Homegrown Terrorism

Chapter 7 shows how “Homegrown” terrorism rescued Bin Laden’s project for attacking the “far enemy.” After the 9/11 attacks, the Taliban were driven from power and Al Qaeda was expelled from Afghanistan by U.S. and allied troops. Bin Laden and his second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, escaped and Al Qaeda’s control center moved to Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province. Al Qaeda fighters were now given (paid for) access to military training camps in the region. For the following decade, these camps prepared a new generation of recruits from Europe, Asia, and Africa. After the train bombings in Madrid (2004) and in London (2005), commentators began to talk of “homegrown terrorism” or “leaderless jihad,” though it was evident that the local recruits and the European jihad bases were subordinated to the control of Al Qaeda’s central command. An analysis of 2,300 terrorism offenders with European residence and/or citizenship in the first decade after the 9/11 attacks shows that the networks were markedly hierarchical and the new generation of native-born Western militants was under the control of older—sometimes even elderly—expatriate Al Qaeda veteran recruiters and managers.