Social Bonds Pull Muslim Youth to Jihad, Expert Says

Three years after the Sept. 11 attacks forced the West to seek an overnight education in Islamic extremism, the myths endure.

The militants are impoverished and uneducated. Lifelong religious fervor drives them to embrace jihad. Al Qaeda aggressively recruits and brainwashes the men.

Those ideas are tempting but incorrect, argues Marc Sageman, a CIA veteran turned forensic psychiatrist. In a book based on 172 case studies of so-called holy warriors, Sageman concludes that social bonds are a more vital force than religion in molding extremists.

Mohamed Atta and his fellow hijackers were a classic example of this “bunch of guys” theory: educated, upwardly mobile but alienated immigrants who formed a tight-knit clique in Hamburg, Germany.

Powerful friendships drove their radicalization, Sageman says. In long talks about Islam, their love for one another mixed with hate for the West, propelling them finally into Al Qaeda.

“It’s a group phenomenon. To search for individual characteristics in order to understand them is totally misleading. It will lead you to a dead end.”

Sageman came to Paris last month to discuss his book, “Understanding Terror Networks,” with scholars and law enforcement officials who are among the West’s foremost experts on radical Islam.

His work has struck a chord here because it searches for scientific answers to questions that haunt the world with each new act of bloodshed: Why? Who are the terrorists? What makes them kill?

Like many European investigators, Sageman emphasizes the fluid, spontaneous nature of the global jihad and Osama bin Laden’s hands-off leadership, based largely on providing money and inspiration.

The Al Qaeda network has not engaged in active recruitment or “mind control,” he argues. Instead, extremist cliques made up of friends and relatives seek out “brokers,” usually veteran jihadis who can channel them to training camps and other gateways to the network, he says.

“Joining the jihad is more akin to the process of applying to a selective college,” Sageman writes. “Many try to get in, but only a few succeed, and the college’s role is evaluation and selection rather than marketing.” His theses have been disputed.

In 2002, the Dutch intelligence service found that Al Qaeda had “explicitly instructed” recruiters to base themselves in Europe and troll for aspiring jihadis in prisons, mosques and other gathering places. Recruiters used psychological techniques such as isolating recruits and assigning them a “buddy” to serve as a continuous influence, according to a report by the intelligence service.

Born to Jewish parents in Poland in 1953, Sageman spent his childhood in France and immigrated to the United States at 14. A genial, gray-bearded man, he speaks French like a native and English with a slight accent. He graduated from Harvard and has an M.D. and a doctorate in sociology. He joined the U.S. Navy in 1981, served as a flight surgeon and spent seven years at the CIA.

As an undercover officer in Afghanistan, Sageman worked closely with self-identified holy warriors of another era: the U.S.-backed Afghan guerrillas fighting Soviet occupiers.

He says he developed respect and admiration for the Afghan mujahedin.

Although he acknowledges that today’s global jihad is an “indirect consequence of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan,” he scoffs at the “blowback” thesis that blames the CIA for creating the Al Qaeda monster.

“The notion that U.S. personnel trained future Al Qaeda terrorists is sheer fantasy,” Sageman writes.

Although he has advised the Homeland Security and Defense departments and testified before the Sept. 11 commission, Sageman says his book relied on court documents, articles and other data. Most of the accused or convicted extremists Sageman studied were middle-class or wealthy rather than poor, married rather than single, educated rather than illiterate.

With the exception of Persian Gulf Arabs raised mostly in devout households, many extremists became religious as young adults, Sageman found. This reinforces his view of the decisive role of the loneliness and alienation of the immigrant experience.

Whether expatriate engineers studying in Germany or second-generation toughs on the edges of French cities, young Arab men find companionship and dignity in Islam. The social connection usually precedes their spiritual engagement, he says. In mosques, cafes and shared apartments, religion nurtures their common resentment of real and imagined sufferings, Sageman says.

After the March train bombing in Madrid killed 191 people, seven suspects blew themselves up in a hide-out surrounded by police -- an example of group fanaticism at its apex.

The main threat to the United States is a Madrid-style attack, Sageman asserts. Despite fears of a catastrophe resembling Sept. 11, Al Qaeda has been diminished by arrests and deaths of its leaders and vigilance worldwide, he argues.

“A 9/11 is no longer possible for two reasons. Al Qaeda is no longer the threat it was ... and the environment has completely changed. Everyone is looking out for terrorists.”