Today's jihadists: educated, wealthy and bent on killing?
U.K. suspects radicalized in West, researchers say
Craig Offman, National Post
Published: Wednesday, July 04, 2007
canada.com
The arrests of medical doctors in the plots to kill Brits and Scots en masse might seem a frightening twist in the war on terror, but the development is not surprising, experts say.
For years now, the intelligence community has insisted that al-Qaeda's leadership is well-educated and well-steeped in Western ways. They join the movement for what they see as intellectual, not emotional reasons. They view themselves as concerned humanitarians, not mass murderers.
"Of course they'd want to be involved," said Dr. Marc Sageman, who wrote the landmark study in 2003 on al-Qaeda, Understanding Terror Networks. "Who wouldn't want to do something out of concern for the people?"
In his findings, Dr. Sageman found that 62% of group members had a university education, a percentage that surpasses the United States. These conclusions helped dispel the idea that poverty and ignorance are the main motivators of violent acts of despair.
The vast majority of terrorists, his survey discovered, came from solid middle-class backgrounds; their leadership hailed from the upper middle class.
Some of the doctors under suspicion today, including the Jordanian surgeon Mohammed Jamil Abdelkader Asha, also had well-heeled histories.
"These doctors remind me of the second wave of al-Qaeda leadership," said Dr. Sageman, who delivered testimony to the 9/11 Commission. "They are the best and brightest who went West to study, and they were radicalized there."
British authorities have not officially said whether the suspects are thought to belong to an al-Qaeda-affiliated group or cell, and some security experts have noted the failed attacks in London and Glasgow were not as well planned as other strikes attributed to seasoned terrorists.
Dr. Sageman said the new suspects could simply be a bunch of similar-minded men who met through medical circles.
To many, however, the recent round-up of suspects indicates the continuing resonance of al-Qaeda's message in the affluent parts of the Islamic community and amid professions such as medicine and engineering. "It's the 'Yuppification' of al-Qaeda," said Tarek Fatah, the Toronto-based Muslim political activist and author. "The movement has gone upscale."
Mr. Fatah cited recently thwarted alleged terrorist cells In Toronto: Many of their members came from comfortable backgrounds.
Historically, there is a well-trodden path of well-funded professionals who travelled West and later became violent radicals, beginning with 19th-century Russian anarchists bent on assassinating the Czarist leadership.
Recent examples of physician-turned-terrorists include George Habash, the radical Palestininan who studied pediatrics. Al-Qaeda's Egyptian second-in-command, Ayman Al-Zawahri, is also a doctor.
In May, Florida doctor Rafiq Abdus Sabir, 52, was found guilty of conspiracy to provide material support to al-Qaeda by a U.S. federal court.
To most, a doctor who is a terrorist commits a double transgression against humanity, but in the end these are radicals who are driven by a near-Messianic sense of vision.
"What we're seeing tells us that ideology can trump morality, humanity and in this case, the Hippocratic oath," said Brian Michael Jenkins, the counterintelligence expert and author of Unconquerable Nation: Knowing Our Enemy, Strengthening Ourselves.
Mr. Jenkins, who is senior advisor at the Washington, D.C., think-tank Rand Corporation, hypothesized that a terrorist doctor's interests transcend his own profession and nation-state, which is dominated by man-made law, not God-given edicts. The doctor would consider himself part of a universal brotherhood, and the plight of Muslims in the world is the concern of all Muslims, says Mr. Jenkins.
"As a physician, part of the appeal is humanitarian," said Mr. Jenkins. "For example, he'd say that the U.S. embargo led by the U.S. that denied Iraqi hospitals medical supplies and equipment led to the deaths of tens of thousands of women and children." Mr. Fatah also says that there is a prestige factor at play as well. "By devoting yourself and your resources to jihad, you are giving your worldly estate to charity. In their mindset it's the equivalent of being Bill Gates." |
