Choosing Where to Fight: Do Social Networks Distinguish American ISIS Foreign Fighters from ISIS-Inspired Terrorists?

• Published date: 01 January 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00220027231164925
• Author: Michael A. Jensen,Neil Ferguson,Sheehan Kane,Gary LaFree
• Date: 01 January 2024
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Journal of Conf‌lict Resolution

2024, Vol. 68(1) 3–29

© The Author(s) 2023

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DOI: 10.1177/00220027231164925

journals.sagepub.com/home/jcr

Choosing Where to Fight: Do

Social Networks Distinguish

American ISIS Foreign

Fighters from ISIS-Inspired

Terrorists?

Michael A. Jensen

1

, Neil Ferguson

2

, Sheehan Kane

1

, and

Gary LaFree

1

Abstract

Why did some American citizens choose to travel to f‌ight in Syria and Iraq rather than

engage in Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)-inspired terrorism in the United States?

We conducted a social network analysis (SNA) on a sample (n= 224) of extremists

who either plotted ISIS-inspired attacks within the United States or attempted to travel

to Syria or Iraq to join the group between 2013-2020. We test how network size,

network interconnectedness, and the importance of trusted network members im pact

the choice of American ISIS offenders to travel or plot terrorist attacks. Our results

show that Americans were more likely to choose to travel to f‌ight when they had

access to large, dense networks that were embedded with trusted associates. Those

without access to similar networks abandoned their preferences for foreign f‌ighting

and instead plotted attacks within the United States. The f‌indings provide pertinent

policy implications for countering violent extremism.

Keywords

terrorism, social network analysis, terror networks, counterterrorism, foreign f‌ighters

1

University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

2

Liverpool Hope University, Liverpool, Merseyside, UK

Corresponding Author:

Michael A. Jensen, National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START),

University of Maryland, PO Box Number 266, 5245 Greenbelt Rd., College Park, MD 20740, USA.

Email: majensen@umd.edu

From 2011to 2016, it is estimated that at least 42,000people traveled from 120 countries

to f‌ight alongside jihadist groups in Syria and Iraq (CISAC 2021). While estimatesvary,

among them wereas many as 300 Americans who eithertraveled or attempted to travelto

join the Islamic Stateof Iraq and Syria (ISIS; Barrett 2017;Meleagrou-Hitchens,Hughes

and Clifford2018). During the same period, nearly100 individuals who were inspiredby

ISIS plotted to commit terrorist attacks in the United States. Among these was the

2016 Pulsenightclub shooting, whichresulted in 49 fatalities and53 injuries, and remains

the deadliest terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 9/11. The actions taken by American

jihadists to support ISIS underscore a fundamental choice that individuals make when

they decide to assist foreign terrorist organizations: they can travelto be f‌ighters in other

countries, or they can stayat home and plot attacks. Both behaviors help foreign groups

wage their campaigns of terror. Both involve the risk of jail or death. And both promise

glory,adventure, and a sense of purpose.What, then, persuadesindividuals to choose one

course of action over the other?

Unlike the vast body of research estimating the antecedent factors that promote

engagement in violent extremism (e.g., Ferguson and McAuley 2020;Jensen, et al.

2016;LaFree et al. 2018;McCauley and Moskalenko 2017;Moghaddam 2005), little

has been written about the fundamental choice to f‌ight at home or abroad. Indeed, while

there is a rapidly growing literature on foreign f‌ighters (Frenett and Silverman 2016;

Gurski 2016;Hegghammer 2010;Malet 2015), most of it has focused on country-by-

country statistics (Haner, Wichern and Fleenor 2018;Marone and Vidino 2019;

Pokalova 2019;Reynolds and Hafez 2017;Shtuni, 2015), or comparisons across

regions (Orozobekova 2016;Rosenblatt 2020). Some studies have explored the

pathways and demographic risk characteristics associated with foreign f‌ighting more

generally (Boutin et al. 2016;Dawson 2021;Fritz and Young 2020;Reed, de Roy van

Zuijdewijn, and Bakker 2015;Weggenmans, Bakker and Grol 2014). Others have

analyzed the return and reintegration of f‌ighters or have provided recommendations on

how to counter the potential threats that returnees pose (Bakker, Paulussen and

Entenmann 2014;Barrett 2017;Greenwood 2019). However, to our knowledge, the

existing literature on foreign f‌ighters has not provided an empirical assessment of the

decision to f‌ight abroad rather than at home.

Similarly, research on terrorist decision-making has been largely limited to ex-

plaining why terrorist groups adopt specif‌ic attack methods, such as suicide bombings

(Hoffman and McCormick 2004;Pape 2005), or choose controversial targets, like

children (Bieberman and Zahid 2019;Fahey and Asal, 2020). However, this body of

work has not addressed the fundamental choice that jihadists make when they decide

where to join the f‌ight.

The purpose of this research is to determine why some American jihadist extremists

in recent years decided to plot attacks in the United States on behalf of ISIS, while

others attempted to join the group overseas. We examine 224 ISIS-inspired American

jihadists, 39.7% of whom plotted terrorist attacks within the United States between

2013 and 2020 and 60.3% of whom attempted to join ISIS abroad. Controlling for

several expected determinants of the decision to become a foreign f‌ighter, we f‌ind that

4Journal of Conf‌lict Resolution 68(1)