The Threat of Terror in Massachusetts - Americans and ISIS

Monday, December 07, 2015

GoLocalWorcester and GRAPHIQ

The terror attack in San Bernardino was perpetrated by two individuals who were not on any global watch list despite their travel to Saudi Arabia. Neither of the ISIS attackers were detected by any federal law enforcement agency or California law enforcement.

As GoLocalWorcester outlined last week, there have been a significant number of Massachusetts linked terrorists. Massachusetts was hit with one of America’s most hideous and infamous terror attacks when the Boston Marathon was bombed by two Massachusetts residents. Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev were both educated in Massachusetts and had lived in the Commonwealth for nearly a decade.

ISIS and Westerners

The relationship between Westerners and ISIS is far deeper than may be previously known.

Both the Paris attack and the San Bernardino mass shootings were perpetrated by individuals who lived in the respective country - legally.

A study by New America has unveiled a number of chilling trends between the relationship between western-based ISIS. In Massachusetts, David Daoud Wright of Everett was indicted in June on a charge of conspiracy to provide material support to ISIS.

The number of Americans killed from terrorist attacks in the United States post-9/11 is approximately the same as the number of people killed by white supremacists. Terrorists have killed 45 and supremacists 48 claims New America.

But, the impact of ISIS on America and the number of Americans and other Westerners in supporting ISIS

A report issued in November found:

•Western fighters in Syria and Iraq represent a new demographic profile, quite different from that of other Western militants who had fought in Afghanistan in the 1980s or Bosnia in the 1990s.

•Women are represented in unprecedented numbers. One in seven of the individuals in New America’s dataset are women. Women were rarely if at all represented among militants in previous jihadist conflicts.

•They are young. The average age for individuals in New America’s dataset is 24. For female recruits, the average age is 21. Almost one-fifth of New America’s sample are teenagers, more than a third of whom are female.

•They are active online. Almost a third of the foreign fighters in New America’s dataset were reported either to have been active in online jihadist circles or to have radicalized via interaction online. However, there continue to be cases of in-person recruitment.

•Many have familial ties to jihadism. One-third of Western fighters have a familial connection to jihad, whether through relatives currently fighting in Syria or Iraq, marriage, or some other link to jihadists from prior conflicts or attacks. Of those with a familial link, almost two-thirds have a relative fighting in this conflict and almost one-third are connected through marriage, many of them new marriages conducted after arriving in Syria.

•The Americans drawn to the Syrian jihad—250 have tried or have succeeded in getting to Syria, according to official estimates—share the same profile as the Western fighters overall: Women are well-represented, and volunteers are young, they are active online, and many have family ties to jihad. One in six of the Americans involved in Syria-related violence are women. The average age of American militants is 25, with one-fifth still in their teens. Almost nine out of 10 of the Americans are active in online jihadist circles.

•The United States will have to remain aware of the threat from non-American returnees - many of whom come from countries that are part of the United States’ visa waiver program.

•ISIS-inspired violence will pose the most likely threat to the United States.