Every organization, including a terrorist group, must for its own existence constantly attract and recruit new members. The two most prominent Islamist terrorist groups, al-Qaeda and Islamic State, have thus been able to maintain their long existence. In the master's thesis, their recruitment process is analyzed through the prism of four models (the net model, the funnel model, the infection model, and the seed crystal model) and four approaches (public and proximate, public and mediated, private and proximate, and private and mediated), developed by Sara Daly and Scott Gerwehr in their work, titled Al-Qaeda: Terrorist selection and recruitment. Recruiters approach the potential recruits either in person, in larger groups, or through the video and audio tapes, brochures, and the internet. The master's thesis also includes more in-depth analysis of the recruitment of members to al-Qaeda's Hamburg terrorist cell and to the Islamic State's Brussels terrorist cell. The former was responsible for the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States while the latter carried out the 2015 Paris and 2016 Brussels terrorists attacks.
|