{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.022252653200958577, 'fraction_numerical': 0.002396439575487847, 'mean_word_length': 5.283870967741936, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Understanding Terror Networks (review)

The Terrorist Rolodex: How Islamists Join Terrorist Organizations and Coalesce. When discussing networking, most people focus on the positive gains made from such relationships, for example better opportunities for the individuals involved or progress toward a greater goal. The success of terrorist networks, however, shows how such connections can go awry and can be used to promote radical ideals in a more effective manner. Marc Sageman, a former Foreign Service officer with the State Department, addresses this issue in his new book, Understanding Terror Networks. Sageman was stationed in Islamabad, Pakistan during the Soviet involvement in Afghanistan, a placement that provided him with significant exposure to the mujhedin based in Afghanistan during this nascent period of their worldwide Salafi jihad. He holds a doctorate in political sociology, which he puts to use in this book, and currently works as a forensic psychiatrist. In Understanding Terror Networks, Sageman explores the development of terrorist networks and the relationships that coalesce to form such widespread and effective systems. He first spends a good deal of the book discussing jihadist thinkers and outlining their impact on the thinking of the major terrorist network in operation today, al Qaeda. The jihadist movement was initially focused on re-establishing Muslim prominence by overthrowing Muslim governments, the “near enemy,” in order to establish a massive Islamist state. Al Qaeda’s shift from this focus on the “near enemy” to targeting the “far enemy,” which includes great powers like the United States, was a slow transition that culminated in the 1998 declaration of “Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders.” Sageman traces the history of this worldwide Salafi jihad and considers why a terrorist organization like al Qaeda would choose to alter its focus. He emphasizes the need for Islamist unity, which would be threatened if the jihad targeted Muslim governments, which have at least a modicum of support from other Muslims. Interestingly, the migration by al Qaeda from Afghanistan to Sudan and then back to Afghanistan also played a role in generating this emphasis on the “far enemy,” since only the more radical members of the terrorist organization followed the group as it was displaced. Having traced one of the threads that influenced al Qaeda’s objectives, Sageman proceeds to follow the trajectory of its expanding membership. Tracing the lives of 172 terrorists active in al Qaeda, Sageman illustrates how such radical ideology is spread to indoctrinate new recruits. He divides this terrorist organization into various clusters, based primarily on geography. The global Salafi jihad network is composed of the Central Staff of al Qaeda and terrorists from the core Arab states (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Yemen, and Kuwait), Southeast Asia (Malaysia and Indonesia), and the