reflectivepundit

Terrorism in Boston, the Tsarnaev Brothers, and Jihadist Radicalization in the West

By Brigitte L. Nacos

If you want to know about the radicalization path taken by some young Muslims in the West, read the New York Police Department’s 2007 study “Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat.” After studying post 9/11terrorist attacks and foiled plots in Europe, Australia, Canada, and the United States, senior intelligence analysts came up with a four-step model of radicalization. They named the four stages Pre-Radicalization; Self-Identification; Indoctrination; and Jihadization.

The most telling and most troubling finding of the report was that at the outset, “the majority of the individuals involved in these plots began as ―”unremarkable,” they had “ordinary” jobs, had lived “ordinary” lives and had little, if any criminal history.”

This seems to have been the case with the Tsarnaev brothers.

But, eventually, a change occurred in Tamerlan, the older brother. For so far unknown reasons, he became interested in radical Islam and in the next step obviously the idea of becoming part of Jihad in the very community and country that had opened their doors to him and his family as they fled the violence of their home first in Chechnya and then in Dagestan.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s metamorphosis from talented Golden Glove boxer to ruthless terrorist resembles that of the would-be Times Square Bomber Faisal Shahzad. Fitting well into Western culture and life, a seemingly ordinary and quite secular young man with university degrees and a well-paying career, Shahzad became religious and self-radicalized according to e-mails he sent to friends. Since Shahzad’s final stage into Jihadism brought him back to Pakistan and personal ties to Taliban members, the question with respect to the Boston bombings is, whether Tamerlan Tsarnaev, too, sought and found personal ties to one or more members of a Jihadist group in Dagestan or Chechnya.

Not all terrorists of this type have personal contacts with like-minded individuals or groups. The Fort Hood Shooter Hasan Nidal, for example, was a virtual recruit of the Yemeni-American preacher Anwar Al-Awlaki who urged Muslims in West, and particularly in America, to become soldiers in the holy war by attacking civilians and members of the military alike. The older Tsarnaev brother also sought out Internet sermons by the Australian radical Islamist Feiz Mohammad and others.

According to his friends and acquaintances in high school and college, the younger brother Dzhokhar was just like “us” and “a regular Cambridge boy.” Why he became part of the terrorist brothers act remains one of the mysteries surrounding this case.

The Boston Bombings: Terror or Terrorism by Whom?

By Brigitte L. Nacos

It was eerily similar to the hours after the Oklahoma City Bombing in 1995, when the media reported about “Middle Eastern looking” suspects. Yesterday, there were reports of a dark-skinned, perhaps Black man possibly with a foreign accent trying to enter the restricted area around the marathon’s finish line and an injured Saudi male with an expired student visa.

In the Oklahoma City case, it turned out that the terrorist was Timothy McVeigh, a homegrown Caucasian, who moved in anti-government, militia circles and was a regular at gun shows. McVeigh struck on April 19th, the second anniversary of the deadly encounter between federal agents and the Branch Davidian cult. But April 19th is also the anniversary of the battles of Lexington and Concord in 1775, the first in the Revolutionary War and a sacred date for right-extremists in the Patriot and Militia movement.

To commemorate the historic battles, Massachusetts celebrates every third Monday in April -Patriots Day, a holiday that coincides with the Boston Marathon. This year’s Patriots Day was celebrated on April 15th—Tax Day--, a date known for anti-tax protests. And then there is the outrage of the gun rights crowd over even the slightest efforts to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and mentally challenged people.

 In short, this is a climate similar to the post-Waco years in the early 1990s.

No, I am not suggesting that the perpetrator or perpetrators come from this milieu—but I think this is just as likely as a Jihadist link or as a deranged individual like the Newtown shooter who last December killed 20 children and 6 adults in a senseless shooting spree without any imaginable political agenda.

In its editorial today, the Wall Street Journal notes that “President Obama didn't use the word "terror" in his brief afternoon remarks, though U.S. officials were at pains later to say that they were treating the bombing as a terrorist attack.” Why pointing this out? It seems that the Journal wants to make the same useless point as in the hyped up Benghazi case in which the President was blamed by the right for not characterizing the deadly attack on the U.S. Mission there immediately as “terrorism.” In both cases, Obama spoke in his initial statements of “terror.”

Whether the bombings in Boston add up to terrorism depends on the motives behind the terrible deed. By definition, terrorism means deliberate violence against civilians for political ends. The emphasis here is on “political.” The mass shooting at Fort Hood in 2009 by a Muslim American was politically motivated and thus an act of terrorism as was the 1996 bombing of Atlanta’s Olympic Park by an anti-abortion extremist. The Newtown and Virginia Tech Mass Shootings were not acts of terrorism but horrific crimes.

Does the Boston bombing suggest that a dozen years after 9/11counterterrorism efforts in the homeland have become more relaxed as some observers wondered in front of microphones and cameras? I do not think so. Even in societies without the freedoms we enjoy not all terror or terrorist attacks can be prevented.

Unfortunately, even after the Boston Marathon strikes, the question is not whether but when the next attack of this kind will happen—and where.