'Unprecedented': What ISIS Looks Like In America (NPR)

They connect via online services â€” especially Twitter â€” and in everyday life. Their ages range from 15 to 47, and their roles range from cheering attacks to plotting violence. And curbing their growth is a dynamic challenge without a simple solution: There are currently 900 active investigations into ISIS sympathizers in every American state.

Those are some of the findings of a new study that glimpses life "inside the bubble of American ISIS sympathizers, a diverse and diffuse scene that the FBI estimates include hundreds, if not thousands, of individuals."

Titled "ISIS in America: From Retweets to Raqqa," the report by Lorenzo Vidino and Seamus Hughes focuses on around 300 people who have been identified as American recruits or supporters of ISIS.

While it's not new for Americans to join jihadist groups, Vidino, who directs the Program on Extremism at George Washington University, says, "the size of the ISIS-related radicalization and mobilization is unprecedented."

"The report reviewed social media accounts and legal cases against Islamic State recruits. The study says the highest number of recruits have been charged in New York and Minnesota, though the FBI has open investigations in all 50 states. "The report's authors say the average age of the ISIS sympathizers is 26 â€” and more than half have traveled or tried to travel abroad. "About 40 percent of the cases George Washington reviewed involved converts to Islam, and a small fraction, about 1 in 10, are women." The group is very diverse â€” both in their demographics and in what motivates them.

"While some seek to join the self-declared caliphate in ISIS-controlled territory, others plan attacks within the U.S.," Vidino says in a statement accompanying the report. "It's a growing and disturbing phenomenon."

Describing the ISIS sympathizers, he says, "We have seen cases in big cities and rural towns. The individuals involved range from hardened militants to teenage girls, petty criminals and college students."

As for how to combat ISIS's reach in the U.S., the report's authors recommend boosting funding to create dynamic programs; helping nonâ€“law enforcement groups take people off the path to radicalization; and encouraging American Muslims to engage with ISIS supporters without fear of becoming a target of a federal inquiry.

Describing how ISIS has used technology to reach into U.S. society, the report says:

"Several thousand Americans consume ISIS propaganda online creating what has been described as a 'radicalization echo chamber.' " Twitter is "by far the platform of choice" for American activists to connect. Other routes include Facebook, Google+ and Tumblr, along with messaging services like "Kik, Telegram, surespot, and the dark web." On Twitter, many of the most popular pro-ISIS accounts are "shout-out accounts," which the researchers call "a unique innovation and vital to the survival of the ISIS online scene." The accounts introduce new activists â€” but even more important, they promote the new accounts of users who've been suspended by Twitter. "American accounts, like the larger ISIS echo chamber, tend not to tolerate dissent and silence attempts at nuance. Muslim religious leaders, particularly those living in the West, who condemn ISIS are routinely dismissed as 'coconuts,' a derogatory term used to insult those accused of denying their Muslim identity. Many U.S.-based Muslim scholars and activists, even those from conservative backgrounds, are subject to routine death threats." An image from the report "ISIS in America: From Retweets to Raqqa" shows (clockwise from top) a suspended Twitter user announcing their new account, and examples of other Twitter accounts that help spread extremist information online. An image from the report "ISIS in America: From Retweets to Raqqa" shows (clockwise from top) a suspended Twitter user announcing their new account, and examples of other Twitter accounts that help spread extremist information online. Program on Extremism/George Washington University The Internet isn't always the main point of contact, the researchers say. In some cases, people became radicalized by in-person meetings with "preexisting social contacts who already embraced jihadist ideology" â€” and over time, a cluster of like-minded individuals forms.

Most of the sympathizers who are engaged in an ISIS "counter-culture" will never "make the leap from talk to action," the report says. But it adds that some will turn to real militancy â€” whether that means attempting to take violent action overseas or at home in the U.S.

Citing the wide range of people who've been identified as ISIS activists, the report states, "Because there is no standard recruit profile, there is also no silver bullet that will blunt ISIS's allure. Recognizing this complexity is a vital initial step for policymakers, law enforcement officials, civic leaders, teachers and parents when crafting effective solutions."

The Issue is ISLAM:

https://web.archive.org/web/20010915001916/http://nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/32549.htm

September 14, 2001 — IT was predictable. The sad sacks at the BBC were sure that if only President Bush had done more to curb Arab-Israeli tensions, the World Trade Center attacks might have been avoided. And no doubt we will be hearing more of this in the coming weeks as the apologists for Arab terrorism at the Economist, the Nation and the New York Review of Books weigh in with equally flimsy explanations.

The issue is not Israel. Osama bin Laden blew up a U.S. embassy when the Oslo “peace process” was at the height of its “success.” The issue is the inability of Islamic regimes around the globe to come to grips with the modern world.

What did Israel have to do with the recent Islamic jihad murders in Nigeria? While Islamic terrorists were hitting New York, Muslim militants in northern Nigeria were killing Christians. The violence occurred in the majority Christian city of Jos, where the Nigerian government has imposed the Sharia (Islamic law) on the largely Christian population. The violence began when a Christian woman was attacked after she had the temerity to cross the street in front of a group of Muslim men who had gathered near a Mosque. What followed was three days of killing and burning churches.

Around the world Islamic militants are engaging in a holy war against the infidels - from Coptic Christians in Egypt and the Dinkas in the Sudan, to Hindus in Kashmir, Bahais in Iran, Catholics in the southern Philippines and Christians in East Timor.

In Sudan, the Islamic militants impose slavery on captured Dinkas - but wherever radical Islam is in power, it subjugates people it regards as infidels. The Coalition for the Defense of Human Rights, an organization supporting those persecuted by militant Islam, argues that “radical Islamism is a world ideology, fielding a world terror-army, which oppresses millions with a racist ideology” that deems non-Muslims less than fully human.

Here in New York, it was easy to get angry listening to Egyptians, Palestinians and the Arabs of nearby Paterson, N.J., celebrate as they received word of the murderous attacks in New York and Washington. But Mayor Giuliani (who has been tireless and magnificent in this crisis) rightly warned New York- ers that it would be wrong to take their anger out on the city’s Arab and Muslim residents. Attacks on Arab-Americans in Paterson or elsewhere are utterly indefensible.

Omar, a Muslim New Yorker and former student of mine at Cooper Union, e-mailed me to say he was “sickened to watch Middle Easterners celebrate our sorrow.” He is an American who has imbibed our values while maintaining his Muslim faith. He wants no truck with those who kill in the name of Islam.

But it’s fair to ask this of those non-Muslims at the BBC, the Nation, the New York Review of Books and other rationalizers of Palestinian and Islamic terror: Why is it that everywhere in the world where Muslims are in the majority, their minorities are persecuted?

And where were these publications, not to mention respectable European leaders, when Yasser Arafat, ranting in front of a world conference at Davos, insisted that Israel was using depleted uranium and nerve gas against Palestinian civilians?

And where were the Europeans at the U.N. “hate” conference in Durban, when Islamophobia was denounced, while Muslim discrimination against non-Muslims was passed over in silence?

It’s also time to ask Arab-American spokesmen like James Zogby, who rightly criticizes anti-Arab bigotry, why he’s silent about the hate that spews daily from the Egyptian and Palestinian media, as with the current hit song “I Hate Israel.”

In Commentary, Fiamma Nirenstein asks if the silence from the West isn’t what Bush, in another context, called “the soft bigotry of low expectations.” No doubt our multiculturalists will explain that, while even mild anger at Arabs by Americans is sign of deep-seated racism, venomous hatred in the Arab world is merely a part of a different culture that can’t be judged by our standards.

For all their grievances against America, there have been no Cuban, Vietnamese or Serbian suicide bombers bringing death to our shores, and their people haven’t been celebrating in the streets at the sight of American blood.

America, not Israel, is The Great Satan. It was hard to acknowledge before the World trade Center attacks, but radical Islam has been at war with us for a long time.

Fred Siegel teaches history at the Cooper Union.

And those are just the ones they claim to know about.

Old, up to 2010.

Middle Easterners are one of the fastest growing immigrant groups in America. While the size of the overall immigrant population (legal and illegal) has tripled since 1970, the number of immigrants from the Middle East has grown more than seven-fold, from fewer than 200,000 in 1970 to nearly 1.5 million in 2000.
The INS last estimated that 150,000, or about 10 percent, of Middle Eastern immigrants are illegal aliens. Preliminary Census Bureau estimates show a similar number.
Assuming no change in U.S. immigration policy, 1.1 million new immigrants (legal and illegal) from the Middle East are projected to settle in the United States by 2010, and the total Middle Eastern immigrant population will grow to about 2.5 million.
These figures do not include the 570,000 U.S.-born children (under age 18) who have at least one parent born in the Middle East, a number expected to grow to 950,000 by 2010.

From Here

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