by Andrés Ortega  17/05/2016

Why do young European-Arab Muslims, and converts, go to join the Islamic State(ISIS or Daesh) to fight or sacrifice themselves, in Syria, Iraq and Libya, among other places, and, when they return, in Europe itself? It is essential to find out. The explanation frequently comes more from anthropology and psychology than security experts, who are increasingly incorporating such disciplines.

The summary that follows is taken from a range of sources, but principally from the research and writings of Scott Atran, an anthropologist who has carried out a great deal of fieldwork in the combat zone, has testified to the US Congress, is Research Director at the CNRS in Paris and Professor at the University of Oxford, and was recently in Madrid; and Nafeed Hamid, a cognitive science researcher and specialist in radicalisation and terrorism, who has co-written various highly interesting articleswith Atran. A starting point, however, is that there is no single cause that can account for this complex phenomenon.

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