ABSTRACT
This study focuses on the recruitment practices in the global Jihad as they play out in Europe. While the focal point is terrorism, this study deals only with a single form of contemporary terrorism, usually referred to as the global Jihad in order to differentiate between religiously inspired conflicts of a geographically limited nature and those with a global vision. However interesting other types of terrorism might be, this study does not include secular or nationalist terrorist groups such as the IRA or ETA. Other religiously justified forms of terrorism also present within Europe have also been excluded. Examples of Islamic terrorist entities that have been excluded are the Palestinian organisations as well as Shi’a Islamic groups. They follow different trajectories and rarely interact with the internationally oriented militant Islamists. Although there are indications of some interaction, these are certainly not on a scale that would tempt anyone to label this phenomenon as a terrorist international. The various terrorist organisations do have very different agendas, and, for some of the groups, their mutual hatred surpasses that projected onto their sworn enemies. The terrorists of interest to this study are all linked to the ideology most often associated with al-Qaeda.
