by CRDP

March 2015

In the past months, citizens from more than 90 countries have decided to join the Islamic State (IS) 1 and other terrorist groups in order to fight with them in Iraq and Syria. The US National Counterterrorism Center counted 20,000 fighters so far – amongst those 20% coming from Western countries (CNN 2015).
After the US intervention in Iraq in summer 2014, IS intensified their social media campaign to attract more fighters. Given the unpredictable nature of social media and the fact that international counterterrorism did not lead to the desired results in the past decade, many reactions to this ongoing global trend are characterized by helplessness. The danger of foreign fighters returning to their home countries with the purpose of carrying out a terrorist attack has become reality in European countries in the past year. Right now, US officials’ answer to the phenomenon consists mainly of domestic law enforcement that shall prevent citizens from going abroad in the first place (Rand/Vassalo 2014: 4 et seqq.).

For the full version of the article: Public Security Radicalization