Radicalización en Occidente: la amenaza local

Miércoles, 27 de Mayo de 2009, 10:13 horas | España

The September 11 plot was conceptualized, manned, and funded by al-Qaeda’s leadership in Afghanistan. Because the attack originated abroad, it fit and furthered the pre-existing understanding of Islamist terrorism as being a threat from outside our borders. In the immediate aftermath of September 11, the United States military and law enforcement captured, killed, or scattered much of al-Qaeda’s core leadership— eliminating its sanctuary and training camps in Afghanistan. As a result, the threat from the central core of al-Qaeda was significantly diminished.

However, as al-Qaeda’s central core of leaders, operatives, and foot soldiers shrunk, its philosophy of global jihad spread worldwide at an exponential rate via radical Internet websites and chat rooms, extremist videotapes and literature, radical speeches by extremist imams—often creating a radical subculture within the more vulnerable Muslim diaspora communities. This post-September 11 wave of militant ideological influences underpins radicalization in the West and is what we define as the homegrown threat.

Moreover, in the years since 2001, the attacks of September 11 stand out as both the hallmark al-Qaeda attack as well as the singular exception. Bali [2002], Casablanca [2003], Madrid [2004], and London [2005] all fit a different paradigm. The individuals who conducted the attacks were for the most part all citizens or residents of the states in which the attacks occurred. Although a few may have received training in al-Qaeda camps, the great majority did not. While al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for each attack after the fact, these attacks were not under the command and control of al-Qaeda central, nor were they specifically funded by al-Qaeda central. Rather, they were conducted by local al-Qaeda inspired affiliate organizations or by local residents/citizens, who utilized al-Qaeda as their ideological inspiration.

This study provides a conceptual framework for understanding the process of radicalization in the West. This framework is derived from a comparative case study of five prominent homegrown groups/plots around the world which resulted in either terrorist attacks or thwarted plots. The cases include Madrid’s 3/11/04 attack, Amsterdam’s Hofstad Group, the London-Leeds 7/7/05 attack, Australia’s Operation Pendennis which thwarted an attack(s) in November 2005 and Canada’s Toronto 18 Case, which thwarted an attack in June 2006.

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