A Review of Solutions to Mitigate Terrorist Attacks

Rico Nolan
June 24th, 2016
Professor Browne
CJCU 450
Summer 1

Abstract
While there have been several new ideas on how to handle terrorism, the threat of terrorism
appears to have increased since 9/11. In fact, it trends show that Western cultures are fanning the
flames of terrorism. The following paper looks at a few solutions that could help mitigate the
threat of terrorism. Terrorism is just as much on the shoulders of Western culture as it is on the
extremists themselves. Through both current and legacy research, the objective of this paper is to
show how Stopping Co-Radicalization, Muslim Youth Outreach Programs, and Social
Psychology Lessons for Policy Makers could be possible solutions for all western civilizations
dealing with terrorism. Individually, each of these areas could go a long way in reducing

terrorism, but together they have the chance to mitigate future attacks or at the very least, reduce
the number of attacks.

Introduction
While the citizens of the Western world may think that terrorist attacks are mere senseless
acts violence and destruction, the definition of terrorism is to incite fear and terror. One way
terrorists can do this is not by using guns and bombs, but by fear-mongering. Overreactions to
terrorist attacks are just as much to blame for terrorism as the attacks themselves.

Modern terrorists are diversified and have a wider reach than the small band of al Qaeda
terrorists that were able to carry out the attacks on September 11th, 2001. According to the U.S.
State Department, in 2002 there 725 people killed in 177 terrorist attacks, which was down 40%
(355 attacks and 3295 people killed) from the previous year (U.S. State Department. 2002. para
1). While the decline in attacks could be seen as a major win for the major Western political
leaders war on terror, this was a smaller group operating without any real political power and
likely would not be able to conduct such a major attack like 9/11 again. Looking at present day
terrorists, they control part of Syria and Iraq, can recruit and attack globally, and terrorism deaths
are in the 30,000s (Institute for Economics and Peace. 2015). By looking at three possible
solutions to homeland security issues, the current paper hopes to show that stopping coradicalization, Muslim youth outreach programs, and a review of social psychology studies for
politicians could mitigate attacks by terrorists.
Stopping Co-Radicalization
The War on Terror was a combination of overreaction and revenge that lead to the rise of
the major terrorist groups. While a year after the 9/11 attacks, terrorist attacks were on a
downward trajectory, invading the wrong country and, in turn, sowing the seeds of instability and
conflict allowed the radicalization of the Islamic parties in the Middle East. Fueled by media and
hatred in the West, these groups were able to grow under a common revulsion and retaliation
against the Western societies that lumped all Muslims together. According to Rothkopf (2015),
overreaction is precisely the wrong response to terrorism. And its exactly what terrorists want.
It does the work of the terrorists for the terrorists (para. 11). By overreacting, the West has given
the Islamic Extremist groups all the material they need to recruit and launch attacks on the
United States.

With terrorist groups feeding off of the attacks by the West, politicians in America also
feed off of the terrorist attacks as a way to propel themselves into a seat of power. Donald Trump
running part of his campaign that all Muslim immigrants are a threat and should be banned from
the country continues to increase the fear mongering of citizens and hatred towards all Muslims,
regardless of their lack of affiliation to any terrorist group. This hate speech, in turn, is then used
by al Qaeda as propaganda to give their cause a justification (Richer, Haslam. 2016. P. 37).
This form of propaganda is not limited to politicians, and studies have shown that the media
itself is to blame for how they portray issues related to terrorism. For instance, Kumar(2008)
analyzed western media groups and found that since September 11, there have been five common
negative themes used whenever the media discusses Muslims, Arabs, and the Middle East. These
frames are (p.3):
1.

Islam is a monolithic religion

2.

Islam is a uniquely sexist religion

3. The Muslim mind is incapable of rationality and science

4.

Islam is inherently violent

5. The West spreads democracy. Islam spawns terrorism.

With the media reporting this to its viewers, it is easy to see how a political figure like
Donald Trump or George Bush could use this as a way to garner support for their political
campaigns. By playing off of the fear-mongering they can offer up what they think should be
done to stop terrorist attacks and how all Muslims are evil. This further divides the two groups
and makes it difficult to repair the lack of trust on both sides.
While the evidence is clear that both need to find a different approach for responding and
interacting with each other, we need one group to make the first step. The West should take a

look at its posture moving forward and be the one to take the higher road. While this is not to say
that the West cannot respond to a terrorist attack, it means that the actions taken following an
attack need to be better thought out and of a moderate tone that doesnt give the terrorists more
power. By beginning to bridge the gap of mutual distrust, the West will mitigate the influx of
recruiting that the terrorist organizations can conduct with current tactics. According to Reicher
et al. (2016), most of the recruiting strategies of Al Qaeda and ISIS are to appeal to sympathizers
and only about 5% of the propaganda promotes violence, which unfortunately is what is then
shown in Western media (p. 37). This illustrates the effect of sociological trends of people
affected by the overreaction of Western Society and allows their terrorist organizations to single
out individuals for recruiting with promises of revenge for those that have lost loved ones and a
sense of belonging for the survivors.
To start repairing this gap, politicians should look at stopping the "us versus them"
mentality. By painting American Muslims as terrorists regardless of their affiliations, we open up
individuals to possible identification with Islamic Extremists. Individuals or any race or religion
have been theorized to try and maintain a positive social identity through favorable in-group
comparisons that are distinctly different from out-groups. When the social identity of that
individual is unsatisfactory, they will leave their group to join a group that closely matches their
social identity (Tajfel, Turner. 1986. p. 16). Constant attacks, verbal or otherwise, have the
possibility of causing Muslim Americans to disassociate themselves for the United States and
seek a favorable social identity with a terrorist organization. Through this disidentification with
Western society, they could start to see the terrorists organizations as supportive communities
that are pursuing religious and noble goals.

Airport security, protesters, and anti-refugee rallies all have an effect on a would-be lawabiding and patriotic Muslim in the United States. Being constantly pushed into an adversary
role rather than a community role could be driving a lot of the domestic terrorists to commit the
terrorist attacks we are now seeing. A study conducted in Scotland showed that Muslim youths
returning home to Scotland, often felt that the feeling of returning home was shadowed by airport
security searches and being singled out. (Richer et al. 2016. P. 38). These youths are the most
susceptible to terrorist recruitment because they are still trying to find their social identity. Richer
et al. (2016) continued by pointing out that while this misrecognition didn't immediately turn a
moderate citizen into an extremist or terrorist, it began a shift to distance themselves from
outward-looking British people and started to see authorities as less of partners to make Scotland
safe and more as an adversary.
Building off of the identification and disidentification social identity theories by looking
at Zimbardos Stanford Experiment, we can see that people put into certain groups can act
oppressively if they identify with the social group, and disidentify with the ones they are
harming. One guard in Zimbardos experiment lead the example for how the prisoners would be
treated, and while he did commit some of the harm, he provided inspiration for the other guards
on how they should act. This is similar to how terrorist leaders are seen less as committing the
attacks and more as inspiration for their members. When Reicher et al. (2016) adapted
Zimbardo's experiment, they found evidence of just how quickly a person could turn violent
against a group that they didn't identify with. A subject that was a prisoner had aspirations to
become a guard after he was told that there was a possibility that a prisoner could be promoted.
He was teased and called a traitor by his fellow prisoners, but he thought he could make a
difference if he were to become a guard and unite the groups with teamwork. When promotion

time came, this subject was passed over for promotion and publicly humiliated over his ambition
to be a guard. The study found that almost immediately his behavior changed and started to
undermine guard authority and was a key instigator in acts that eventually lead to the overthrow
of the guards (p.39). This example shows just how quickly a person can switch from being a lawabiding citizen to performing terrorist attacks. It should be viewed as a cautionary tale to
policymakers, politicians, and media that keep portraying would-be allies as villains.
There needs to be a moderate approach to how the West reacts to terrorism and society in
general. Co-radicalism has increased terrorist attacks exponentially since 9/11 and the trends
show that these attacks will only continue to grow. The negative association of all Muslims in the
West will cause these groups to separate from the rest of society and start to identify with
terrorist groups that could then lead to backlash and more attacks. The West needs to think before
it retaliates and it needs to stop associating all Muslim, Arab, and Middle Eastern people as one
big terrorist organization. The media and politicians also need to stop using terrorist attacks as a
platform to garner favor with viewers and voters. It may not end terrorist attacks right away, but
it is a step in the right direction and needs to happen to stop co-radicalization and bridge the gap
of mutual distrust.
Muslim Youth Outreach Programs
With Muslim youth and young adults, the primary target for terrorist recruiting, it is
essential that the government expand its programs of youth outreach. This will need to be an
effort that is conducted globally and require the education of adolescents as well as parents.
Muslim leaders need to be leading proponents of these programs to help show society that
everyone is working collectively towards a goal to end terrorism. The education will need to

include the recruitment process for both men and women and how they can cater to each in a
different way.
For men the process involves four steps: isolation from the social group, Islam can
reawaken the sleeping, full indoctrination, and dehumanization. As discussed above, isolation
from a social group is already being broadcast by the media and the negative attention given to
them in airports only isolates them further. This plays into the recruiters hands as they use the
internet to get the youth to start questioning everything. This is the first step in the recruitment
process and involves mixing verifiable and unverifiable facts about society and its lies about
food safety, vaccines, and other conspiracies. Information is often given to youths with ties to
movies such as The Matrix, where all adults and Westerners are asleep and sellouts to the system
(Bouzar, 2016. p.42). At this stage, the programs need to work with youths to try and help show
factual information and disprove the lies fed to them. This is a difficult time as the youth have
already started questioning their views and what society, including the outreach programs, might
tell them is right or wrong.
The second phase involves the youth being told that Islam and the group can reawaken
them. To be a part of the true Islam, they will need to adopt clothing that erases individuality and
become part of the group's identity (Bouzar, 2016. p.42). At this point, the youth will likely have
cut ties with friends and family members as they are still considered asleep. Any discussion will
result in out of context teachings from dogma given to them by the group. It is during this
disassociation that the youth will begin to block out memories that made them an individual and
begin to believe that they were all a lie. Being combative at this stage could drive the youth
further away, but reminding them of their past and who they are as an individual could help slow
down or stop the process.

During the third phase, the youth is fully indoctrinated into the group and believes that
the group has chosen and accepted him into their community. The group's radical ideology is all
he knows and to associate with anyone outside of the group who does not think the same way
they do would contaminate the group as a whole (Bouzar, 2016. p.42). At this point, the only
answer is deprogramming, and resensitization of the individual. That likely means that the youth
will need to be detained, which could cause the youth to lash out against the people trying to help
them.
The final phase involves the dehumanization of everyone else that is not a part of the
group. By doing so, outsiders are not viewed as people and killing them is not a crime but a duty.
The dehumanization also applies to the youth themselves and the acts the group performs such as
suicide bombings and attacks further weaken the recruit's sense of humanity (Bouzar, 2016.
p.42). Just like in the third phase, this is a difficult phase for the youth to come back from, and
the only answer is deprogramming. Reasoning and facts will not work, as the youth only sees
non-humans that are lead by Western conspiracies.
To stop this recruitment process, the community needs to engage youths at a young age
and stay with them as they grow up. Open dialogue and condemnation of the acts performed by
the terrorist groups need to be discussed with impressionable youths. A trust needs to be formed
with the youth, and a sense of community needs to be built within the society in which they are
being raised. By doing so, the youth has less chance of starting to separate themselves from their
social group and falling victim to the first phase of the recruitment process.
While young women can also be recruited by the above process, terrorist groups have a
slightly different approach when targeting them. In recent years, ISIS has been recruiting young

women who fit one of three profiles. These profiles are abused, guilty, and humanitarian. Each
one focuses on a psychological profile to recruit them.
The abused profile focuses on abused females who are promised marriage to a warrior
and a niqab that covers their body so that no man other than the warrior will approach her. This
gives the youth hope that they will have a better life within the group and not have any physical
identity outside of her marriage. It is believed that about 70% of these recruits are untreated rape
victims (Bouzar, 2016. p.42). Through outreach and treatment, these women need to be helped.
Not only for fear of recruitment to ISIS but also to get treatment for the abuse they had suffered.
Society cannot hope to keep a grasp on a person that has experienced such atrocities, and the first
step needs to be treatment and justice.
The guilty profile involves a scenario where a youth has a family member that is killed,
and they feel guilty that this person is dead while they still live. Recruiters look for blogs and
social media posts that fit this profile. They then offer up promises of being able to rejoin their
loved one in paradise if they just strap on a suicide vest or commit a terrorist attack that will
likely end with the death of the individual (Bouzar, 2016. p.42). This is a perfect example of coradicalization and is especially true for recruits that are within close proximity to the groups in
the Middle East. Collateral damage from a bomb dropped by the U.S. that killed someone's
family member could lead to an instant change in that person's feelings about strapping on a
suicide vest.
The humanitarian profile exploits a youth's wish to become a nurse or doctor and their
desire to help people in these war-torn areas. Through social media, the youth is inundated with
dead and injured children in the areas they hope to help. Over time, they are lured away from
being a person that could provide aid to these people and instead are told they can help more by

helping with terrorist attacks to stop the attacks that would result in the death of children
(Bouzar, 2016. p.42). Yet another slippery slope for co-radicalization, and if we hope to stop this
style of recruitment, outreach groups need to show the advantage of helping people and not
attacking people to stop other attacks.
It is easy to see just how simple it is for recruiters to find a way to pull in youths to their
terrorist organizations. While youths in Syria and Iraq are closer to the instability, they may see
joining a group as a way to further a cause they believe in or fall under the guilty or humanitarian
psychological profile. This stresses the need for support groups, outreach programs, and the need
for deprogramming. While it sounds like this changes one style of brainwashing for another, the
recruitment process has little to do with seeking out psychopaths and sociopaths, but instead,
comes from individuals that are making conscious decisions about the ideology of terrorist
groups. It is less about monetary goals and religious factions as it is about vulnerable young
people that are on the margins of society, social transition, or suffering from a crisis of identity.
According to anthropological psychologist Scott Atran (2014), terrorist recruits are mostly
youth in transitional stages in their lives--immigrants, students, those between jobs or girlfriends,
or those who left their homes and are looking for new families. For the most part, they have no
traditional religious education and are "born again to religion (as cited by Haque, Choi, Phillips,
Bursztajn. 2015. para. 5). To bring adolescents back from the grips of terrorists, support groups
and parents need to be ready to deal with each situation individually. The radicalization of the
adolescent needs to be deconstructed and evaluated on a case by case basis.
To ensure success in these support groups, authorities need to dedicate resources and train
professionals to help intervene when parents request help. Terrorist websites need to be
monitored for propaganda, and a plan needs to be put in place to help show why this propaganda

is wrong. Families and authorities need to combat the problem head on and talk with adolescents
about the recruitment process just as kids have been taught not to take candy from strangers.
Better efforts need to be put in place to include everyone and help those that feel marginalized
and isolated that could be at risk.
Social Psychology Lessons for Politicians
With politicians, celebrities, and the media taking up most of what Westerners see when it
comes to the war waged against Muslims, it is not surprising that psychological findings have
been pushed to the side. Throughout this paper, a theme can be seen as to how terrorists recruit
and some reason as to why they attack, but through several psychological studies, politicians
could learn how to mitigate terrorist attacks. Understanding how these studies can be related to
terrorist groups, could help politicians see why the West needs to take the first steps to stop coradicalization and at the same time thwart some of the recruitment techniques.
Ross, Greene, and House (1977) conducted a study on the false consensus effect that
asked students about real and hypothetical tasks. They found that students believed that their
views matched fellow students' views as well. This false consensus leads to a lack of
individuality and caused students not to question the group's thinking. Everyone must be willing
to question their assumptions before they fall into this trap (as cited by Dutton, Abrams. 2016. p.
46). When this happens in political groups, people can be swayed to an extreme, thinking
everyone believes the same thing. While politicians may see this as favorable for elections, they
need to remember that this is also how terrorist groups can turn a mentality into deadly attacks. It
is best to continue individual thinking and allow people to question things, doing so will help
prevent terrorist groups from recruiting blind followers.

Latane and Darley (1968) researched why people sometimes do not act in the face of
danger. The study involved giving a student a questionnaire alone, in a group of three, or in a
group of three with two of the participants in on the experiment. At some point, smoke would be
pumped into the room and researchers recorded if a subject would report the smoke. Subjects
that were alone reported the smoke 75 percent of the time, while only 38 percent of participants
reported the smoke in a group of three, and only 10 percent reported the smoke when paired with
two group members that were aware of the study (as cited by Dutton et al. 2016. p. 46). The
findings show that it is human nature to take cues from other people when a behavior is
unfamiliar. For Westerners, this type of behavior can inhibit people from foiling a terrorist attack
with such programs as See Something, Say Something. At the same time, within terrorist
organizations, not questioning extremist acts could lead to them becoming the norm. Politicians
need to promote what Latane et al. (1968) referred to as interpersonal empowerment, which is a
sense that we are all responsible for each other's well-being in addition to our own.
A belief formation study conducted by Abrams et al. (1990) showed that when
participants tried to determine a lights furthest point from the testing area out loud, participants
would change their beliefs to support those of participants that were in on the experiment who
purposely embellished their results. When an intentional discrepancy by two participants that
were in on the experiment occurred, sub-groups formed based on the disparity of the estimates
(as cited by Dutton et al. 2016. p. 47). This study shows that people will follow the examples of
groups people identify with and disregard everyone else. Politicians need to make sure they seek
advice from experts outside their groups and find a way to stop the isolation of groups that are
relating to extremism. People will rely on their own social groups to decide what is right, and if

the group norm is terrorist attacks, then these attacks will seem justified to the members of the
group.
In a 1971 study by Tajfel et al. on group dynamics, that was later re-examined in the
previously mentioned 1986 paper by Tajfel and Turner, participants evaluated uncredited artwork
and then were split randomly into two groups. Each group was then told the artwork was by a
different artist. They were then tasked with allocating points to two other anonymous participants
who were only identified by a group tag (as cited by Dutton et al. 2016. p. 47). The study found
that participants were willing to assign more points to a member whose group they were a part of
than the other group. This is an example of the "us versus them" mentality that politicians need
to be aware of when treating individuals. They need to see people as individuals and not as part
of the group they most closely associate with. By doing so, there could be a shift in how an
extremist, of either side, views the other party.
Few people are willing to give their lives to a cause that they feel matters, but Swann et
al. (2010) conducted a study that asked Spaniards to jump in front of a trolley and die to save
five Spaniards, five Europeans, five Americans, or kill five terrorists. The research showed that
the Spaniards were more likely to sacrifice themselves to save fellow countryman or kill five
terrorists than they were to save five Europeans, and even less likely to sacrifice themselves for
out-group members like the Americans (as cited by Dutton et al. 2016. p. 48). This study points
out the need for the identification of such personalities and the development of intervention
programs. Once a person associates themselves with a group that promotes martyrdom and is
willing to die for the group, then attacks are imminent. Stopping them in the first place or
intervening could reduce the risk of attacks.

While out-group members were shunned in the previous study, Saguy and Halperin
(2014) researched conflict resolution in their study by asking Israeli participants to read fictitious
United Nations reports about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Their study differed in three ways:
if there was criticism about Palestinian conduct towards Israelis if it was written by a Palestinian
or an outside source, and whether the criticism was about the conflict or not (as cited by Dutton
et al. 2016. p. 48). The results showed that the Israeli participants empathized with the
Palestinians more if they read reports that showed self-criticism by Palestinians. This shows that
if Western society were to show some remorse for collateral damage during attacks and Islamic
leaders were seen criticizing terrorist attacks, there could be a sort of psychological shift in how
groups see each other. These could be the first steps needed to stopping co-radicalization.
Conclusion
While there are several solutions that could lead to less conflict between the West and
terrorist groups, stopping co-radicalism should be the first thing politicians, Islamic Leaders, and
society work on. This can be done by reviewing and building upon the social psychology studies,
or as a way to take a different approach. Obviously, the current approach is leading to more
attacks and more deaths, so the West taking the first step may have huge implications. While hate
speech cannot be stopped, education and sense of unity could help change how people view
Muslims and the Middle East. Islamic leaders working with the government and communities to
develop outreach programs can help mitigate the risk of more people joining the terrorist groups.
If no one is left to join, then there could be the potential for fewer attacks. In the end, it all comes
down to not isolating other groups and causing them to search for acceptance elsewhere. If some
initial steps and education can stop the view of "us versus them," then bigger gestures can be
made to reduce, if not eliminate, terrorism.

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