immigrants from becoming part of us." Thus  Muslims are treated differently in Europe as in the USA.

The national myth of the United States is that it is a melting pot. This myth promotes the acceptance of foreigners and their eventual integration in society. Of course, the reality is different from the myth, but enough people believe it for it to work. When I speak publicly, I regularly ask my audiences to raise a hand if they have an immigrant grandparent. Invariably at least half raise their hand, yet most also think of themselves as fully assimilated Americans. Less than half (47 percent) of Muslim Americans think of themselves as Muslim first and American second, while for for example in Spain, and Germany the rates are 69, and 66 percent, respectively. Only Muslims in France have a comparable rate to America (46 percent).

Of course, there were times when foreigners, especially from certain countries like Italy, Ireland, or China, were not welcome. Discrimination against some newly arrived ethnic groups has a long history; the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II is a blatant example of prejudice. But after three generations, diverse-ethnic groups in the United States are assimilated into a huge melting pot.

As for the U.S. rejection of migrants from south of the border, debates in Congress in 2007 were specifically about amnesty and granting them legal status, given the fact that they had entered the country illegally. Of course, such debates can mask some latent prejudice. But once their legal status is resolved, they can integrate into the fabric of the nation.

In Europe instead the emphasis on a national essence prevents the integration of immigrants that "look different." Assimilation makes it less likely for Muslim Americans to believe that they are part of a war against Islam, while exclusion on a basis of a national essence makes it more likely for Muslim Europeans to believe this notion.

A second cultural difference between Europe and the United States is the belief in the "American Dream" -the land of opportunity (not the land of freedom or democracy, as some politicians mistakenly believe). Of course one can dispute the existence of the reality behind the dream, arguing that there is much less equal opportunity and fluidity between social classes in America. There is also a greater disparity between rich and poor in the United States than in Europe.

However people who move to the U.S. think they stand a good chance of succeeding in America and immigrants believe that their children will completely integrate into society. Pick up a newspaper in America, and often you will find an immigrant "rags to riches" story. So for example on July 4, 2007, the American national holiday, The New York Times published a full-page ad celebrating immigrants as the essence of the country.

One does not find such stories or advertisements in European newspapers. There is no European Dream. The reality is that social mobility is probably not as great as advertised in the United States and is greater than advertised in Europe. But when dealing with perceptions, the promise of the American Dream still shines bright for most immigrants.

And true, while integration of immigrants has been a success story, integration of descendants of slaves has been far more challenging. Interestingly enough, black immigrants to the United States seem to follow an immigrant pattern, with some success stories for their children, as illustrated by Colin Powell-the son of a Caribbean immigrant. On the other hand, native African American converts to Islam maintain the social status and beliefs of the general African American population. (Pew Research Center, 2007: 30).

This is not the case in Europe. While the Pew Research Center surveys did not ask questions about the pay-off of hard work, Muslim Europeans complain far more about economic discrimination and exclusion than Muslim Americans. Differences in income levels support their complaints. 's When compared to their European counterparts, American Muslims' strong belief in equal opportunity provides relative protection against the belief that there is widespread discrimination against Muslims as part of a war against Islam. The American Dream is a mixture of belief in equal opportunity and individualism. Americans belong to some of the most individualist people in the world. And next come European, while Muslim majority countries fall at the bottom of such a scale.

The differences in answers about economic adversity between Muslim Americans ("I didn't try hard enough") and Muslim Europeans ("I never got a chance because I'm Muslim") can be viewed along an individualistic-collectivistic spectrum. The relevant factor here is that individualism makes it harder for people to see their collective fate and develop a collective identity hostile to the host society. American individualism makes it harder for Muslim Americans to interpret their world in collective terms, as part of a war against Islam.

In Europe also, perceived social rigidity discourages voluntarism. This leads to apathy and an expectation that the state should step in and provide social services.

Thus as we suggested in the first part of this investigation, that grass-roots voluntarism and its effectiveness in influencing one's proximate environment might divert the energy of disgruntled young Muslims toward positive local changes. These local successes may mitigate the belief that they are involved in a war against Islam. A sense of local empowerment might be protective against a larger strike against society.

The nation as a melting pot, the American Dream, individualism, and grass-roots voluntatism-these cultural values make American Muslims less likely than their European counterparts to accept the interpretation that there is a war against Islam. Muslim immigrants, who come from beyond the oceans, go to great efforts to come to America because they believe in its values. Pew Research Center, 2007: 95, shows that over half of Muslim immigrants come to the United States for educational or economic opportunities.

This is a process of self-selection, where overseas people attracted to the promise of the "American Creed" immigrate to the United States whereas economic migrants, like Latin American immigrants to the United States, drift to Europe for simple economic survival and not belief. This creed is not compatible with the belief that America is at war with Islam. Surprisingly, France, the only European nation that advertises itself as being based on a creed-liberty, equality, and fraternity-shares some of the same universal beliefs as America, which makes it hard for the global Islamist terrorism ideology to implant itself there.

The "war against Islam" interpretation has become intertwined with anti-Americanism among Muslims, mixing the U.S. government, population, and culture. This rejection of America as a whole has less traction in the United States, where Muslim Americans do not share this oversimplified view and distinguish the U.S. government from its population."' Even the Muslim American segment that complained most about bigotry and intolerance reported about equal expression of support from the general population. It seems easier to be anti-American from afar than from within. The absence of anti-Americanism among Muslim Americans undermines the appeal of the global Islamist message.

Beyond this conflict between immigrant community and host national values, there is another reason the message that the West is engaged in a war against Islam is more credible for European Muslims than for American Muslims. In Europe, this perspective resonates more with their personal experiences, which in turn gives strength to the ideology from indisputable biographical evidence.

Historically, the immigrant experience is very different in each continent. The United States is protected by two oceans, which make it difficult for foreign Muslims who live overseas to enter the country illegally. They must apply for a visa for entry. This allows the United States to cherry-pick professionals-engineers, physicians, businessmen, scholars. The result is that many Muslim Americans are solidly upper middle class.

The history of Muslim European communities is different. For Europe managed to inflict great damage on itself and eradicate large parts of its labor force during World War II. The devastated countries had to look elsewhere for manpower to aid in their reconstruction after the war. They turned to former colonies and allies for help. The French imported labor from Algeria, the British from South Asian countries, and the Germans from Turkey. Most of these countries were predominantly Muslim or had a large Muslim population, making the labor supply to postwar Europe mostly Muslim. Throughout suburban Europe, male immigrant workers lived in inexpensive, crowded lodgings, and sent money back home to support their families. They frequently traveled between host and home countries, marrying and having children at home but returning to Europe to work.

After a quarter of a century, the Muslim immigrants who had helped to rebuild the countries of Europe were encouraged to return to their homelands. The European economies, suffering the effects of the oil price shocks of the 1970s, contracted, drying up employment opportunities. Governments did not want a large pool of unemployed immigrant workers, so they increased the pressure on foreign workers to go home, even instituting financial rewards for doing so and tightening immigration policies. These new restrictions, however, had a reverse effect. Foreign workers did not want to return home because economic conditions were even worse there than in Europe. At the same time, fearful that they would not be allowed to return to Europe if they visited their home nations, they decided to bring their families to their host country (a process facilitated by new European rules on family reunification).

The measures taken to tighten immigration to Europe thus led to an immigration explosion in the 1970s and 1980s. Unlike the postwar reconstruction wave, made up mainly of working-age men, this new influx included mostly women and children, who demanded schools and mosques.

The above shows that on each side of the Atlantic divide we are dealing with a very different Muslim community. Muslim Americans belong predominantly to a professional middle class while Muslim Europeans are more often uneducated laborers, and belong to a lower socioeconomic class. Since many Western governments explicitly refrain from asking a person's religion on their regular census because of the separation of church and state, official statistics on Muslims in Western countries do not exist. However, survey data support this analysis that Muslim Americans are solidly middle class, with incomes comparable to the general population. (Pew Research Center, 2007, p.19, 98).

 The data probably even underestimates the income of Muslim American families because it was gathered on individuals and the Muslim population is younger than the general population. On the other hand, the average income of Muslim Europeans is below that of the general population of their respective countries. The Labor markets across these two regions are also quite different. In the United States, most workers are hired and fired at will. In Europe, long traditions of social protection are incorporated into statute making it almost impossible to fire an employee without undergoing a lengthy and costly legal process. Since no employer wishes to be dragged into this legal quagmire, businesses want to be sure that their new hires will be good employees. This means hiring on the basis of existing connections, implying prior loyalty, or solid credentials. This also means that because most employers are not immigrants, networks of potential hires will not include immigrants either. This process results in a soft discrimination against immigrants and their children. The outcome is that unemployment among young male Muslims in Europe, who constitute the majority of the second- and third-generation immigrants, is about two to three times higher than the comparable unemployment rate in the "native" population.

I put quotation marks around "native" because the second and third generations were also born in the host country, but as explained earlier, they are not considered native since they lack the mythical "essence" of the various nations. The host population does not consider them to be truly European or treat them like other European citizens. In a sense, the riots that broke out in France in the fall of 2005 had their roots in the desire of the young immigrant rioters to be considered French. Yet they were French, since the vast majority was born in France. Most had French parents, who were also born in France.

Thus the French government passed legislation loosening the labor market. The new laws allowed an employer a two-year window to fire a new employee under the age of twenty-six. The hope was that this might provide the sons of immigrants a better opportunity. From an American perspective, this project seems too timid. But from a French perspective, it was already too much. The vast majority of the student population at the high school and university levels-mostly from nonimmigrant origin, because those from immigrant origin generally drop out of school as teenagers-took to the streets of France in protest. They were later supported by the trade unions, who threatened to paralyze France by calling general strikes. The government backed down and shelved the project indefinitely. This sent a clear message to young immigrants, who are de facto excluded from the rest of economy. Seen from the alarming message from  suspect that this problem will continue to fester and explode with any new perceived provocations.

Of course, there is also a soft discrimination against immigrant and minority children in the United States. This is natural because people like to hire people like themselves. But because new hires can in general be fired or laid off, there is fluidity in the labor market and the problem does not reach the level in Europe. There is no evidence that the rate of unemployment in the Muslim second generation is higher than that of the comparable general population. So, while young American Muslims may live in Muslim neighborhoods in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, or Dearborn, Michigan, these are not ghettos like those that exist in the suburbs of large European metropolitan areas, which breed high unemployment, crime, and potential sympathy for global Islamist terrorism.

Differences in welfare policy between the United States and Europe also have implications for the process of radicalization. The lack of decent employment in Europe is mitigated by generous welfare policies. This creates a problem of its own. Unemployed families, whether from immigrant background or not, receive welfare payments. In many European countries, the larger the family, the larger the welfare checks-often as a result of old policies trying to encourage population growth.

For many young people, welfare payments remove the urgency to find regular work and allow some the leisure time to become full-time Islamist terrorist "wannabes:' who hang out with their friends at street corners, praising Islamist terrorists, or surf the Internet, dreaming of becoming a jihadi warrior themselves. The harmful effect of idleness and boredom cannot be overestimated. With few other meaningful activities, young Muslims seek out the thrill of participating in a clandestine network, living out the fantasy of being a jihadi warrior and being revered by their peers. The United States, in contrast, has stricter work requirements for those receiving welfare, and it can be difficult for those facing even temporary adversity to receive support. People need to work, or they will starve. This necessity to find full-time employment prevents potential young "wannabes" in America from spending all their time in common jihadi apartments, local halal ethnic fast-food restaurants or barber shops talking about the glory of jihad, like the second wave of terrorists in Europe.

Yet most of the terrorist wannabes in Europe arrested in the past two years spend a large amount of time on the Internet. Idleness from relative underemployment seems to have been a factor in the growth of global Islamist terrorism in Europe. By the time American young Muslims sympathetic to the jihad get home from work, they are too exhausted to do much.

The terrorist attempts like the one just reported by Scotland Yard, are heightening the concern of Europeans about the threat of militant Islamic fundamentalism. The new vigor in Islamist militancy and the jealousy about welfare payments to Muslim immigrants and their children have generated a backlash in Europe. This xenophobic right-wing reaction to Muslim immigrant population can be found among about IS to 20 percent of the electorate throughout Europe.

They reject their governments' accommodative policies as a virtual invitation for a Muslim "invasion" of Europe. The hysteria goes so far as to warn about a Muslim Europe in the next half century based on the accession of Turkey to the European Union and the high Muslim birth rate in Europe. But the numbers just do not add up. Europe would have only about 100 million Muslims out of a population of 440 million people with the accession of Turkey. Even counting the differential rate of birth, the numbers are farfetched. This hysteria of course provokes a reaction in the Muslim population and accelerates the radicalization in certain Muslim militant networks. The process generates a vicious cycle of hostility.

Differences in approaches to integration in America and Europe can also contribute to radicalization. The buzzwords in Europe are "radicalization" and "integration." All European countries have an integration policy.Together, they form a natural type of social experiment to see which one might be more effective. In France, the policy is based on the idea of secular republicanism: Muslim women are not permitted to wear veils. The failure of this integration policy is found in the many immigrant neighborhoods surrounding major cities that are declared "no-go" zones by the local police. In England, the policy is based on communitarianism, and yet in poor suburbs there are pockets of immigrants who are deeply hostile to the state. In Germany, young people born in Germany, to parents who themselves were born in Germany of parents who originally came as "guest workers" from Turkey, are converting to Salah Islam, which is actually foreign to the Turkish culture. All these attempts at integration have failed.

America does not have an integration policy, and this paradoxically may be why it appears not to need one. In Europe, people wait for their governments to develop programs to integrate immigrants into society. These central policies are mostly irrelevant because the experience of newcomers is shaped by their local welcome. It does not matter how generous the government is if your neighbors reject you.

Yet to answer a second question, "How do people become terrorists?" we need to look at the relationships between individuals and their environment.

Terrorist groups are not formed by complete strangers who do not know each other. People who form terrorist groups know each other, often for a long time. They trust and, for the most part, have a great deal of affection for one another. They are often the extension of natural groups of friends and family. Yet, we do not know much about natural groups: their formation, their informal structure and dynamics, and, finally, their termination. There is no academic discipline that has conducted comprehensive studies of natural groups, as opposed to groups of strangers that can be manipulated experimentally. Natural groups of long-term friends and family behave differently from a group of total strangers that will never meet again after an experiment is completed. The middle-range perspective used in this book will study the relationships of terrorists in context: their relationship with each other, their relationship with ideas floating in their environment, and their relationship with people and organizations outside their group.

Thus it is  important to study the terrorists in their environment. Many experts rely entirely on what they read on the Internet or on uncorroborated stories in the news. A serious researcher must at least visit the physical habitat of the terrorists. One quick look around might dispel some of the common myths about terrorism, namely that it is the product of poverty, enclaves breeding fanatics, or ghettos separated from the rest of society. Terrorist groups might simply be a natural extension of everyday interactions among neighbors hanging around the neighborhood. The emphasis of this middle-range approach is on processes of interaction in context: radicalization, mobilization, motivation, and, perhaps, separation.

Existing open-source databases today which we have used to research our case study underneath, include the Rand-St. Andrews University database on Terrorism and Low-Intensity Conflict, the Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism (MlPT) Terrorism Knowledge Database in Oklahoma City, the International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism (leT) database located at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel, the new Worldwide Incident Tracking System (WITs) database at the National Counterterrorism Center, and the START database at the University of Maryland. Despite their usefulness for large and long-term trends, incident-based databases do not help us answer questions about terrorism and its processes, such as radicalization, mobilization, recruitment, and motivation.

But very important is doing field research, hence we found out  that the new (early 2008) training camps in Waziristan are indeed worrisome, even they are also indications of a consolidation rather than a surge.

Up to mid- 2006, Western wannabes who succeeded in making contact with terrorist trainers were mostly British second-generation immigrants, whose parents came from the Mirpur District of Azad Kashmir. They still had relatives in Pakistan who could vouch for them and make the introduction. An enthusiastic wannabe from elsewhere would not be trusted and would have difficulty finding a trainer. With the now more receptive North Waziristan habitat, the new leaders of al Qaeda Central are becoming more visible, and foreigners can more easily make contact with them. This is changing the composition of those Westerners able to receive training. The arrests of four  German Muslims in the first half of 2007 in Pakistan triggered alarm bells in Germany. The greater ability of Western wannabes to get training and advice from seasoned terrorists is reason for concern, and a threat to the West. Agaill. this is a sign of al Qaeda Central's consolidation and regrouping, but not yet of its resurgence. All indications are that the number of these wannabes is d quite small, several dozens at most, as compared to the hundreds or thousands that traveled to Afghanistan in the second wave of global Islamist terrorism. So far, this consolidation within al Qaeda Central has not effectively spilled beyond the borders of Waziristan. In that sense, there is no surge.

Many references to al Qaeda Central are now surfacing because some past cases with links to al Qaeda Central or its fellow travelers are now going to court several years after the relevant terrorist activities. These old stories are not evidence of a recent resurgence of al Qaeda Central however.

For example, one commentator added the 2004 Madrid bombing to the evidence of al Qaeda "on the March."(See Hoffman, 2007).

He based his claim on allegedly secret information about Amer al-Azizi, whom he identified as the link to al Qaeda Central. He also credited Azizi as being the host of the meeting between Mohammed Ana and Ramzi bin al-Shibh in Spain at the last tune-up for the 9/11 operation. Azizi disappeared from Spain in October 2001 ahead of a warrant for his arrest. Since then, Azizi sightings in Europe have rivaled those of Elvis in the United States. The 9/11 Commission report completely rejected any alleged Spanish involvement in the meeting.( National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, 2004).
 

During the five-month trial for the perpetrators of the Madrid bombings concluded in July 2007, considerable evidence has become publicly available about the evolution of the plot, including the testimony of several human penetrations of the responsible network. There is no hint of any direct al Qaeda Central connection. Hiding behind so-called secret information is no substitute for careful investigation of the facts and sober analysis. On this, the Spanish prosecutors have it right. The plot was not by al Qaeda, but was definitely inspired by al Qaeda Central. Again, Madrid does not provide any evidence of a resurgence of al Qaeda Central. In terms of the new al Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb, little "al Qaedas" have sprung up everywhere in the world.

However as pointed out in yesterday, a clear shift in the modes of interaction between the networks comprising global Islamist terrorism, emerges. Starting around 2004, communications and inspiration shifted from face-to-face interaction to interaction on the Internet.

Hence groups forming currently become radicalized on their own initiativeeven the "preachers of hate" can no longer espouse violence openly without being arrested or deported. These groups are autonomous and unknown to al Qaeda Central. These new groups must finance their own operations. However, from the evidence in Europe, terrorist operations are not expensive, and they do not need to raise much money. Since many of the new terrorist aspirants receive public assistance because of unemployment or refugee status, their operations are often financed by the host state via these payments.

The rest is either from their jobs or from petty crime or drug traffic. Prevention of terrorist operations through the interdiction of financial resources may work for large, expensive, coordinated attacks, but not for these self-financed actions. The major obstacle to a terrorist operation is not finance but expertise.

The major impact of not being able to link up with al Qaeda Central is lack of access to technical expertise. By default, most of the third-wave terrorist groups are self-trained. This explains the deterioration in the quality of operations and trade craft in the past few years, which allows many potential terrorists to be detected and arrested before they come close to carrying out an operation. Many of the new terrorist groups perform paramilitary exercises together. Some like to play paintball and pretend that they are mujahedin fighting in Afghanistan or Iraq. Others engage in paramilitary camping on weekends, strapping on a thirty-pound backpack and running up and down some hills, again pretending to be glorious mujahedin. At the very least, these exercises solidify their esprit de corps and determination to carry out operations.

Today, the instructions for building bombs are on the Internet. However, it takes a courageous person to mix the chemicals to make bombs, because any small mistake can result in death. Even experienced bomb makers have mishaps and many are missing a finger or two. Most of the bombs manufactured from Internet tutorials, like the May 2003 Casablanca bombings and the April 2005 Cairo Khan al-Khalili bombing, have not been very powerful, or they have simply failed, like the attempted bombings in Koblenz in the summer of 2006, the failed attempts ofYehya Kadouri, the Dutch teenage lone wolf, or the plots in Britain in June 2007. These new groups do, however, become dangerous when they hook up with a trained bomb maker, as the London 7/7 bombers group did. But even training does not guarantee success, as the London 7/21 group demonstrated.

These third-wave groups form in the same way the second-wave groups formed, so they are already friends and family. Most have known each other all their lives. Locally. their communications are informal and they do not need sophisticated and expensive equipment to stay in touch. They are therefore
typically difficult to detect and monitor. If they try to make contact with al Qaeda Central, they can be detected and arrested as was Ryan Anderson, a National Guardsman arrested in February 2004 for spying for al Qaeda.

There has been a dramatic expansion of new groups in the third wave. Unlike the second wave, when al Qaeda Central picked the best, brightest, and most committed of the volunteers who came to the training camps, now anyone can call himself an al Qaeda warrior; no one will stop him from doing so. There is no initiation ceremony or any entry barrier for anyone who declares himself part of the al Qaeda social movement. This means that the average third-wave global Islamist terrorist is far less skilled and adept than the terrorists prior to 9/11. This lack of good trade craft accounts for the continued increase in their arrests worldwide. But law enforcement authorities should not become complacent; the number of wannabe terrorists remains large, and by the law of averages some are bound to be smart and bold enough to pull off an attack.

The informality of these local networks makes it difficult to identify who is a terrorist and who is simply a sympathizer-or a potential terrorist who did not yet have the opportunity to carry out an operation. There is no clear boundary to the networks, which often include loose acquaintances, distant relatives, as well as much closer friends and family who actively encourage violence. There is a spectrum of activities, from moral support to actual operations. Within a network, not everyone is as enthusiastic as the zealots who try to entice their friends into perpetrating a terrorist act. Some who are a bit reluctant to join in are nonetheless fully aware of their friends' activities, and will not betray them out ofloyalty. This variation in the intensity of commitment and involvement in global Islamist terrorism complicates the picture. The loose networks of varying involvement present difficulties for prosecutors. Juries have become skeptical of district attorneys' inflated claims against Muslim defendants on terrorism charges when the evidence at court looks skimpy. Likewise, the Muslim community is carefully following these trials for evidence of prejudice or persecution. Unwarranted harsh punishment of those who had a minimal role in terrorist attempts generates a feeling of moral outrage among their friends, who may then become inspired to overcome their reluctance in order to avenge their friends.

Some terrorists today, attempt to get in touch with al Qaeda Central in order to receive the blesing of its leaders, obtain training from the group, become involved in fighting American forces in Iraq or Afghanistan, or solicit funding for terrorist operations. They travel to Pakistan, Turkey, Iran, Yemen, Egypt, Syria, and Saudi Arabia in order to link up with al Qaeda. Most are unsuccessful and return disappointed, or are arrested by local law enforcement authorities and repatriated to their home countries. A few succeed in reaching Afghanistan, Iraq, or Chechnya, where they dream about becoming martyrs for the cause and killing Americans or Russians in uniform. In general, young Muslims are most attracted to the appeal of a glorious death on behalf of their imagined ummah (the worldwide Muslim community). Their preference is to die fighting the hated American military. But except for the countries bordering Iraq, it is now difficult for young Muslims to go to Iraq and fulfill their desire. As a result, many choose to act locally, and become heroes to their local friends and relatives that comprise the informal network of potential terrorists around them.

This desire to become a martyr marks a major difference between this wave and the preceding one. Members of the second wave went to Afghanistan for training and to join the AI Qaeda social movement. They stayed in Afghanistan, then returned to their country or went elsewhere to carry out terrorist operations worldwide. The return to the West of trained terrorists, who know how to make bombs and carry out other terrorist operations, was an especially dangerous situation. In contrast, the new wave goes to Afghanistan, Iraq, Chechnya, or Kashmir to die. Until now, very few have returned. Most have taken themselves out of the fight through death.

Starting in 2003, some new terrorists have been turned around by their trainers in Pakistan. These young men hoped to cover themselves with glory by sacrificing themselves. Their trainers in Pakistan convinced them that they might be more useful for the social movement if they took the war to the West by carrying out their sacrifice in their host countries. The return of these now trained third-wave terrorists, who can reconnect with their former friends and relatives who did not have the opportunity to experience the new "training camps:' is a new threat for Western countries. The returnees are otten treated as local heroes and use their enhanced reputations to help radicalize family members and f<Xmer friends. The link between the few trained terrorists and the latent networks of sympathizers can have devastating effects for the West. There is evidence that this was part of the history of the networks that carried  out the 7/7 London bombings, the attempted 7/21 London plot, the Melbourne and Sydney bombing plots of November 2005, the Toronto plot of June 2006 (Operation Osage), and the August 2006 British plot to blow up several airplanes over the Atlantic.

Thus the process of radicalization that generates small, local, self-organized groups in a hostile habitat but linked through the Internet also leads to a disconnected global network, the leaderless jihad. This is the natural outcome of a bottom-up mechanism of group formation in a specific environment shaped by top-down counterterrorist strategy. If the habitat changes, the network will adapt to its new niche. In Waziristan, its environment suddenly became less hostile atter the tribal leaders' agreement with the Pakistani army. The central network regrouped, consolidated, and became bold enough to test the limits of its local opportunities by setting up mini-camps for terrorist wannabes. If the whole of Pakistan or Afghanistan becomes more receptive to al Qaeda, there will definitely be a resurgence, for the network will flourish in its friendlier niche.

Before the advent of the Internet, the evolution of a leaderless form of terrorism was an admission of failure of traditional terrorism. It was a last attempt to keep the struggle alive in the face of overwhelming opposition. The theory of leaderless resistance was developed by Louis Beam to continue the rightwing militias' fight against the u.s. government despite overwhelming FBI opposition.'s In the global Islamist terrorism context, Hakim (better known as Abu Musab al-Suri or Mustapha Setmariam Nasr) developed a similar analysis in his book, The Call to Global Islamic Resistance.  It is a strategy of fighting an overwhelming enemy using self-organizing clandestine networks. Hierarchical organizations are easy prey to efficient state law enforcement agencies. The solution is to convinoc like-minded people to form independent groups that will continue the fight without any linkage to leaders or other groups, for these linkages are the vulnerabilit)',., of the network. These networks operate independently and are protected from detection if members of another group are questioned. Its leaderless and disconnected structure constitutes at the same time its strength (in terms of survivability and adaptability) and its weakness (lack of clear direction and political goals).

 Today, local networks carries out its attacks without coordination from above. But while this campaign of terror lacks a firm overarching strategy, it still has an agenda set by general guidelines found on the Internet, which is the virtual glue maintaining a weak appearance of unity. Without the Internet, a leaderless terrorist social movement would scatter all over the political space without any direction. The Internet makes the existence of a leaderless jihad possible. However, without direction, it cannot coalesce into a political organization able to govern a country. The leaderless jihad can be a terrorist network and nothing more. Its strength is that it is all things to all people, who can project their favorite fantasies onto the movement.

The common agenda found on the Internet in this case, is basically anti-Western political violence, which is the lowest common denominator of the various ideologies of global Islamist terrorism. These ideologies are woven together in a general narrative of a world polarized between good (Salafi Islam) and evil (the West). But they do not add up to a coherent political strategy and there is little evidence of a grand coordinated international plan. Of course, a continuing pattern of political violence exists throughout the world, with each perpetrator claiming to be part of the overall strategy of global Islamist terrorists, but these attempts, successful or not, are neither coordinated nor focused in a way that reflects long-term goals or strategic aims. Each local group lives in its own world, connected to the overall social movement through the Internet. Their attempts are all ad hoc, each with its local internal logic and directed against its own local targets. Commentators and journalists are quick to imagine an overall coordination and conspiracy to these events, but no central coordinator, whether part of al Qaeda Central or not, has been found or even suggested in the vast majority of terrorist operations.

The little coherence that the al Qaeda social movement displays is mediated through a virtual market. In effect, through its spokesmen Osama bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahiri, al~Qaeda Central advertises demands for terrorist operations on the Internet and local networks provide terrorist activities, just as the marketplace coordinates the distribution of goods and services in a country. No one is in charge of the market. Each buyer or provider pursues his or her own interest, but the overall pattern is that everyone is fed, housed, and clothed. Such coordination does not require a feeding, housing, or clothing czar. The coordination is generated spontaneously from the bottom up, through the "invisible hand" of the market. This is identical to Adam Smith's argument about the emerging overall pattern of coordination of goods and services by market forces from below. "As every individual ... intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it." Each small terrorist network pursues its own activity for its own local reasons, and in doing so promotes far more effectively the overall goals and strategy of the al Qaeda terrorist social movement than al Qaeda Central could. The overall pattern of international violence is an emergent trend far more effectively carried out by "market forces" than by a single intentional entity. Markets are probably far more efficient at organizing largescale activities than bureaucracies.

The leaderless social movement has other limitations. To survive, it requires a constant stream of new violent actions to hold the interest of potential newcomers to the movement, create the impression of visible progress toward a goal, and give potential recruits a vicarious experience before they take the initiative to engage in their own terrorist activities. The Internet permits the terror movement to survive any loss, no matter how important. Jihadi websites survive as well because of the built-in redundancy of the Internet and the promiscuity of forum members. I am often asked whether global Islamist terrorism could survive the death of bin Laden or Zawahiri. The answer is, of course, yes. The real direction today comes from the continued discourse on the Internet. Sayyed ~tb and Sheikh Abdullah Azzam continue to be a source of inspiration for young radical Muslims long after their deaths. Their memory is kept alive through the discussions in the forums, reinforcing the resolve of the newcomers to continue their work.

This type of jihad today of course suffers from other weaknesses. It is vulnerable to whatever may diminish its appeal among the young. By definition a leaderless social movement has no way to impose discipline on its participants. It is permanently at their mercy. If its leaders become discredited by being exposed for making false claims, followers may simply desert them. Ifits ultimate goals become discredited over time, as the collapse of the Soviet Union put to rest the dream of a Communist utopia, followers may again desert the movement. But I suspect its greatest vulnerability might be that new dreams of glory will displace old Islamist dreams and make them irrelevant. With any of these scenarios, global Islamist terrorism will fade away, no longer able to attract new adherents.

One, danger is that too vigorous an eradication campaign might be counterproductive and actually prolong the life of the social movement. Because as explained above, the eradication efforts may be seen as unjust and therefore attract new recruits to the movement.

 

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