In the post-9/11 era, conventional wisdom holds that the jihadist threat is foreign. The conventional wisdom is understandable; after all it was 19 Arab hijackers who infiltrated the United States and conducted the 9/11 attacks. Yet today, as Anwar al-Awlaki, the American born cleric who became a leader in Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, put it in a 2010 post, “Jihad is becoming as American as apple pie.” Far from being foreign infiltrators, the large majority of jihadist terrorists in the United States have been American citizens or legal residents. Moreover, while a range of citizenship statuses are represented, every jihadist who conducted a lethal attack inside the United States since 9/11 was a citizen or legal resident.
Far from being foreign infiltrators, the large majority of jihadist terrorists in the United States have been American citizens or legal residents.
The Trump Travel Ban and Lethal Attacks
On January 27, 2017 President Donald Trump issued an executive order banning entry from seven majority Muslim countries (Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Libya, Yemen, and Somalia) citing national security reasons. None of the deadly attackers since 9/11 emigrated or came from a family that emigrated from one of these countries nor were any of the 9/11 attackers from the listed countries. Nine of the lethal attackers were born American citizens. On March 6, 2017, the Trump administration issued a new executive order that dropped Iraq from the travel ban among other changes. In September 2017, the Trump administration again revised the ban, dropping Sudan while adding restrictions on travel from Chad, Venezuela, and North Korea.
Of the fifteen lethal jihadist terrorists in the United States since 9/11:
- three are African-Americans
- three are from families that hailed originally from Pakistan
- one was born in Virginia to Palestinian immigrant parents
- one was born in Kuwait to Palestinian-Jordanian parents
- one was born in New York to a family from Afghanistan
- two are white converts - one born in Texas, another in Florida
- two came from Russia as children
- one emigrated from Egypt and conducted his attack a decade after coming to the United States
- one emigrated from Uzbekistan
What About Non-Lethal Attacks?
When the data is extended to include individuals who conducted attacks inside the United States that were foiled or otherwise failed to kill anyone, there are only four cases that the travel ban could have applied to. However, in at least two of those cases, the individual entered the United States as a child. In a third case the individual had a history of mental illness and assault not related to jihadist terrorism.
On March 3, 2006, Mohammed Reza Taheri-Azar, a naturalized citizen from Iran, drove a car into a group of students at the University of North Carolina, injuring nine people. However, Taheri-Azar, though born in Iran, came to the United States at the age of two. As a result his radicalization was homegrown inside the United States.
On September 17, 2016 Dahir Adan, a 20-year-old naturalized citizen from Somalia - though born in Kenya, injured ten people while wielding a knife at a mall in Minnesota. However, like Taheri-Azar, Adan had come to the United States as a young child.
On November 28, 2016 Abdul Razak Ali Artan, an 18-year-old legal permanent resident who came to the United States as a refugee from Somalia in 2014 -- having left Somalia for Pakistan in 2007 -- injured eleven people when he rammed a car into his fellow students on the campus of Ohio State University and then proceeded to attack them with a knife. However, it is not clear that the attack provides support for Trump’s travel ban. Artan left Somalia as a pre-teen, and if he was radicalized abroad, it most likely occurred while in Pakistan, which is not included on the travel ban. Furthermore, it is far from clear that Artan radicalized abroad rather than inside the United States, and in a Facebook posting prior to his attack, he cited Anwar al-Awlaki, the Yemeni-American cleric born in the United States, whose work -- which draws largely upon American culture and history -- has helped radicalize a wide range of extremists in the United States including those born in the United States.
On November 12, 2017, Mahad Abdirahman, a 20-year-old naturalized citizen who was born in Somalia, stabbed and injured two men at the Mall of America. During his trial, Abdirahman stated he was inspired by ISIS. However, Abdirahman’s case is far from clear evidence for the travel ban. He had previously been hospitalized for mental illness and prescribed medication that he stopped taking. He also faced an earlier assault charge having stabbed a psychiatrist with a pen.
