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...None of Sageman's solutions are new, nor are they achievable soon. The problems of Palestine and Iraq are of mind-numbing complexity, and as for depriving al-Qaeda of publicity, many would argue that successful prosecution of the war on terror actually makes visible battles and results necessary. But it isn't a forensic psychiatrist's job to come up with counterterrorist strategy. It is their job to offer a cogent alternative to the "Why do they hate us?" hand-wringing that dominates much writing about the terrorist mind-set, and Sageman has done that with great clarity...
...invasion of Iraq--come to be perceived as part of a wholesale war against Islam. This feeling of being under attack may be amplified by personal experience of discrimination and then validated by exchanges with like-minded friends, family members and Internet users before being converted into action by "al-Qaeda." Not, as Sageman puts it, "al-Qaeda Central" (made up of those who have sworn an oath of loyalty to Osama bin Laden) but al-Qaeda the informal network, mobilizing radicalized Islamists around the world without any contact with bin Laden...
...Al-Qaeda Central, says Sageman, is on the wane, its leaders dead or on the run and increasingly isolated. It is the informal al-Qaeda--born after the attacks on Sept. 11 and exploding into raging adolescence after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003--that is the real threat, waging the "leaderless jihad" of the book's title chapter...
Poverty and lack of opportunity are not necessarily the factors that drive young men to commit violence in al-Qaeda's name. (Sheikh was middle class and educated at a private school.) "They view themselves as warriors willing to sacrifice themselves for the sake of building a better world," Sageman explains, "and this gives meaning to their lives." They are also younger and less visible, blending in with the Western societies they grew...
Because of security crackdowns, they are unable to reach out to al-Qaeda's original leadership, but they can access jihadi Internet forums for guidance and bomb-making expertise. The Madrid train bombings of 2004, which killed 191 commuters, are an example of an atrocity committed by such young men. The attacks were an "offering to al-Qaeda Central leaders for ... admission into the ranks of global Islamist terrorism," Sageman writes...