This fascinating report was issued in March 2019. The volume of extreme Islamic-inspired attacks in France in 2012-2016, the hundreds of French foreign fighters supporting the Islamic State's ruthless violence in the Levant, and the low level of assimilation to mainstream French culture by young French Muslims have quickly become major concerns for the security and stability of France. The French Republic is a European sovereign nation with inclusive immigration policies, an active proponent of full assimilation for minorities and immigrants, and a non-participant in the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003. The French government and the nation's citizens therefore did not anticipate this spate of jihadist terrorism. This thesis investigates the large-scale terror attacks, including the backgrounds and motivations of the perpetrators, and then assesses relevant analytical explanations by prominent French scholars of the increase in religion-inspired violence in France in 2012-2016. These scholars' views differ on the origins of radicalization and terrorist behavior, and notably in regard to the role of religion in terms of social alienation and marginalization. By neutralizing the disruptive message at the source, deradicalizing the French prison system, and properly censoring the online channels of manpower recruitment, the French government can enhance its ability to prevent the infection of today's youth by this radical doctrine of salvation.This compilation includes a reproduction of the 2019 Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community.A new era of terror in France began in 2012 when a French citizen with ethnic ties to North Africa went on a killing spree in the south of the country. The subsequent sequence of attacks illustrated a new and more sinister level of religious-inspired violence in the French homeland. Homegrown extremists, born and raised or naturalized and inculcated into French culture and society conducted these attacks. These attacks, exceptionally violent and claimed by known terrorist organizations, sent a shockwave of terror into the heart of the French Republic. Al Qaeda (AQ) and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) enthusiastically applauded and emphatically claimed these unprecedented and sadistically vicious attacks. The violence escalated dramatically in January 2015, when three French citizens conducted a well-coordinated assault against the satire magazine Charlie Hebdo. Each of these Frenchmen-radical extremists-fought to his death against local law enforcement. Later that same year, the violence escalated yet again. The terrorist attacks on the Stade de France and the Bataclan Concert Hall in Paris represented a new level of violence, one not witnessed in France since the Nazi occupation of World War II. The violence reached its zenith in 2016 with the catastrophic attack directed against the crowds gathering to celebrate Bastille Day on the Promenade des Anglais in the southern French city of Nice. When all these large-scale and religiously inspired terrorist attacks concluded, jihadists were responsible for taking the lives of more than 247 people and injuring more than 800. These homegrown terrorists, responsible for the large-scale jihadi violence in France from 2012 to 2016, represented a new demographic of terrorism, a younger population of French citizens responsible for committing Islamic-inspired violence against their own government.

How has ISIS been able to muster support far beyond its initial constituency in the Arab world and attract tens of thousands of foreign volunteers, including converts to Islam, and seemingly countless supporters online? In this compelling intervention into the debate about ISIS' origins and future prospects, the renowned French sociologist, Olivier Roy, argues that while terrorism and jihadism are familiar phenomena, the deliberate pursuit of death has produced a new kind of radical violence. In other words, we're facing not a radicalization of Islam, but the Islamization of radicalism. Jihad and Death is a concise dissection of the highly sophisticated narrative mobilised by ISIS: the myth of the Caliphate recast into a modern story of heroism and nihilism. According to Roy, this very contemporary aesthetic of violence is less rooted in the history of Islamic thought than it is entrenched in a youth culture that has turned global and violent.

The attacks in Paris in January and November 2015 heralded the beginning of a new wave of terrorism - one rooted in the ongoing conflict in Syria and Iraq. As ISIS seeks to expand its reach in the Middle East, its territory serves as a base for training and operations for a new generation of jihadis. Thousands of young people from the West, primarily from Europe, have travelled to join ISIS, re-emerging as hardened fighters with military training and a network of international contacts. Many of these have now returned to their homelands, where it is feared they are planning a new series of brutal attacks. Peter R. Neumann here explains the phenomenon of the 'new jihadis', and shows why the threat of terrorism in the West is greater than ever before. Based on interviews and previously-unseen material, Neumann provides an essential introduction to one of the greatest crises of our time

This book tells the story of how Al Qaeda grew in the West. In forensic and compelling detail, Jytte Klausen traces how Islamist revolutionaries exiled in Europe and North America in the 1990s helped create and control one of the world's most impactful terrorist movements - and how, after the near-obliteration of the organization during the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, they helped build it again. She shows how the diffusion of Islamist terrorism to Europe and North America has been driven, not by local grievances of Western Muslims, but by the strategic priorities of the international Salafi-jihadist revolutionary movement. That movement has adapted to Western repertoires of protest: agitating for armed insurrection and religious revivalism in the name of a warped version of Islam. The jihadists-Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, and their many affiliates and associates- also proved to be amazingly resilient. Again and again, the movement recovered from major setbacks. Appealing to disaffected Muslims of immigrant origin and alienated converts to Islam, Jihadist groups continue to recruit new adherents in Europe and North America, street-side in neighborhoods, in jails, and online through increasingly clandestine platforms. Taking a comparative and historical approach, deploying cutting-edge analytical tools, and drawing on her unparalleled database of up to 6,500 Western jihadist extremists and their networks, Klausen has produced the most comprehensive account yet of the origins of Western jihadism and its role in the global movement.

Jihadism, Foreign Fighters and Radicalization in the EU addresses the organizational and strategic changes in terrorism in Europe as a result of urban jihadism and the influx of foreign fighters of European nationality or residence. Examining the different types of responses to the treatment of radicalization and its consequences in the recruitment of young urban fighters and jihadists, this book offers a framework for understanding the process of violent radicalization. It critically analyses political and legal responses that have taken place within the European framework, whilst also examining a series of functional responses from social and behavioural psychology. This book then goes on to develop an explanatory model from an economic standpoint, exploring the need to adapt the fight against the financing of terrorism to the changes in the sources of financing jihadist cells and foreign fighters. Furthermore, the volume draws on experience from the prison sector to assess the process of radicalization and the possibilities of intervention. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, this book will be of great interest to students of terrorism and counter-terrorism, radicalization, European politics, radical Islam and security studies.

The eruption of the anti-Assad revolution in Syria has had many unintended consequences, among which is the opportunity it offered Sunni jihadists to establish a foothold in the heart of the Middle East. That Syria's ongoing civil war is so brutal and protracted has only compounded the situation, as have developments in Iraq and Lebanon. Ranging across the battlefields and international borders have been dozens of jihadi Islamist fighting groups, of which some coalesced into significant factions such as Jabhat al Nusra and the Islamic State. This book assesses and explains the emergence since 2011 of Sunni jihadist organizations in Syria's fledgling insurgency, charts their evolution and situates them within the global Islamist project. Unprecedented numbers of foreign fighters have joined such groups, who will almost certainly continue to host them. Thus, external factors in their emergence are scrutinized, including the strategic and tactical lessons learned from other jihadist conflict zones and the complex interplay between Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State and how it has influenced the jihadist sphere in Syria. Tensions between and conflict within such groups also feature in this indispensable volume.

"Middle Eastern expert and media commentator Gerges takes us into the mindset of the jihadi, or holy warrior, that lies behind so many front-page headlines yet remains nearly impenetrable. Even before the 9/11 attacks, Gerges had gone in search of those whose lives were devoted to this crusade of hatred, first against their own secular governments, then against the West and the United States in particular. He talked extensively with Kamal al-Said Habib, a founder of the Jihadist Movement. Using Habib's life story, as well as the stories of dozens of other Islamic fundamentalists, Gerges's book puts a human face to events in the Middle East over the last thirty years, from the civil war in Lebanon to the war in Iraq and the terrorist attacks in London. Behind the jihadism of Habib and others, a battle is being waged for the soul of Islam itself."--Résumé de l'éditeur.