Showing 9 results for inauthor:"Marc Sageman"
Leaderless Jihad
Terror Networks in the Twenty-First Century
Marc Sageman
In the post-September 11 world, Al Qaeda is no longer the central organizing force that aids or authorizes terrorist attacks or recruits terrorists. It is now more a source of inspiration for terrorist acts carried out by independent local groups that have branded themselves with the Al Qaeda name. 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. In Leaderless Jihad, Sageman rejects the views that place responsibility for terrorism on society or a flawed, predisposed individual. Instead, he argues, the individual, outside influence, and group dynamics come together in a four-step process through which Muslim youth become radicalized. First, traumatic events either experienced personally or learned about indirectly spark moral outrage. Individuals interpret this outrage through a specific ideology, more felt and understood than based on doctrine. Usually in a chat room or other Internet-based venues, adherents share this moral outrage, which resonates with the personal experiences of others. The outrage is acted on by a group, either online or offline. Leaderless Jihad offers a ray of hope. Drawing on historical analogies, Sageman argues that the zeal of jihadism is self-terminating; eventually its followers will turn away from violence as a means of expressing their discontent. The book concludes with Sageman's recommendations for the application of his research to counterterrorism law enforcement efforts.
Misunderstanding Terrorism
Marc Sageman
Misunderstanding Terrorism provides a striking reassessment of the scope and nature of the global neo-jihadi threat to the West. The post-9/11 decade experienced the emergence of new forms of political violence and new terrorist actors. More recently, Marc Sageman's understanding of how and why people have adopted fundamentalist ideologies and terrorist methods has evolved. Author of the classic Understanding Terror Networks, Sageman has become only more critical of the U.S. government's approach to the problem. He argues that U.S. society has been transformed for the worse by an extreme overreaction to a limited threat—limited, he insists, despite spectacular recent incidents, which he takes fully into account. Indeed, his discussion of just how limited the threat is marks a major contribution to the discussion and debate over the best way to a measured and much more effective response.
Turning to Political Violence
The Emergence of Terrorism
Marc Sageman
What motivates those who commit violence in the name of political beliefs? Terrorism today is not solely the preserve of Islam, nor is it a new phenomenon. It emerges from social processes and conditions common to societies throughout modern history, and the story of its origins spans centuries, encompassing numerous radical and revolutionary movements. Marc Sageman is a forensic psychiatrist and government counterterrorism consultant whose bestselling books Understanding Terror Networks and Leaderless Jihad provide a detailed, damning corrective to commonplace yet simplistic notions of Islamist terrorism. In a comprehensive new book, Turning to Political Violence, Sageman examines the history and theory of political violence in the West. He excavates primary sources surrounding key instances of modern political violence, looking for patterns across a range of case studies spanning the French Revolution, through late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century revolutionaries and anarchists in Russia and the United States, to the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand and the start of World War I. In contrast to one-dimensional portraits of terrorist "monsters" offered by governments and media throughout history, these accounts offer complex and intricate portraits of individuals engaged in struggles with identity, injustice, and revenge who may be empowered by a sense of love and self-sacrifice. Arguing against easy assumptions that attribute terrorism to extremist ideology, and counter to mainstream academic explanations such as rational choice theory, Sageman develops a theoretical model based on the concept of social identity. His analysis focuses on the complex dynamic between the state and disaffected citizens that leads some to disillusionment and moral outrage—and a few to mass murder. Sageman's account offers a paradigm-shifting perspective on terrorism that yields counterintuitive implications for the ways liberal democracies can and should confront political violence.
Confronting Al-Qaeda: Understanding the Threat in Afghanistan and Beyond
Congressional Testimony
Marc Sageman
Provides a better understanding of the threat confronting our homeland security in order to ¿disrupt, dismantle, and eventually defeat al Qaeda and its allies.¿ Sageman conducted a comprehensive survey of all the al Qaeda plots in the West, all the al Qaeda affiliate plots in the West and all the plots done ¿in the name of al Qaeda¿ in the West since the formation of al Qaeda in August 1988. The global neo-jihadi terrorist threat includes plots under the control of al Qaeda core; al Qaeda affiliates like the Algerian Groupes Islamiques Armes, Pakistani Lashkar e-Toyba, the Uzbek Islamic Jihad Union, the Pakistani Tehrik e-Taliban Pakista; and threats by autonomous groups inspired by al Qaeda like the Dutch Hofstad group. Graphs.
The London Bombings
Marc Sageman
On July 7, 2005, at the end of the morning rush hour, three near-simultaneous explosions tore apart the London Underground. Within an hour, the entire subway network was evacuated, and a fourth explosion in a bus underscored that this was a terrorist operation. The bombings shattered the British counterterrorism services' assumptions about the global neojihadi threat to Britain. Authorities pondered whether al Qaeda was a loose coalition with no clear leadership or a highly structured group with international reach that posed a clear threat to the United Kingdom. These two perspectives are not just academic disputes but raise important issues with real consequences in terms of counterterrorism strategy. What sorts of distinct measures are needed to combat these opposing forms of terrorism? What can we learn from the ways in which the London terror attacks were planned and executed—and from Britain's response? In The London Bombings, counterterrorism expert Marc Sageman seeks to answer these questions through a new detailed account and analysis of the Underground bombings as well as three other attacks directed at Britain between 2004 and 2006. Drawing on previously unavailable trial transcripts and law enforcement records, terrorists' self-documentation, and his own government experience in counterterrorism, Sageman makes the case that "top down" and "bottom up" conceptions of terror organizations need not be incompatible and that, in part because of this binary thinking, the West has tended to overreact to the severity of the threat. He stresses the fluid, chaotic ways that terrorist events unfold: spontaneously and gradually with haphazard planning—as the perpetrators are often worldly, educated, and not particularly religious before becoming engaged in neojihadi activities. The London Bombings is a vital, persuasive account of events that have not yet been properly presented to the public and are critical to the foundation of an effective counterterrorism strategy.
Le vrai visage des terroristes
Psychologie et sociologie des acteurs du djihad
Marc Sageman
Pour combattre efficacement son ennemi, il faut le connaître intimement. Pour espérer éradiquer un jour le terrorisme, il faut d'abord savoir gui sont ses soldats. Or, explique Marc Sageman, l'idée que nous nous faisons du terroriste est en fait un cliché : celui du déshérité-révolté ayant grandi dans les faubourgs misérables du monde arabe et en proie à quelque désordre mental. Psychiatre, sociologue, ancien de la CIA, Marc Sageman connaît particulièrement bien le sujet. Au Pakistan à la fin des années 80, il a côtoyé de près les djihadistes, il a vu émerger le noyau d'activistes qui allait donner naissance à Al Qaïda. Ce livre nous propose une analyse de leur personnalité et de leurs origines qui bat en brèche toutes les idées reçues. Le djihadiste, tel qu'il est décrit ici, ressemble davantage à un étudiant petit-bourgeois acculturé et frustré qu'à un damné de la terre... Ainsi est mise en lumière l'une des failles de la guerre contre le terrorisme : elle passe dans une certaine mesure à côté de la réalité. Faire de Mohammed Atta et Khaled Kelkal de simples psychopathes, c'est renoncer à comprendre et s'enfermer dans un dangereux aveuglement.
Sieci terroru
Marc Sageman
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Eighteen Months and Beyond
Implications of U.S. Policy in Afghanistan
Bruce O. Riedel, Peter L. Bergen, Frank Anderson, Marc Sageman, Middle East Policy Council (U.S.)
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