What Makes a Jihadi?

For the past year at the Quilliam Foundation, we have warned of a "full-blown jihadist insurgency." It would appear, following the attacks in France on Friday, that this insurgency has begun.

No insurgency is possible, let alone sustainable, without a core group of supporters that believe in its ideological components. In France these supporters come from the society in which they are born and raised, as was the case with 29-year-old Omar Ismaïl Mostefaï, a Parisian not previously linked to terrorism who was named as one of the assailants suspecting of storming the Bataclan concert hall.

So what radicalized Mostefaï and incentivised him to commit this crime against humanity?

There is no doubt that jihadism has taken root in a generation of young and angry Muslims in Europe. Part of this stems from racism and isolation. Germany and France, the two countries represented in the match at the Stade de France, which was also targeted on Friday, have the largest Muslim populations among European states. That segments of these populations would be vulnerable to Islamist propaganda is worrying. More worrying still is that if the tirade of hate against them following attacks by the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) increases, this propaganda is likely to become even more appealing, as are the opportunities for radicalization.

The sheer scale of the Paris attacks themselves, and the sophistication of coordination, brings to mind past attacks by groups such as Al-Qaeda. Violence is used to signal strength against the West, something ISIS continuously employs in its propaganda. An attack on "crusader France," a phrase used in warnings by ISIS many times in the past, can show that their expanding territory, their "utopia," will not be shunted by the killing of Jihadi John or any territorial losses. In fact, doing so will lead to consequences. By creating horror of such scale, ISIS attracts global attention.

More important than strength is grievance. Jihadists are created by a cocktail of grievances, mixed with ideology that forms the backdrop of their justifications for joining an extremist group. Following Friday's attacks, any retaliation against ISIS by the West can be used to further justify the common narrative that the West is bad and ISIS is at war with it.

Adding to this idea of grievance is ISIS's goal to divide communities and incentivize hatred amongst religions. The presence of a Syrian passport near the body of one of the suicide bombers has lead to a tirade of hatred against Syrian refugees, and prompted questions about their legitimacy in being given asylum. This must be avoided. It is natural to be angry and scared, but playing into the narratives of difference adds fuel to the ideological components of terrorist groups – an "us versus them" narrative that must be defeated.

The focus should now be on France's deradicalization process. As we have found in our work at Quilliam, preventing an individual from becoming radicalized in the first place is far easier than deradicalizing them once they have gone down that path.

For prevention, the process has to focus on tackling socio-economic circumstances, exclusion, and lack of religious education. For de-radicalization, reintegration programs must be made the norm, where those who want to change are given the opportunity to speak with mentors and former radicals who can illustrate that the ideology of extremism is flawed. Plenty of these dialogues must take place in schools, mosques and jails, where vulnerable individuals are at risk of believing that violent action against the West is justified.

Propaganda must be further monitored. Banning radical material online rarely works, given propaganda can turn up elsewhere, and differently. Instead, spaces must be flooded with positive counter-narratives and research to reveal what life in the Islamic State is like, as well as the group's theological inaccuracies. Coupled with this must be real-world social spaces for young people to meet, interact and feel integrated into the societies in which they live. ISIS has managed to do this by created virtual and real communities, where participants encourage each other to carry out attacks and make hijra (migration) to join the state-building project. It is important to come up with long-term solutions that can counter ISIS's message and stop perceived grievances from becoming violent ones.

Let us not forget that the victims of these attacks came from many different countries and religions. We must stand in solidarity at a time when ISIS is trying to make us do anything but.

Nikita Malik is a Senior Researcher at the Quilliam Foundation, the world's first counter-extremism think tank.