Leaderless Jihad: Terror Networks in the Twenty-First Century » (New Edition)

Marc Sageman, a forensic psychiatrist, is a government counterterrorism consultant. He is the author of the bestselling Understanding Terror Networks, also available from the University of Pennsylvania Press.

Building on his previous groundbreaking work on the al Qaeda network, forensic psychiatrist Marc Sageman has greatly expanded his research to explain how Islamic terrorism emerges and operates in the twenty-first century.

The Washington Post - Fawaz A. Gerges

Based on biographical profiles he has compiled of 500 jihadists who used violence against the United States and its allies, Leaderless Jihad sets out to explain how people become terrorists: What drives some individuals to ideological violence? What is the tipping point? How do terrorist networks radicalize, mobilize and militarize their recruits? In Sageman's view, terrorists are not born, they are made, and terrorism has less to do with culture or religion than with politics. He makes a convincing case that these assertions are neither partisan nor speculative but based on hard evidence, carefully weighed.

Preface     vii
Introduction: Understanding the Path to Radicalism     3
How to Study Terrorism in the Twenty-First Century     13
The Globalization of Jihadi Terror     29
The Jihadist's Profile     47
Radicalization in the Diaspora     71
The Atlantic Divide     89
Terrorism in the Age of the Internet     109
The Rise of Leaderless Jihad     125
Combating Global Islamist Terrorism     147
Notes     179
Bibliography     185
Index     193
Acknowledgments     199