Radicalization: Key Tactics

     Whenever one watches or hears about an atrocity by a terrorist, the following question flashes through the mind: how possibly could a human being do that?! To the author, a holistic interdisciplinary answer should be sought to cover the whole journey from approaching a potential terrorist by a given group to execution or suicide bombing. Being beyond the scope of one article to provide such a holistic interdisciplinary answer, this article seeks to highlight some key tactics used by terrorist groups to (1) approach, (2) radicalize, and (3) weaponize their henchmen.

Oddly enough, in several cases of alleged forced disappearances of Egyptian young persons, they have been found to be the unlikely victims to radicalization. Why unlikely? Because they have been leading lavish, healthy, and honorable lives; going to prestigious colleges; and members to highly educated families.

1. Approaching. Terrorist recruiters target the two extremes; (A) those with extremist radical views; (B) and those who are so immersed in ‘worldly joys.’ Approaching Group-A members is somehow self-explainable. It is Group-B members that makes one’s eyebrows raise. Muslims, in general, are raised to think that no person is infallible, but the best among sinners are the constantly repentant. Another moral epithet with which Muslims are inculcated is that a sin would be erased, even replaced with a reward in God’s eyes, if followed by a good deed. Along with verbally seeking God’s forgiveness through prayers, this is the shortest way for a Muslim to atone for the sin. Knowing just that, terrorists approach potential recruits with that general knowledge as it is shared by all Muslims, regardless of their level of education or awareness. Starting from an unquestionable Islamically logical ground (whether via personal meetings in mosques/cafés/places of work, online gaming chats, dating applications, etc.), recruiters find pliable souls with a history of minor and major sins. Crying out for atonement, potential sinner recruits get victimized by outwardly religious saviors. Once so victimized, a victim mentality overwhelms the sinners as they have enraged the Almighty. But it is still Him, the Almighty, who has sent those ‘saviors’ to the sinners. Across all walks of life, a savior is cherished, respected, and followed. This is where distortion comes into play. The recruiter is now a trusted savior who has just pulled the agreeing and repenting sinner away from the wrong path. Distortion happens as the fake saviors seeking to convince the unsuspecting sinners of how to atone for the sins. Here, another general moral epithet is manipulatively revived in sinners’ minds: the best endeavor by a Muslim in God’s eyes is jihad. Islam requires all Muslims of age to go for jihad – an undeniable fact! Still, jihad has two forms in Islam: a minor one, and a major one. The latter is the obligatory form of jihad to every Muslim as it relates only to the psychological and moral part of life. Major jihad involves anger management, seeking a livelihood for oneself and their family, providing care for one’s parents and the needy, and helping others through adversities. In short, major jihad is a concept that every good deed to mankind, animal kingdom, and mother nature may well identify with. What about minor jihad? It means to rise up in arms for defense, rather than to attack. Distortion starts with showing the sinner the only way for atonement, followed by infusing misconceptions into the target minds. An extremist radical is born.
2. Radicalization. Misconceptions are handpicked by terrorist recruiters to attain some desired outcomes. The following are some radicalization tactics/steps and their intended outcomes.

1. Accustoming. Recruiters make the now repenting sinners accustomed to requirements of taking up the path to atonement, no matter how these requirements are inhumane.
2. Islamifying. This step aims at proving to the would-be terrorists that whatever they are being told and/or required to do is undoubtedly Islamic, helps them seek God’s forgiveness, and ensures them the best of heavenly rewards.
3. Deification. To deify is to worship or highly venerate, which is exactly how terrorist recruiters radicalize would-be terrorist. After all, any person needs moral justification for their beliefs and actions. By deifying their sources of knowledge and their muftis/leaders (and demonizing others, see (f) below), terrorist groups ensure outright obedience from henchmen. This way of playing God further results in discrediting future victims of terrorist acts. By dubbing those victims infidels, disfellowshipping them, and framing them as deserving what becomes of them; terrorist groups avoid a sense of remorse by the once regretful sinners. Needless to say, terrorists do not want to be hoisted with their own petard. Another deification perspective is held by terrorists to their recruits. Namely, terrorists hail the actions and efforts of those recruits as being the hands of God to set the world back into balance. With pressing emotions of ideology, younghood, faith, and role seeking, young recruits receive the strongest bout of emotions as divine punishers, balancers, and deputies.
4. Glamorizing. This step involves glamorizing the works done by recruiting group, while inducing the forgiveness-seeking recruits to follow suit.
5. Disconnecting. Terrorist recruiters seek to disconnect their recruits from other sources of mainstream Islamic knowledge because such a knowledge is simply the counternarrative.
6. Demonizing. This step involves the demonization of every idea, ideology, way of life, and mentor other than those provided by the recruiting group.
7. Disparaging. Out of keenness on not losing members to other ‘competing’ terrorist groups, recruiters seek to disparage such other groups. But how would they manage to do so while those competitors share the same ideological platforms? Through two tactics: (1) dismissing the competitor’s creed as un-Islamic, and (2) adopting the most heinous way of committing terrorist acts to maintain the spotlight.
8. Agency transfer. Once brainwashed and made to believe in the savior role being played by the recruiter, the would-be recruit falls into a state of uncontrollable obedience to the recruiter. This controlling mechanism is argued for and enforced by terrorist groups by citing Qur’anic verses on how obedient one must be to God, the Prophet, and leaders; marking -yet again- another way of distorting and interpretive manipulation.

3. Using. Having been so brainwashed, the newly radically oriented recruits become cognitively ready for a reality signature. This involves the following steps.

1. Singularizing. Every terrorist recruiter group singularizes itself, as well as its members, as the only pursuers of the right path to heaven. Is so doing, they usually invoke a Prophetic hadith on the Saved Set. The hadith in question was said to warn Muslims against disunity. However, extremist, terrorist, and ideologically oriented Muslim groups manipulate it to legitimize sectarian/ideological divisions among Muslims and to proclaim the undisputed favored description to themselves.
2. Tyrannizing. The terrorist recruiter fiercely warns their recruits against any attempts of dissension and fleeing the scene of jihad; being deadly sins in the eyes of God and His guardians of Islam; namely, the terrorist group. Brutal examples of ‘due punishment’ are handed and enforced to drive the notion home.
3. Springboarding. This is when a quasi-trained recruit is assigned a mission with others to catapult the recruit into action as strongly as possible. This serves as a signature by the recruit into the new Islam-vindicating realm.
4. Barrier clearing. This step involves showing new recruits how mighty their new group is (no financial barriers), how capable they are (no temporal/spatial limits to terrorist acts), how decisive the terrorist group is (indiscriminate targeting), how shockingly unifying the umbrella of Islam is (no geography/nationality barriers), how accessible the once unattainable sexual joys are (no need for unaffordable dowries/matrimony and family-making expenses), how innovative the modi operandi are (even by stuffing shoes/one’s intestines/vehicle tyers/birds with explosives/vehicle ramming/stabbing, etc.; that is, imagination is the only barrier!).
5. Pomposity. Pompous and satisfying language is used. Language is a key medium of convincing, assigning, and glamorizing; after all. Knowing which buttons to press is a characteristic of terrorist recruiters. With many new recruits feeling deracinated, bullied, or marginalized in their communities of origin; holding passports the first pages of which read ‘If the holder of the passport is harmed, we will deploy armies for his rescue’ is both satisfying and loyalizing.
6. Judicialization. Following the steps of deification and dehumanization, terrorist groups judicialize their actions and recruits. Upon ‘enlightened’ that countries, whether with Muslim majorities or not, go against what God commands (and fail to put the Shari’ah law into force), recruits take themselves for divine judges who tip the scale in favor of Islam. A young person who previously had to ask for a permission for an outing now becomes so massively weaponized and authorized. What more powerful authority recruits might have than being the divinely inspired deputies of God in this world?

In conclusion, approaching, radicalization, and weaponization of recruits by terrorist recruiters have certain tactics, including the ignition of sinners’ self-remorse, distortion of the common set of beliefs to justify certain unquestionable behavioral mandates, cognitive reorientation, justification, pompous motivating language, agency transfer, demonization of anyone/anything beyond the new circle of belonging. With legitimizing their ideology and acts through distorted interpretation of beliefs and religious commands, terrorists ensure themselves control over and obedience from recruits. Pursuers of these practices find ‘heaven’ in failed states and regions that lack statehood, only to seek their self-proclaimed right to ‘heaven’ in the other world.