How Many American Jihadists?

I was asked this question by a reporter this week, and I've noted a series of stories from journalists around the country who are just "discovering" that Americans have signed up for jihad. So I wanted to give a little bit of perspective on the history of American jihadists, which will be greatly expanded on in my forthcoming book.

So how long has this been going on? And how many are there?

It seems as if most people writing on this issue believe that American jihadists sprang into existence after 9/11. The linked article is particularly disappointing in its shallow pool approach, given the source.

Not only is this untrue, but it's desperately important. What U.S. policymakers need to understand is that Americans have been involved in these activities since the dawn of the modern age of terrorism -- to be more specific, at least one American citizen took part in the Siege of Mecca in 1979.

There were a few incidents before this which qualify as "jihadist," but they aren't networked jihad, more like individual expressions of political frustration. I'll talk about them in the book.

Since then Americans have taken part in every single major jihadist conflict around the globe, to a greater or lesser extent. Americans fought with the mujahideen against the Soviets in Afghanistan, they fought the Serbs in Bosnia. Every major Islamic terrorist attack against the U.S. homeland has included American collaborators, and many attacks overseas have as well.

The number of documented cases I have recorded thus far:

At least 100 U.S. born citizens have taken part in significant jihadist activity.

At least 70 jihadists have been naturalized U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents.

At least 240 people residing in the U.S. for a substantial period of time (i.e., years) have taken part in jihadist activity.

A few important things to remember about this list:

It's incomplete as I am still working on the book.

These are documented cases, which means cases that have resulted in prosecutions, associates of people who were prosecuted, and a number of people who I have personally become aware of, but who were not part of a prosecution.

The people on this list generally have a clear connection to an established jihadist movement or explicitly espoused jihadist ideology. Only one or two cases on my list are judgment calls where you could easily argue for other motives.

For everyone one documented case, there are X undocumented cases, with X being at least three and maybe as high as 10. That's an educated guess -- please don't quote it as gospel.

Keep in mind that the list covers the last 30 years. So when you're looking at an estimate like 800 to 2,000 active American jihadists, that estimate is spread out over 30 years with some chunky spots in the timeline.

What's important to keep in mind is that these are people whose involvement in jihadism amounted to more than just idle talk. So if you're counting the Internet "jihobbyists" (as Jarret Brachman calls them), there are still more people to think about.

How many? It depends on where you draw the line for the definition of jihobbyist. Someone who is a daily consumer of jihadist material and only an occasional contributor? Or should they be daily contributors? Do you count only those who participate on the top 10 forums (a relatively small number)? Do you count people who take part only in jihadist forums, or those who sign up for strict Salafist forums? Do they have to take part in those forums' jihadist section, or should we count those who merely enable and legitimize forums which have jihadist sections?

Depending on where you draw the lines, we're talking about dozens to thousands of Americans. I think interactivity is where the line lies, but how much interactivity and what kind of interactivity? Where you put the line is the difference between hundreds and thousands of American jihobbyists, so these are not idle questions.

Hopefully all of this illuminates the fact that American jihadists are not necessarily a wacky new trend. Although numbers are fuzzy, I would say that the trend is not really that a LOT more Americans are now signing up for jihad. Rather, I think the trend is that the Americans who do sign up are more visible now, because we care more than we did in the 1980s and 1990s.

One caveat on that last sentence -- I'm not including the jihobbyists. I think the number of people casually interested in jihad is growing thanks to the Internet. Until fairly recently, we haven't seen a lot of indicators that jihobbyists were becoming active jihadists. But in the last few months, there has been a notable uptick in such cases, with Jihad Jane being the latest and one of the most worrisome.

The conversion rate of jihobbyists to jihadists is a massive concern going forward, especially if there are a thousand or more American jihobbyists potentially providing a fertile recruiting pool.

Again, none of these numbers should be taken to heart. But even my absolute lowest estimate of the number of Americans who have actively taken part in jihad at some point in their lives is much higher than what I think the media is currently dancing around. We need to understand this problem in its historical context in order to understand it going forward.

Labels: American-Al-Qaeda, American-Jihadists, American-Terrorists, Analysis

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