Word: jihadists
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...post-9/11 strikes on Afghanistan. But jihadism is an especially centrifugal force, flinging adherents across borders until what we still notionally call al-Qaeda exists everywhere and nowhere, more an impulse than an organization. Men and boys with small lives and big hopes for the afterlife visit jihadist websites, meet like-minded rejects at the local mosque, pay a visit to one of the overseas imams known for radical preaching and then--well, no one can say for sure. Some return home--to Lodi, Calif.; to Casablanca; to London--each the site of recently captured jihadist suspects. Others...
...London attack limned al-Qaeda's limitations and strengths, it has not yet helped clarify what role the Iraq war has played in helping or hurting the jihadist movement. We know that some of the Madrid terrorists had watched videotaped messages from Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq. Did he also help inspire the London attackers? Jihadist groups in Saudi Arabia and other Muslim nations say they have found it easier to lure new recruits because the American invasion has encouraged a climate of social approval for radical Islamism. And it's virtually certain that some...
...Qaeda leader was killed in a shoot-out in Riyadh.) In London, North African extremists were preaching at the Finsbury Park mosque well before 9/11. And France, which has the largest Muslim population in Europe, has battled Muslim extremism for decades. Finally, as Bush Administration officials point out, every jihadist who gets killed in Iraq is one more who won't be plotting in Barcelona or Jakarta or Los Angeles. Denécé describes the scores of European terrorists who have ended up in Iraq as "cannon fodder...
...Lover of Angels, by Abdullah Azzam, one of Osama bin Laden's spiritual mentors, which tells stories of jihadis who died fighting Soviet occupying troops in Afghanistan. And Marwan is listening to taped speeches that address subjects like the rewards that await warriors in heaven. In recent months, jihadist groups have also begun showing recruits lurid videos of successful suicide hits. A U.S. official in Baghdad who studies suicide terrorism says some volunteers even visit the sites of previous bombings for inspiration...
Marwan says he doesn't think about his legacy or how others might regard him when he is gone. Unlike their Palestinian counterparts, Iraq's self-immolating terrorists are not celebrated and memorialized by family and friends. At best, Marwan might be profiled on one of the jihadist websites, but even there, his identity would be concealed to spare his family harassment by Iraqi authorities. "It doesn't matter whether people know what I did," he says. "The only person who matters is Allah--and the only question he will ask me is 'How many infidels did you kill...