ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the Holy Warriors, perpetrators who, just like the True Believers, completely dedicate and subdue themselves to a radical and extremist cause, but in their case the ideology is a religion. They generally feel that the world went in the wrong direction and that we need to go back and adhere to more traditional religious values. This belief gives them the idea that they belong to the selected few, the chosen, and they feel that it is their mission to make the world a better place and eradicate what is bad and evil. They see this as a holy mission, a holy duty and their terror attacks as totally acceptable means to achieve a goal. The chapter explains how a searching individual who feels lonely, lost or marginalized can radicalize, and which conditions contribute to such a radicalization (such as a radical preacher or a group of friends). It also discusses the difference between radicalization of ideas and taking effective action. In this chapter there is not one in-depth study but there are numerous examples and illustrations given from mostly Islamic jihadis who committed terror attacks in Europe such as the ones in Madrid (2004), London (2005), Paris (2015) and Brussels (2016).
