The New International Jihadist Elite

[jimmy olsen]

Why is it that many of these suicide bombers are educated and well off? Anyone have any ideas or know a good source on that topic?

http://www.slate.com/id/2241119/

Meet the New International Jihadist Elite

How can we counter educated, eloquent, well-connected Islamists?

By Anne ApplebaumPosted Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2010, at 10:04 AM ET

Somehow he conned the Jordanian secret service into thinking he was its agent. Then he conned the CIA into thinking he was its agent, too. After that, he conned both the Jordanians and the Americans—his "enemies," he told Al Jazeera—into believing he could track down leaders of al-Qaida. Nevertheless, by far the most intriguing thing about Humam Khalil Abu Mulal al-Balawi—the suicide bomber who killed eight people at a CIA base in Afghanistan two weeks ago—is his wife, Defne Bayrak.

"My husband was anti-American; so am I." That was what Bayrak told the editors of Newsweek's Turkish edition last week. Bayrak is a 31-year-old Turkish journalist and Turkish-Arabic translator who says she met her late husband in an Internet chat room. Her publications include articles for Islamist periodicals as well as a book called Bin Laden: Che Guevara of the East. Unlike others in her family, she wears a black chador, which in Turkey is not merely religious clothing but a political symbol. She is no shrinking wallflower. "I am proud of my husband. He carried out a great operation in this war. I hope Allah will accept his martyrdom, if he has become a martyr," she told reporters in Istanbul.

Bayrak is a shining example of what might be called the international jihadist elite: She is educated, eloquent, with connections across the Islamic world—Istanbul, Turkey; Amman, Jordan; Peshawar, Pakistan—yet not exactly part of the global economy, either. She shares these traits not only with her husband—a medical doctor and the son of middle-class, English-speaking Jordanians—but also with others featured recently in the news. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, for example, who grew up in a wealthy Nigerian family, studied at University College London, and then tried to blow up a Northwest Airlines plane on Christmas Day. Or Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh (Sheik Omar), who was born in Britain, studied at elite high schools in Pakistan and Britain, dropped out of the London School of Economics, and then murdered American journalist Daniel Pearl in Pakistan. Or even Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who was born in Arlington, Va.; graduated from Virginia Tech; and did his psychiatric residency at Walter Reed before killing 13 people in a shooting spree at Fort Hood.

These people are not the wretched of the earth. Nor do they have much in common, sociologically speaking, with the illiterate warlords of Waziristan. They haven't emerged from repressive Islamic societies, such as Iran, or been forced to live under extreme forms of sharia law, as in Saudi Arabia. On the contrary, they are children of ambitious, "Westernized" parents who sacrificed for their education, though they are also often people who, for one reason or another, didn't "make it" or didn't feel comfortable in their respective societies. Perhaps it sounds strange, but they remind me of the early Bolsheviks, who were also educated, multinational, and ambitious and who also often lacked the social cachet to be successful. Lenin's family, for example, clung desperately to its status on the lowest rung of the czarist aristocracy.

Bayrak draws a similar kind of comparison by linking the names of jihadist guerrilla Osama Bin Laden and Communist guerrilla Che Guevara. Alas, I haven't read her book, but I can see what she means: Both Osama and Che claimed to fight in the name of the poor and oppressed, meanwhile appealing very deeply to the wealthy and disgruntled.

In recent years, the emergence of this international jihadist elite has often been blamed on European immigration and assimilation policies, or rather the lack of them. Several of the 9/11 bombers were radicalized in Hamburg, Germany; the London Tube bombers were born in Britain; and there are other European examples. But the case of Bayrak, who was educated in a secular Muslim society—and that of Hasan, who is American—suggests that this elite has a much broader base, and radical Islam potentially a much wider appeal.

The case of Bayrak and her ilk also suggests the need for another kind of anti-terrorist strategy. Too often, we think of public diplomacy as a sort of public relations activity, the "promotion" of American values. Instead, we should be thinking about it as an argument. The Bayraks and Balawis of this world are engaged in constant debates—in Internet chat rooms, in the halls of publishing houses, in mosques. Are they hearing enough counterarguments? Are we helping the people who make the counterarguments? I suspect that they don't, and I'm certain that we aren't—and that has to change. Intellectuals may wear glasses and read books, but neither attribute prevents them from throwing bombs—or from strapping them inside their underwear if need be.

[Tamas]

people who, for one reason or another, didn't "make it" or didn't feel comfortable in their respective societies

Thats the key I guess. They feel (maybe made to feel by the jackasses of our society) as outsiders, and naturally turning back to their roots, they find those to be rotten, backward, and in any possible way inferior to the western one which -they feel- want to cast them out. So I think basically they get frustrated by the differences between the two worlds and instead of accepting the blame of their real ancestry, they turn against the west in anger.  That's not really unique, I see it in Eastern Europe as well.

You see, sure, the bums of the mid east hate America as well, but they do this because they are told so. They can not fully realize the backwardness of their existence. But this "jihadist elite" does.

[Alatriste]

Some 'jihadists' are educated, solidly middle-class and come from more or less westernized families, while others are crude, proletarian and illiterate. This shouldn't come as a surprise, after all the same can be said of the Bolsheviks, the French Revolutionaries, etc, etc...

And I hesitate while typing this, but I think the key question perhaps is, they are after different goals. 'Proletarian jihadists' are essentially reactionary, they want the hated westerners and their modernizing influence to disappear from their lives and little else, but those 'international elite' jihadists that wear glasses, read books, surf the web and don't belong either in the West or the East are revolutionaries: they want to destroy a world they hate and create a new one of their liking, much like Marxists wanted/want to destroy the 'system'.     

[CountDeMoney]

Let's not forget the Glasgow Geniuses, who were both licensed MDs.

We had a security breach one weekend in one of our robotic medical labs several months ago--one of our more highly secure and sensitive areas--and discovered that several Arab-born physicians and medical students had used it as a meeting place; we found some pamphlets advertising the meeting as a "humanitarian group" discussing aid and fundraising for civilians in Afghanistan.  They even catered lunch.  Hummus for everybody.

Naturally, after bringing it to the attention of the necessary people, I wasn't allowed to do anything about it.  After all, they were doctors and medical students.  They couldn't possibly be up to anything.

Christ, I can't wait to get out of this place.

[Josquius]

Most politically minded people tend to be educated.
Just as all our socialists, conservatives, greens and whatnot are educated so to are our terrorist nutters. A majority of normal uneducated people just don't bother about political matters, at least not to the extent that they look beyond the mainstream parties on TV. With education though comes awareness. Which can be peverted.

One reason I remember hearing for a lot of Islamic extremists coming from well integrated, middle class families is that it is their form of teenage rebellion. Whilst white kids who think too much of themselves rebel by getting into fascism or communism or whatever Islamic people have something much more dangerous available to them.

[Tonitrus]

Modern Islamic equivalent of 60's militant leftist radicals, perhaps?  Very intelligent academically, but very irrational politically(and in this case, religiously, which might as well be the same thing in most cases).

[KRonn]

Fools, whether educated or not. They'd likely be appalled at the horror society that gets created in places where the extremists have the power. Haven't people seen about enough of what goes on with such regimes?     But it's like others have said - an ideological movement which spans all walks of life and education, similar to others before it.

[derspiess]

Isn't this p

Some 'jihadists' are educated, solidly middle-class and come from more or less westernized families, while others are crude, proletarian and illiterate. This shouldn't come as a surprise, after all the same can be said of the Bolsheviks, the French Revolutionaries, etc, etc...

Aren't most of the jihadi terrorists hitting Western targets educated & middle/upper class?  My take on it is that they learn history, then learn how Western society has eclipsed Muslim society in just about every possible way for centuries, and develop a huge inferiority complex.  What helps stoke the fires is when they get their education in Western universities from far left self-loathing professors who do what they can to reinforce the notion that Western society is nothing but evil oppressors.

[The Brain]

Education doesn't change you, just amplifies you.

Maybe, I just thought this up 20 seconds ago.

[Valmy]

So...if we bomb all schools in the Middle East there will be no more Jihadists?

[citizen k]

So...if we bomb all schools in the Middle East there will be no more Jihadists?

No, more like, if we bomb western universities there will be no more Jihadists. 

[Sheilbh]

Why is it that many of these suicide bombers are educated and well off? Anyone have any ideas or know a good source on that topic?

Many that are from the West are and many that try and attack the West are - by which I mean attacks in Europe/USA.  I believe in Israel it's not such a middle class choice.  In the Casablanca bombings they came from the slums, the same I believe goes for the bombings in Amman, in Bali and in Istanbul.  In Afghanistan and Pakistan the Taliban have drawn a lot of support from peasants within a semi-feudal system.  In Iraq the majority of Shia militias was working class, I imagine the same would hold for Sunni bombers etc.  Don't know about Saudi Arabia.

So I don't know enough to say entirely but I'd guess that part of it is because people in the West are more likely to be middle class and/or educated, including Muslims and that people traveling to the West and able to plan terrorist attacks in the West from the developing world will be more likely to come from that sort of background too.

[garbon]

They get their education in Western universities from far left self-loathing professors who do what they can to reinforce the notion that Western society is nothing but evil oppressors.

True story.

[Sheilbh]

What helps stoke the fires is when they get their education in Western universities from far left self-loathing professors who do what they can to reinforce the notion that Western society is nothing but evil oppressors.

....Really?

[Siege]

Really.