Making Of A Terrorist: An ex-CIA Officer’s View

A new book by a former CIA officer, and now a senior fellow at the Philadelphia-based Foreign Policy Research Institute, “explodes many myths” about terrorists, and “provides an unsettling account of how al-Qaeda has evolved from the organisation headed by Osama bin Laden into an amorphous movement — a ‘leaderless jihad’.”

The Economist says: “Mr Marc Sageman has unusual credentials: a former CIA officer, he is also a forensic psychiatrist and a counter-terrorism consultant. He published the first version of his theory three years ago in an influential book, ‘Understanding Terror Networks’. His aim, to put the study of this new kind of terrorism on to a scientific footing, has not changed. But al-Qaeda has, and the task of analysing it has become more complex.

“…Like others, Mr Sageman believes the Iraq war, which appeared to legitimise the idea of a rapacious West in conflict with Islam, was a spectacular own-goal for America. Unless that idea can be successfully countered, he says, America may find itself confronting not just a terrorist fringe but a substantial segment of the Muslim world, which would intensify and prolong the conflict to disastrous effect.

“A successful hearts-and-minds campaign, on the other hand, would stiffen moderate spines and help take the glory out of jihadism; eventually, ‘the leaderless jihad [would] expire, poisoned by its own toxic message.’ It is an optimistic conclusion, given all that has gone before…”

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