Narratives: Pathways to Domestic Radicalisation and Martyrdom (PDF)

After the coordinated and indiscriminate terrorist attacks on the United States, on 11 September 2001, many security experts across the world declared this was the work of a new ‘breed’ of terrorist: the players were fanatics whose only objective was to cause a series of spectacular attacks designed to maximise civilian casualties in a country they considered their enemy. Also, unlike previous acts of international terrorism the players had been well trained and desensitised to human suffering.
While security experts were still coming to grips with understanding this new terrorist phenomenon and reviewing counter-terrorist strategies, on 11 March 2004 Islamic extremists bombed the crowded Cercamias express train in Madrid, killing 191 commuters and injuring a further 2,051.
On 7 July 2005, suicide bombers, sharing the same extremist ideology of those who attacked the USA and Madrid, bombed London’s transportation system killing 57 people and injuring 700 more. These two attacks added another and serious dimension to this new form of terrorism – the main threat was now from domestic terrorism in support of an international extremist agenda.
Since these attacks, counter-terrorist strategies have been redesigned to address this new threat, however, there continues to be concerns that renegade CIA employee, Edward Snowden, may have seriously compromised some advances that may have been made in the field of intelligence gathering.
Apart from any damage Snowden may have caused to Western intelligence capabilities it has also been acknowledged that previous methods used to profile terrorists and individuals at risk of becoming radicalised, have proved to be totally inadequate for this form of violent extremism.
Although many experts now agree it is impossible to create profiles on those involved or attracted to domestic radicalisation, we can, however, gain an insight into the indoctrination process used to radicalise young Muslims.
This paper examines extremist narratives that are used to indoctrinate and encourage young Muslims to follow the pathway to violent extremism within their own or adopted country.
Research for this paper includes the examination of open source material, interviews with community development professionals; members of Muslim communities, some of which have shown radical tendencies, and the elders of Muslim communities within the United Kingdom.