Inspire's Ode to the Not-So-Lone Wolves

Previous: Inspire Issue 5 Aims For Rapid Repositioning

Some counterterrorism-oriented notes from the fifth issue of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula's Inspire magazine:

In the "Ask Inspire" section, a writer (presumably Awlaki) encourages Americans to stay at home and carry out lone-wolf terrorist attacks rather than travel to the fields of jihad. Interestingly, it pushes the lone-wolf concept even further than previous issues, pointing out that the FBI has diverted would-be mujahideen who reached out to others for help. Probably-Awlaki argues that success is more likely if the aspiring mujahid acts without consulting ANYONE.

But there are virtually no documented cases in which an American with clear jihadist motivations has acted totally in a vacuum. Jihadism is a social movement typically carried out because the participant has an overly strong sense of community. Lone actors are exactly the opposite.

Awlaki cites Nidal Hasan and Stockholm bomber Taimour Abdulwahab as examples of "lone wolves," but in reality, Hasan had contact with Awlaki directly, and Abdulwahab may have had accomplices. Omar Farouk Abdulmutallab is cited elsewhere in the magazine as another example of lone wolfism, but he hardly qualifies, having been trained at an AQAP camp and assigned his mission by Awlaki personally.

AQAP's military commander Abu Hurairah also praises the not-so-lone wolves in an interview segment. He calls for a homegrown operation after every Western operation targeting mujahideen.

An extract from the writings of Abu Musab Al Suri calls for assassinations of Western military and civilian leaders. Al Suri writes that assassination is good enough for the CIA, so it's good enough for Al Qaeda.

Given that assassins are much more likely to be lone actors than other kinds of terrorists, this is probably something counterterrorism officials should be looking at. This message is reinforced by Awlaki's celebration of the assassination of Anwar Sadat later in the magazine.

It's also reinforced by repeated references throughout the magazine to Roshonara Choudhry, the British Muslim who attempted to assassinate British parliament member Stephen Timms as revenge for his vote in favor of the Iraq War.

Of all the examples cited, Choudhry is the only one who really fits the profile of a lone wolf in the purest sense. If any case study recommends itself out of Inspire No. 5, it's Choudhry. Unfortunately, her case also highlights the one redeeming characteristic of the otherwise weak lone-wolf model -- she didn't give herself away until it was too late.

For more about Awlaki and other American jihadists, pre-order "Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go To War In The Name Of Islam," the first comprehensive look at the phenomenon of American jihadists from the 1970s to the present.

Labels: Abu-Musab-Al-Suri, Al-Qaeda-In-The-Arabian-Peninsula, Anwar-Awlaki, AQAP, Inspire-Magazine, Jihad-Joe, Nidal-Malik-Hasan

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Just Days After OKC Bombing, Informant Named Two Key Suspects

Just days after the Oklahoma City bombing, an informant told the FBI that white supremacists Dennis Mahon and Andreas Strassmeier had been actively discussing plans to bomb the Alfred E. Murrah federal building for months prior to the attack.

A record of an FBI interview with Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms informant Carol Howe, dated April 21, 1995, was provided to INTELWIRE by Salt Lake City attorney Jesse Trentadue and investigative journalist Roger Charles. Trentadue is engaged in a lawsuit to compel the FBI to release documents pertaining to the bombing under the Freedom of Information Act. Charles, a retired Marine Corps officer, worked with J.D. Cash of the McCurtain Gazette investigating the bombing.

Mahon and Strassmeier both have ties to a large number of white supremacist and anti-government movements, and both have been linked to a white supremacist compound in Oklahoma known as Elohim City. Both men separately claimed to have met convicted OKC bomber Timothy McVeigh at gun shows prior to the attack. McVeigh placed a call to the Elohim City compound, where Strassmeier was living, shortly before the bombing.

According to the document (click here to read), Mahon told Howe he wanted to target federal facilities for bombings, including specifically federal buildings in Tulsa and Oklahoma City.

Howe told the FBI that Mahon and Strassmeier took three trips to Oklahoma City, in November 1994, December 1994 and February 1995. According to a chronology of McVeigh's travels compiled by his defense team (link), McVeigh was also in Oklahoma City in December 1994 and cased the Murrah building during that trip. However, Howe said she accompanied Mahon and Strassmeier on the trip and did not report any meeting with McVeigh.

It's not clear how much the FBI did to attempt to follow up on this information. The FBI has consistently refused to disclose the bulk of its investigative file related to the Oklahoma City bombing.

What records have been released through Trentadue's lawsuit and other sources do not detail any substantial investigation of Mahon and only relate a belated interview of Strassmeier by phone after he had left the United States. Strassmeier left the U.S. soon after the bombing and now lives in his native Germany.

Dennis Mahon is currently facing trial, along with his twin brother Daniel, for a 2004 bombing that targeted Don Logan, a black official working for the Scottsdale, Arizona, city diversity office. Logan was injured in the attack.

According to the Associated Press, the Mahon brothers' trial was scheduled to start this month but has been delayed until early 2012 because of "a 'substantial' amount of information disclosed by the government" during discovery. The nature of the disclosures is currently unknown.

Previously released documents (click to read) indicated that Howe had related the possible threats described above to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms prior to the April 1995 bombing (for specific testimony, click here).

Labels: Andreas-Strassmeir, Dennis-Mahon, Elohim-City, Jesse-Trentadue, OKBOMB, Oklahoma-City-Bombing, Timothy-McVeigh

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New Issue of Al Qaeda's Inspire Magazine Aims For Rapid Repositioning

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has released the latest issue of Inspire, and it's a 70-page behemoth devoted to the Middle East uprisings.

LATEST: We've Killed Bin Laden, What Happens Next?

There are two important dimensions to this issue's theme. First, it seeks to refute a wave of media coverage that deemed Al Qaeda irrelevant to the Middle Eastern protests. Second, it seeks to fundamentally reinterpret Al Qaeda's core principles in order to give the global AQ movement a foothold in the evolving political process.

PLEASE DON'T CALL US IRRELEVANT

Inspire's writers take strong exception to the idea that secular, nonviolent revolutions have made Al Qaeda obsolete and irrelevant.

In a prominent opening position, we get an introductory piece by Yahya Ibrahim, whose previous claim to fame was the invention of the Ultimate Mowing Machine. Ibrahim argues that the uprisings are opening the door to globalized jihad in Palestine by removing the U.S. allies who previously protected Israel.

The key to making this argument stick is, of course, combining words with action. There is no shortage of AQ rhetoric on Palestine, but neither the network nor the movement have managed to breach Israel's borders in a very effective manner.

Ibrahim's piece makes two more very important points related to the uprisings, which represent a significant shift in AQ rhetoric and even its philosophy. First, he argues that Al Qaeda is entirely in favor of "freedom" in the Middle East, because that gives people the freedom to learn about and understand AQ's goals. In a pointed jab against the West, he writes:

Why would the freedoms being granted to the people be bad for al Qaeda? If freedom is so bad for al Qaeda, how come the West has been practicing a restriction on the freedoms of expression when it comes to the message of the mujahidin? Why does the West ban the spread of books and talks of the al Qaeda leadership and in some countries consider it to be a crime to be in possession of such material? Why did the U.S. request from a site such as YouTube to take off lectures by Shaykh Anwar al-Awlaki?

Even more significantly, Ibrahim writes that Al Qaeda is not opposed to regime change through peaceful means. While Ibrahim's status as an Islamic authority figure in the movement is unclear at best, this represents a pretty significant shift away from a long argument that military jihad is the only acceptable means to achieve Al Qaeda's long term political goals.

One of Inspire's predecessors, an English-language newsletter published in Boston during the 1990s, summed up nonviolent political action in the following terms:

[Y]ou find that the first thing mentioned is “He took part in all of the attacks.” It does not say “He gave a hundred speeches” or that “he wrote such and such a book,” or “he had a lot of money.” It says “He took part in all of the attacks.” This is the greatest virtue, excellence, or merit of the friends of the Messenger. The value of someone in Islam is measured by the “number of battles he took part in.”

Today when they write about our dead, what do they say? Do they mention how many attacks they took part in? No. If they are truthful they will write “This famous scientist, this matchless preacher did not shoot one bullet for Allah’s cause in all of his life.”

This echoes a line of thought going all the way back to Abdullah Azzam, the emir of the Arab-Afghan jihad, who famously said, during a lecture in Brooklyn in the 1980s:

Whenever jihad is mentioned in the [Quran], it means the obligation to fight. It does not mean to fight with the pen or to write books or articles in the press, or to fight by holding lectures.

In contrast, Ibrahim makes a very important qualification which, if truly adopted by the broad Al Qaeda movement, could be a game-changer (emphasis below added by me):

Another line that is being pushed by Western leaders is that because the protests in Egypt and Tunisia were peaceful, they proved al Qaeda – which calls for armed struggle – to be wrong. That is another fallacy. Al Qaeda is not against regime changes through protests but it is against the idea that the change should be only through peaceful means to the exclusion of the use of force.

The accuracy of this view is proven by the turn of events in Libya. If the protesters in Libya did not have the flexibility to use force when needed, the uprising would have been crushed.

There is a galaxy of distance between arguing that Al Qaeda believes military jihad is a mandatory sixth pillar of Islam and arguing that Al Qaeda believes that peaceful regime change is appropriate as long as the use of force is permitted under the right circumstances. Yet Ibrahim is planting that seed squarely in the soil of what is arguably Al Qaeda's most important messaging platform.

It will be very interesting indeed to see whether this thread is taken up by other Al Qaeda figures. Although Ibrahim correctly points out that this principle is implied in recent statements by Al Qaeda leadership on the protests, most notably Zawahiri, I don't recall seeing it stated so starkly.

This could be seen a bold effort to fundamentally redefine Al Qaeda as a political movement that sometimes uses violence rather than as a violent movement whose goals are political. But it is certainly possible that this will be read simply as an effort to jump on somebody else's bandwagon. We'll see how that develops.

AWLAKI'S TAKE

The cover story in Inspire No. 5 is an article on the protests by Anwar Awlaki. Over the last year, Awlaki's messages in print and in A/V communiques have become increasingly concerned with local events in Yemen and Islamic rulings. Here, he returns to his best form with a piece that is political and accessible.

Awlaki far exceeds Ayman Zawahiri's recent messages about the protests by keeping his comments short and to the point. Awlaki argues that the uprisings have fundamentally changed the outlook of the Muslim Ummah by proving that the totalitarian regimes of the Middle East can be defied.

He then launches into an extended attack on CNN's Peter Bergen, who argued that the uprisings were bad news for Al Qaeda, with an amusingly discordant jab at Fareed Zakaria, whom Awlaki inexplicably characterizes as a "neoconservative."

Awlaki argues that Bergen is thinking too much in the short-term and that the uprisings will benefit Al Qaeda over time. Mubarak, he says, did not defeat the jihad movement in Egypt. Rather, by driving it out of Egypt, he spread it all over the world, where it is now thriving and from whence it will return.

Peter Bergen believes that al Qaeda is viewing the events with glee and despair. Glee yes, but not despair. The mujahidin around the world are going through a moment of elation and I wonder whether the West is aware of the upsurge of mujahidin activity in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen, Arabia, Algeria, and Morocco? Is the West aware of what is happening or are they asleep with drapes covering their eyes?

Notably, Awlaki does not advance the "peaceful change" argument made by Ibrahim, but instead takes the approach that the fall of American allies in the region cannot help but be good for Al Qaeda.

America, since 9-11, has been focused on the fight with the mujahidin in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and now Yemen. It has devoted its resources and intelligence for the “fight on terror”. But with what is happening now in the Arab world, America would no doubt have to divert some of its attention to the unexpected avalanche that is burying its dear friends. America has depended on these men for the dirty work of protecting the American imperial interests. They acted as point men that saved America the effort of doing it themselves but now with their fall, America would have to divert huge amounts of effort and money to cultivate a new breed of collaborators. This would force America, which is already an exhausted empire, to spread itself thin, which in turn would be a great benefit for the mujahidin. Even without this wave of change in the Muslim world, the jihad movement was on the rise. With the new developments in the area, one can only expect that the great doors of opportunity would open up for the mujahidin all over the world.

Although Awlaki did not seem to embrace the kinder, gentler Al Qaeda in the main piece of the protests, there are some interesting comments in the "Inspire Responses" section where readers can write in with questions. The column is not attributed to Awlaki but it ends with an invitation for readers to send Awlaki questions, and the style of the writing matches the Yemeni-American's voice.

The main letter to Awlaki challenges is a multi-part question challenging the methods and beliefs of Al Qaeda generally and Inspire specifically. The early parts of the question challenge a number of points in AQ propaganda before getting to the red meat:

In terms of your personal ideology, how do you account for the fact that your legitimacy within the Islamic community is not only called into question but nearly non-existent. Most Muslims condemn the actions that you commit, Alĥamdulillâh. I understand your takfîri ideology but what gives you the right to judge the rest, even Muslims? It seems to me that you enjoy the power of playing God and determining who is good and evil. Nowhere in the Koran does it give authority to man to judge and determine the life of a man.

I cannot overstate how awesomely great this question is in this context. Back before 9/11, Awlaki gave a khutba at his mosque in San Diego on this exact subject and the questioner has almost certainly listened to at least part of that lecture.

Takfir means excommunication, and in this context it refers to the Al Qaeda practice of declaring that its Muslim enemies are not Muslims, have become apostates and are therefore legitimate targets for murder.

In San Diego, Awlaki argued against the practice of takfir, saying:

[If] you tell your brother that he is [an apostate], if he is not, it will come back on you. [ . . . ] We do not know what is in the hearts of people. [If we think] this man is saying with his tongue what he doesn’t mean in his heart, [the hadith] tells us we are not ordered to open up and seek what is in the hearts of people. He is not ordered clearly [ . . . ] I am not told by Allah to seek what’s in the hearts of people. Meaning that we call people to Islam, but we are not judges over them. We do not judge the people. We leave the judgment to Allah, [glory to him].

The questioner is clearly trying to catch Awlaki in a contradiction, and to some extent, he is successful. The Awlaki of 2011 squirms in his response, first suggesting that his correspondent google takfir for more guidance, then writing:

We don’t just assume someone is an apostate without clear evidence. The other thing is who can implement the ruling once one is determined to be an apostate. In today’s world, there is no Caliph nor Islamic Caliphate to properly pass the judgment. So within that we find a whole other topic in fiqh concerning the implementation of [mandatory Islamic capital punishment] without a state. In brief, if the individual has apostatized publicly, and his apostasy is clear, then this person’s blood and wealth is not protected from the Muslims due to the hadith narrated by al-Bukhari, “Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him.”

Our ideology is not takfîri; the non-Muslims as well as their puppet governments made that up to make the people condemn us. [...] We are openly against extremism in takfîr and seek a balance.

Awlaki is sensitive to his dilemma here. His choice is either to renounce his previous statements and risk being called a hypocrite (a serious slam in his world) or to alienate some of his core supporters in the jihadist movement. So his response is an artful dodge, but it's still a dodge, and no one who is familiar with his earlier arguments on takfir is likely to see it otherwise.

For the full issue of Inspire, check out Jihadology.

Labels: Al-Qaeda, American-Al-Qaeda, American-Jihadists, American-Terrorists, Anwar-Aulaqi, Anwar-Awlaki, AQAP, Inspire-Magazine, Jihad-Joe

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September 11 Stock Footage Box

With the 10th anniversary of September 11 fast approaching, Multifaceted Media Group (the parent company of Intelwire) now offers a massive discount on the licensing of Al Qaeda-themed footage.

For a limited time, you can purchase a "box" of video featuring Al Qaeda leaders and training, as well as specific footage of the September 11 plotters and hijackers.

For the cost of licensing footage for an average one-hour documentary, you can now obtain a full library of terrorism-related footage to use over and over again. Pay the license fee once and use the footage forever. A partial screener clip is shown below.





Also available now, "Classic Al Qaeda" stock footage box with 15 minutes of Al Qaeda training camp footage as well as Al Qaeda leadership statements including English subtitles.

Click here for more information

Labels: Multifaceted-Media-Group, Stock-Footage

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Top Stories, Tuesday, March 22

Early reviews of the "Arab Spring" found that Al Qaeda was refreshingly irrelevant to the wave of secular protests that started in Tunsia and Egypt. Today, the story is looking a bit more grim. The Al Qaeda movement doesn't need to seize power in Middle Eastern countries to make gains. What it thrives on is failed states. And there are plenty of those on the horizon.

Yemen: Saleh offers to step down later, opposition balks

Coalition seeks to shore up wavering support for Libyan NFZ

Families of Islamist detainees in Egypt demand general pardon

On the home front, we're seeing a lot of domestic terrorism and related activities from the racist sector.

Wife of Aryan Brotherhood of Texas "general" arrested on tampering charges

FBI joins probe of California cross burning

Spokane backpack bomb case before grand jury

For more of the day's top stories, check out the Intelwire Daily Brief.

Labels: Intelwire-Daily-Brief, Top-Stories

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Defining Our Interests

As Western forces rain down fire on the forces of Moammar Gadhafi, the Arab League has already come out with criticism of an intervention they virtually demanded just days ago.

There are two problems here. One is external -- the nations of the Middle East have for some time been playing a nasty double game which consists of letting the U.S. take the heat for problems they do not find politically expedient to solve on their own.

The other is internal -- the United States has for some time been playing a nasty double game in which it allows domestic political tides, the temperature of media coverage and simple, cynical expediency to dictate the direction of our foreign policy.

Both of these problems have been around for years, and the internal problem has been exacerbated by both Republican and Democratic administrations. The problem is that our foreign policy is almost always an ad hoc affair, cobbled together on the fly based on sometimes wildly inconsistent reasoning.

There are countless examples, such as our decades of support for Mubarak's police state based on the expediency of Egypt's strategic position, which we only abandoned when the torture and brutality came out of the closet; the invasion of Iraq based on constantly shifting rationales, nearly all of which could be applied to any number of other countries; our failure to define realistic goals and benchmarks in Afghanistan; our schizophrenic public stance toward Pakistan; and now our decisive action against Libya compared to relatively subdued public posturing on concurrent crackdowns by nominal U.S. allies Yemen and Bahrain.

While the brutality in Libya far outstrips what we've seen in other Middle Eastern countries roiled by protest, it's not surprising that our military action this week looks like score-settling to some in the Middle East. After Saddam Hussein, Gadhafi has been a thorn in the side of the United States for longer than anyone.

The reason that such imprecations about U.S. policy thrive is that we don't have consistent standards for our foreign policy decisions. For more than a decade, our interventions in the Arab and Muslim worlds have been driven more by politics and media optics than by principle.

It's been like this at least since Bosnia, when the media narrative about the war finally prompted a belated U.S. intervention. In 2008, I interviewed Charles Kupchan, director for European affairs at the National Security Council during the 1990s, who said the Clinton administration only acted in Bosnia when the "political calculation" became too painful to bear. I couldn't help but think of this statement when watching the Obama administration grope toward a position on the revolution in Egypt and subsequently try to reconcile that position with events in Libya.

Politicians in the Arab and Muslim world have their own reasons for sowing suspicion about American intentions abroad, and those reasons are often petty, expedient and political.

The problem is that we have no coherent response when they speak out against us, because we have no coherent doctrine that guides our foreign interventions. A consistent doctrine would also help undercut Al Qaeda and its affiliated movements, whose primary recruiting pitch exploits the ambiguity of our intentions in the world.

We have to stop predicating our involvement in world affairs on gut feelings and political calculations emanating from the White House. We must clearly define our national interest and the boundaries of what we are prepared to do in its service.

We don't have to be hidebound to this new doctrine. The world is an unpredictable place, now more than ever. We can make exceptions if we have to. But if the doctrine exists, then U.S. leaders who want to make exceptions will be forced to explain why in concrete terms. If we behave inconsistently, it will have to be accounted for.

A new U.S. foreign policy doctrine could take any number of forms. In an ideal world, it would be pragmatic enough to survive a change of party in Washington. But even small steps toward defining our national interest and the calculus that drives our interventions abroad will go a long way.

Every time a new crisis erupts, the media, the American people and the leaders of other nations are left wondering in the dark about how the United States will respond. If we want to exert leadership on the global stage, we should do so as a rational actor who lends stability to international affairs, rather than as a lightly dozing giant who only adds to volatility and uncertainty.

The new doctrine could be hawkish or dovish. It could be interventionist or isolationist. The problem is that we have never clearly articulated the arguments for either approach in a robust public debate that looks further than the top story of the hour. That debate is a necessary next step, but I fear that no one on either side of the political spectrum is interested in taking part.

Labels: Al-Qaeda, Bosnia, Egypt, Libya

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Video: American Jihadist Abdullah Rashid Talks Afghanistan

Abdullah Rashid, also known as Clement Hampton-El, is seen here discussing jihad in a 1988 talk taped from his hospital bed, soon after he stepped on a land mine while fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan.

Rashid's story is one of many American jihadists featured in the new book Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go To War In The Name Of Islam by Intelwire's J.M. Berger. The book, which will be released in May, is available for pre-order now at Amazon.com

The man behind the camera for this recording is believed to be El Sayyid Nosair, another jihadist from the New York area, who was arrested in 1990 for assassinating radical Jewish leader Meir Kahane.

I'll be posting more relevant videos as the book's release date approaches.

Video is courtesy Multifaceted Media Group. Contact MMG for licensing rights.

Labels: Abdullah-Rashid, American-Jihadists, American-Terrorists, Clement-Hampton-El, El-Sayyid-Nosair, Jihad-Joe

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Site News: Updated Pages

I've updated the Web site for my book, "Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam," which can now be found at http://jihadjoebook.com/. The new site has been cleaned up a bit, and I've added some early praise for the book, which will be updated with new material between now and the release.

Separately, I'm trying out a new format for the Intelwire Daily Brief, which is now being powered by Scoop.it. The tradeoff here is that the old version, which used paper.li, automatically updated from tagged stories on my Twitter feed.

The new page lets me customize headlines and promote stories so that the lead story is always what I think is most important, as opposed to the old page which prioritized stories automatically.

The downside is that it will be more difficult for me to keep the new page updated when traveling or otherwise busy, so we'll see how it goes. For now, at least, I'm trying to keep it updated throughout the day, given how much is going on in the news. Later, I'll probably settle on fairly predictable morning and evening editions.

I know the old page appealed to many folks, so it will continue, and you can click here to read it or follow it. It's now set to publish twice a day, so the news will be fresher. Since it's automatically generated, I don't see any downside in keeping it up and running indefinitely. I suspect the new page will ultimately work out for the best, but I'll let you know how I like it after a few weeks.

Labels: American-Jihadists, Intelwire-Daily-Brief, Jihad-Joe, Site-News

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American Jihadist Omar Hammami Said To Be Killed in Unconfirmed Report

A Somali government claims that Abu Mansour Al Amriki, who was born as U.S. citizen Omar Hammami, was wounded or killed in recent fighting near Mogadishu (story).

False reports are copious in the war on terror. So far, jihadist forums have not confirmed the death of Hammami. Until they do, the report should be taken with a large grain of salt.

The story I linked states Hammami's "demise would be a serious blow to al-Shabaab and to its efforts to attract foreign fighters from the US and elsewhere." That's not strictly true. While Hammami is a significant and powerful figure among radicalized Americans, his death will only elevate his status.

In the long run, a live Hammami might work out to be a net gain over a dead Hammami, but that's not guaranteed, and in the short term, a "martyred" Hammami would generate a lot of light and heat in the world of online jihadists.

For more about Hammami and other American jihadists, pre-order "Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go To War In The Name Of Islam," the first comprehensive look at the phenomenon of American jihadists from the 1970s to the present.

Labels: Abu-Mansour-Al-Amriki, American-Al-Qaeda, American-Jihadists, Jihad-Joe, Omar-Hammami

Posted by J.M. Berger | Permalink

 

Congressional Hearing on Muslim Radicalization Poses Challenges

On Thursday, U.S. Rep. Pete King will convene a hearing to explore why a small but growing number of American Muslims are turning to violent extremism, often in the form of terrorism on U.S. soil.

There's no question that this is an important issue, if not a new one. American Muslims have been taking up the banner of military jihad for more than 30 years, since two Americans took part in a terrorist attack on the Grand Mosque in Mecca.

Since then uncounted numbers of Americans have fought or terrorized in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bosnia, Chechnya, Somalia, Yemen and on U.S. soil. They are literally uncounted -- until September 11, no one in the U.S. government kept track of them in an organized way.

I documented scores of cases for my book, Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go To War In The Name Of Islam, and glimpsed many more that I could not document. Even using the most aggressive estimate, the number of Americans who have ever taken up arms in the name of Islam is certainly far less than one half of 1 percent of the total American Muslim population.

But because of the gravity of their acts, this small group has had a disproportionately large impact on American views of Islam. U.S. citizens aided in the first World Trade Center bombing, the 1998 East African embassy bombings and September 11, among many others.

With a caveat for inadequate data, it's pretty clear that the number of Americans attracted to violent Islamic extremism has risen meaningfully over the past few years. But that increase is likely less than most people think. During the 1980s and 1990s, substantial numbers of Americans took part in acts of military jihad; many more were involved in such causes financially and rhetorically.

American involvement in jihadist movements was once considered too sensitive for the FBI to investigate, due to concerns over religious freedom. But since September 11, the gloves are off and anything involving military jihad is considered a high-priority threat to homeland security. Activities that were once ignored are now studied by government officials, academics and the press.

So while today's extremists are likely more numerous on a linear basis, they are exponentially more visible, thanks to heightened scrutiny from the government and jihadists' enthusiastic embrace of the Internet, where radical talk that was once private is now on display for anyone to see.

All of this history lies behind Thursday's hearing, which has generated a storm of criticism from both Muslim Americans and terrorism hawks.

Since last year, when a proposal to build an Islamic Center near Ground Zero touched off a firestorm of controversy, the national dialogue on Islam and extremism has become increasingly poisonous. Prominent American authority figures used language that equated Muslims -- all Muslims, not just extremists -- to America's historical military enemies. The most visible example was likely 2012 presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, who compared Muslims to Nazis and World War II Japan.

On the other side of the spectrum, American Muslim activists, most visibly represented by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, and some of their allies from the left side of the political spectrum, responded to news of the radicalization hearing with their own brand of hyperbole, making clearly specious comparisons between King's one-day, subpoena-free hearing and the ugly excesses of McCarthyism, or even the internment of 110,000 Japanese-Americans during World War II.

These wildly opposing viewpoints find common ground in the minds of those American Muslims most at risk for violent radicalization. The long history of American jihadism tells us that the single most common and important assumption made by those who carry out violence is the existence of a literal war against Islam and Muslims that requires a warlike response.

Individuals on the edge of radicalization have a selective interpretation of the world, but that vision can be bolstered by real-world facts. When prominent political figures and leaders of the Muslim community make mutually affirming statements that validate the idea of a U.S. war against Islam, it's not hard to understand why some people believe it.

And the same Christian politicians and Muslim activists are more than happy to blame each other for using words that incite violence while ignoring the impact of their own statements.

Online extremists and jihadist recruiters take all of these words and run with them, spinning an ever-more convincing narrative about America's war on Islam. This leads to more extremism, which leads to violence, which leads to even more inflammatory public rhetoric, which leads to still more extremism.

None of this in any way justifies or rationalizes violence and terrorism. We can acknowledge the factors that lead to radicalization without deeming those factors legitimate or reasonable. Actions that are inexcusable do not have to be incomprehensible.

Thursday's hearing will overseen by Congressman Pete King, who has a history of contentious debate with American Muslim organizations. However, King notably refuted Gingrich's Nazi comparison last year.

That's important, because there's a distinction in this conversation. Religious freedom is one of America's most important principles, and that includes the freedom to criticize any religion, or parts of a religion, or the adherents of a religion. Americans are not obliged to like Islam or to like any particular tenet of Islam, just as no one is obliged to like Catholic views on abortion or Mormon views on polygamy.

But applying the rhetoric of war is a very different can of worms, especially when it comes from people in government and politics. It's unreasonable for American political leaders to tell Muslims "you are the enemy" and then blame them for believing it. Such statements ultimately empower Al Qaeda, which has always wanted its war with America to encompass all Muslims.

The overreaching grievances of activists and organizations like CAIR are similarly counterproductive, sending a wildly disproportionate message that Muslims are victims of extraordinary U.S. persecution, then professing disbelief and disavowal when some Muslims take violent action because they believe they are persecuted.

Thursday's hearing looks to be steering a middle path between these two divisive poles, or at least it's trying to. King has gotten heat from both Muslim activist organizations and the most vocal critics of those organizations. That means he's probably doing something right.

This is an important topic, and it deserves to be aired in a public forum. Nevertheless, the outcome of the hearings and the ultimate benefit or cost will not become clear until the gavel falls at the end of the day Thursday.

In a forum like this, it's very difficult to accomplish something positive and all too easy to accomplish something negative. An errant sound bite can echo for months or years.

Which leads us to the one certainty that participants in the hearing should hold close to their hearts: The worst thing that anyone says on Thursday will be the one thing that everyone remembers.

J.M. Berger is author of the forthcoming book, "Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go To War In The Name Of Islam," the first comprehensive look at the phenomenon of American jihadists from the 1970s to the present. The book will be released in May. Pre-orders are available now.

Labels: American-Al-Qaeda, American-Jihadists, American-Terrorists, Jihad-Joe, Peter-King, Radicalization

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