Understanding Islamist Terrorism in Europe

Drugs, Jihad, and the Pursuit of Martyrdom

Lewis Herrington

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000414486
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Terrorism
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book argues that guilt, shame, and remorse, associated with a history of substance abuse, explain why a minority of Islamist extremists carried out suicide terrorism in Europe between 2001 and 2018.

Since 9/11, Islamist terrorism has dominated the European security landscape, but there has been little systematic analysis of either the attacks or the men responsible. This book addresses that gap, drawing on terrorist discourse, court transcripts, elite interviews, government reports, and three years of ethnography to provide an exhaustive account of how and why Islamist terrorism has occurred in Europe. Making a detailed analysis of 48 terrorist attacks carried out by 80 suicide terrorists, the book introduces two new theories. The first argues that most of these men first engaged in Islamist extremism as an alternative to substance abuse. The second contends that, following a five-stage process of radicalisation, cognitive dissonance triggered guilt, shame, and remorse over previous misconduct. From this emotional distress, suicide terrorism emerged as a rational choice ahead of either suicide or a return to active addiction. This book argues that the root cause of suicide terrorism in Europe is not so much politics or religion but is more about personal crisis and a search for redemption.

This book will be of great interest to students of terrorism/counterterrorism, de-radicalisation, political Islam, and security studies in general.

1 Defining martyrdom terrorism

DOI: 10.4324/9780429316623-2

Throughout a 17-year period beginning 2001, 80 men successfully executed 48 acts of violent terrorism across Europe. Scholars widely disagree on how best to describe this phenomenon and the actors responsible. Ostensibly less concerned with lofty theological or philosophical arguments, the global news media have interchangeably adopted terms including Jihadist, Salafist but more commonly Islamists. Europol has done likewise, labelling attacks in London, Paris, and Madrid as ‘Islamist terrorism’. This vocabulary and associated discourse suggest we are concerned with religiously inspired terrorism. Yet, the prevailing wisdom points towards revenge against western foreign policy as the primary motivation, thereby alluding to political causes and conditions ahead of religion. In seeking to understand the nature of the problem, it would appear our task is to discern whether martyrdom terrorism is religious, political, a combination of the two or in fact, something largely misunderstood. Our opening chapter is ontological in nature. How might we best describe the men responsible for the 2015 attacks in Paris? While ‘Islamist terrorism’ has enjoyed significant popularity within the discourse, we suggest the more secular martyr terrorists offer greater analytical purchase. In presenting our case for this label, we will systematically challenge terms including religious terrorism, Islamist terrorism, Jihadist terrorism, and Salafist-Jihadist terrorism. Such erroneous language has served only to harm the Islamic religion and divert resources away from tackling the root of the problem.

Terrorism

The word terrorism is highly contested. A universal definition of the word terrorism has been sought by the United Nations since the 1980s. Former US Chief of Mission in Iraq, Edward Peck, highlights the challenge he faced when tasked by the White House to provide a working definition of terrorism. He writes: ‘we produced about six [working definitions] and in every case they were rejected, because careful reading would indicate that our own country had been involved in supporting some of those activities’.¹ Interviewed in 2014, US President Barack Obama told reporters that a powerful new militant group controlling an area of Syria the size of Belgium was ‘a terrorist organisation, pure and simple’.² Responding to accusations by western intelligence agencies that his country financed terrorism, the Emir of Qatar aptly demonstrated why the subject remains essentially contested. Answering questions from a journalist in September 2014, the 34-year-old ruler of the wealthy Gulf State conceded that ‘some of the groups we fund in Syria are considered terrorist groups by the US but not by us’.³ In the fog of war that began in 2011, a multitude of state and non-state actors vied for legitimacy as Syria slowly disintegrated from within. Insurgent groups who fought in the name of liberal democracy often enjoyed the support of western states. To illustrate, in 2013, President Barack Obama secretly authorised the CIA to begin arming Syria’s embattled rebels.⁴ Unfortunately, in war, allegiances can often change. Militants trained and armed by the United States often fought alongside Al-Qaeda’s al-Nusra front. Who can say for certain how many fighters later remained loyal? Reports suggest thousands may have joined ISIS after it declared a Caliphate. At what stage did these anti-government ‘freedom fighters’ become terrorists?

Historically respected as an authority on the English language, terrorism is defined in the Oxford University Dictionary as: ‘the unofficial or unauthorised use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims’.⁵ According to this august volume, the term originates in the late 18th century, derived from French ‘terrorisme’. During the French revolution (1793–1794), the ruling Jacobite faction mercilessly terrorised persons deemed a threat to the regime. Writing in 1801, Thomas Jefferson decried what he had personally witnessed in France. Henceforth, he would go to any lengths necessary to ‘harmonize the US republic so as to defy such machinations’.⁶ While the practice of state terrorism was abhorrent to Jefferson, as a sovereign state, the Jacobites held a legitimate monopoly of violence. As such they did not fit the Oxford definition of terrorists. Similarly, indiscriminate mass casualty bombing campaigns during World War II, also fall outside of this category. In contemporary writing, the word appears almost exclusively reserved for non-state actors. Henry Commager notes that ‘even when definitions of terrorism allow for state terrorism, state actions in this area tend to be seen through the prisms of war or national self-defence’. Notwithstanding the compelling evidence of state-sponsored terrorism put forth by eminent scholars including Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman, the definition of terrorism adopted by the US government specifically excludes action carried out by a recognised state. Implemented in the context of legal proceedings, US lawmakers defined terrorism as ‘premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against non-combatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience’.

Since the turn of the 19th century, observers have widely understood terrorism as a pejorative term, often disingenuously applied to delegitimise an actor within both international and domestic politics. Inside conflict diplomacy, the word has emerged as one of the most commanding tools in which to shape the narrative of civil war. According to realists, states will favour the side whose ideology most closely aligns with their own national interests. Consequently, political actors frame some groups as freedom fighters while simultaneously delegitimising competitors by applying the terrorist label. Yet, as critical theorists argue, this process often takes place with very little consideration of the situation on the ground. Does it matter if a revolutionary group has gone beyond the terrorist phase and is now running the country? When Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared an Islamic Caliphate in 2015, ISIS governed a proto-state. Regional councils provided employment, housing, justice, and welfare to almost two million citizens. It is difficult to reconcile this level of civil authority with the suggestion that ISIS were, at that point in time, a terrorist group. One might reasonably argue they had more in common with the Jacobites than Al-Qaeda. ISIS enjoyed a monopoly of violence over a governable space and were able to implement law and order. It is self-evident that this organisation went far beyond traditional terrorist groups. The only logical conclusion is that like beauty, terrorism is perhaps very much in the eye of the beholder.

During the Cold War, US foreign policy concentrated on the defeat of Soviet Communism. In 1979, the Russians sent troops into Afghanistan to help stabilise a communist government facing defeat by Islamist insurgents. The opportunity to give the Soviets their own version of Vietnam proved too tempting to pass up. President Ronald Reagan invited the leaders of the Afghan mujahedeen to the White House and praised them as heroic freedom fighters. During the 1980s, US ally Saudi Arabia funneled weapons and finance to young Arabs whom they had recruited to fight the Godless communists. With the end of the Cold War, the United States required a new target for its formidable war machine. Following 9/11, when the veteran mujahideen refused to extradite Osama Bin Laden, the US military ousted the ruling Islamist government and proscribed its component groups as terrorists. In the anarchic realm of International Security, powerful states adopt whatever label best enables them to realise their foreign policy objectives.

Drawing on the aforementioned discussion, we might reasonably conclude that states do not always define terrorists according to their actions. Sometimes, terrorists become ‘terrorists’ depending on the degree to which their underlying motivations and future objectives align with the interests of powerful states. One notable example of this was the former leader of South Africa, Nelson Mandela. During the 1980s, both Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan accused the African National Congress of being a terrorist organisation. Yet, at the same time both leaders worked ardently for the release of Mandela from prison. Notwithstanding near universal recognition of the righteousness of the anti-apartheid cause, Mandela remained on the US list of designated terrorists until 2008. In one of his final acts as president, George W. Bush perhaps conceded that Mandela was a ‘freedom fighter’ and therefore directed that his name be removed. For the purposes of this book, we define terrorism as: the performance of lethal violence by non-state actors, deliberately targeted at non-combatants with foreknowledge that such behaviour will likely influence policymakers both foreign and domestic. Although groups may inspire, finance, encourage, and direct terrorism, few if any groups exist solely for the purpose of performing terrorism. Almost invariably, terrorism is a means to an end rather than a specific objective. Even anarchist groups have a plan. Therefore, the term ‘terrorist group’ is rather a misnomer and often analytically misleading when exploring the underlying motivation.

Islamist

Europeans originally adopted the term Islamism to describe men who followed Islam. Yet, by 1938, both Islamist and mohammedanism had dropped out of fashion. In the 1960s, Egyptian scholar, Sayyid Qutb defined Islamism as ‘the ideology that guides society as a whole and teaches that laws must be in conformity with the Islamic Sharia’.⁷ Suggesting a more authoritarian elucidation, former Islamist turned critic, Maajid Nawaz, has controversially proposed that Islamism refers to ‘the desire to impose any given interpretation of Islam on society’.⁸ Acknowledging the heterogeneous nature of its widely diverse ideologues, the US Council of Foreign Relations adopts a more pluralist approach, suggesting that:

Islamists are a movement of Muslims who draw upon the belief, symbols and language of Islam to inspire, shape and animate political activity … which may contain moderate, tolerant, peaceful activists or those who preach and espouse violence.⁹

For instance, previously linked to violent insurgency, secessionist group Jamaat-e- Islam today seek to transform Pakistan into an Islamic State by preaching Sharia through legal, political, and all other non-violent means. Focusing on the similarities, Oliver Roy argues that while Islamism takes different forms and spans a wide range of strategies, the goal of every proponent is to re-establish an Islamic Caliphate.

What is the difference between Islam and Islamism within contemporary discourse? None according to former leader of the Algerian Islamic Salvation group who rejects the term entirely. Speaking in 1988 to French academic François Burgat, Abbassi Madani insisted, ‘I am merely Muslim … It is Islam at work in Algeria, n...