For many, Colleen LaRose’s alleged attempt to carry out a violent act in the name of jihad is inexplicable. How could a 46-year-old Christian woman from Texas with blonde hair and blue eyes become a jihadist? Was there a traumatic event in her childhood or adolescence that left her susceptible to radicalization? Was she lonely, seduced by jihadist men online and recruited to their cause? Or was she just mentally ill?
The answers to these questions notwithstanding, LaRose’s fervent participation in the online jihadist community remains the common thread between jihadists of all types, whether from Texas or Tunis. Though sometimes stereotyped as a bunch of gullible recluses sitting in their basements in front of computers watching beheading videos, the jihadists active on the internet have instead developed a thriving community capable of radicalizing all kinds of people, regardless of background.
The internet has connected disparate jihadists from across the globe into what political scientist Benedict Anderson called an “imagined community.” Anderson used the term to describe the fact that despite most people never physically knowing the members of their nation, there is nevertheless a shared sense amongst all the members that they are part of the same nation. For instance, most Americans will never meet one another, but they feel a kinship with their unknown countrymen separate from the members of the other nations of the world.
And so it is for jihadists, whose imagined community is borderless and populated with members of every ethnicity, age, gender, and socioeconomic status. Like any other nation, the jihadists share the same culture and media. They read the same books and authors, talk with the same vernacular, listen to the same anasheed (Islamic chants without music), discuss the same history, watch the same movies, consume the same news, champion the same heroes, and deride the same villains.
Furthermore, while these jihadists might never meet in person, the internet enables them to interact with each other intimately. When someone is sick, others will pray for them. When someone needs help, others offer their expertise and advice. When someone has a question, others try to answer. These exchanges reinforce the strength of the community, leading to the forging of deep friendships, strong relationships, and, above all, the feeling that one is part of a larger community or nation.
Once radicalized, a jihadist eradicates his prior identity and considers himself only to be part of the global nation of jihadists. The transformation into a jihadist does not happen overnight, but it can happen relatively quickly, due to the rich experience the online jihadist community provides its members. In addition to copious propaganda, new jihadists soon find a bustling community of individuals who are imagined to be just like them. New relationships made online with other jihadists can replace relationships from their old communities, leading to a shift in their identities and opening them up to radicalization.
For example, sharing his personal experience on a forum where LaRose participated frequently and was well-known by the other members, one jihadist wrote, “If you had seen me five months ago, you would never ever imagine that today I am spending almost 12-15 hours on Islamic forums and sites - from morning till night just thinking about my role in the Jihad movement.”
Explaining how his involvement within the online jihadist community changed his entire identity, he continued, “Once I started, it was like lost purpose of my life, addiction from day one. I was like a small kid who received his favorite toy after a long wait. It did not only change my life style but changed my approach toward the ultimate goal of my life. All of sudden every previous achievements [sic] became irrelevant.”
Using password-protected messageboards as a platform, al-Qaeda and jihadist groups exploit this change in identity by harping on the idea that a jihadist’s allegiance is first and foremost to fellow Muslims, whom they must defend from “the savage, heartless and bloody Zionist Crusader assault on our religion, sacred places and homelands,” as American al-Qaeda member Adam Gadahn put it in his most recent video message.
By recognizing that jihadists feel an obligation to defend what they perceive as an attack on their nation, it becomes easier to comprehend how LaRose, despite her background, could have been convinced to participate in an alleged terrorist plot to kill a cartoonist demonized in the jihadist world. By the time LaRose posted on YouTube that she was “desperate to do something somehow to help” her fellow Muslims, she seems to have demonstrated that her identity and allegiance was not with her American heritage but with the global community of jihadists.
LaRose’s story may sound remarkable, but it is not unique. Recently, we have seen many from the United States who no longer envisioned themselves as part of the American nation but instead viewed themselves as part of the global nation of jihadists. For instance, in late 2009, several young Americans from Minnesota were found to have left the country to wage jihad alongside the Shabaab al-Mujahideen of Somalia. Although these youths were of Somali descent, they came to the Shabaab as jihadists, not as part of a Somali nationalist movement.
In December 2009, five young men from Virginia were arrested in Pakistan and accused of attempting to join jihadist groups and travel to Afghanistan. Although of different heritages, including Egyptian, Pakistani, Eritrean, and Ethiopian, three of the men were born in the United States and the other two had become American citizens. The men all allegedly resolved to wage jihad in Afghanistan—a land to which none had a historical connection. Apparently recruited through YouTube, an increasingly important platform for the online jihadist movement, a report released by the Pakistanis revealed that the youths identified with the jihadist community, stating, “They were of the opinion that a Jihad must be waged against the infidels for the atrocities committed by them against Muslims around the world.”
Another case that baffled many is the alleged Fort Hood shooter, Nidal Hassan. A highly educated physician and soldier in the U.S. Army, Hassan might have been an American patriot; instead, he shot at fellow soldiers. It seems that Hassan, too, lost his American identity by imagining himself as part of the jihadist community. Hassan’s June 2007 PowerPoint presentation hinted at an increasing conflict between his American identity and his burgeoning jihadist sympathies, as one of his slides notes, “It’s getting harder and harder for Muslims in the service to morally justify being in a military that seems constantly engaged against fellow Muslims.”
Omar Hammami, who grew up a Southern Baptist in Alabama, shed his American identity, left the United States, and reemerged in 2007 as Abu Mansour al-Amriki, a leader in the Shabaab. In e-mailed questions posed to him by the New York Times in December 2009, Hammami demonstrated that, like LaRose, he imagined himself a part of the global jihadist community, writing, “I was finding it difficult to reconcile between having Americans attacking my brothers, at home and abroad, while I was supposed to remain completely neutral, without getting involved.”
Of course, the adoption of a jihadist identity is not limited to Americans and has been seen in the Middle East, Europe, Australia, China, and elsewhere. However, one may wonder why today it seems as though the population of jihadists is much more diverse than at any other time in modern history.
The widespread adoption of the internet appears to be an influential factor in ushering in this new era of jihadist diversity. Traditionally, such as during the Soviet-Afghan war, jihadists like Abdullah Azzam, the charismatic preacher who helped found al-Qaeda and mentored Usama bin Laden, needed to travel the world peripatetically in order to preach and change people’s identities. Now, the internet allows the jihadist community to target a global audience with much less effort. Furthermore, Azzam was recruiting from mosques in Muslim communities; the internet, though, knows no such limits and is able to reach a broad array of individuals who otherwise would never have had contact with jihadist propaganda.
Thus, in many ways, LaRose is no exception to the jihadist profile but is the logical outcome of the flourishing reach of the online jihadist community. Although LaRose might have had her own personal factors that facilitated her transformation into a jihadist, her engagement in the jihadist community happened in the same way as it does for many others, regardless of background. Jihadists have been of Jewish origin (Adam Gadahn), Christian (LaRose), and even Hindu (Dhiren Barot). We should no longer be surprised at the ethnic, religious, educational, or socioeconomic origins of jihadists. The jihadist community is as diverse as the nations on the planet.