ISIS IN THE WEST

PETER BERGEN, COURTNEY SCHUSTER, AND DAVID STERMAN

ISIS IN THE WEST

THE NEW FACES OF EXTREMISM

NEW

AMERICA

INTERNATIONAL

SECURITY

NOVEMBER 

About New America

New America is dedicated to the renewal of American

politics, proerity, and purpose in the Digital Age. We

carry out our mission as a nonproﬁt civic enterprise: an

intelleual venture capital fund, think tank, technology

laboratory, public forum, and media plaorm. Our

hallmarks are big ideas, impartial analysis, pragmatic

policy solutions, technological innovation, next

generation politics, and creative engagement with broad

audiences. Find out more at newamerica.org/our-ory.

About The Authors

Peter Bergen is a print, television and web

journali, documentary producer and the

author or editor of six books, three of which

were New York Times besellers and three

of which were named among the be non-

ﬁion books of the year by The Washington

Po. Documentaries based on his books

have been nominated for two Emmys and

also won the Emmy for be documentary

in 2013.

Mr. Bergen is vice president of New America,

and dires the organization’s International

Security and Fellows programs. He is CNN’s

national security analy, a Professor of

Praice at Arizona State University and a

fellow at Fordham University’s Center on

National Security. He is the editor of the

South Asia Channel and South Asia Daily

Brief on foreignpolicy.com, is a contributing

editor at Foreign Policy, and he writes a

weekly column for CNN.com. He has a

degree in Modern Hiory from New College,

Oxford.

Courtney Schuer is a program associate

for the International Security Program at

New America. Her research focuses on U.S.

ecial operations and the military’s use of

drones and the conﬂis in Syria and Iraq.

She is also an assiant editor for Foreign

Policy’s South Asia Channel. She has a

J.D. from Syracuse University and a B.A.

in Political Science from the University of

Nebraska.

David Sterman is a senior program

associate at New America and holds

a maer’s degree from Georgetown’s

Center for Security Studies. His work

focuses on homegrown extremism and the

maintenance of New America’s datasets

on terrorism inside the United States. He

graduated cum laude from Dartmouth

College in 2012.

About the International Security Program

The International Security Program aims to provide

evidence-based analysis of some of the thornie

queions facing American policymakers and the public.

The program is largely focused on South Asia and the

Middle Ea, al-Qaeda and allied groups, the rise of

political Islam, the proliferation of weapons of mass

deruion (WMD), homeland security, and the aivities

of U.S. Special Forces and the CIA. The program is also

examining how warfare is changing because of emerging

technologies, such as drones, cyber threats, and ace-

based weaponry, and asking how the nature and global

read of these technologies is likely to change the very

deﬁnition of what war is.

The authors would like to thank Emily Schneider and

Juin Lynch for their assiance with this research.

Contents

I. Introduion 2

II. Key Findings 3

III. Who are the We’s Foreign Fighters? 6

A. Gender 6

B. Age 6

C. Aive Online 7

D. Familial Ties with Other Jihadis 

E. The American Proﬁle 

F. Death Rate 9

G. How Many are at Large? 9

H. How Do They Reach Syria? 

I. Who Are They Aliated With? 

IV. What Threat Do They Pose to the United States? 11

Threat to the United States by Non-American Returnees 13

The ISIS-Inired Homegrown Threat 13

V. The Threat to the We More Broadly 15

Larger Numbers of Fighters 15

More Developed Jihadi Networks 16

ISIS-Inired Threats 17

VI. Why Do They Leave for Syria? 

VII. Recommendations 



ISIS IN THE WEST: THE NEW FACES OF EXTREMISM

I. INTRODUCTION

On Friday, November 13, 2015, France had its 9/11. At

least 129 people were killed at multiple locations in

and around Paris, including a concert hall, a soccer

stadium, and a popular restaurant, the kinds of

venues that ordinary Parisians ock to on a Friday

night. At, or near, these venues the attackers deployed

a mix of terrorist tactics, including multiple suicide

attackers, an assault using more than one gunman

willing to ght to the death, hostage-taking, and

bombings. In the years aer 9/11, we have seen various

forms of this terrible news story play out before:

the multiple bombs on trains in Madrid that killed

191 in 2004; a year later, the four suicide bombings

in London that killed 52 commuters; the attacks in

Mumbai by 10 gunmen willing to ght to the death in

2008, who killed 166; and the Charlie Hebdo attack

in Paris in January 2015 that killed 12 people. The

attackers in Paris seemed to have learned lessons from

all these attacks.

French President Francois Hollande blamed ISIS for

the Paris attacks. It is still early in the investigation,

but already leading media outlets are reporting that

as many as six French nationals who have been

identied as among the perpetrators of the attacks

had traveled to Syria, while one of the leaders of

the attack is a Belgian citizen who also spent time

in Syria.

According to French prosecutors, one of

the attackers identied by ngerprints is a French

national known to police, and a Syrian passport was

found on one of the bodies of the attackers.

Hitherto, the only case of a Western ghter in Syria

returning and conducting a deadly terror attack in

the West was French citizen Mehdi Nemmouche,

who is accused in the May 24, 2014, shooting at the

Jewish Museum in Brussels, Belgium, that le four

people dead. Returning militants like Nemmouche

are a worrying source of terror attacks. And two major

factors place Europe at far greater risk of “returnee”

violence from veterans of the Syrian conict than the

United States—the much larger number of European

militants who have gone to ght in Syria and the

existence of more developed jihadist networks in

Europe.

So who exactly are the estimated 4,500 Westerners

who have been drawn to join ISIS and other militant

groups in Syria and how great of a threat do they

pose? In order to provide some answers to that

question, New America collected information on 474

individuals from 25 Western countries who have been

reported by credible news sources as having le their

home countries to join ISIS or other Sunni jihadist

groups in Syria or Iraq.*

France’s Libération newaper on Saturday, November

14, 2015, a day aer terrori aacks killed at lea 129

in Paris. Photo adapted from image by Fotologic/Flickr.

Used under a Creative Commons license.

New America colleed information

about 474 individuals from 25

Weern countries who have been

reported by credible news sources

as having le their home countries

to join ISIS or other Sunni jihadi

groups in Syria or Iraq

*Information gathered on each individual includes

their name, age, gender, country of origin, la known

location, group they joined or aempted to join, their

current atus (dead, at large, in cuody, etc.), familial

ties to jihad, and social media use. The data was la

updated November 16, 2015.

@NEWAMERICA

II. KEY FINDINGS

• Weern ﬁghters in Syria and Iraq represent a new demographic proﬁle, quite dierent

from that of other Weern militants who had fought in Afghanian in the 1980s or

Bosnia in the 1990s.

• Women are represented in unprecedented numbers. One in seven of the individuals

in New America’s dataset are women. Women were rarely if at all represented among

militants in previous jihadi conﬂis.

• They are young. The average age for individuals in New America’s dataset is 24. For

female recruits, the average age is 21. Almo one-ﬁh of New America’s sample are

teenagers, more than a third of whom are female.

• They are aive online. Almo a third of the foreign ﬁghters in New America’s dataset

were reported either to have been aive in online jihadi circles or to have radicalized

via interaion online. However, there continue to be cases of in-person recruitment.

• Many have familial ties to jihadism. One-third of Weern ﬁghters have a familial

conneion to jihad, whether through relatives currently ﬁghting in Syria or Iraq, marriage,

or some other link to jihadis from prior conﬂis or aacks. Of those with a familial

link, almo two-thirds have a relative ﬁghting in this conﬂi and almo one-third are

conneed through marriage, many of them new marriages condued aer arriving in

Syria.

++W

1 in 7

Weern militants in Syria

and Iraq are women

 +

Average age of male Weern militants in Syria and Iraq

Average age of female Weern militants in Syria and Iraq



ISIS IN THE WEST: THE NEW FACES OF EXTREMISM

• The Americans drawn to the Syrian jihad—250 have tried or have succeeded in geing

to Syria, according to ocial eimates—share the same proﬁle as the Weern

ﬁghters overall: Women are well-represented, and volunteers are young, they are

aive online, and many have family ties to jihad. One in six of the Americans involved

in Syria-related violence are women. The average age of American militants is 25, with

one-ﬁh ill in their teens. Almo nine out of 10 of the Americans are aive in online

jihadi circles.

• Almo two-ﬁhs of Weern ﬁghters in New America’s dataset have been reported

as dead in Syria or Iraq. Almo half of the male foreign ﬁghters and 6 percent of female

militants have been killed.

• The threat to the United States from returning ﬁghters is low and will likely be

manageable. So far, no “returnee” has commied violence in the United States and

only one returnee has been arreed for ploing a domeic aack. Of the 23 Americans

identiﬁed by New America who reached Syria, nine have died, nine are at large, and ﬁve

are in cuody.

• The United States will have to remain aware of the threat from non-American

returnees - many of whom come from countries that are part of the United States’

visa waiver program.

• ISIS-inired violence will pose the mo likely threat to the United States.

• The threat from returning ﬁghters to Europe is much greater than the threat to the

United States.

• Few of the Weern ﬁghters who have traveled to Syria or Iraq are in government

cuody. Only one-seventh of Weern ﬁghters in New America’s dataset are in cuody

and over two-ﬁhs of the individuals are ill at large, presumably in Syria or Iraq. (Almo

all of the remaining two-ﬁhs have been reported as dead.)

• The mo popular route to Syria is through Turkey. Forty-two percent of the Weern

foreign ﬁghters made their way to Syria or Iraq via Turkey. Only one has been documented

as using an alternative route—via Lebanon. For the re of the Weern militants, it’s not

clear from the public record how they arrived in Syria.

• The majority of Weern ﬁghters have joined ISIS. Only one-tenth have joined Jabhat al-

Nusra, al-Qaeda’s Syrian aliate, and only 6 percent have joined other smaller groups.

@NEWAMERICA

Turkey

Syria

Iraq

Lebanon

 + 1 + 

Via Turkey (201 of 474)

Via Lebanon (1 of 474)

42.4%

0.2%

How are Weern Foreign Fighters Reaching Syria?

Unknown (273 of 474)

57.6%

++4++X

1 in 7

Weern ﬁghters are in cuody

 ++4 + 

At large (205 of 474)

Dead (180 of 474)

43%

38%

The Status of Weern Foreign Fighters

Returned and outside cuody (16 of 474)

In cuody (73 of 474)

15%

++6++X

7 in 10

American foreign ﬁghters were

arreed before reaching Syria

 ++6 + 

At large (9 of 83)

Dead (9 of 83)

11%

Returned and in cuody (5 of 83)

Arreed before reaching Syria (60 of 83)

72%

The Status of American Foreign Fighters



ISIS IN THE WEST: THE NEW FACES OF EXTREMISM

Any assessment of the threat to the West posed by

foreign ghters in the Syrian conict must begin

with an examination of who the ghters are. New

America gathered names and information for 474

Western ghters from 25 Western countries: Albania

(4), Australia (34), Austria (6), Belgium (91), Bosnia

(4), Canada (25), Denmark (12), Finland (4), France

(43), Germany (28), Ireland (7), Italy (5), Kosovo (3),

Luxembourg, (2) Macedonia (4), Montenegro (1),

Netherlands (29), New Zealand (1), Norway (12), Serbia

(2), Spain (2), Sweden (20), Switzerland (2), the United

Kingdom (106), and the United States (27).

A. Gender

Women are represented in unprecedented

numbers. One in seven of the militants in New

America’s dataset are women. While Western

women are not going to ght in the war in Syria, they

are playing supporting roles, oen marrying frontline

ghters and sometimes working as a kind of police

ocers enforcing ISIS’s draconian laws.

These are women like Sally Jones from the United

Kingdom, who traveled to Syria in 2013 to join ISIS

and her husband Junaid Hussain, another British

foreign ghter and Emilie Konig who le France

behind in 2012 to join ISIS. Both Jones and Konig

were designated as foreign terrorist ghters by

the United States.

Other cases of women leaving

including 20-year-old Minnesotan Yusra Ismail who

is charged with stealing a friend’s passport allegedly

enabling her to travel to Syria in August 2014 and U.K.

medical students Lena Maumoon Abdulqadir, Nada

Sami Kader, and Rowan Kamal Zine El Abidine, who

reportedly le for Syria in March 2015.

Comparatively, in a New America dataset of Americans

who have been charged with jihadist terrorism crimes

between the attacks of September 11, 2001, and the

start of the Syrian civil war, fewer than 5 percent

were women.

Thomas Hegghammer, in his 2013

study of Western foreign ghters between 1990 and

2010 in Bosnia, Somalia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and

elsewhere, wrote: “Practically all Western jihadists are

male..”

B. Age

Western foreign ghters in Syria are young, with

an average age of 24. The women who have le for

Syria are even younger; the average age of female

militants is 21 and ranges between 15 and 44 years old.

Men are reported to have joined between the ages of 13

and 68 with an average age of 25.

New America had documented 89 cases of teenagers

who went to ght in Syria, constituting almost a h

of the Westerners who have gone. More than a third

of these teenagers are girls. Hans-Georg Maassen, the

head of Germany’s domestic security agency, said

in March 2015 that nine female German minors le

for Syria and that of 70 conrmed cases of women

leaving, 40 percent were under 25.

Discussing the

arrest of 19-year-old American Mohammed Hamzah

Khan, who was charged with attempting to join ISIS in

Syria, a senior U.S. ocial told the Washington Post:

“You will see more young and juvenile cases in the

future.”

ISIS makes no secret of its exploitation of teenagers

and even children, featuring them in propaganda. One

ISIS propaganda video titled “Cubs of the Khilafah”

features images of children receiving military

training and religious teaching.

For a December

2014 documentary reporting from within ISIS-held

territory and guided by an ISIS press ocer, Vice

recorded interviews and footage of ghters, including

at least one Westerner, and their children involved in

indoctrination; the accompanying press ocer, Abu

Mosa, proudly claimed that children 15 and younger

attend indoctrination camps while those 16 or older

are allowed to ght.

Abu Mosa told the Vice reporter

that those over the age of 16 participate in military

operations “because Usama Ibn Zaid [the adopted son

of the Prophet Mohammed] led an army when he was

17 or 18 years old.”

Children younger than 16 have been involved in

violence, including acting as executioners. In March

2015, ISIS released a video of a French child shooting a

Palestinian hostage in the forehead.

III. WHO ARE THE WEST’S FOREIGN

FIGHTERS?

@NEWAMERICA

C. Aive Online

Almost a third of the foreign ghters in New

America’s dataset were reported either to have

been active in online jihadist circles or to have

radicalized via interaction online.

ISIS relies on a multifaceted online strategy to recruit

and advise potential foreign ghters and supporters.

This includes both active eorts by individuals

with social media accounts to recruit and organize

other individuals as well as a more broad-based

dissemination of propaganda. In the fall of 2014, J.M.

Berger and Jonathon Morgan estimated that there were

“no fewer than 46,000 Twitter accounts supporting

ISIS” overtly and a maximum of 90,000 ISIS supporter

accounts on Twitter.

New America has identied several individuals acting

as online recruiters based on court records and press

reports. Sometimes these individuals are involved

in recruiting strangers and sometimes they recruit

individuals with whom they share previous in-person

or even familial ties. Among the individuals reported

as having engaged in online recruitment activity are

several Americans:

• Mujahid Miski, believed to be American

Muhammed Abdullahi Hassan, who was charged

with leaving to ght for al-Shabaab, al-Qaeda’s

Somali aliate, along with several other Somali-

Americans from Minnesota.

In 2015, Miski

interacted with Elton Simpson, one of the shooters

in the May 2015 attack on the Mohammed cartoon

drawing contest in Garland, Texas, via Twitter

urging violence against the event.

At one point,

Simpson and Miski reportedly shared direct

messages via Twitter—a form of communication on

the platform that is not public.

• Abdi Nur, who is charged with having le to ght

in Syria, took on the role of online recruiter aer

leaving for Syria. A complaint charging six other

Minnesota men with trying to join ISIS accuses

Nur of acting as an online recruiter and providing

encouragement and advice to the men via Kik and

other platforms from Syria.

• Hoda Muthana, a 20-year-old American woman

from Alabama, was identied by BuzzFeed as

the individual behind the Twitter account “Umm

Jihad,” which encouraged individuals to leave for

Syria.

• Abdifatah Aden, who lived in Columbus, Ohio, until

he le in May 2013 for Syria, where he died ghting

for Nusra, helped recruit his brother Abdirahman

Sheik Mohamud and guided him into Syria in April

2014 by communicating privately online according

to the criminal complaint charging Mohamud with

providing material support to terrorists.

• Ali Shukri Amin, a 17-year-old Northern Virginia

high school student who ran a pro-ISIS Twitter

account which provided in-depth technical

information on anonymization techniques as well

as promoting his jihadist ideas.

Amin pleaded

guilty to putting his 18-year-old friend Reza

Niknejad in contact with an ISIS supporter outside

the United States using surespot, an encrypted

messaging tool; that individual help facilitate

Niknejad’s successful travel to Syria.

There are also a number of Britons reported as having

engaged in online recruitment activity:

• Junaid Hussain, a 20-year-old British hacker

who is believed to have le in 2013 for Syria was

reportedly engaged in online recruiting of hackers

for the CyberCaliphate, the group that hacked

the Pentagon’s Twitter account in January 2015.

Hussain, who was killed in a U.S. airstrike in August

2015, was among those with whom Elton Simpson

interacted with on Twitter prior to the attack in

Garland, Texas.

• Aqsa Mahmood, a 20-year-old British woman, le

for Syria in 2013 and became a prominent online

recruiter for ISIS.

On one of her Twitter accounts

she tweeted: “Wallah one of the things most loved

to me is when a sister sincerely kiks me because she

wants me to help her make hijrah [pilgrimage for

jihad].”

Other individuals have been identied either

anonymously or pseudonymously. For example, an

unnamed co-conspirator is mentioned in the court

ISIS relies on aive eorts by

individuals with social media

accounts to recruit and organize

other individuals as well as a more

broad-based dissemination of

propaganda



ISIS IN THE WEST: THE NEW FACES OF EXTREMISM

documents in the case of Shannon Conley, a 19-year-

old Colorado woman, who pleaded guilty in 2014 to

conspiring to join ISIS.

According to the plea, the

man, who identied himself as a ghter in Syria,

met Conley online and the two planned to become

engaged.

However, not all recruitment relies upon social

media and online communication. The United

Nations Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring

Team noted in their 2015 report on jihadist groups

that “most Member States indicate that direct

personal contact remains a core ingredient of most

radicalization and recruitment processes for foreign

terrorist ghters.”

Indeed, New America identied several cases in which

in-person recruitment played an important role.

For example, Jejoen Bontinck, a 19-year-old Belgian

traveled to Syria as a result of ties he developed to

the Sharia4Belgium radical Islamist group through a

neighbor.

Bontinck was eventually invited to visit the

headquarters of Sharia4Belgium where he attended

a 24-week ideological training program that included

watching videos by American radical cleric Anwar

al-Awlaki.

Bontinck began to spend most of his time

with members of Sharia4Belgium while the group

deliberately sought to isolate him from his parents.

Bontinck reportedly le for Syria aer receiving a call

from a neighbor who was now in Syria.

Bontinck’s

story provides a reminder that while online social

media in many ways denes recruiting in the West

by ISIS and other Syrian militant groups, physical

in-person networks continue to operate in some

locations.

D. Familial Ties With Other Jihadis

Over a third of the Westerner ghters have a

familial connection to jihad, whether through

relatives currently ghting in Syria or Iraq, marriage,

or some other link to jihadists from prior conicts or

terrorist attacks.

Of those with a familial link, almost one-third are

through marriage, many of them new marriages

conducted aer arriving in Syria.

Almost two-thirds of Western ghters with familial ties

to jihad are individuals who have a relative who has

also le for Syria. For example, the Deghayes family

in the United Kingdom had three sons leave for Syria

where the oldest told their father he joined Jabhat al-

Nusra.

A much smaller group—fewer than one in 12—were

related to jihadists from prior conicts or attacks.

For example: Frenchman Abdelouahab el-Baghdadi,

whose brother-in-law Mohammed Merah killed seven

people in a 2012 attack on Toulouse and Montauban,

was arrested and accused of joining militants in Syria;

and Briton ISIS recruit Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary, whose

father, Adel Abdel Bary, was convicted for the 1998

U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.

E. The American Proﬁle

The Americans drawn to the Syrian jihad—250

have tried or have succeeded in getting to Syria,

according to FBI Director James Comey—share

the same prole as the Western ghters overall:

Women are well-represented, and volunteers are

young, they are active online, and many have

family ties to jihad.

New America examined a broader sample of 83

Americans who traveled to Syria or Iraq to ght, or

attempted or plotted to do so, or provided support to

others traveling or seeking to travel to Syria.

More than one in six of the Americans were

women. Among the women were three teenage

girls from Colorado, who reportedly sought to join

ISIS but were stopped in Germany and returned to

the United States aer their fathers reported them

missing; Shannon Conley, a 19-year-old also from

Colorado who was arrested aer plotting to travel to

Syria to join a foreign ghter she had met online; and

Hoda Muthana, a 20-year-old Alabama woman who

succeeded in traveling to Syria and then helped ISIS’s

online recruitment eorts.

The average age of the Americans involved in Syria

was 25 and more than a h of the sample were

teenagers. They include Conley; the three girls from

Colorado; Mohammed Hamzah Khan, a 19-year-old

who pleaded guilty to attempting to join ISIS in Syria;

and his younger brother and sister, who allegedly

joined him in the eort but were not charged.

Online activity was ubiquitous among the Americans,

with almost nine in 10 being active in online jihadist

circles.

@NEWAMERICA

Beyond the increasing representation of women

and teens and the ubiquitous online activity, little

in the way of a prole ties the Americans in Syria

together, posing a fundamental challenge for law

enforcement. Those accused of being involved in

Syria include Joshua Van Haen, a 34-year-old white

man and registered sex oender from Wisconsin;

Hoda Muthana, the 20-year-old Alabama woman

from a Yemeni-American family; and Tairod Pugh, a

47-year-old African-American convert to Islam who

once served in the Air Force.

Among the 83 American

citizens and residents there is no ethnic prole –

they are Caucasian, Somali-American, Vietnamese-

American, Bosnian-American, and Arab-American,

among other ethnicities and nationalities.

Americans drawn to the militant groups ghting in

the Syrian conict hail from all over the United States.

According to FBI Director James Comey, the FBI is

investigating cases in all 50 states.

Among the 83

individuals in the United States there were residents

of 21 states: Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado,

Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan,

Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey, New

York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South

Carolina, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

This is in sharp contrast to an earlier wave of jihadist

recruitment from the States that began in 2007, in

which a cohort of U.S. militants were drawn to the

Somalia civil war and fought alongside the Somali

terrorist group al-Shabaab. Those militants were

overwhelmingly Somali-Americans, most of whom

were from Minnesota.

F. Death Rate

For Western militants, the wars engulng Syria

and Iraq have oen proven deadly. Almost half

of the male ghters and 6 percent of the female

recruits have been killed in Syria or Iraq.

In total, more than one-third of the individuals in our

dataset have been reported as dead in Syria or Iraq.

Few countries report the number of foreign ghters

who have died, but among those that do the death

rates have generally been around 8 to 18 percent, with

some countries having even higher death rates.

The dierence in death rates between the genders is

unsurprising, as women do not take part in combat.

According to an ISIS female recruit: “There is not a

single woman ghting in IS. The woman’s place is in

her house looking aer her kids and fullling her duty

to her husband.”

Given that women are not ghting

on the front lines for ISIS, that 6 percent of them are

still reported to have died illustrates how dangerous

Syria is for Western ghters.

There are many contributing factors to the high death

toll for individuals ghting in Syria. ISIS reportedly

uses foreign ghters as cannon fodder, placing them

on the front lines in Syria and utilizing them as suicide

bombers.

Coalition airstrikes have reportedly killed

10,000 ISIS ghters.

ISIS has also reportedly executed foreign ghters who

sought to return home. In December 2014, the Syrian

Observatory for Human Rights claimed that ISIS

had executed 116 foreign ghters who had sought to

return home.

In 2015, ISIS released a video showing

a child shooting Mohamed Musallam, a 19-year-old

Palestinian citizen of Israel who ISIS claimed was an

Israeli spy—a claim Musallam’s family denies, saying

he was instead a foreign ghter who was killed aer

he sought to leave the group.

G. How Many Are at Large?

Few of the Western ghters who have traveled to

Syria or Iraq are in government custody. Only one-

seventh of the Western militants in New America’s

dataset are in custody and over two-hs of the

individuals are still at large. And almost all of the

remaining two-hs have been reported as dead. A

small percentage—3 percent—returned home without

being taken into custody.

H. How Do They Reach Syria?

The most popular route to Syria is through Turkey.

Forty-two percent of the Western foreign ghters

made their way to Syria or Iraq via Turkey. Only one

of the militants is documented as using an alternative

route—via Lebanon. For the rest of the Western

militants, it’s not clear from the public record how

they arrived in Syria.

I. Who Are They Aliated With?

Where an aliation can be determined, the

majority of the Western ghters have joined ISIS:

Over three-hs have joined ISIS, while one tenth

have joined al Qaeda’s aliate in Syria, known as the

Nusra Front, and 6 percent have joined other smaller

militant groups.



ISIS IN THE WEST: THE NEW FACES OF EXTREMISM

Table 1: Foreign Fighter Death Rates

COUNTRY

OFFICIAL DEATH

COUNT

OFFICIAL COUNT OF

FOREIGN FIGHTERS

DEATH RATE

AUSTRALIA



  .%

DENMARK



  .%

FINLAND



  .%

FRANCE



 , .%

GERMANY



  .%

NETHERLANDS



  .%

NORWAY



  .%

SWITZERLAND



  .%

@NEWAMERICA

The threat to the United States from returning

ghters is low and will likely be manageable.

So far, no returnee from the Syrian conict has

conducted an attack in the United States. However,

the United States will have to remain aware of

the threat from non-American returnees—many

of whom come from countries that are part of the

United States’ visa waiver program. ISIS-inspired

violence will pose the most likely threat to the

United States.

Four years into the Syrian civil war, there is little

evidence that American foreign ghters pose a

signicant threat of returning to conduct attacks

inside the United States. Of the 83 Americans drawn to

the Syrian war, only 23 actually reached Syria. For 46

of the 83 American cases, their attempts to reach Syria

did not succeed. In 14 cases the activity consisted

of providing support to others ghting in Syria or

seeking to ght there.

Of the 23 Americans who managed to reach Syria,

nine died there. For example, Floridian Moner Abu

Salha died in 2014 conducting a suicide bombing in

northern Syria (he made a brief return to the United

States before traveling back to Syria to conduct the

suicide attack).

Douglas McAuthur McCain, a Muslim

convert from California, was killed ghting for ISIS

in a battle against the Free Syrian Army.

A third

American, Massachusetts man Ahmad Abousamra

was reportedly killed in an Iraqi airstrike while he was

ghting for ISIS.

Nine Americans remain at large.

Five Americans have returned and been taken

into custody. In only one of these cases, that of

Abdirahman Sheik Mohamud, a 23-year-old Ohio

man, is the returnee accused of plotting an attack

inside the United States. Much remains unclear about

Abdirahman Sheik Mohamud’s case, complicating

eorts to determine how serious the plot was.

Court documents allege that Mohamud exchanged

communications with his brother Abdifatah Aden,

who le in May 2013 for Syria, where he later died

ghting for Nusra. On April 18, 2014, Mohamud le the

United States and fought in Syria before returning to

the United States two months later.

The government

alleges that a cleric in Syria told Mohamud that he

should return to the United States to conduct an act

of terrorism.

Mohamud allegedly discussed a desire

to kill American soldiers execution-style at a military

base in Texas, and he went to a ring range to practice

shooting, though his defense attorney says there is

no evidence that he sought to stockpile weapons.

Mohamud came to the government’s attention

before he le for Syria and the FBI tried to intervene

to prevent him from traveling overseas.

Aer his

return to the United States, he was monitored by an

informant, leading to his arrest.

In addition, the

owner of the gun range where he practiced shooting

reportedly provided a tip to the police.

He has

pleaded not guilty.

Four other American ghters returned to the United

States from Syria and were taken into custody.

Eric Harroun returned to the United States aer

discussions with American ocials.

He was arrested

and charged with conspiring to use rocket-propelled

grenades that he claimed to have red in Syria.

In a second case, Sinh Vinh Ngo Nguyen, who had

returned from Syria where he fought with Nusra, al-

Qaeda’s Syrian aliate, was arrested in an informant-

led operation and pleaded guilty to a terrorism charge

in December 2013.

In a third case, Mohamad Saeed Kodaimati was

arrested and charged with making false statements

involving international terrorism.

According to the

complaint, Kodaimati, a naturalized American citizen,

IV. WHAT THREAT DO THEY POSE TO THE

UNITED STATES?

Four years into the Syrian civil

war, there is lile evidence that

American foreign ﬁghters pose a

signiﬁcant threat of returning to

condu aacks inside the United

States



ISIS IN THE WEST: THE NEW FACES OF EXTREMISM

had worked with a sharia court in Syria that involved

working with ISIS and other militant groups and had

participated in an attack in coordination with Jabhat

al-Nusra and then lied about it to American ocials.

Kodaimati was interviewed by government ocials

prior to his return to the United States, monitored aer

his return, and arrested a month aer returning to the

United States.

Kodaimati pleaded guilty to lying to

the FBI in October 2015.

In a fourth case, Bilal Abood, a naturalized American

citizen from Iraq, was arrested and charged with

making false statements regarding never having

pledged allegiance to ISIS.

Abood had been on

the government’s radar since at least 2013, when it

stopped him from traveling to his native Iraq and in an

interview he admitted planning to ght with the Free

Syrian Army.

On a subsequent trip in 2013, Abood

did successfully travel to Syria, spending time at an

armed opposition camp, though he denies supporting

either ISIS.

In July 2014, the FBI searched Abood’s

computer, nding a pledge of allegiance to ISIS’s

leader on Twitter.

Ten months later, in the wake of

the attack in Garland, Texas, the FBI arrested Abood.

Abood pleaded guilty to one count of making a false

statement to the FBI in October 2015.

These cases do not paint a picture of a highly

organized returnee threat inside the United States.

Indeed, speaking before the Council on Foreign

Relations in March 2015, Director of National

Intelligence James Clapper said that about 40

individuals had returned from Syria, and: “We have

since found they went for humanitarian purposes or

some other reason that don’t relate to plotting.”

However, one case in particular does raise real

concern regarding existing security measures.

Floridian Moner Abu Salha managed to travel to

Syria and train with Jabhat al-Nusra before returning

undetected to the United States in 2013.

Rather than

preparing an attack in the United States, Abu Salha

returned to Syria aer unsuccessfully trying to recruit

a few friends to join him, and died conducting a

suicide bombing against the troops of Syrian leader

Bashar al-Assad.

Abu Salha’s undetected return

presents an important warning sign, particularly as

the November 13, 2015 mass-casualty attacks in Paris

represent an increased intention on the part of ISIS to

emphasize external attacks rather than the acquisition

of more ghters to serve in the Syrian civil war.

However, even in the case of Moner Abu Salha, which

is certainly not a success story—given his undetected

return to the United States aer training with an

al-Qaeda aliate in Syria—when he started to try to

recruit Americans to go to Syria, a tip put him on the

government’s radar, revealing the many defenses that

undetected returnees must still navigate if they are to

plot an attack inside the United States.

In assessing the threat posed by returning American

ghters, it is worth putting the current Syrian conict

into historical perspective. While it was the Afghan

war against the Soviets and the ensuing civil war

that caused thousands of foreign ghters to ock to

Afghanistan—and helped launch Osama bin Laden’s

al-Qaeda—much has changed since then that makes

it a weak comparison for how “blowback” from

foreign jihads might aect Western countries.

For

example, on 9/11, there were 16 people on the U.S.

“no y” list.

Today, there are about 48,000 people.

In 2001, there were 32 Joint Terrorism Task Force

“fusion centers,” where multiple law enforcement

agencies work together to chase down leads and build

terrorism cases.

Now there are 104 centers.

A decade

ago, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security,

National Counterterrorism Center, Transportation

Security Administration, Northern Command, and

Cyber Command didn’t exist. In 2014, all of these

new post-9/11 institutions make it much harder for

terrorists to operate in the United States. The U.S.

intelligence budget also grew dramatically aer 9/11,

with Congress giving the government substantial

resources with which to improve its counterterrorism

capabilities. In 2013, the United States allocated $72

billion to intelligence collection and other covert

activities.

Before 9/11, the budget was around one-

third of that gure: $26 billion.

Perhaps of most relevance to the issue of returning

ghters is that prior to 9/11, the law enforcement

community demonstrated little interest in

investigating or prosecuting individuals who traveled

abroad to ght in an overseas jihad.

A post-9/11 American ghter ow to jihadist groups

abroad that sparked fears but turned out to be

Floridian Moner Abu Salha

managed to travel to Syria and

train with Jabhat al-Nusra before

returning undeteed to the United

States in 2013

@NEWAMERICA

an exaggerated threat to the United States was

al-Shabaab’s recruitment of American ghters to

wage war in Somalia. According to a review by New

America, no American ghter who fought in the

conict in Somalia returned to plot an attack in

the United States.

Instead, about one-third of the

individuals known to have traveled to ght in Somalia

died there, either as suicide bombers or on the

battleeld, while others were taken into custody upon

their return.

There are, however, counterexamples of returning

militants to the United States since 9/11 who attempted

serious attacks. The United States’ experience with

Americans ghting or training in Pakistan provides

an illustration of what a more serious returnee threat

might look like. Najibullah Zazi, Adis Medunjanin,

and Zarein Ahmedzay, who all grew up in New

York City, traveled to Pakistan, where they ended

up receiving training from al-Qaeda, and were sent

back to the United States in January 2009 where they

were part of a serious plot to bomb the New York

City subway in the fall of 2009.

On May 1, 2010,

Connecticut-based Faisal Shahzad, who was trained in

bomb-making techniques in Pakistan by the Pakistani

Taliban, le a car bomb undetected in New York City’s

Times Square that failed to properly explode.

Threat to the United States by

Non-American Returnees

Many ghters from countries other than the United

States have traveled to ght in Syria and could pose

a potential threat to the United States. So far we have

not seen a case of a foreign ghter from another

country traveling to the United States to conduct

an attack; however, it is not beyond the realm of

possibility. Since 9/11, two of the most serious al-

Qaeda plots against the United States have been

inltration attacks from abroad—the 2001 attempt to

bring down a U.S. airliner by British “shoe bomber”

Richard Reid and the 2009 Christmas Day bombing

attempt against another U.S. airliner by Nigerian

“underwear bomber” Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

The large number of foreign ghters traveling to ght

in Syria from other countries magnies the potential

threat of an inltration attack, especially given the

high numbers of foreign ghters from countries that

enjoy the “visa waiver” program with the United

States, such as Australia, Belgium, France, Germany,

the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. The

program allows citizens of participating countries to

enter the United States without a visa.

Tracking the many foreign ghters from Western

countries who have gone to Syria and have returned to

the West poses a greater challenge, given their larger

numbers, than tracking the handful of returning

American ghters.

The ISIS-Inired Homegrown Threat

Acts of violence by individuals with no direct

connection to the terrorist groups in Syria but who are

inspired by them pose a more immediate challenge

than attacks by returning ghters. As FBI Director

James Comey noted in September 2014 while referring

to the arrest of Terry Loewen, who radicalized online

and was accused of plotting an attack on Wichita

Airport in Kansas: “We have made it so hard for

people to get into this country, bad guys, but they can

enter as a photon and radicalize somebody in Wichita,

Kansas.”

At the time, Comey also noted that ISIS

lacked the capability for a sophisticated attack in the

United States.

On May 3, 2015, the United States saw its rst actual

attack inspired by ISIS along the lines of similar ISIS-

inspired attacks in Ottawa, Copenhagen, and Paris.

Two men were killed by police aer opening re at a

contest to draw cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed

in Garland, Texas. The event was organized by the

American Freedom Defense Initiative and featured

right-wing Dutch politician Geert Wilders, who

had been named on an al-Qaeda hit list. One of the

shooters, Elton Simpson, had been convicted in 2011

of making a false statement to the FBI regarding plans

to travel to Somalia. Before conducting the attack,

Simpson tweeted his allegiance to ISIS.

Simpson,

a 30-year-old resident of Phoenix, Arizona, who was

born in Illinois and converted to Islam during his

youth, was joined in the attack by his roommate Nadir

Soo, a 34-year-old who was born in Garland.

While the United States has had only one possible

case of a domestic attack plot by a returned ghter

Many ﬁghters from countries

other than the United States have

traveled to ﬁght in Syria and could

pose a potential threat to the

United States



ISIS IN THE WEST: THE NEW FACES OF EXTREMISM

from Syria (that of Mohamud), it has seen a number of

plots that were inspired by ISIS.

• In January 2015, the United States led a criminal

complaint charging Christopher Lee Cornell

in relation to an alleged plot to attack the U.S.

Capitol.

According to the complaint, Cornell

posted material supportive of ISIS online, which led

to his eventual arrest.

He has pleaded not guilty.

• In February 2015, the United States charged three

Brooklyn men with conspiring to provide material

support to ISIS, and in the complaint alleged that

the men had discussed potential attacks inside the

United States.

Two other men were charged in

April and June 2015 for helping to fund other group

members’ alleged plans to travel to ght in Syria.

• In March 2015, the United States unsealed charges

against Hasan Edmonds, a 22-year-old member of

the National Guard, and his cousin Jonas Edmonds,

alleging that Hasan Edmonds had sought to travel

to ght with ISIS and that the two had plotted to

have Jonas Edmonds conduct an attack against a

military facility in the United States.

100

They have

pleaded not guilty.

• In April 2015, the United States charged John T.

Booker and Alexander Blair with an alleged plot

to bomb Fort Riley, in Kansas, in support of ISIS.

101

They have pleaded not guilty.

• The same month, the United States charged two

New York City women, Noelle Velentzas and Asia

Siddiqui, in relation to a domestic attack plot in

support of ISIS.

102

According to the complaint,

Siddiqui had regular contact with members of Al-

Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

103

When FBI agents

arrested Velentzas and Siddiqui in Queens, they

seized propane tanks, soldering tools, a pressure

cooker, fertilizer, and bomb-making instructions.

104

They have pleaded not guilty.

• Also in April, the United States led a complaint

charging Miguel Moran Diaz, a 46-year-old resident

of Miami, with possessing a rearm as a felon.

105

The complaint alleges that he discussed conducting

an attack in support of ISIS.

106

The investigation

involved an informant.

107

Diaz pleaded guilty and

was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

108

• On June 2, 2015, Boston police shot and killed

Usaamah Rahim, a 26-year-old Massachusetts

resident who had a knife when the ocers

approached him.

109

The exact circumstances of

the encounter are disputed.

110

Rahim had been

under 24-hour surveillance as part of a terrorism

investigation into his activity.

111

On June 3, the

United States led a criminal complaint charging

David Wright, a 25-year-old relative of Rahim’s,

with conspiracy with intent to obstruct a federal

investigation by destroying evidence.

112

The

complaint alleged that Wright and Rahim had

plotted to behead Pamela Geller, the organizer of

the Garland, Texas, cartoon drawing contest, but

that Rahim had become impatient and planned

to attack police ocers in Massachusetts. On

June 12, the United States led a second criminal

complaint adding Nicholas Rovinski, a 24-year-

old Rhode Island man who met Wright online last

year, to the alleged conspiracy and charging Wright

and Rovinski with conspiring to provide material

support to ISIS through the plot.

113

Wright and

Rovinski have pleaded not guilty.

• On July 4, 2015, the United States arrested Alex

Ciccolo, a 23-year-old Massachusetts resident and

son of a Boston police captain, and charged him

with possessing rearms as a felon.

114

Documents

led in the case allege that Ciccolo was inspired by

ISIS and was plotting to conduct attacks.

115

Ciccolo

was monitored by an informant.

116

He has pleaded

not guilty.

• On July 28, 2015, the United States charged Harlem

Suarez, a 23-year-old Floridian, with attempting

to explode a backpack bomb at a public beach

in support of ISIS.

117

Suarez was monitored by an

informant.

118

Suarez has pleaded not guilty.

In most of the above cases, the alleged plotters were

monitored by an informant or undercover ocer,

which suggests that U.S. law enforcement is doing a

good job of staying on top of plots as they develop.

However, on July 16, 2015, Mohammad Abdulazeez

killed ve people in shootings at two military facilities

in Chattanooga, Tennessee, demonstrating that

the threat of a deadly attack is real. Abdulazeez’s

motivation is not entirely clear and he reportedly was

suicidal and wrestled with drug use.

119

However, he

also texted an Islamic verse regarding war to a friend

before the attacks.

120

According to the FBI, there is

no evidence that Abdulazeez was inspired by ISIS.

121

He did reportedly have material linked to Anwar al-

Awlaki, the American cleric who became a leader in

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

122

Regardless of

Abdulazeez’s motivation, his actions, along with the

sheer number of alleged plots in the past two years

and the attack in Garland, Texas, demonstrate that a

deadly attack in the United States inspired by Syrian

militant groups is a strong possibility.

@NEWAMERICA

Outside of the United States, the threat facing the

West is greater, driven largely by the high number of

Europeans and other Westerners who have traveled

to ght in Syria and the existence of more developed

jihadist networks in Europe.

Larger Numbers of Fighters

There are an estimated 4,500 Western ghters in Syria,

and the 250 Americans believed to have gone to Syria

or attempted to do so account for less than 6 percent

of that number.

123

• In September 2015, French Prime Minister Manuel

Valls told parliament that 1,800 French citizens and

residents had been involved in jihadist networks

worldwide—almost all in Syria or Iraq.

124

According

to a December 2014 statement by French Interior

Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, 60 were dead and 185

had returned to France.

125

Of those French ghters

who returned, he said, 82 were in jail and 36 were

under other forms of judicial control.

• More than 750 Britons le for Syria, with about

half estimated to have returned to the United

Kingdom.

126

• In August 2015, Hans-Georg Maassen, the head of

Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, reported

that 720 Germans had le for Syria.

127

An estimated

100 have been killed and another 180 have returned

to Germany.

128

• In November 2014, the Belgian Foreign Ministry

estimated that 300 to 350 Belgians had le to ght

in Syria.

129

• In January 2015, Australian Foreign Minister Julie

Bishop placed the number of Australians ghting

abroad at 180, with 20 having died in Syria, while

intelligence agencies placed the ocial count at 110

only six months later.

130

• In the fall of 2014, Canadian security ocials

estimated that 48 Canadians were ghting with

Islamists in Syria and Iraq, and by April 2015,

Michel Coulombe, the head of the Canadian

intelligence service, said the number had increased

50 percent over the last three to four months.

131

• Austria: In November 2014, the Long War Journal’s

Benjamin Weinthal reported that an Interior

Ministry spokesman told him 150 Austrians were

ghting in Syria and more than 60 had returned.

132

• Denmark: In August 2015, the Danish Security

and Intelligence Service estimated that at least

115 Danes had le for Syria.

133

According to CNN’s

reporting, at least 16 Danes have returned.

134

• Finland: In November 2014, Finnish Security

Intelligence Service Director Antti Pelttari stated

that 50 Finns had le to ght in Syria and six to

eight of them had died.

135

However, Finnish security

ocials note that their count includes some who

went for humanitarian reasons.

136

• Netherlands: In January 2015, Minister of Security

and Justice Ivo Opstelten reported that 180 Dutch

had le for Syria and Iraq, and of those 21 had died

and 35 had returned to the Netherlands.

137

• Norway: At least 80 Norwegians have le for Syria

and Iraq, with at least 25 returning to Norway and

15 reportedly dead, according to the Norwegian

Police Security Service in June 2015.

138

• Sweden: The head of Sweden’s security police said

in March 2015 that 300 Swedes were ghting in

Syria and Iraq.

139

• Switzerland: There are 25 Swiss ghting in Syria

and Iraq, according to estimates from the Federal

Intelligence Service in 2014.

140

V. THE THREAT TO THE WEST MORE

BROADLY

* Auralia and Canada, along with the United States,

share a geographic commonality that helps explain

their relatively lower numbers—they are all diant

from Syria and separated from the conﬂi zone by

oceans, making it more dicult for airing militants

to reach their intended deination in Syria, let alone

return. While mo Europeans can drive to the Syrian

border, Americans, Auralians, and Canadians mu

take an international ﬂight, providing data that can be

used to track and intercept them.



ISIS IN THE WEST: THE NEW FACES OF EXTREMISM

With the large numbers of Europeans traveling to

ght in Syria, several nations including France and

Germany are reporting strains on their ability to

eectively monitor returnees. According to ocials

interviewed by the New York Times, each French

individual placed under surveillance requires 25

agents to maintain round the clock monitoring.

141

French terrorism expert Jean-Charles Brisard

estimates that France has 3,000 to 5,000 people under

surveillance and only 3,000 people to do that work.

142

The strain on resources produced by ever increasing

numbers of foreign ghters who need to be monitored

was in part behind the failure to maintain surveillance

of the Kouachi brothers, who conducted the attack

on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris.

143

Similarly, one of the attackers in the November 13,

2015, Paris attacks was already known to police.

144

In December 2014, German Federal Prosecutor General

Harald Range stated regarding the large number of

terrorism cases being prosecuted in Germany, “We are

at the limits of our capacity,” adding that new cases

kept emerging: “What worries me is the speed with

which people are radicalizing, or being radicalized.

We are facing a phenomenon which needs a broad

strategy of prevention.”

145

More Developed Jihadi Networks

Western European countries face a greater threat than

the United States because militants can draw upon

more established jihadist networks that can give rise

to more sophisticated and deadly attacks.

For example, in Belgium, the Sharia4Belgium radical

Sala group actively encouraged and aided members’

travel to Syria. A total of 46 group members were

eventually tried in Antwerp and convicted in February

2015.

146

Six returnees (Bilal El Makhoukhi, Elias

Taketloune, Hakim Elouassaki, Michael Delefortrie,

Mohamed El Youssou, and Walid Lakdim) were given

sentences ranging from one to ve years in prison.

147

Returnee Jejoen Bontinck testied for the prosecution

and received a 40-month suspended sentence.

148

estimated 10 percent of all Belgian ghters in Syria

were connected to Sharia4Belgium.

149

In the period prior to the November 13 attack in Paris

there has been only one conrmed deadly attack

in the West by a returnee. According to European

ocials, the early stages of the investigation into the

November 13 attacks in Paris have revealed that six

attackers had traveled to Syria.

In his 2013 study of Westerners who traveled to be

foreign ghters in a variety of theaters of conict,

Thomas Hegghammer found that one in nine returned

to conduct violence at home.

150

While relatively few

foreign ghters tend to return to commit violence,

Hegghammer’s examination of previous cases

found that most plots involved at least one returnee,

providing supporting evidence for the thesis that

foreign ghters do increase the threat at home.

151

This

may help limit the potential for terrorist cells to form

around returning foreign ghters—for the time being.

The one conrmed deadly attack in the West by

a returnee from Syria until the November 13 Paris

attacks was the May 24, 2014 shooting rampage at a

Jewish museum in Brussels, Belgium that killed four.

152

Returnee Mehdi Nemmouche was arrested around

one week later by customs ocials at a train station

in Marseille, France, where they discovered in his

luggage a Kalashnikov rie wrapped in a sheet bearing

the name ISIS, ammunition, and a tape in which he

admitted to the shooting.

153

Nemmouche currently

awaits trial in Belgium for murder and attempted

murder.

154

Nemmouche, a French national, le for

Syria at the age of 28 in January 2013, around one

month aer he was released from a ve-year French

prison sentence for robbery, his seventh conviction—

although none were for terrorism-related crimes.

155

Nemmouche, whose nom de jihad was Abu Omar the

Hitter, reportedly spent time as an ISIS prison guard

in Aleppo where he beat and tortured hostages.

156

returned to France from Syria in March 2014, despite

being on French watch lists, avoiding detection by

exploiting Europe’s open borders.

157

Prior to the Paris attacks, a total of seven returnees

were either arrested for plotting violence or killed

during a police raid in the Europe. Three are Belgian

and four are French.

• A French returnee only known as Reda was arrested

in August 2015 aer spending one week in Syria,

where he was instructed to carry out an attack

killing as many people as possible, potentially at a

concert hall.

158

• In Belgium, a dozen simultaneous raids in multiple

cities, including Brussels and Verviers, in January

2015 were linked to a terror cell planning a major

attack, and resulted in the arrests of 13 jihadists,

including returnee Marouane El Bali, and the

deaths of two returnees, Soane Amghar and

Khalid Ben Larbi.

159

In December 2014, Amghar

and Larbi had returned to Belgium aer half a year

@NEWAMERICA

in Syria ghting with ISIS.

160

The two were under

24-hour surveillance by Belgium’s secret service

upon their return in an investigation that involved

other members of their cell in Belgium, Greece, and

Syria, including individuals who had never traveled

to Syria.

161

When police raided their safe house on

January 15, 2015, Amghar, Larbi, and El Bali were

in the nal stages of planning a major terrorist

attack against police, according to a senior Belgian

counterterrorism ocial.

162

• France arrested Mohamed Ouharani, 20, in Paris in

July 2014 for plotting to carry out an attack on Ile-

de-France aer he returned from Syria via Lebanon,

where he initially planned to carry out an attack.

163

• French national Ibrahim Boudina was arrested in

Italy in January 2014 for an imminent attack, and

police discovered bomb-making materials in his

French apartment building aer his arrest.

164

• Frenchman Lyes Darani, 23, was arrested in Lille

in October 2013 and was reported to have had on

him at that time a manual explaining how to make

a bomb and a religious pledge to commit a suicide

attack.

165

While it was reported that he was arrested

for plotting violence, details of the alleged plot are

not available.

Despite the continued participation in terrorist activity

by some returnees, 81 percent of returnees who have

been arrested have been charged with going to Syria.

This indicates that Western security services have

adopted a preventative approach, arresting returnees

upon their return and before they can engage in

plotting or jihadist activity.

ISIS-Inired Threats

The most signicant act of ISIS-inspired violence

in the West prior to the November 13 Paris attacks

was the series of two attacks conducted by Amedy

Coulibaly in Paris, where on January 8, 2015, he shot

and killed a Parisian policewoman and the next

day killed four people he took hostage at a kosher

supermarket.

166

The attacks coincided with the attack

on Charlie Hebdo’s oces by Said and Cherif Kouachi,

which killed 12 people, and in his martyrdom video,

Coulibaly said he coordinated the attack with the

Kouachis.

167

While the Kouachis declared themselves

followers of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula,

Coulibaly declared allegiance to ISIS leader Abu

Bakr al-Baghdadi in the video.

168

Coulibaly was not

a veteran returnee of the Syrian conict but he was

inspired by ISIS propaganda.

On February 6, 2015, Omar Abdel Hamid El-Hussein,

a 22-year-old born in Denmark, shot and killed two

people in Copenhagen, one in an attack on the

Krudttoenden Cafe, which was hosting a free speech

event that included Swedish artist Lars Vilks, who had

been targeted by jihadists because of his drawings

of the Prophet Mohammed, and the second in a later

attack at a synagogue.

169

According to the Danish

government, El-Hussein had never been to Syria.

170

Despite not being a returnee, El-Hussein pledged

fealty to ISIS in a Facebook post before the attacks,

writing that he gave his “allegiance to Abu Bakr in

full obedience in the good and bad things. And I

won’t dispute with him unless it is an outrageous

disbelief.”

171

He had been previously active in

Denmark’s violent gang scene, was known to police as

a result, and had been released from prison two weeks

before the attacks.

172

Denmark’s prison service had

sent a warning regarding El-Hussein’s potential for

radicalization to Danish intelligence.

173

On December 15, 2014, Man Haron Monis took dozens

of people hostage in a Lindt Cafe in Sydney, Australia,

triggering a 16-hour siege that resulted in the deaths

of two hostages in addition to himself.

174

Monis

displayed a black Islamic ag—not the ISIS ag—and

demanded a proper ISIS ag during his attack; he

further demanded that politicians call his action an

ISIS attack.

175

Monis also pledged allegiance to ISIS in

a post on his website just days before his attack.

176

Other alleged plots inspired by or linked to ISIS have

reportedly been broken up in the West. For example,

on February 11, 2015, two Australian men, Omar Al-

Kutobi, 24, and Mohammad Kiad, 25, were arrested

for allegedly plotting an attack to take place later that

day that Australia Prime Minister Tony Abbott said

was inspired by ISIS.

177

On March 10, 2015, Spanish

authorities announced that they had arrested two men

who were plotting an attack in Spain or neighboring

countries.

178

The men apparently had contact with

ISIS members online and were involved with four men

arrested in January who were preparing an attack.

179

Even teenagers have been inspired to commit violence

by ISIS. In October 2014, a 14-year-old Austrian boy

was arrested for planning to bomb a major Vienna

train station in the name of ISIS.

180

According to

the charging document, the boy made “concrete

enquiries into about buying ingredients” for a bomb

and planned to travel to Syria to join ISIS aer the

bombing.

181

The boy was convicted in May 2015 of

belonging to a terrorist organization and sentenced to

eight months in jail, with a suspended jail sentence of

an additional 16 months.

182



ISIS IN THE WEST: THE NEW FACES OF EXTREMISM

What motivates many of these Western ghters

to travel to a dangerous war zone that most have

no prior connection to? A review of both ISIS

propaganda and reporting on the individual cases

in New America’s dataset suggests the answer is a

diverse mix of motivations and themes that ISIS has

picked up on as part of its recruiting strategy. These

include: opposition to Assad; religious invocations

of the spiritual benet of participating in jihad; the

jihadi thinking that religious duty requires living

under a so-called caliphate; a desire to be part of a

grander project; anger at and alienation from Western

society; and for a few, the simple “coolness” factor of

participating in the war.

As discussed previously, recruitment, radicalization,

and mobilization drawing upon these themes

and conducted via direct communication online

is common. However, ISIS also conducts less

personalized outreach, disseminating its propaganda

over social media and other public sites. In July 2014

ISIS began publishing an online, English-language

magazine, Dabiq, which is now in its 11th iteration.

183

Articles in Dabiq report on the group’s military

activities as well as aim to reassure readers that ISIS

is an actual state that provides social services and

maintains infrastructure. The magazine has asserted

that administrators govern towns aer the main ISIS

ghting force moves on. One issue of Dabiq included

photos with captions showing “services for Muslims,”

including street cleaning, electricity repairs, care

homes for the elderly, and cancer treatment centers

for children.

184

The rst issue of Dabiq even had a sort

of classied ad for “all Muslim doctors, engineers,

scholars, and specialists” to come and join ISIS. ISIS

also went to great lengths to highlight how normal life

was in its Islamist utopia—releasing, for instance, a

video in March 2015 that showed smiling kids taking

fairground rides at the Dijla city fairground, near

Mosul. Dabiq is only the agship English-language

magazine for ISIS. It has also launched magazines in

Russian, French, and Turkish.

185

Beyond Dabiq and similar magazines, ISIS has

disseminated several guidebooks. In 2015, ISIS

published its how-to guides Hijrah and How to

Survive in the West. Hijrah provides potential ghters

with detailed packing lists; advice on how to get to

Turkey and dupe customs ocials into issuing visas;

lists Twitter accounts of ghters living in Syria to

follow; and even suggests assessing your personality

strengths and weaknesses before leaving home to

better prepare yourself for jihad.

How to Survive in the West, which is more consistent

with al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’s Inspire (a

propaganda magazine notorious for including bomb-

making instructions and encouraging attacks in the

West), is a guide on how to “be a secret Agent” in a

non-Muslim country. It gives readers tips on making

Molotov cocktails, bombs, and cell phone detonators;

hiding weapons in secret compartments of vehicles

in the same fashion as gangs; and how to identify

and evade police surveillance, even suggesting that

readers watch the Jason Bourne lm series for tips on

employing evasion tactics.

186

In addition to these publications, ISIS has

disseminated a variety of propaganda videos, oen

featuring foreign ghters calling in English upon

others to join them in Syria and Iraq. For example, in a

video titled “There Is No Life Without Jihad,” ghters

identied as “Brother Abu Muthanna al Yemeni—from

Britain,” “Brother Abu Bara’ al Hindi—from Britain,”

“Brother Abu Yahya ash Shami—from Australia” (real

name Zacharia Raad), “Brother Abu Nour al Iraqi—

from Australia,” and “Brother Abu Dujana al Hindi—

from Britain” (real name Reyaad Khan) call upon their

‘brothers” to join them.

187

In a video released aer

his death, Andre Poulin, a Canadian foreign ghter,

calls on Canadians to travel to join ISIS.

188

Another

ISIS video, which shares a nasheed [Islamic chant]

in French and subtitled in English, features images

of an individual packing and traveling while lyrics

include “Extend your hand to pledge allegiance, And

VI. WHY DO THEY LEAVE FOR SYRIA?

In addition to publications, ISIS

has disseminated a variety of

propaganda videos, oen featuring

foreign ﬁghters calling in English

upon others to join them in Syria

and Iraq

@NEWAMERICA

immigrate to your land.”

189

In the video, a French

ghter states that he has a message “from your

French brothers who have made hijrah,” continuing,

“What are you waiting for?”

190

In another ISIS video,

released in April 2015, 29-year-old Australian doctor

Tareq Kamleh urges medical professionals to travel

to ISIS territory, echoing the call for doctors made in

Dabiq and helping broadcast ISIS’s desired imagery of

normalcy within its territory.

191

ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi himself has lent

his voice to the eort to recruit foreign ghters. In

May 2015, ISIS released an online audio recording of

Baghdadi in which he called for all Muslims to make

hijrah to ISIS’s territory, saying there is no excuse for

any able Muslim not doing so.

Several foreign ghters expressed the role of

opposition to Assad in their decision to join. Dutch

ghter Omar Yilmaz told CBS News: “I felt the need

as a person, as a human, and, of course, as a Muslim.

Because it was the Muslims that were getting crushed

in Syria, that I had to stand up and do stu.”

192

Amer

Deghayes, a 20-year-old British foreign ghter whose

16- and 18-year-old brothers also le to ght in Syria,

told Vice: “I came to Syria to answer the call of duty

and that is to give victory to the religion of Allah and

the way to do that is to help the oppressed Syrians

here and make sure they receive justice.”

193

Deghayes

explained that before going he had watched videos

online, saying, “Before you make a step like this you

do research,” and continuing: “In some of the videos

you hear the people call out for help. They say where

is the Muslim nation? Where are the youth? Where are

the men?”

194

Another thing that pushed him to go to

Syria, he said, was “the things which are happening

here as everybody knows—I don’t even think it

happens as bad anywhere else.”

195

Deghayes’s father

recalls, “With Amer, he went with a convoy, but he

was talking about going to Syria and helping out. And

I thought I convinced him to stick to aid work.”

196

It is hardly surprising that opposition to the Assad

regime would motivate people to ght against it.

The Assad regime has repeatedly used chemical

weapons, including as recently as March 2015.

197

has engaged in systematic torture and, according to

documents smuggled out of Syria by a defector, killed

at least 11,000 detainees.

198

Stephen Rapp, the State

Department’s former ambassador at large for war

crimes and director of its Oce of Global Criminal

Justice, has stated: “This is solid evidence of the kind

of machinery of cruel death that we haven’t seen

frankly since the Nazis.”

199

Other foreign ghters discussed religious motivations.

Abdul Raqib Amin, a 26-year-old British ghter,

told Good Morning Britain: “I le the U.K. to give

everything I have for the sake of Allah.… One of the

happiest moments in my life was when the plane took

o from Gatwick Airport. I was so happy, because,

as a Muslim you cannot live in the country of Kuars

[disbelievers].”

200

Abdi Nur, a 20-year-old Minnesotan,

tweeted: “Jihad Is The Greatest Honor For Man So

Come On And Join Dawla Ya Iqwa [you brothers of

the Islamic State].”

201

Nur later explained to his sister:

“If I didn’t care I wouldn’t have le but I want jannah

[paradise] for all of us.”

202

For some foreign ghters, the declaration of the

caliphate played an important role in motivating

them to join ISIS. One propaganda video, providing

greetings for the Eid holiday and released by ISIS,

shows multiple foreign ghters praising life in the

caliphate alongside images of allegedly happy

children and backed by so music with the lyrics,

“The Shari’ah of our Lord is light, by it we rise over

the stars. By it we live without humiliation, a life of

peace and security.”

203

An individual identied as a

Moroccan foreign ghter states that “hijrah is now

obligatory upon every Muslim.”

204

An individual

identied as a Belgian ghter states: “In my whole

life I never felt like a Muslim as I do now living among

the Muslims and under the shade of the Khilafah

[Caliphate].”

205

Though the statements cannot be

taken as necessarily authentic, as they are scripted

parts of a propaganda video, they appear to resonate

with some attempting to travel to join ISIS. Alabamian

Hoda Muthana told her father in a phone call from

Syria that she traveled there for missionary work

because the caliphate had been declared and every

Muslim was required to travel there in order to get

to heaven.

206

Before attempting to travel to Syria,

Chicago teen Mohammed Hamzah Khan le a letter

for his parents in which he explained that “there is an

obligation to ‘migrate’ to the ‘Islamic State’ now that it

has ‘been established.’”

207

Virginia teen Reza Niknejad

called his mother on February 5, 2015, aer having

reached Syria to join ISIS, telling her about how well

he was being treated in the “Khalifah.”

208

Dutch ﬁghter Omar Yilmaz told CBS

News: “I felt the need as a person, as

a human, and, of course, as a Muslim...

I had to and up and do u”



ISIS IN THE WEST: THE NEW FACES OF EXTREMISM

Some ghters have also made more general comments

regarding being part of a grander project or even the

simple excitement of being in combat. A 32-year-old

British ghter said in a radio interview aired by the

BBC that ghting for ISIS was “actually quite fun,

better than, what’s that game called, Call of Duty?

It’s like that, but really, you know, 3D. You can see

everything’s happening in front of you, know. It’s real,

you know what I mean?”

209

Others have cited feelings of alienation or oppression

in Western society. For example, in a Skype interview

with Vice, Farah Shirdon, a Canadian, replied to the

question of why he had become a foreign ghter by

citing oppression and lack of religious freedom at

home, saying “Give us our freedom” and continuing,

“If we want sharia law, leave us alone.”

210

Mohammed

Hamzah Khan’s 17-year-old sister wrote a letter to her

parents before attempting to travel to Syria, saying: “I

could not bear to live in ... the land who’s people mock

my Allah, my beloved Prophet….”

211

Muthenna Abu

Taubah, a 24-year-old ghter from central London who

later died in an accident at a bomb-making factory in

Raqqa, the de facto ISIS capital, commented to a BBC

reporter: “Look at China—men aren’t allowed to grow

beards and Muslims aren’t allowed to fast. Look at

France—women can’t wear niqab. Look at the USA and

U.K.—you can’t even talk about jihad.”

212

@NEWAMERICA

1. Enlist defectors from ISIS to tell their stories

publicly.

213

Nothing is more powerful than hearing

from former members of the group that ISIS is not

creating an Islamist utopia in the areas it controls,

but a hell on earth. The ow of “foreign ghters” to

ISIS from around the Muslim world is estimated to be

about 1,000 a month. Reducing that ow is a key to

reducing ISIS manpower.

2. Amplify voices such as that of the ISIS opposition

group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, which

routinely posts photos online of bread lines in Raqqa,

the de facto capital of ISIS in northern Syria, and

writes about electricity shortages in the city.

214

This

will help to undercut ISIS propaganda that it is a truly

functioning state.

3. Amplify the work of former jihadists like the

Canadian Mubin Shaikh, who intervenes directly with

young people online who he sees are being recruited

virtually by ISIS.

215

4. Support the work of clerics such as Imam Mohamed

Magid of Northern Virginia, who has personally

convinced a number of American Muslims seduced by

ISIS that what the group is doing is against Islam.

216

5. Keep up pressure on social media companies such

as Twitter to enforce their own Terms of Use to take

down any ISIS material that encourages violence.

Earlier this year, Twitter quietly took down 2,000

accounts used by ISIS supporters, but the group

continues to use Twitter and other social media

platforms to propagate its message.

217

6. Keep up the military campaign against ISIS. The

less the ISIS “caliphate” exists as a physical entity, the

less the group can claim it is the “Islamic State” that it

purports to be. That should involve more U.S. Special

Forces on the ground embedded with Iraqi and other

coalition forces and more U.S. forward air controllers

calling in close air support strikes for those forces.

7. Applaud the work that the Turks have already done

to tamp down the foreign ghter ow through their

country to ISIS in neighboring Syria, and get them to

do more.

8. Provide “o ramps” to young ISIS recruits with no

history of violence, so that instead of serving long

prison terms for attempting to join ISIS—as they

presently do in the United States—they would instead

serve long periods of supervised probation. This will

help families that presently face a hard choice: If they

suspect a young family member is radicalizing and

they go to the FBI, that person can end up in prison

for up to 15 years on charges of attempting to support

ISIS; but if they don’t go to the authorities and their

child ends up traveling to Syria, he or she may well

end up being killed there. Providing o-ramps would

oer families a way out of this almost impossible

choice.

9. Educate Muslim-American parents about the

seductive messages that ISIS is propagating online.

10. Relentlessly hammer home the message that ISIS

positions itself as the defender of Muslims, but its

victims are overwhelmingly fellow Muslims.

11. Build a database of all the foreign ghters who

have gone to Syria to ght for ISIS and Nusra. This is

one of the recommendations of the House Homeland

Security Committee’s September 2015 report on foreign

ghters in Syria and it is a very good one. How can

you prevent an attack by returning foreign ghters if

you are not cognizant of their names and links to ISIS?

Right now INTERPOL has a list of some 5,000 foreign

ghters, but that is simply dwarfed by the estimated

30,000 foreign ghters who have gone to ght in Syria.

12. Stay in Afghanistan beyond 2016. One only has

to look at the debacle that has unfolded in Iraq

aer the withdrawal of U.S. troops at the end of 2011

to have a preview of what could take place in an

Afghanistan without some kind of residual American

presence. Without American forces in the country,

there is a strong possibility Afghanistan could host

a reinvigorated Taliban allied to a reinvigorated al-

Qaeda—not to mention ISIS, which is also gaining a

foothold in the region. This U.S. military presence in

Afghanistan doesn’t have to be large, nor does it need

to play a combat role, but U.S. troops should remain

in Afghanistan to advise the Afghan army and provide

intelligence support past 2016.

VII. RECOMMENDATIONS



ISIS IN THE WEST: THE NEW FACES OF EXTREMISM

Notes

1 Anthony Faiola and Souad Mekhennet, “French

ocials think as many as 20 plotters may be behind

Paris attacks,” Washington Post, November 16,

2015, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/

french-police-detain-7-for-questioning-in-paris-

siegethe-latest-from-paris/2015/11/15/7600c208-8b38-

11e5-bd91-d385b244482f_story.html; Jim Yardley, et

al., “Inquiry Finds Mounting Proof of Syria Link to

Paris Attacks,” New York Times, November 15, 2015,

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/11/16/world/europe/

inquiry-nds-mounting-proof-of-syria-link-to-paris-

attacks.html?smid=tw-nytimesworld&smtyp=cur&_

r=1&referer=https://t.co/8XQsSPGGUP; Kimiko

de Freytas-Tamura, Aurelien Breeden, and

Katrin Beenhold, “Belgian Who Fought for ISIS

Masterminded Paris Attack, Ocial Says,” New York

Times, November 16, 2015, http://www.nytimes.

com/2015/11/17/world/europe/paris-terror-attack.html?

hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=sto

ry-heading&module=span-ab-top-region&region=top-

news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0.

2 Peter Bergen, Courtney Schuster, and David

Sterman, “How ISIS threatens the West,” CNN,

November 14, 2015, http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/14/

opinions/bergen-paris-attacks/index.html.

3 Oce of the Spokesperson, “Designations of

Foreign Terrorist Fighters,” U.S. Department of State,

September 29, 2015, http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/

ps/2015/09/247433.htm.

4 U.S. Attorney’s Oce District of Minnesota,

“Minnesota Woman Charged with Stealing Passport

to Travel to Syria,” Department of Justice, December, 2

2014, http://www.justice.gov/usao-mn/pr/minnesota-

woman-charged-stealing-passport-travel-syria; Katrin

Bennhold, “Medical Students from Britain are Sought

in Syria,” New York Times, March 22, 2015, http://

www.nytimes.com/2015/03/23/world/europe/british-

families-seek-medical-students-thought-to-be-in-syria.

html?_r=0 .

5 “Homegrown Extremism 2001 - 2015,” New

America, http://securitydata.newamerica.net/

extremists/analysis.

6 Thomas Hegghammer, “Should I Stay or Should I

Go? Explaining Variation in Western Jihadists’ Choice

between Domestic and Foreign Fighting,” American

Political Science Review, February 2013, http://

hegghammer.com/_les/Hegghammer_-_Should_I_

stay_or_should_I_go.pdf.

7 “Mehr als 70 deutsche Frauen in IS-Gebiet

ausgereist,” Zeit, March 29, 2015, http://www.zeit.

de/gesellscha/zeitgeschehen/2015-03/frauen-

deutschland-islamischer-staat.

8 Kevin Sullivan, “Three American teens, recruited

online, are caught trying to join the Islamic State,”

Washington Post, December 8, 2014, https://www.

washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/three-

american-teens-recruited-online-are-caught-trying-to-

join-the-islamic-state/2014/12/08/8022e6c4-7a-11e4-

84d4-7c896b90abdc_story.html.

9 “Cubs of the Khilafah,” accessed via Jihadology.

net.

10 “The Islamic State,” Vice, December 26, 2014,

https://news.vice.com/video/the-islamic-state-full-

length.

11 Ibid.

12 Elise Labott and Abeer Salman, “New ISIS video

claims to show child executing Palestinian captive,”

CNN, March 10, 2015, http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/10/

middleeast/isis-video-israeli-killed/.

13 J.M. Berger and Jonathon Morgan, The ISIS Twitter

Census (Center for Middle East Policy, 2015).

14 Press Release, “Fourteen Charged with Providing

Material Support to Somalia-Based Terrorist

Organization al Shabaab,” Department of Justice,

August 5, 2010, https://www.i.gov/news/pressrel/

press-releases/fourteen-charged-with-providing-

material-support-to-somalia-based-terrorist-

organization-al-shabaab.

15 Rukmini Callimachi, “Clues on Twitter Show

Ties Between Texas Gunman and ISIS Network,”

New York Times, May 11, 2015, http://www.nytimes.

com/2015/05/12/us/twitter-clues-show-ties-between-

isis-and-garland-texas-gunman.html.

16 Tim Lister, “The cheerleaders and the freelancers:

the new actors in international terrorism,” CNN,

May 7, 2015, http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/07/world/

cheerleader-freelancer-terror/; United States v. Yusuf et

al., Case No. 0:14-mj-01024-MJD, Criminal Complaint

(D. Minn., Nov. 24, 2014).

17 United States v. Farah, et al., Case No. 0:15-mj-

00312-MJD, Criminal Complaint (D. Minn., April 17,

2015).

18 Ellie Hall, “Gone Girl: An Interview With an

American in ISIS,” Buzzfeed, April 17, 2015, http://

www.buzzfeed.com/ellievhall/gone-girl-an-interview-

with-an-american-in-isis#.sjNQlX5wPY.

19 United States v. Mohamud, Case No. 2:15-cr-00095-

JLG, Indictment (S.D. Ohio, April 16, 2015).

20 United States v. Amin, Case No. 1:15-cr-00164,

Defendant’s Stipulation of Facts (E.D. Va., June 11,

2015).

21 Matt Zapotosky, “Va. teen admits he was secret

voice behind a pro-ISIS Twitter account,” Washington

Post, June 11, 2015, http://www.washingtonpost.

com/local/crime/northern-va-teen-admits-running-

pro-islamic-state-twitter-and-helping-man-join-

terrorist-group/2015/06/11/1d0cb33e-0eef-11e5-9726-

49d6fa26a8c6_story.html; Amin, Case No. 1:15-cr-

00164, Defendant’s Stipulation of Facts 4.

22 Mark Hosenball, “British hacker linked to attack

@NEWAMERICA

on Pentagon Twitter feed: sources,” Reuters, January

13, 2015, http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/14/

us-cybersecurity-pentagon-cybercaliphate-

idUSKBN0KN00X20150114; Eliott C. McLaughlin, “ISIS

Jihadi Linked to Garland Attack Has Long History

as Hacker,” CNN, May 7, 2015, http://www.cnn.

com/2015/05/06/us/who-is-junaid-hussain-garland-

texas-attack/; Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura, “Jundaid

Hussain, ISIS Recruiter, Reported Killed in Airstrike,”

New York Times, August 27, 2015, http://www.nytimes.

com/2015/08/28/world/middleeast/junaid-hussain-

islamic-state-recruiter-killed.html.

23 Ibid.

24 Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura, “Teenage Girl Leaves

for ISIS, and Others Follow,” New York Times, February

24, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/25/world/

from-studious-teenager-to-isis-recruiter.html?_r=0.

25 Ellie Hall, “Inside The Chilling Online World of the

Women of ISIS,” Buzzfeed, September 11, 2014, http://

www.buzzfeed.com/ellievhall/inside-the-online-

world-of-the-women-of-isis#.lt5g2WRb5J.

26 Oce of Public Aairs, “Arvada Woman Pleads

Guilty to Conspiracy to Provide Material Support

to a Designated Foreign Terrorist Organization,”

Department of Justice, September 10, 2014, http://

www.justice.gov/opa/pr/arvada-woman-pleads-guilty-

conspiracy-provide-material-support-designated-

foreign-terrorist.

27 Ibid.

28 Letter dated 19 May 2015 from the Chair of the

Security Council Committee pursuant to resolutions

1267 (1999) and 1989 (2011) concerning Al-Qaida and

associated individuals and entities addressed to the

President of the Security Council, S/2015/358, p. 18,

http://www.un.org/en/sc/ctc/docs/2015/N1508457_

EN.pdf.

29 Ben Taub, “Journey to Jihad: Why are teen-agers

joining ISIS?” New Yorker, June 1, 2015, http://www.

newyorker.com/magazine/2015/06/01/journey-to-

jihad.

30 Ibid.

31 Ibid.

32 Ibid.

33 Shiv Malik, “Father of UK teenager killed in Syria

implores his other sons to return,” Guardian, April

20, 2014, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/

apr/20/british-teenager-killed-syria-father-interview-

abubaker-deghayes.

34 Dan Bilefsky, “3 Suspected French Jihadists Give

Up Aer Botched Arrest,” New York Times, September

24, 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/25/world/

europe/french-islamic-militant-suspects-expelled-

by-turkey.html; Christopher Dickey, “ISIS, Hip-Hop

Jihadists and the Man Who Killed James Foley,” Daily

Beast, August 25, 2014, http://www.thedailybeast.com/

articles/2014/08/25/isis-hip-hop-jihadists-and-the-

man-who-killed-james-foley.html.

35 James Comey, “Statement Before the Senate

Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental

Aairs,” Federal Bureau of Investigation, October 8,

2015, https://www.i.gov/news/testimony/threats-to-

the-homeland.

36 Ben Brumeld, “Ocials: 3 Denver girls played

hooky from school and tried to join ISIS,” CNN,

October 22, 2014, http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/22/us/

colorado-teens-syria-odyssey/; Michael Martinez, Ana

Cabrera, and Sara Weisfeldt, “Colorado woman gets 4

years for wanting to join ISIS,” CNN, January 24, 2015,

http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/23/us/colorado-woman-

isis-sentencing/; Hall, “Gone Girl: An Interview With

An American In ISIS.”

37 “Illinois Man Pleads Guilty to Attempting to

Provide Material Support to ISIL,” Department of

Justice, October 29, 2015, http://www.justice.gov/opa/

pr/illinois-man-pleads-guilty-attempting-provide-

material-support-isil; Jason Meisner, “Bolingbrook

teen accused of trying to join Islamic State indicted on

terrorism charge,” Chicago Tribune, January 9, 2015,

http://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/bolingbrook-

plaineld/ct-bolingbrook-teen-terrorism-indictment-

met-20150109-story.html.

38 Todd Richmond, “Wisconsin Man Pleads Not

Guilty to Trying to Join Terrorists,” AP, April 24,

2015, http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/man-

accused-join-terrorists-pleads-guilty-30557944;

Hall, “Gone Girl: An Interview With An American

in ISIS;” Dan Lamothe, “Picture emerges of Tairod

Pugh, U.S. veteran accused of trying to join the

Islamic State,” Washington Post, March 18, 2015,

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/

wp/2015/03/18/picture-emerges-of-tairod-pugh-u-s-

veteran-accused-of-trying-to-join-the-islamic-state/.

39 Jesse Byrnes, “FBI Investigating ISIS Suspects

in All 50 States,” The Hill, February 25, 2015, http://

thehill.com/blogs/blog-brieng-room/233832-i-

investigating-isis-suspects-in-all-50-states.

40 Hall, “Inside The Chilling Online World of the

Women of ISIS.”

41 Stephanie Anderson, “20 Australians killed

ghting with IS, 90 passports cancelled: Bishop,”

SBS News, February 10, 2015, http://www.sbs.com.

au/news/article/2015/02/10/20-australians-killed-

ghting-90-passports-cancelled-bishop; “Number

of Aust jihadists increases to 110,” Sky News, June

5, 2015, http://www.skynews.com.au/news/top-

stories/2015/06/05/number-of-aust-jihadists-increases-

to-110.html.

42 “Danish national jailed for ghting with Isis,”

August 6, 2015, The Local, http://www.thelocal.

dk/20150806/danish-national-jailed-for-ghting-with-

isis.

43 “50 leave Finland for Syria ghting, 6-8 killed:

Supo,” FTimes, November 30, 2014, http://www.

nlandtimes./national/2014/11/30/12068/50-leave-

Finland-for-Syria-ghting,-6-8-killed:-Supo.

44 “Paris says 100 jihadists from France killed in



ISIS IN THE WEST: THE NEW FACES OF EXTREMISM

Iraq and Syria,” AFP, June 2, 2015, http://news.yahoo.

com/paris-says-110-jihadists-france-killed-iraq-

syria-171924537.html; Paule Gonzales, “Vera Jourova:

«Près de 6000 Européens sont partis faire le djihad»,”

Le Figaro, April 12, 2015, http://www.legaro.fr/

international/2015/04/12/01003-20150412ARTFIG00128-

vera-jourova-pres-de-6000-europeens-sont-partis-

faire-le-djihad.php.

45 Berlin says 100 Germanys killed ghting

alongside ISIL,” Al Jazeera, August 23, 2015, http://

www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/08/berlin-100-

germans-killed-ghting-isil-150823143624855.

html; “Fewer Germans going to Syria, Iraq

to ght for Islamic State: spy chief,” Reuters,

August 4, 2015, http://mobile.reuters.com/article/

idUSKCN0QA04C20150805?irpc=932.

46 Janene Pieters, “Amsterdam Jihadist Killed in Syria

Bombing,” NL Times, January 20, 2015, http://www.

nltimes.nl/2015/01/20/amsterdam-jihadist-killed-syria-

bombing/.

47 “At least 80 have le Norway to ght in Syria,” The

Norway Post, June 22, 2015, http://www.norwaypost.

no/index.php/news/latest-news/30933.

48 Joanna Paraszczuk, “Community Service, Not

Jail For Swiss IS Returnee,” Radio Free Europe/Radio

Liberty, December 11, 2014, http://www.rferl.org/

content/isis-switzerland-ghter-sentence/26737485.

html.

49 Eli Lake, “Foreign Recruits Are Islamic State’s

Cannon Fodder,” Bloomberg, February 11, 2015, http://

www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-02-11/foreign-

ghters-are-islamic-state-s-cannon-fodder.

50 Laura Smith-Spark, “U.S. ocial: 10,000-plus ISIS

ghters killed in 9-month campaign,” CNN, June 3,

2015, http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/03/middleeast/isis-

conict/.

51 “ISIL ‘killed foreign ghters in its ranks’,” Al

Jazeera, December 28, 2014, http://www.aljazeera.

com/news/middleeast/2014/12/isil-killed-foreign-

ghters-ranks-2014122816195774477.html.

52 Elise Labott and Abeer Salman, “New ISIS video

claims to show child executing Palestinian captive,”

CNN, March 10, 2015, http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/10/

middleeast/isis-video-israeli-killed/.

53 Peter Bergen, “The all-American al Qaeda suicide

bomber,” CNN, July 31, 2014, http://edition.cnn.

com/2014/07/31/opinion/bergen-american-al-qaeda-

suicide-bomber-syria/.

54 Cassandra Vinograd and Ammar Cheikh Omar,

“American Douglas McAuthur McCain Dies Fighting

for ISIS in Syria,” NBC, August 26, 2014, http://

www.nbcnews.com/storyline/american-terrorist/

american-douglas-mcauthur-mccain-dies-ghting-isis-

syria-n189081.

55 “Mass. man accused of aiding ISIS killed in

Iraq, reports say,” Boston Globe, June 3, 2015, http://

www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/06/03/mass-

man-accused-aiding-isis-killed-iraq-reports-say/

MABevJO6Pm4beu1B8M1yHI/story.html.

56 United States v. Mohamud, Case No. 2:15-cr-00095,

Indictment pp. 7, 15 (S.D. Ohio, Apr. 16, 2015).

57 Ibid. at 16.

58 Ibid. at 17; Matthew Dolan, “Ohio Gun-Range

Owner Says Terror Suspect’s Visit Was Suspicious,”

Wall Street Journal, April 21, 2015, http://www.wsj.com/

articles/more-details-in-the-is-probe-of-ohio-terror-

suspect-1429589161; Matthew Dolan and Andrew

Grossman, “Ohio Man Pleads Not Guilty to Terror

Charges,” Wall Street Journal, April 17, 2015, http://

www.wsj.com/articles/ohio-man-pleads-not-guilty-to-

terror-charges-1429293238.

59 Ibid.

60 Tracey Connor, “Abdirahman Sheik Mohamud,

Ohio Terror Suspect, a ‘Normal Kid’: Lawyer,” NBC,

April 17, 2015, http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-

news/ohios-syria-trained-terror-suspect-pleads-not-

guilty-n343486.

61 Dolan, “Ohio Gun-Range Owner Says Terror

Suspect’s Visit Was Suspicious.”

62 Nicholas Schmidle, “Lost in Syria,” New Yorker,

February 16, 2015, http://www.newyorker.com/

magazine/2015/02/16/lost-syria.

63 It is worth noting that while Harroun was indicted

for ghting with Nursa, it appears he may have

actually fought with a dierent group. United States

v. Harroun, Case No. 1:13-cr-00272 (E.D. Va, June 20,

2013); Robert Young Pelton, “The All-American Life

and Death of Eric Harroun,” VICE, April 11, 2014,

https://news.vice.com/article/the-all-american-life-

and-death-of-eric-harroun; Schmidle,“Lost in Syria.”

64 “Sinh Vinh Ngo Nguyen Pleads Guilty To

Terror Count,” AP, December 27, 2013, http://www.

hungtonpost.com/2013/12/27/sinh-vinh-ngo-

nguyen_n_4509490.html.

65 United States v. Kodaimati, Case No. 75-mj-1257,

Complaint (S.D. Calif., April 23, 2015).

66 Ibid.

67 Ibid.

68 Tony Perry, “Syrian immigrant, 24, admits links

to Islamic State and pleads guilty to lying to FBI,” Los

Angeles Times, October 29, 2015, http://www.latimes.

com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-islamic-state-links-suspect-

guilty-20151029-story.html.

69 US Department of Justice, Oce of Public Aairs,

“Iraqi-Born U.S. Citizen Arrested for Making False

Statement to the FBI,” May 14, 2015, https://www.i.

gov/dallas/press-releases/2015/iraqi-born-u.s.-citizen-

arrested-for-making-false-statement-to-the-i

70 Ibid.

71 Ibid.

72 Scott Shane, “Iraqi Who Worked for the U.S.

Military Is Arrested in Texas in Link to Islamic State,”

New York Times, May 14, 2015, http://www.nytimes.

@NEWAMERICA

com/2015/05/15/us/iraqi-who-worked-for-the-us-

military-is-arrested-in-texas-in-link-to-islamic-state.

html?_r=0.

73 Ibid.

74 Monica Hernandez, “Mesquite man pleads

guilty to lying to FBI about ISIS,” WFAA Dallas,

October 13, 2015, http://www.wfaa.com/story/news/

crime/2015/10/13/mesquite-man-pleads-guilty-lying-

i-isis/73866818/.

75 James Clapper, “James Clapper on Global

Intelligence Challenges,” Council on Foreign

Relations, March 2, 2015, http://www.cfr.org/

homeland-security/james-clapper-global-intelligence-

challenges/p36195.

76 Adam Goldman and Greg Miller, “American

suicide bomber’s travels in U.S., Middle East went

unmonitored,” Washington Post, October 11, 2014,

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-

security/american-suicide-bombers-travels-in-us-

middle-east-went-unmonitored/2014/10/11/38a3228e-

4fe8-11e4-aa5e-7153e466a02d_story.html.

77 Ibid.

78 David Sterman, “This is the biggest mistake

people make about an ISIS attack in America,” The

Week, September 8, 2014, http://theweek.com/

articles/444016/biggest-mistake-people-make-about-

isis-attack-america.

79 The section below is drawn from Peter Bergen, et

al. “2014 Jihadist Terrorism and Other Conventional

Threats,” Bipartisan Policy Center, September 2014.

80 Steve Kro, “Unlikely Terrorists on No Fly List,”

CBS News, October 5, 2006, http:// www.cbsnews.com/

news/unlikely-terrorists-on-no-y-list/.

81 Eileen Sullivan, “No-Fly List Rules Get Changes,”

AP, August 20, 2014, http://news.yahoo.com/ap-

exclusive-us-changing-no-y-list-rules-223919022--

politics.html.

82 “Protecting America from Terrorist Attack:

Our Joint Terrorism Task Forces,” Federal Bureau

of Investigation, http://www.i.gov/about-us/

investigate/terrorism/terrorism_jttfs.

83 Ibid.

84 Intelligence Resource Program, “Intelligence

Budget Data,” Federation of American Scientists,

http://fas.org/irp/budget/.

85 Ken Dilanian, “Overall U.S. intelligence budget

tops $80 billion,” Los Angeles Times, October 2, 2010,

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/oct/28/nation/la-na-

intelbudget-20101029.

86 J.M. Berger, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in

the Name of Islam (Washington: Potomac Books, 2011):

pp. 30-32; J.M. Berger, “Boston’s Jihadist Past,” Foreign

Policy, April 22, 2013, http://www. foreignpolicy.com/

articles/2013/04/22/bostons_jihadist_past.

87 Peter Bergen and David Sterman, “ISIS Threat to

U.S. Mostly Hype,” CNN, September 5, 2014, http://

edition.cnn.com/2014/09/05/opinion/bergen-sterman-

isis-threat-hype/.

88 Ibid.

89 Press Release, “Al Qaeda Operative Sentenced

to Life Imprisonment in One of the Most Serious

Terrorist Threats to the United States Since 9/11,” U.S.

Attorney’s Oce, November 16, 2012, http://www.i.

gov/newyork/press-releases/2012/al-qaeda-operative-

sentenced-to-life-imprisonment-in-one-of-the-most-

serious-terrorist-threats-to-the-united-states-since-9-11.

90 Anne Kornblut and Karin Brulliard, “U.S.

blames Pakistani Taliban for Times Square bomb

plot,” Washington Post, May 10, 2010, http://

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/

article/2010/05/09/AR2010050901143.html.

91 Brent Kendall and Jay Solomon, “FBI Cites

Online Terror Recruiting, Training, Damps Subway-

Plot Claim,” Wall Street Journal, September 25, 2014,

http://www.wsj.com/articles/i-director-cites-

online-terror-recruiting-training-damps-subway-plot-

claim-1411688762.

92 Ibid.

93 Saeed Ahmed, Ed Lavendera, and Joe Sutton,

“Two killed outside Mohammed cartoon contest in

Garland, Texas,” CNN, May 4, 2015, http://www.cnn.

com/2015/05/04/us/garland-mohammed-drawing-

contest-shooting/.

94 Ibid.

95 Adam Goldman and Mark Berman, “FBI

had known about suspected Texas shooter for

years,” Washington Post, May 4, 2015, http://

www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/

wp/2015/05/04/i-had-known-about-suspected-texas-

shooter-for-years/; Holly Yan, “Texas attack: What we

know about Elton Simpson and Nadir Soo,” CNN,

May 5, 2015, http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/05/us/texas-

shooting-gunmen/.

96 United States v. Cornell, Case No. 1:15-mj-00024,

Criminal Complaint (S.D. Ohio, Jan. 14, 2015).

97 Ibid. at 8.

98 United States v. Juraboev, Case No. 1:15-m-00172,

Complaint and Adavit in Support of Arrest Warrant

(E.D.N.Y., Feb. 24, 2015).

99 “Fourth Brooklyn, New York, Resident Charged

With Attempt and Conspiracy to Provide Material

Support to ISIL,” Department of Justice, April 6, 2015,

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/fourth-brooklyn-

new-york-resident-charged-attempt-and-conspiracy-

provide-material-support; “Fih Defendant Charged

with Attempt and Conspiracy to Provide Material

Support to ISIL,” Department of Justice, June 11, 2015,

https://www.i.gov/newyork/press-releases/2015/

h-defendant-charged-with-attempt-and-conspiracy-

to-provide-material-support-to-isil

100 “US Army National Guard Soldier and his Cousin

Arrested for Conspiring to Support Terrorism (ISIL),”

Department of Justice, March 26, 2015, http://www.



ISIS IN THE WEST: THE NEW FACES OF EXTREMISM

justice.gov/opa/pr/us-army-national-guard-soldier-

and-his-cousin-arrested-conspiring-support-terrorism-

isil.

101 “Second Topeka Man Charged in Connection with

Car Bomb Plot,” U.S. Attorney’s Oce, April 10, 2015,

http://www.i.gov/kansascity/press-releases/2015/

second-topeka-man-charged-in-connection-with-car-

bomb-plot.

102 “Two Queens Residents Charged with Conspiracy

to Use a Weapon of Mass Destruction,” U.S. Attorney’s

Oce, April 2, 2015, http://www.i.gov/newyork/

press-releases/2015/two-queens-residents-charged-

with-conspiracy-to-use-a-weapon-of-mass-destruction.

103 United States v. Velentzas, Case No. 1:15-mj-00303-

VVP (E.D.N.Y., Apr. 1, 2015).

104 Velentzas, Case No. 1:15-mj-00303-VVP, Letter to

Judge Pohorelsky at 2.

105 United States v. Diaz, Case No. 1:15-mj-0244-JG,

Criminal Complaint (S.D. Fl., April 6, 2015).

106 Ibid.

107 Ibid.

108 “Miami Resident and ISIL Sympathizer Sentenced

to 10 Years in Prison for Illegally Possessing a

Firearm,” U.S. Attorney’s Oce, July 28, 2015, https://

www.i.gov/miami/press-releases/2015/miami-

resident-and-isil-sympathizer-sentenced-to-10-years-

in-prison-for-illegally-possessing-a-rearm.

109 Jess Bidgood and Dave Philipps, “Boston Terror

Suspect’s Shooting Highlights Concerns Over Reach

of ISIS,” New York Times, June 3, 2015, http://www.

nytimes.com/2015/06/04/us/usaama-rahim-boston-

terrorism-suspect-planned-beheading-authorities-say.

html?_r=0.

110 Ocials said Rahim was red on when he lunged

at ocers with a knife. Initially Rahim’s family,

however, claimed that he was shot in the back but

backed down from those claims two days later at a

press conference saying they did not want to make

substantive claims until more evidence emerged. Ibid.;

Zenninjor Enwemeka, “Usaamah Rahim’s Family

‘Did Not See Any Signs Of Radicalization,’ Attorney

Says,” WBUR Boston, June 5, 2015, http://www.

wbur.org/2015/06/04/usaamah-rahim-family-press-

conference.

111 Ashley Fantz, Ben Brumeld, and Shimon

Prokupecz, “Usaamah Rahim’s Boston terror plot:

How deep does his network run?,” CNN, June 4, 2015,

http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/04/us/boston-police-

shooting/index.html

112 United States v. Wright, Case No: 1:15-mj-0624-

MPK, Complaint (D. Mass., June 3, 2015).

113 United States v. Wright et al, Case No: 1:15-cr-10153-

WGY, Complaint (D. Mass., June 12, 2015).

114 United States v. Ciccolo, Case No. 3:15-mj-03054-

KAR, Criminal Complaint (D. Mass., July 4, 2015).

115 United State v. Ciccolo, Case No. 3:15-mj-03054-

KAR, Adavit of Special Agent Paul Ambrogio (D.

Mass., July 13, 2015).

116 Ibid.

117 “Florida Resident Charged with Attempting to Use

Weapon of Mass Destruction,” Department of Justice,

July 28, 2015, http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/orida-

resident-charged-attempting-use-weapon-mass-

destruction.

118 Ibid.

119 Scott Zamost, et al., “Chattanooga shooting: New

details emerge about the gunman,” CNN, July 20, 2015,

http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/20/us/tennessee-naval-

reserve-shooting/

120 Ibid.

121 Ibid.

122 Manny Fernandez, et al., “In Chattanooga, a

Young Man in a Downward Spiral,” New York Times,

July 20, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/21/

us/chattanooga-gunman-wrote-of-suicide-and-

martyrdom-ocial-says.html.

123 Eric Schmitt and Somini Sengupta, “Thousands

Enter Syria to Join ISIS Despite Global Eorts,” New

York Times, September 26, 2015, http://www.nytimes.

com/2015/09/27/world/middleeast/thousands-enter-

syria-to-join-isis-despite-global-eorts.html.

124 Ibid.; Gonzales, “Vera Jourova: «Près de 6000

Européens sont partis faire le djihad».”

125 Donna Abu-Nasr and Caroline Alexander, “Burned

French Passports Show Threat of Islamist Training

Grounds,” Bloomberg, January 9, 2015, http://www.

bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-01-09/burned-

french-passports-show-threat-of-islamist-training-

grounds

126 Schmitt and Sengupta, “Thousands Enter Syria to

Join ISIS Despite Global Eorts.”

127 “Fewer Germans going to Syria, Iraq to ght for

Islamic State: spy chief.”

128 Berlin says 100 Germanys killed ghting alongside

ISIL;” AP, “Ocial: 60 extremist backers from Germany

dead,” Pulse, November 23, 2014, http://www.pulse.

me/ap/eb062c928298440a9f11415a5e949cc9?utm_

medium=referral&utm_source=pulsenews.

129 Colin Clapson, “Up to 350 Belgians ghting in

Syria,” Flanders News, September 11, 2014, http://

deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws.english/News/1.2084201;

Andrew Higgins, “Head of Belgian Group Said to

Recruit Fighters for Syria Gets 12-Year Term,” New

York Times, February 11, 2015, http://www.nytimes.

com/2015/02/12/world/europe/fouad-belkacem-

sharia4belgium-verdict-trial-belgium.html?_r=0

130 Julie Bishop, “address to Brookings Institute

- Alliance 21 Project, January 21, 2015, http://

foreignminister.gov.au/speeches/Pages/2015/

jb_sp_150121.aspx; Anderson, “20 Australians killed

ghting with IS, 90 passports cancelled: Bishop;

“Number of Aust jihadists increases to 110.”

131 Ian Macleod, “Spymaster warns foreign ghter

phenomenon getting worse,” Ottawa Citizen, April 20,

2015, http://ottawacitizen.com/news/politics/number-

of-canadian-extremist-ghters-abroad-up-50-per-

cent-spymaster-says?utm_content=buerec6ae&utm_

medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_

campaign=buer.

132 Benjamin Weinthal, “Austria’s radical Islam

problem,” Long War Journal, November 10, 2014,

http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2014/11/

austrias_radical_isl.php.

133 “Danish national jailed for ghting with Isis.”

134 Bharati Naik, Atika Shubert, and Nick Thompson,

“Denmark oers some foreign ghters rehab without

jail time—but will it work?,” CNN, October 28, 2014,

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/10/28/world/europe/

denmark-syria-deradicalization-program/.

135 “50 leave Finland for Syria ghting, 6-8 killed:

Supo.”

136 Nick Thompson, Richard Greene, and Sarah-Grace

Mankarious, “ISIS: Everything you need to know

about the rise of the militant group,” CNN, February

10, 2015, http://edition.cnn.com/2015/01/14/world/isis-

everything-you-need-to-know/

137 Pieters, “Amsterdam Jihadist Killed in Syria

Bombing.”

138 “At least 80 have le Norway to ght in Syria.”

139 “Sweden arrests two citizens accused of

terrorism,” DW, July 23, 2015, http://www.dw.com/

en/sweden-arrests-two-citizens-accused-of-

terrorism/a-18604465.

140 Paraszczuk, “Community Service, Not Jail For

Swiss IS Returnee.”

141 Katrin Bennhold and Eric Schmitt, “Gaps in

France’s Surveillance Are Clear; Solutions Aren’t,”

New York Times, February 17, 2015, http://www.

nytimes.com/2015/02/18/world/gaps-in-surveillance-

are-clear-solutions-arent.html.

142 Anthony Faiola, “Fears of terrorism mount in

France,” Washington Post, June 27, 2015, http://www.

washingtonpost.com/world/terror-fears-mount-

in-france/2015/06/27/0160c498-1c4d-11e5-bed8-

1093ee58dad0_story.html.

143 Bennhold and Schmitt, “Gaps in France’s

Surveillance Are Clear; Solutions Aren’t.”

144 Bergen, Schuster, and Sterman, “How ISIS

threatens the West.”

145 “Jihadist cases stretch German justice to the limit:

prosecutor,” Reuters, December 11, 2014, http://www.

reuters.com/article/2014/12/11/us-mideast-crisis-

germany-prosecutor-idUSKBN0JP1DI20141211.

146 “Sharia4Belgium trial: Belgian court jails

members,” BBC, February 11, 2015, http://www.bbc.

com/news/world-europe-31378724.

147 “OVERZICHT. Deze straen kregen de beklaagden

in het terrorismeproces,” Het Nieuwsblad,

February 11, 2015, http://www.nieuwsblad.be/cnt/

dmf20140930_01295313.

148 “Sharia4Belgium trial: Belgian court jails

members.”

149 Ibid.

150 Hegghammer, “Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Explaining Variation in Western

Jihadists’ Choice between Domestic and Foreign

Fighting.”

151 Ibid.

152 “Brussels Jewish Museum killings: Suspect

‘admitted attack,’” BBC, June 1, 2014, http://

www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-27654505; and

Christopher Dickey, “French Jihadi Mehdi Nemmouche

Is the Shape of Terror to Come,” Daily Beast,

September 9, 2014, http://www.thedailybeast.com/

articles/2014/09/09/the-face-of-isis-terror-to-come.

html.

153 Ibid.

154 BBC, “Brussels Jewish Museum killings: Suspect

‘admitted attack.’”

155 Ibid.; Dickey, “French Jihadi Mehdi Nemmouche

Is the Shape of Terror to Come;” John-Thor Dahlburg

and Elaine Ganley, “French suspect held in Belgian

Jewish museum shootings spent a recent year in

Syria, prosecutor says,” Washington Post, June 1,

2014, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/

french-suspect-held-in-belgian-jewish-museum-

shootings-spent-a-recent-year-in-syria-prosecutor-

says/2014/06/01/d27e0428-e9c2-11e3-93d2-

edd4be1f5d9e_story.html.

156 Dickey, “French Jihadi Mehdi Nemmouche Is the

Shape of Terror to Come.”

157 Ibid.; BBC, “Brussels Jewish Museum killings:

Suspect ‘admitted attack.’”

158 “Arrestation d’un homme revenu de Syrie

qui aurait projeté des attentats contre une

salle de concert,” Le Monde, September 18,

2015, http://www.lemonde.fr/police-justice/

article/2015/09/18/arrestation-d-un-ex-

djihadiste-qui-aurait-projete-des-attentats-

contre-une-salle-de-concert_4762141_1653578.

html#OCUJryGSCWkDw0xu.99.

159 Paul Cruickshank, “Inside the ISIS plot to attack

the heart of Europe,” February 13, 2015, CNN, http://

www.cnn.com/2015/02/13/europe/europe-belgium-

isis-plot/; “Belgium’s jihadist cells: A terror plot

apparently foiled,” Economist, January 15, 2015, http://

www.economist.com/news/europe/21639787-just-

europe-was-recovering-paris-police-brussels-battle-

returned-jihadists-another-gun; Bruno Watereld,

“Belgian police admit seeking wrong man as Vervier

shootout jihadists named,” Telegraph, January 22,

2015, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/

europe/belgium/11362093/Belgian-police-admit-

seeking-wrong-man-as-Vervier-shooutout-jihadists-

named.html



ISIS IN THE WEST: THE NEW FACES OF EXTREMISM

160 Watereld, “Belgian police admit seeking wrong

man as Vervier shootout jihadists named.”

161 Cruickshank, “Inside the ISIS plot to attack the

heart of Europe.”

162 Ibid.

163 “Revelations sur un attentat déjoué en Ile-de-

France,” Le Parisien, November 3, 2014, http://

www.leparisien.fr/faits-divers/revelations-sur-un-

attentat-dejoue-en-ile-de-france-03-11-2014-4261807.

php; Damien Delseny, “Plusierus projets d’attentats

terroristes déjoués en France, selon une note de la

DGSI,” RTL Radio, November 3, 2014, http://www.

rtl.fr/actu/societe-faits-divers/un-attentat-terroriste-

dejoue-lors-du-dernier-carnaval-de-nice-7775148816

164 Paul Cruickshank, “Raid on ISIS suspect in the

French Riviera,” CNN, August 28, 2014, http://www.

cnn.com/2014/08/28/world/europe/france-suspected-

isis-link/.

165 Damien Delseny, “Plusierus projets d’attentats

terroristes déjoués en France, selon une note de la

DGSI,” RTL Radio, November 3, 2014, http://www.

rtl.fr/actu/societe-faits-divers/un-attentat-terroriste-

dejoue-lors-du-dernier-carnaval-de-nice-7775148816.

166 Julian Borger, “Paris gunman Amedy Coulibaly

declared allegiance to Isis,” Guardian, January 11,

2015, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/11/

paris-gunman-amedy-coulibaly-allegiance-isis

167 Ibid.

168 Ibid.

169 Ralph Ellis, Holly Yan, and Susanne Gargiulo,

“Denmark terror suspect swore delity to ISIS

leader on Facebook page,” CNN, February 23, 2015,

http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/16/europe/denmark-

shootings/.

170 Laura Smith-Spark, “Who was Copenhagen

gunman Omar Abdel Hamid El-Hussein?” CNN,

February 27, 2015, http://edition.cnn.com/2015/02/17/

europe/denmark-copenhagen-gunman/.

171 Ellis, Yan, and Gargiulo, “Denmark terror suspect

swore delity to ISIS leader on Facebook page.”

172 Smith-Spark, “Who was Copenhagen gunman

Omar Abdel Hamid El-Hussein?”

173 Ibid.

174 “Sydney Siege: Three Dead aer Commandos

Storm Cafe,” BBC, December 15, 2014, http://www.bbc.

com/news/world-australia-30485355.

175 Hamish Macdonald, Rym Momtaz, and Lee Ferran,

“Sydney Hostage Taker Man Haron Monis Had History

of ‘Mental Instability’,” ABC, December 15, 2014,

http://abcnews.go.com/International/sydney-hostage-

taker-identied-man-haron-monis/story?id=27607179.

176 Michael Sa, “Sydney siege gunman Man Haron

Monis praised in ISIS publication,” Guardian,

December 29, 2014, http://www.theguardian.com/

world/2014/dec/30/sydney-siege-gunman-man-haron-

monis-praised-in-isis-publication.

177 Rachel Olding and Paul Bibby, “Sydney Terror

Raids: Police Foil ‘death cult terrorist attack’,” Sydney

Morning Herald, February 12, 2015, http://www.smh.

com.au/nsw/sydney-terror-raids-police-foil-death-cult-

terrorist-attack-20150211-13c4hj.html.

178 Dan Bilefsky, “Spain Says Arrested Pair Were Part

of Terrorist Plot,” New York Times, March 10, 2015,

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/11/world/europe/

spain-says-arrested-pair-were-part-of-terrorist-plot.

html?_r=0.

179 Loulla-Mae Eleheriou-Smith, “Spanish national

police arrest four suspected jihadists in country’s

North African territory of Ceuta who were ‘ready

to carry out attack,’” The Independent, January 25,

2015, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/

africa/spanish-national-police-arrest-four-suspected-

jihadists-in-countrys-north-african-territory-of-ceuta-

who-were-ready-to-carry-out-attack-10001135.html.

180 Philippe Schwab, “Austria convicts 14-year-old

on ‘terror’ charges,” Agence France-Presse, May 26,

2015, http://news.yahoo.com/austrian-14-old-jailed-

terrorism-charges-100516593.html.

181 Ibid.

182 Ibid.

183 Portions of this section have been taken from

Peter Berge and Emily Schneider, “ISIS Reveals its

Strategy,” CNN, October 22, 2014, http://www.cnn.

com/2014/10/20/opinion/bergen-schneider-isis-

magazine/index.html

184 Ibid.

185 Eilish O’Gara, “Isis launch Russian language

magazine,” Newsweek, May 27, 2015, http://europe.

newsweek.com/isis-launch-russian-language-

magazine-327846; Paul Cruickshank, “ISIS magazine

claims Hayat Boumeddiene is in Syria,” CNN,

February 11, 2015, http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/11/

europe/isis-boumeddiene-magazine/; SITE Intel

Group, “IS Releases First Issue of Turkish Magazine,

‘The Conquest of Constantinople’,” Twitter,

June 2, 2015, https://twitter.com/siteintelgroup/

status/605820570047873025.

186 How to Survive in the West: A Mujahid Guide

(2015)

187 Video available at http://jihadology.

net/2014/06/19/al-%E1%B8%A5ayat-media-center-

presents-a-new-video-message-from-the-islamic-state-

of-iraq-and-al-sham-there-is-no-life-without-jihad/.

188 Ishaan Tharoor, “This Canadian jihadist died

in Syria, but his video may recruit more foreign

ghters,” Washington Post, July 16, 2014, http://

www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/

wp/2014/07/16/this-canadian-jihadist-died-in-syria-

but-his-video-may-recruit-more-foreign-ghters/.

189 Video available on http://jihadology.

net/2015/05/18/al-%E1%B8%A5ayat-media-center-

presents-a-new-video-nashid-from-the-islamic-state-

extend-your-hand-to-pledge-allegiance/.

190 Ibid.

191 Helen Davidson, “Isis doctor Tareq Kamleh: I don’t

care about losing Australian citizenship,” Guardian,

June 21, 2015, http://www.theguardian.com/australia-

news/2015/jun/21/isis-doctor-tareq-kamleh-i-dont-

care-about-losing-australian-citizenship; Clarke Jones

and Greg Barton, “New-look IS video with Perth doctor

Tareq Kamleh but same old radicalisation techniques,”

The Age, April 28, 2015, http://www.theage.com.au/

comment/newlook-is-video-with-perth-doctor-tareq-

kamleh-but-same-old-radicalisation-techniques-

20150427-1muqtb.

192 Harriet Alexander, “‘Is she a victim or a suspect?’

The tale of a Dutch ‘princess’ who fell in love with

jihadi ‘Robin Hood’,” The Telegraph, November 23,

2014, http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/11/23/is-she-

a-victim-or-a-suspect-the-tale-of-the-dutch-princess-

who-fell-in-love-with-her-jihadi-robin-hood/.

193 VICE News, “The Rise of British Jihadists in Syria,”

YouTube, June 26, 2014, https://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=fxDuENvxw_o.

194 Ibid.

195 Ibid.

196 Ibid.

197 “Syria: Chemicals Used in Idlib Attacks,” Human

Rights Watch, April 13, 2015, http://www.hrw.org/

news/2015/04/13/syria-chemicals-used-idlib-attacks.

198 Ian Black, “Syrian regime document trove shows

evidence of ‘industrial scale’ killing of detainees,”

Guardian, January 21, 2014, http://www.theguardian.

com/world/2014/jan/20/evidence-industrial-scale-

killing-syria-war-crimes.

199 Josh Rogin, “U.S.: Assad’s ‘Machinery of Death’

Worst Since the Nazis,” Daily Beast, July 7, 2014,

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/07/u-

s-assad-s-machinery-of-death-worst-since-the-nazis.

html

200 Alexander Smith, “British Jihadist Abdul Raqib

Amin Recounts Journey to Join ISIS,” NBC News, July

7, 2014, http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/iraq-

turmoil/british-jihadist-abdul-raqib-amin-recounts-

journey-join-isis-n149431.

201 Scott Shane, “From Minneapolis to ISIS: An

American’s Path to Jihad,” New York Times, March

21, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/22/world/

middleeast/from-minneapolis-to-isis-an-americans-

path-to-jihad.html.

202 Ibid.

203 “Eid Greetings from the land of Khilafah,” https://

ia801502.us.archive.org/1/items/EidGreetings/Eid_

Greetings.mp4

204 Ibid.

205 Ibid.

206 Hall, “Gone Girl: An Interview With An American

In ISIS.”

207 United States v. Khan, Case No. 14-cr-564, Criminal

Complaint (N.D. Ill., Oct. 6, 2014).

208 United States v. Niknejad, Case No. 1:15-mj-00325-

IDD, Adavit 8 (E.D. Va., June 10, 2015).

209 John Plunkett, “BBC Radio 1 criticised for airing

‘Call of Duty’ interview with Isis Briton,” Guardian,

November 10, 2014, http://www.theguardian.com/

media/2014/nov/10/bbc-radio-1-criticised-british-isis-

militant-interview

210 VICE News, “Exclusive: Islamic State Member

Warns of NYC Attack In VICE News Interview,”

YouTube, September 25, 2014, https://www.youtube.

com/watch?v=j8TLu514EgU.

211 “Letter prosecutors say Mohammed Hamzah

Khan’s sister wrote to their parents,” Chicago Tribune,

November 3, 2014, http://www.chicagotribune.com/

suburbs/bolingbrook-plaineld/chi-letter-by-sister-of-

mohammed-hamzah-khan-to-their-parents-20141103-

htmlstory.html

212 “Me and Abu Taubah,” BBC, June 25, 2015, http://

www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33240611

213 Peter R. Neumann, “Defectors: ISIS is killing

Muslims, not protecting them,” CNN, September 22,

2015, http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/21/opinions/isis-

defectors-neumann-amanpour/index.html.

214 Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently, http://www.

raqqa-sl.com/en/

215 “Shaikh: ‘This is do-it-yourself terrorism’,”

CNN, January 1, 2013, http://www.cnn.com/videos/

tv/2015/01/13/ctn-mubin-mia.cnn.

216 “ISNA President: Imam Mohamed Magid,” Islamic

Society of North America, http://www.isna.net/

mohamed-magid.html.

217 Brian Ross, James Gordon Meek, and Lee

Ferran, “Twitter Escalates Its Own ISIS Battle: 2,000

Accounts Suspended Last Week,” ABC News, March

2, 2015, http://abcnews.go.com/International/twitter-

escalates-isis-skirmish-2000-accounts-suspended-

week/story?id=29335434

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