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About half of the European foreign fighters who joined jihadist groups in Syria had a criminal record. In Sweden, as many as about two-thirds had been convicted of a crime, and several of them had a gang background. Previous research has suggested that such a background has often played a role in the radicalisation process. This study identifies six factors that explain why jihadism has held particular appeal for individuals with criminal backgrounds: absolving sins; providing a higher cause for crime and violence; gang members’ lower threshold for using violence and quest for respect; overlapping ideas of masculinity in street culture and jihadism; jihadism more effectively satisfying a desire for excitement; and the prevalence of cognitive openings among gang members. The study also analyses different jihadist recruitment strategies aimed at youth involved in criminality, as well as the risk of jihadists joining gangs upon returning home from the conflict zone. These factors, strategies, and risks are illustrated with the help of interviews with former jihadists, a former jihadist recruiter, and individuals with friends and acquaintances in the Swedish Salafi-jihadist movement.

The alarming upward trend since 2012 in the number of fatalities incurred by organized violence did not continue in 2015. Indeed, 2014 saw more than 130,000 people killed in organized violence while in 2015 this figure was close to 118,000. This is still an unusually high number, the third-worst year in the post-Cold War period. The number of conflicts continued to increase from 41 in 2014 to 50 in 2015. This increase was by and large driven by the expansion of the Islamic State. Most of the fatalities, over 97,000, incurred in state-based conflicts. Non-state conflicts also increased, from 61 in 2014 to 70 in 2015, the highest number recorded in the 1989–2015 period. No non-state conflict passed the threshold of 1,000 battle-related deaths, but 11 state-based conflicts did a decrease by one from 2014. Seven of the ten most violent state-based conflicts in 2014 became less violent. Twenty-six actors were registered in one-sided violence just as in 2014, while the number of fatalities decreased from over 13,500 to 9,500.

Distinguishing Islamism from „mainstream,“ non-Islamist Islam is not always an easy task as far as the basic assumptions concerning the nature of Islam and its normative foundations are concerned. It is with regard to strategy in general and the use of violence (especially against Muslims) in particular, that distinctions tend to become sharply drawn. Islamists aim to transform state, society, culture, and law in light of the normative texts of the Qur’an and Sunna, considering the early period of the prophet Muḥammad and his successors (the “pious ancestors”) as the definitive model of an Islamic order. Jihadist Islam pre-dates 9/11 but was propelled into new directions as a result of these acts of violence. The legitimate use of violence, and of Jihad, has always been a contentious issue among Muslims. Significantly, the religious status and affiliation of those involved (Muslims; recognized non-Muslim communities; non-Muslims living beyond the Islamic realm; self-declared Muslims not recognized as such by their enemies) have played a crucial role in these debates. At the core of contention is , the accusation of unbelief launched against self-declared Muslims, be they Sunni, Shi’i or other. Sayyid Qutb (1906-1966) elaborated the theological underpinnings of , but it was militant Islamist groups that took the concept to it extremes and put it into practice. Faced with a jihadist logic based on the Qur’an and Sunna, Islamic scholars and Muslim political authorities have propagated the principle of moderation ( and ) as the truly Islamic model of thought and behavior. While lacks the emotional and medial resources available to its militant opponents, and while it has been denounced as a strategy of containment employed by the powers-that-be, it seems to have been embraced by broad Muslim audiences.

Over the course of the past decade, “radicalization” has become prevalent as an analytical paradigm to interpret and explain phenomena of political violence, notably in research on jihadist terrorism and Western “foreign fighters” in Syria and Iraq. Thereby, while to some extent opening up new avenues of investigation, the concept also significantly re-shaped the way in which phenomena of political violence were analyzed and explained, focusing analytical attention on processes of cognitive and ideological transformation, mainly at the individual level. The purpose of this article is to examine some of the main strands of development in recent research on radicalization, with reference to and within the context of broader sociological research on political violence as well as reviewing critical debates and recently emerging sub-fields of investigation. Au cours de la dernière décennie, la « radicalisation » est devenue un paradigme analytique très répandu pour interpréter et expliquer les formes de violence politique, notamment dans les travaux consacrés au terrorisme djihadiste et aux « combattants étrangers » occidentaux en Syrie et en Irak. Ainsi, alors qu’il a permis d’ouvrir dans une certaine mesure de nouvelles pistes de recherche, le concept a également contribué à transformer la manière dont les formes de violence politique ont été analysées, en mettant l’accent sur les processus de transformation cognitive et idéologique, principalement au niveau individuel. Le but de cet article est de cartographier et discuter certains des axes de recherche sur la radicalisation, en référence et dans le contexte plus large de la recherche sociologique sur la violence politique, mais également d’étudier l’évolution de la notion dans les débats critiques et les nouveaux sous-domaines de recherche. Im Laufe der vergangenen Dekade avancierte “Radikalisierung” zu einem der vorherrschenden analytischen Paradigmata um Phänomene politischer Gewalt zu untersuchen und zu erklären, insbesondere in Studien zum dschihadistischen Terrorismus und westlichen “foreign fighters” in Syrien und dem Irak. Dabei eröffnete das Konzept neue Wege der Untersuchung. Zugleich jedoch veränderte es fundamental die Art und Weise, in der Politische Gewalt analysiert wurde, indem es den Schwerpunkt der Analyse auf kognitive und ideologische Veränderungen und auf die Ebene individueller Radikalisierungsprozesse verschob. Dieser Aufsatz zeichnet die wichtigsten Linien in der Radikalisierungsforschung nach und setzt diese zur breiteren soziologischen Forschung zu politischer Gewalt in Beziehung. Mit Blick auf konzeptuelle Debatten der jüngeren Zeit und neu entstehende Forschungsfelder zeigt er weitere Entwicklungen und Entwicklungspotentiale von “Radikalisierung” als analytischem Paradigma zur Untersuchung politischer Gewalt auf.

This article seeks to explain how Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), al-Qa‘ida’s former affiliate in Syria, adopted an increasingly locally-focused strategy. Drawing on the social movement literature, HTS’s trajectory is conceptualized as a process of “downward scale shift. This article sets out a series of mechanisms that give rise to this process. In doing so, it serves to illustrate that while ideology is a key element in shaping militant groups’ political behavior, insofar as it informs their strategies and their definition of enemies, militants’ choices are also influenced by their interaction with other actors and the environment, and their own understanding of emerging opportunities and threats.

Over the course of two-decades-long counterterrorism campaigns in various parts of the world, al-Qaeda and—since 2014—the Islamic State have proven capable of adjusting to setbacks and surviving as transnationally operating organizations. Their continued resilience against counterterrorism efforts underscores the importance of identifying nonviolent containment strategies and furthering academic thinking on 1) resolving conflicts that involve jihadists, 2) strengthening resilience to avoid transnationalization dynamics, and 3) containing the ideological resonance of transnational jihadists. This introduction carves out the key questions that different strands of the literature on containment-related thinking have put on the contemporary research agenda. It identifies three approaches to study transnational jihadism that the contributions to this special issue illuminate further, namely studying transnational jihadism as a particular type of conflict, as a distinct form of organization, or as an ideology or theology with specific content.

Barcelona and Cambrils were the latest Spanish cities hit by jihadist terrorism. The attacks that occurred on August 17 and 18, 2017 have been brought back to the spotlight with the start of the trial at the end of 2020 and the judgment published in May 2021 on the three surviving members linked to the Ripoll cell. The purpose of this article is twofold. On one hand, it addresses the purpose behind the foreign trips made by members of the terrorist group in the cell formation process and planning phase of the attacks. In order to examine this issue, this study is basing itself on the court documents and the monitoring of thirty-two sessions held in the trial related to these attacks. On the other hand, the degree of proximity between the Islamic State and the terrorist cell that perpetrated the attacks will be analyzed, with special emphasis on the evidence gathered in Alcanar and the study of the propaganda subsequently issued by the Islamic State.

This article showcases why ideology, and more specifically religion, is pertinent to the study of deradicalization by examining the influential revisionist efforts of two former advocates of Salafi-Jihadism, Dr. Fadl [alias for Sayyed Imam al-Sharif] in Egypt in 2007 and Abu Hafs in Morocco in 2009. With recourse to both the revisionist ideologues’ argumentation and primary documents, we show that these efforts are informed by an Islamic legal perspective, which is undergirded by an interpretive approach constructed around the intent and higher objectives (maqāsid) of the shariʿa. As shown, this takes the form of engaged readings of the classical Islamic rulings pertaining to armed jihad and its conduct in the light of the realities of modern societies. On the basis of their revisionist methodology, Dr. Fadl and Abu Hafs develop a faith-based model of containment that attempts to reconcile Islamist political thinking with the role of the nation-state in safeguarding the goals of the shariʿa as a means to preventing internal strife (fitna). Against this backdrop, the article argues that both authors’ call for a revival of the shariʿa’s higher objectives provides jihad with a new conceptualization and, in doing so, contributes to broader debates about the role that religious values can play in dismantling radical theological interpretations of politics and religiosity.

To this date, there are no instances of peace agreements signed by armed groups affiliated with al-Qaeda or the Islamic State (IS). Previous research has highlighted their transnational demands and their integration into a transnational organization as major obstacles. Yet, these groups are also deeply embedded within local conflict configurations. This article posits that to explore prospects for future negotiations with these groups, one must obtain a better understanding of how they function on the ground. A descriptive empirical analysis is provided of two dimensions of ‘transnationalization’ that should both have an impact on jihadist affiliate groups’ willingness to enter negotiations: transnational operations and transnational recruitment. The analysis of a sample of twenty jihadist affiliate groups in the period 2018–2020 reveals substantial variation regarding both variables. The results should have relevance for both researchers and policymakers seeking to identify nonviolent containment strategies in armed conflicts with rebel groups affiliated with al-Qaeda and IS.