Online Radicalization: The path of Jihad Jane

Experts believe that radicalization is at the root of terrorist acts, and although there is no universally accepted definition of radicalization, there is some consensus on the roots of terrorism. Radicalization is a complicated phenomenon that may be caused by a variety of factors, including political, social, economic, ideological, and psychological factors, which lead to people adopting radical ideologies and sometimes committing acts of violence against others. US government defines radicalization as the process of adopting an extreme belief system, which includes the willingness to use, support, or facilitate violence as a way to change society.

Could the radicalization process start online or does it need to be face-to-face interaction? Undoubtedly the internet plays a key role in spreading extreme ideas and perhaps speeding up the radicalization process leading to violent action in an unprecedented way.???

Today we will see how the internet helps and facilitate the transformation of the blonde, white girl from Detroit into a jihadist icon. Colleen LaRose AKA Jihad Jane was born in Detroit in 1963 to heavy drinkers’ parents, they divorced when she reached three years old. Colleen and her sister Pam were raped repeatedly by their father Richard LaRose admitted that with no regret to a counselor. Colleen has been raped when she was in the second grade until she ran away when she reached 13 years old. She worked as a prostitute on the street and became pregnant, but the pregnancy ended in a miscarriage, leaving her with a lifelong impossibility to have children. At age 16 she married a man in his 30s, in 1986 she was divorced from her husband at age of 23 and married again. About eleven years later at age of 34 LaRose got a divorce again, in 2002 she met Kurt Gorman a radio repairman, fell in love with him, and move to Pennsburg, PA. Colleen had a stable relationship with Gorman until 2007 during her vacation in Amsterdam the event which will turn her life upside down.???

Colleen became very drunk in an Amsterdam pub one day during their vacation, forcing her boyfriend to abandon her alone. An attractive Muslim guy from the Middle Eastern approached her and spent the night with him leading the path to Colleen’s eventual radicalization. That night sparked LaRose’s curiosity about Islam this curiosity grew into an obsession. When she came back from Amsterdam, she started to visit Muslim websites to explore Islam online, she met a Muslim mentor online and he start to explain the five pillars of Islam. She recognized that to convert to Islam was not required to attend a mosque, and that's what she did she converted to Islam online. Colleen is an unreliable personality, soon she broke her promises about drinking alcohol and went back to drinking and she did not try to visit a mosque or even learn how to perform prayer. She was jobless and her partner was frequently away, so she had plenty of spare time to browse the internet. Colleen starts to watch violent videos on YouTube of Israeli attacking Palestinians and Americans attacks on Iraqis a lot of these videos contain dead or wounded children.

LaRose became increasingly involved in Jihadi videos and began to post messages in the summer of 2008, stating that she wanted to support suffering Muslims. She also uploaded jihadi movies on YouTube, and Myspace She used some nicknames like Jihad Jane, Sister of Terror, and Ms. Machiavelli. Online Colleen met “Eagle Eye” who claimed he was involved in the Mumbai attack in 2008, she trusted him and start to take her participation to the next level. Eagle Eye asked Colleen to send money to help her brother Muslims so she did multiple times. Then she reached the last step when she agreed to become an Islamic martyr after being asked by jihadists.?

Eagle Eye asked her to kill the Swedish artist Lars Vilks for insulting the prophet Mohammad by drawing offensive cartoons, and she agreed immediately. Based on instructions she bought a one-way ticket to Amsterdam on 23 Aug. FBI agent came to her house to question her about her online activity. It was the second time the FBI agent questioned her about her relationship with a terrorist. She denied everything and told the agents she was busy with her boyfriend's father's funeral. She gave them her number and promised to call them next week. Following the funeral on August 22, 2009, Colleen hid her computer hard disc and traveled to Amsterdam on August 23, 2009, as instructed by Eagle Eye. She believed she was headed to a jihadi training camp to meet Abdullah, the camp's leader, and to prepare to assassinate the Swedish artist. When she arrives and meets Abdullah, he advises she travel to Waterford, Ireland, to see another person named Black Flag (an Algerian immigrant born in France). She was disappointed because they were not what she had imagined they were just normal people.

She stayed in Waterford, in late September she wrote to Eagle Eye that she was still very determined to Kill the Swedish artist and only death would stop her and she is so close to the target. In fact, she was not near Sweden at all and did not receive the appropriate training to complete her mission. In a dramatic change, Colleen changed her mind about her mission after two weeks after she encountered another Muslim lady outside a grocery shop, according to her narrative. When Colleen questioned the lady about her viewpoint, she informed LaRose that she was delusional and that Vilks' death was exclusively in Allah's hands, not human's. Colleen has reservations about males like Abdullah, Black Flag, and Eagle Eye, who seem famous, valiant, and romantic on social media but aren't in real life.

She informed her group in Ireland that she was returning home to visit her ailing mother, and she also sent a message to the FBI to let them know she was coming, as well as contacted her boyfriend to get her a ticket home. When she arrived on October 15, 2009, she was arrested. The most shocking part is when she tells the FBI that Eagle Eye and Black Flag were too slow for her because she wanted a quick operation and that if the FBI let her go, she planned to carry out a suicide assault on US troops in Iraq or Afghanistan. After long investigations and trials, she was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Finally, we discussed radicalization in general and Colleen LaRose's narrative in particular, as well as the socioeconomic circumstances and challenges she faced in her life. Despite extensive study on the roots of radicalization and terrorism, experts have been unable to identify a single factor that leads to extremism. Each instance is unique and has distinct causes from the others; thus, they cannot be grouped together. It might be a single element or a combination of variables such as social upbringing, economic situations, or even mental health that contribute to radicalization.?

Colleen's psychological difficulties may have been triggered by the pain she experienced as a kid, leading her down the road of extremism and her readiness to carry out terrorist actions when terrorists used her psychological state and recruited her to serve their purpose. The critical question now is how many Colleens in our communities are exposed to the threat of extremism online and may be prepared to carry out terrorist actions??