Résumé
Sageman argues that the key to mounting an effective defense against future terrorist attacks is a thorough understanding of the networks that allow these new terrorists to proliferate. Based on intensive study of biographical data on 172 participants in the jihad, the author traces the roots of the modern movement from its roots in Egypt, gestation in Afghanistan during the Soviet-Afghan war, exile in the Sudan, and growth of branches worldwide. Also discussed are detailed accounts of life within the Hamburg and Montreal cells that planned attacks on the United States. The motivation to join a militant organization does not necessarily stem from extreme poverty or extreme religious devotion but mostly from the need to escape a sense of alienation. Nor do terrorists employ a "top-down" approach to recruiting. Many cells evolve from friendships and kinships and the seeds of sedition grow as certain members of a cell influence the thinking of the others.