Conflict Blotter

A 90-page report by the New York Police department called “Radicalization in the West” breaks down the process that turns an otherwise ordinary Muslim youth into a violent jihadist. It’s nothing new or groundbreaking, but it brings together a series of eight or nine fairly detailed case studies that look at how well-known terror plots came together, and the personalities, backgrounds and ideological evolutions of the major players involved.

One of the patterns the report picks up on: apparently, Jihadis share an affinity for paintball.

The rebuttal to the report takes issue with the NYPD authors’ conflation of radical Islamic terrorism with Salafi Islam. Although there are plenty of peaceful salafists, I think it’s more than a touch disingenuous to altogether dissociate salafism from global jihad. Still, the 65-page rebuttal, called “Is the Salafist manhaj an indicator of terrorism, political violence, and radicalisation?” is a nice collection of writings by leading salafi and wahabbi thinkers who have used fundamentalist Islamic arguments to challenge Al Qaeda’s violent ideology.