{"id":81187,"date":"2016-10-17T12:01:19","date_gmt":"2016-10-17T11:01:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=81187"},"modified":"2016-10-12T19:34:01","modified_gmt":"2016-10-12T18:34:01","slug":"u-s-military-operations-are-biggest-motivation-for-homegrown-terrorists-fbi-study-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2016\/10\/u-s-military-operations-are-biggest-motivation-for-homegrown-terrorists-fbi-study-finds\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Military Operations Are Biggest Motivation for Homegrown Terrorists, FBI Study Finds"},"content":{"rendered":"

11 Oct 2016 – <\/em>A secret FBI study found that anger over U.S. military operations abroad was the most commonly cited motivation for individuals involved in cases of \u201chomegrown\u201d terrorism. The report also identified no coherent pattern to \u201cradicalization,\u201d concluding that it remained near impossible to predict future violent acts.<\/p>\n

The study, reviewed\u00a0by The Intercept, was conducted in 2012 by a unit in the FBI\u2019s counterterrorism division and surveyed intelligence analysts and FBI special agents across the United States who were responsible for nearly 200 cases, both open and closed, involving \u201chomegrown violent extremists.\u201d The survey responses reinforced the FBI\u2019s conclusion that such individuals \u201cfrequently believe the U.S. military is committing atrocities in Muslim countries, thereby justifying their violent aspirations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Online relationships and exposure to English-language militant propaganda and\u00a0\u201cideologues\u201d like Anwar al-Awlaki are also cited as \u201ckey factors\u201d driving extremism. But grievances over U.S. military action ranked far above any other factor, turning up in 18 percent of all cases, with additional cases citing a \u201cperceived war against Islam,\u201d \u201cperceived discrimination,\u201d or other more specific incidents. The report notes that between 2009 and 2012, 10\u00a0out of 16\u00a0attempted or successful terrorist attacks in the United States targeted military facilities or personnel.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>

A member of the U.S. Air Force looks over flight paperwork inside a KC-135 Stratotanker flying over Iraq on March 17, 2016, in support of Operation Inherent Resolve.
Staff Sgt. Corey Hook\/U.S. Air Force<\/p><\/div>\n

Overall, the survey confirmed the \u201chighly individualized nature of the radicalization process,\u201d a finding consistent with outside scholarship<\/a> on the subject<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cNumerous individuals, activities, or experiences can contribute to an extremist\u2019s radicalization,\u201d the report says. \u201cIt can be difficult, if not impossible, to predict for any given individual what factor or combination of factors will prompt that individual\u2019s radicalization or mobilization to violence.\u201d<\/p>\n

The report\u00a0is titled \u201cHomegrown Violent Extremists: Survey Confirms Key Assessments, Reveals New Insights about Radicalization.\u201d It is dated\u00a0December 20, 2012.\u00a0An\u00a0FBI unit called the \u201cAmericas Fusion Cell\u201d surveyed agents responsible for 198 \u201ccurrent and disrupted\u00a0[homegrown violent extremists],\u201d which the report says\u00a0represented a fraction of all \u201cpending, U.S.-based Sunni extremist cases\u201d at the time. The survey\u00a0seems designed to look only at Muslim violent extremism. (The FBI declined to comment.)<\/p>\n

Agents were asked over 100\u00a0questions about their subjects in order to \u201cidentify what role, if any,\u201d particular factors played in their radicalization \u2014 listed as\u00a0\u201cknown radicalizers,\u201d extremist propaganda, participation in web forums, family members, \u201caffiliation with religious, student, or social organization(s) where extremist views are expressed,\u201d overseas travel, prison or military experience, and \u201csignificant life events and\/or grievances.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among the factors that did not \u201csignificantly contribute\u201d to radicalization, the study found, were prison time, military service, and\u00a0international travel. Although, the report\u00a0notes, \u201cthe FBI historically has been concerned about the potential for prison radicalization,\u201d in fact, \u201csurvey results indicate incarceration was rarely influential.\u201d The report\u00a0ends with recommendations that agents focus their attention on web forums, social media, and other online interactions, and step up surveillance of \u201cknown radicalizers\u201d and those who contact them.<\/p>\n

The study echoes previous findings, including a 2011 FBI intelligence assessment, recently released to MuckRock<\/a> through a public records request, which concluded that \u201ca broadening U.S. military presence overseas\u201d was a motivating factor for a rise in plotted attacks, specifically the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That study also found \u201cno demographic patterns\u201d among the plotters.<\/p>\n

\u201cInsofar as there is an identifiable motivation in most of these cases it has to do with outrage over what is happening overseas,\u201d says John Mueller, a senior research scientist with the Mershon Center for International Security Studies at Ohio State University and author of \u201cChasing Ghosts: The Policing of Terrorism.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople read news reports about atrocities and become angry,\u201d Mueller said, adding that such reports are often perceived as an attack on one\u2019s own in-group, religion, or cultural heritage. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t have to be information from a jihadist website that angers someone, it could be a New York Times report about a drone strike that kills a bunch of civilians in Afghanistan.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perpetrators of more recent attacks have latched onto U.S. foreign policy to justify violence. The journals of Ahmad Rahami, accused of bombings in Manhattan and New Jersey last month, cited wars in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan. In a 911 call, Omar Mateen, who killed 49 people in an Orlando nightclub earlier this year, claimed he acted<\/a> in retaliation for a U.S. airstrike on an ISIS fighter. Tamerlan Tsarnaev told investigators<\/a> that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan motivated his and his brother\u2019s attack on the Boston Marathon.<\/p>\n

In many of these cases, pundits and politicians<\/a> focus on the role of religion, something Marc Sageman, a former CIA officer and author of \u201cLeaderless Jihad: Terror Networks in the Twenty-First Century,\u201d describes as a \u201cred herring,\u201d citing a history of shifting ideologies used to justify terrorist acts.<\/p>\n

\"President<\/a>

President Barack Obama speaks during the White House Summit on Countering Violent Extremism on Feb. 19, 2015, in Washington, D.C.
Photo: Brendan Smialowski\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p><\/div>\n

The U.S. government has announced plans to spend millions of dollars on \u201cCountering Violent Extremism\u201d initiatives, which are supposed to involve community members in spotting and stopping would-be extremists. These initiatives have been criticized as\u00a0discriminatory, because they have focused almost exclusively on Muslim communities while ignoring political motivations behind radicalization.<\/p>\n

\u201cPoliticians try very hard not to talk about foreign policy or military action being a major contributor to homegrown terrorism,\u201d Sageman says, adding that government reticence to share raw data from terrorism cases with academia has hindered analysis of the subject.<\/p>\n

The limits of the CVE focus on community involvement are clear\u00a0in cases of individuals like\u00a0Rahami, whose behavior did raise red flags for those around them; Rahami\u2019s\u00a0own father referred him to the FBI. In his case, authorities did not find enough concerning evidence ahead of the attack to arrest him, underscoring the difficulty of interdicting individuals who may be inspired by organized terror groups despite having no obvious actual connection to them.<\/p>\n

Sageman says that the shortcomings of CVE models reflect a misapprehension of what drives political violence.<\/p>\n

\u201cTerrorism is very much a product of individuals identifying themselves with a group that appears to be the target of aggression and reacting violently to that,\u201d he says. \u201cContinued U.S. military action will inevitably drive terrorist activities in this country, because some local people here will identify themselves with the victims of those actions abroad.\u201d<\/p>\n

________________________________________<\/p>\n

Murtaza Hussain<\/a> – \u2709murtaza.hussain@theintercept.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Cora Currier<\/a> – \u2709cora.currier@theintercept.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 theintercept.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

11 Oct 2016 – A secret FBI study found that anger over U.S. military operations abroad was the most commonly cited motivation for individuals involved in cases of \u201chomegrown\u201d terrorism. The report also identified no coherent pattern to \u201cradicalization,\u201d concluding that it remained near impossible to predict future violent acts. Government officials rarely acknowledge the role that political grievances play in driving attacks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-focus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81187\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}