Newspaper Article

Terrorism's recurring phenomenon: Brothers

Yardley, Jim, CALLIMACHI, RUKMINI, Scott, Shane

2016

Overview

\"Brothers would likely be exposed to similar radical messages, and they might well debate and brainstorm together about them,\" said Audrey Kurth Cronin, an author and scholar at George Mason University. \"And if you can rely on a family member in your plotting, it's probably less likely that they'll go to the police. It's a question of security and trust.\" \"Violent extremism spreads through social contact, and for most people, siblings are a big and important part of their social environment,\" said J.M. Berger, a terrorism analyst and co-author of \"ISIS: The State of Terror.\" \"You may feel you can talk to a sibling about matters you can't discuss with others.\" Prosecutors in Belgium announced on Wednesday that they had found a suicide note, or will, that one of the brothers, [Ibrahim], had left on his computer, saying he was in a \"bad situation\" and risked arrest, after the authorities caught Salah Abdeslam on Friday. Ariel Merari, an Israeli scholar thought to have interviewed more terrorists than anyone, has described this sensation of urgency a \"10 minutes to midnight feeling\" -- in other words: time to act.

• Publisher: New York Times Company
• Subject: Bloom, Mia / Hebdo, Charlie