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Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam
They are Americans, and they are mujahideen. Hundreds of men from every imaginable background have walked away from the traditional American dream to volunteer for battle in the name of Islam. Some have taken part in foreign wars that aligned with U.S. interests while others have carried out violence against Western interests abroad, fought against the U.S. military, and even plotted terrorist attacks on American soil. This story plays out over decades and continents: from the Americans who took part in the siege of Mecca in 1979 through conflicts in Lebanon, Afghanistan, and Bosnia, and continuing today in Afghanistan and Somalia.
Investigative journalist J. M. Berger profiles numerous fighters, including some who joined al Qaeda and others who chose a different path. In these pages he portrays, among others, Abdullah Rashid, who fought the Soviets in Afghanistan; Mohammed Loay Bayazid, who was present at the founding of al Qaeda; Ismail Royer, who fought in Bosnia and Kashmir, then returned to run training camps in the United States; Adam Gadahn, a California Jew who is now al QaedaÆs chief spokesman; and Anwar Awlaki, the Yemeni-American imam with links to 9/11 who is now considered one of the biggest threats to AmericaÆs security.
Investigative journalist J. M. Berger profiles numerous fighters, including some who joined al Qaeda and others who chose a different path. In these pages he portrays, among others, Abdullah Rashid, who fought the Soviets in Afghanistan; Mohammed Loay Bayazid, who was present at the founding of al Qaeda; Ismail Royer, who fought in Bosnia and Kashmir, then returned to run training camps in the United States; Adam Gadahn, a California Jew who is now al QaedaÆs chief spokesman; and Anwar Awlaki, the Yemeni-American imam with links to 9/11 who is now considered one of the biggest threats to AmericaÆs security.
280 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 30, 2011
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144 people want to read
About the author
J.M. Berger
14 books27 followersJ.M. Berger is the author of Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam and coauthor (with Jessica Stern) of ISIS: The State of Terror. He is a fellow with the Counter-Terrorism Strategic Communications Project and a nonresident Fellow with the Alliance for Securing Democracy.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
August 16, 2019
I was surprised how much I enjoyed this book. Berger gives a comprehensive overview of Americans who have participated and/or promoted jihad, both overseas (Bosnia, Somalia, Afghanistan to name a few) and within the United States. He sheds light on the reasons these Muslims become radicalized. Informative and well researched, I’d recommend this book to anyone interested in the rise of terrorism.
March 18, 2018
Despite my tepid rating, this is a worthwhile read, and it's interesting without being overtly politicized. The people featured in the book are incredibly interesting to read about, and the reporting seemed quite full to me.
Started off well, stayed balanced, then threw itself off a cliff in the end by inserting opinion over reportage. Correlation is not causation. We cannot decide that just because jihad affects the US more now, it's somehow different and the causes are different.
Anyone who's paid attention to recent history would see the obvious turnabout on the part of the official American stance. ie, "great - go fight those soviets" fast forward to "you're an enemy combatant. You can't fight America now! Go directly to gitmo..." So that was on my mind while he's trying to figure out ways to make the reader feel better (?) in the end, opining on reasons not based in fact. I don't buy into the way he pulled it all together in the final chapters, and since that's when my most fully-formed thoughts on a book typically gel, it slid backwards fast. Nonetheless, I'll repeat, a worthwhile, if now slightly outdated on some of the featured individuals, read. Very interesting characters throughout; very little political baggage.
Started off well, stayed balanced, then threw itself off a cliff in the end by inserting opinion over reportage. Correlation is not causation. We cannot decide that just because jihad affects the US more now, it's somehow different and the causes are different.
Anyone who's paid attention to recent history would see the obvious turnabout on the part of the official American stance. ie, "great - go fight those soviets" fast forward to "you're an enemy combatant. You can't fight America now! Go directly to gitmo..." So that was on my mind while he's trying to figure out ways to make the reader feel better (?) in the end, opining on reasons not based in fact. I don't buy into the way he pulled it all together in the final chapters, and since that's when my most fully-formed thoughts on a book typically gel, it slid backwards fast. Nonetheless, I'll repeat, a worthwhile, if now slightly outdated on some of the featured individuals, read. Very interesting characters throughout; very little political baggage.
January 5, 2012
AT A TIME when so many books on politics, religion, and world events are little more than puffed-up pamphlets which are simultaneously high on hyper-partisanship and low on facts, J. M. Berger’s Jihad Joe, a treatment of the radicalization and actions of American Muslims who have dedicated themselves to “violent jihad” (the author’s chosen term), is a breath of fresh – and troubling – air. Painstakingly researched and heavily footnoted (the author, an investigative journalist, consulted thousands of pages of court records and documents obtained through FOIA request, as well as source material from the making of multiple documentaries on jihadi activities in Bosnia and in the U.S.), Jihad Joe does not couch opinion as fact, but instead makes use of often disparate stories and information sources to weave together a factual account of radicalized American Muslims, from their diverse motivations and processed of radicalization to their actions.
The bulk of Jihad Joe is a lesson in recent history, recounting the motivations and activities of Americans who have “go[ne] to war in the name of Islam” from the siege of Mecca in 1979, where two Americans were involved, to the present. It traces the heady days of the heavily-endorsed (by Islamic leaders and the U.S. alike) jihad against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, when Muslims from America and around the world traveled to fight against the Russian invaders, to the founding of al Qaeda, where an American from Kansas City served as note-taker, through the Bosnian conflict, to the “war on America” that al Qaeda began in the 1990s (which included action in Somalia during the infamous “Black Hawk Down” incident), and which is currently ongoing. Among the major takeaways from this fast, engaging read (it can be comfortably read in a single weekend) is the realization that the radicalization of, and participation in what Berger refers to as “violent jihad” by, American Muslims is far from a new phenomenon.
[...]
IT IS DIFFICULT to come away from Jihad Joe without having acquired a view of domestic radicalization as a problem that is a mile wide or more, even if it is only the proverbial inch deep in relation to the wider American Muslim population. It is likewise difficult not to be palpably frustrated by a law enforcement apparatus that seems, over the course of the last three decades of Americans participating in violent jihad, to have been utterly incapable of getting out of its own way when it came to tracking dangerous individuals and getting them off the streets. The story of Ali Mohamed, mentioned above, is the most dramatic example of this, but a recurring theme within the stories presented in Jihad Joe is an unwillingness or inability on the part of the military, law enforcement, and the nation’s political leadership to properly deal with the topic of religiously-based radicalization. During the Afghanistan conflict in the 1980s, this was largely understandable, as the U.S. was a supporter of the mujahedin, which drew Muslims from around the globe to fight the Soviet Union; however, the precedent set then and in the early 1990s carried over through the last years of the last millennium and beyond, resulting in an America which was unprepared for the guns, bombs, and rage of the violent jihadi minority to be turned from the “near enemy” – those threatening Muslims in Afghanistan and Bosnia – to the “far enemy” here in America, which was more accessible and more “realistic” to native jihadis (p. 77).
A particularly valuable contribution made by Jihad Joe is a survey of our increasingly web-based world’s impact on the radicalization and recruitment of young Muslims to violent jihad, including the phenomenon of “jihobbyists” who interact online with militants, sometimes getting their “fix” that way, and sometimes (in much smaller numbers) progressing in radicalization to the point where they too engage in violent jihad. The Internet has allowed the public at large access to unprecedented information, including radical Islamic literature, audio, and video; partly as a result of this, and partly as a result of the scattering and destruction of terrorist training sites and organizations in the War on Terror, the process of radicalization and engagement in violent jihad has been turned on its head, from the 20th century model of intensive, rigorous, and highly organized religious and military training to the 21st century model of potential radicals in any geographic location taking the “Wikipedia approach to expertise” and declaring themselves religious experts “capable of deciding religious questions that have life-and-death consequences” (p. 201). “Before 9/11 someone who selected himself for jihad usually did so because he was pretty damn tough,” writes Berger. “After 9/11 someone who selected himself was more likely to be a voracious reader” (p. 201).
This new world of individualized violent jihad, in which people anywhere in the world have access both to radical Islamist literature and media and to instructions on the construction and use of a wide range of weaponry, has allowed for violent jihad to be waged with less religious grounding and on a far more scattered – and potentially common – basis.
[...]
Read the rest of this review.
The bulk of Jihad Joe is a lesson in recent history, recounting the motivations and activities of Americans who have “go[ne] to war in the name of Islam” from the siege of Mecca in 1979, where two Americans were involved, to the present. It traces the heady days of the heavily-endorsed (by Islamic leaders and the U.S. alike) jihad against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, when Muslims from America and around the world traveled to fight against the Russian invaders, to the founding of al Qaeda, where an American from Kansas City served as note-taker, through the Bosnian conflict, to the “war on America” that al Qaeda began in the 1990s (which included action in Somalia during the infamous “Black Hawk Down” incident), and which is currently ongoing. Among the major takeaways from this fast, engaging read (it can be comfortably read in a single weekend) is the realization that the radicalization of, and participation in what Berger refers to as “violent jihad” by, American Muslims is far from a new phenomenon.
[...]
IT IS DIFFICULT to come away from Jihad Joe without having acquired a view of domestic radicalization as a problem that is a mile wide or more, even if it is only the proverbial inch deep in relation to the wider American Muslim population. It is likewise difficult not to be palpably frustrated by a law enforcement apparatus that seems, over the course of the last three decades of Americans participating in violent jihad, to have been utterly incapable of getting out of its own way when it came to tracking dangerous individuals and getting them off the streets. The story of Ali Mohamed, mentioned above, is the most dramatic example of this, but a recurring theme within the stories presented in Jihad Joe is an unwillingness or inability on the part of the military, law enforcement, and the nation’s political leadership to properly deal with the topic of religiously-based radicalization. During the Afghanistan conflict in the 1980s, this was largely understandable, as the U.S. was a supporter of the mujahedin, which drew Muslims from around the globe to fight the Soviet Union; however, the precedent set then and in the early 1990s carried over through the last years of the last millennium and beyond, resulting in an America which was unprepared for the guns, bombs, and rage of the violent jihadi minority to be turned from the “near enemy” – those threatening Muslims in Afghanistan and Bosnia – to the “far enemy” here in America, which was more accessible and more “realistic” to native jihadis (p. 77).
A particularly valuable contribution made by Jihad Joe is a survey of our increasingly web-based world’s impact on the radicalization and recruitment of young Muslims to violent jihad, including the phenomenon of “jihobbyists” who interact online with militants, sometimes getting their “fix” that way, and sometimes (in much smaller numbers) progressing in radicalization to the point where they too engage in violent jihad. The Internet has allowed the public at large access to unprecedented information, including radical Islamic literature, audio, and video; partly as a result of this, and partly as a result of the scattering and destruction of terrorist training sites and organizations in the War on Terror, the process of radicalization and engagement in violent jihad has been turned on its head, from the 20th century model of intensive, rigorous, and highly organized religious and military training to the 21st century model of potential radicals in any geographic location taking the “Wikipedia approach to expertise” and declaring themselves religious experts “capable of deciding religious questions that have life-and-death consequences” (p. 201). “Before 9/11 someone who selected himself for jihad usually did so because he was pretty damn tough,” writes Berger. “After 9/11 someone who selected himself was more likely to be a voracious reader” (p. 201).
This new world of individualized violent jihad, in which people anywhere in the world have access both to radical Islamist literature and media and to instructions on the construction and use of a wide range of weaponry, has allowed for violent jihad to be waged with less religious grounding and on a far more scattered – and potentially common – basis.
[...]
Read the rest of this review.
January 4, 2024
(Read in 2012, review from 2024)
Read in college for a Terrorism Study class. Definitely a useful and interesting read that opened my eyes to a few stories about Islamic terrorism I didn't know about before.
Read in college for a Terrorism Study class. Definitely a useful and interesting read that opened my eyes to a few stories about Islamic terrorism I didn't know about before.
July 25, 2013
I was surprised how much I enjoyed this. I was expecting something more polemical, so the book's balance and moderate tone were appreciated. Berger has a very engaging style, and juggles massive amounts of information effectively, staying within a narrow scope. "Jihad Joe" is not an in-depth study of radicalization on all its diverse levels, rather, it examines cases of Americans, who for a wide variety of reasons, chose to engage in jihad, outside of the US, and within. There's an effective timeline here; beginning with examples prior to 9/11, and Berger is very good at compartmentalizing that world-changing event. An author with less focus might have become bogged down with what to include or exclude, but historical events flow very neatly within the narrative.
My only minor criticism is, I would have liked to see just a bit more discussion of the effect of humiliation, real or percieved, on the radicalization proccess. Since this is not a pyschological study of radicalization, it need not have been analyzed in clinical detail, but merely addressed in reference to the subjects and their choices.
I hope that Berger continues to write on this subject, which he clearly has a deep knowledge of. With Americans fighting in Syria as I write this, the world is providing ample material for another book.
My only minor criticism is, I would have liked to see just a bit more discussion of the effect of humiliation, real or percieved, on the radicalization proccess. Since this is not a pyschological study of radicalization, it need not have been analyzed in clinical detail, but merely addressed in reference to the subjects and their choices.
I hope that Berger continues to write on this subject, which he clearly has a deep knowledge of. With Americans fighting in Syria as I write this, the world is providing ample material for another book.
August 8, 2015
An easy read with a lot of useful information. The details on Muslims who went to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan with the blessing of our government (or at least the tacit approval vis-a-vis a policy of not interfering with them going and returning if they survived) was very helpful. I learned a lot from those details.
I don't agree with some of Mr. Berger's insights, however.
For example, in his concluding chapters he speaks of a victim mentality among American Muslims, and cites civil rights groups that are always pointing out instances of Muslims being treated badly in America, and that this mindset has is unhealthy. I agree that we need to accentuate the positive, and there is a lot that we can focus on that is good about being a Muslim in America. But the reality is that a small group of Americans hates Islam and Muslims and they are feeding a growing hate against Islam and Muslims that is nurturing the "us vs. them" mentality. A bit more nuance would have helped.
I recommend this book. It is well written and interesting.
I don't agree with some of Mr. Berger's insights, however.
For example, in his concluding chapters he speaks of a victim mentality among American Muslims, and cites civil rights groups that are always pointing out instances of Muslims being treated badly in America, and that this mindset has is unhealthy. I agree that we need to accentuate the positive, and there is a lot that we can focus on that is good about being a Muslim in America. But the reality is that a small group of Americans hates Islam and Muslims and they are feeding a growing hate against Islam and Muslims that is nurturing the "us vs. them" mentality. A bit more nuance would have helped.
I recommend this book. It is well written and interesting.
April 14, 2015
This was a good book that looked at a very academic topic in a non-academic way. It was a good source of examples of what can really happen in America and allows the reader to realize that jihads are not just in different countries. If this book doesn't make you at least a little mad at the counter-terrorism negligence of American in the 1990s I'd be really surprised.
September 1, 2013
This book packs a lot of information in every chapter. I learned a lot about the development and continuing activities of Jihadists in the US and abroad. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to learn about the topic.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews