How Online Recruitment Works

In a feeble attempt to live up to Jihadica’s new billing as the “most dangerous” website monitoring Jihadis online, I thought I’d post some thoughts on what role Jihadi forums play in recruitment and radicalization. The usual characterization of online recruitment goes like this: some hapless Sunni Muslim starts poking around online, discovers Jihadi propaganda, and upon watching or reading it becomes radicalized and ready to fight. It is certainly the case that some Sunni Muslims see or read online Jihadi propaganda about Muslim suffering at the hands of the West and decide they need to do something about it.  Why some respond and not others is a complicated issue that I won’t deal with here.  What I’m interested in is the mechanics of the propaganda’s delivery and how its effects are sustained. Firstly, we don’t have a lot of examples of Muslims who were radicalized online and remained radicalized