New Report from CTC @ West Point

The Combatting Terrorism Center at the US Military Academy at West Point is one of the most engaged groups from an institutional level studying terrorism, specifically Salifi terrorism, in the United States today.

Recently, they came out with a rather lengthy (360 page) report called, "Militant Ideology Atlas." In this report, they looked over the most popular texts forming the ideological basis for Salifist terrorism (Jihadism) in the world today. This does not include the propoganda videos and speeches by fighters like Zarqawi, etc., but the published ideological texts of modern and pre-modern extremist thinkers. This is important because, as the report indicates, the only way for this ideology to be defeated is for Muslims, particularly clerics, to denounce the tactics.

However, from the report come some interesting tidbits of information. First, who is the enemy? The report details the world of Islam with the following divisions:

• Jihadis lie within a population of Salafis
• Salafis lie within a population of Islamists
• Islamists lie within a popluation of Sunnis
• Sunnis lie within a population of Muslims

This is important to understand, because I believe the general public believes that the enemy is a very small group and the large majority of the population of Muslims are secularist moderates. This is simply not the case. In reality, our definition of moderate and their definition of moderate are two completely separate concepts. Their definition of moderates would be those who don't advocate the killing of women, children and elderly. Extremists, therefore are those who can justify the killing of women, children and the elderly in the furtherance of jihad. Moderates, however are not those who want a secular government. Within Africa and the Middle East, those who advocate for a secular government are in the distinct minority. In fact, most of the people in the Middle East are considered Islamists, who want their government to be based upon the Qu'ran. A significant component of Islamists are Salafis, who want their government to effectively implement the Qu'ran as the law, and the minority are those who wish to execute those who don't follow the Qu'ran: these are the jihadis.

If you have an interest in reading more of the report, you can find it at:

http://www.ctc.usma.edu/atlas/Atlas-ResearchCompendium.pdf