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to find vulnerabilities that they can exploit to conduct operations aimed at exacting
revenge, influencing policy, etc. As was pointed out earlier, however, each element
of the terrorist tradecraft cycle is a potential vulnerability for the overall operation.
Identifying and studying the elements of terrorist tradecraft is the job of the intel-
ligence and analytic elements at every level of the government. If we are to “win”
the struggle with terrorists, we must in turn be willing to study them with an eye
toward uncovering these vulnerabilities in order to thwart their plots. Fighting ter-
rorism is not an option, and the terrorists must be held accountable and forced to
pay a price if we hope to protect our lives, economy, and way of life.
The New Terrorism—Radicalization and
Growing Threat of Homegrown Terrorism
The 2003 Madrid attacks, followed by the July 2005 attacks against the London
Underground and the follow-on failed attacks a few weeks later brought to the fore-
front the issue of radicalization. Since then, the study of radicalization has become its
own industry inside the wider sphere of counterterrorism studies, with radicalization
being solely focused on Islamist terrorist acts. In keeping with the Islamist angle,
numerous topics and reports have looked at the radicalization process, and in efect,
have come to varying conclusions, some (e.g., New York City Police Department
report on the subject) offering a simple formula for the prospective jihadist to follow.
Out of all this has come the notion of “homegrown terrorism,” with the argument
that prospective jihadists in Europe or Canada or the United States, who did not
attend the Al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan are being radicalized inside their
own homelands. Although this is true, it is misleading to say that the radicalization
is homegrown since the ideas are not germane to the United States or to Europe. The
ideas trace back to the ideology of Al-Qaeda, hence even if the Afghan camps have
been disassembled, Al-Qaeda and its agents are still continuing to radicalize prospec-
tive jihadis. The Information Age has added information at a faster speed, which only
accelerates the process, as evidenced with the Al-Qaeda online magazine,
Inspire
.
It was once thought that radicalization, in the Islamist sense, was a result of
economics, that the poor were spurred on to conduct terrorist operations in order
to change their economic situation. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was a career criminal
with a limited future. His mother sent him to undergo religious instruction at
the Al-Husayn Ben Ali Mosque in Amman, Jordan, during a period of the Soviet
war in Afghanistan. From there, Zarqawi went to Afghanistan and met two men
who would influence his life: Abu Mohammed al-Maqdisi and Saleh al-Hami.
Al-Maqdisi, was a theologian and fighter who laid the Islamic foundations for
“Zarqawism,” before splitting with Zarqawi over his use of heavy-handed tactics in
Iraq. Al-Hami became Zarqawi's brother-in-law, and was wounded in Afghanistan.
The meetings of these two with Zarqawi showed the career criminal what life was
