Commissioned Book Review: Lewis Herrington, Understanding Islamist Terrorism in Europe: Drugs, Jihad and the Pursuit of Martyrdom
| Date | 01 May 2022 |
| Published date | 01 May 2022 |
| DOI | 10.1177/14789299211007989 |
| Author | Andrea Beccaro |
| Subject Matter | Commissioned Book Review |
Political Studies Review
2022, Vol. 20(2) NP13 –NP14
journals.sagepub.com/home/psrev
Commissioned Book Review
1007989PSW0010.1177/14789299211007989Political Studies ReviewCommissioned Book Review
book-review2021
Commissioned Book Review
Understanding Islamist Terrorism in Europe:
Drugs, Jihad and the Pursuit of Martyrdom
by Lewis Herrington. New York: Routledge,
2021. 240pp., £120.00, ISBN 9780367281526
Lewis Herrington is an expert on jihadi terror-
ism and radicalisation in Europe and has
already published important articles on these
topics in prestigious journals. His last book,
Understanding Suicide Terrorism in Europe:
Drugs, Jihad and the Pursuit of Martyrdom
(Routledge), is timely and significant for schol-
ars who work on terrorism and counter-terror-
ism in Europe. It is particularly well-documented
thanks to a significant amount of primary data
concerning human impact, target, method and
connection to terrorist organisations.
The book makes an original contribution to
the field of security and terrorism studies for at
least two reasons. First, it challenges previous
models of radicalisation and introduces a new
model called fellowship theory. The author
borrows this idea from the 12 steps progression
in the NA (Narcotics Anonymous) process. It
follows that fellowship theory frames the over-
all process of radicalisation as a spiritual jour-
ney of self-discovery and that radicalisation is
more iterative rather than linear. Moreover, the
parallelism between radicalisation and NA is
important because the data that the author has
collected confirm that there is a strong link
between drugs abuse and martyrdom opera-
tions. Second, the book offers invaluable data
on terrorists who carried out martyrdom opera-
tions in Europe from 2001 to 2018. Not only
are these data used in the book to explain the
author’s ideas, but they are also summarised in
several tables, figures and appendix.
The author affirms rather convincingly that
‘the individual level of analysis is by far the
most important approach for understanding
martyrdom terrorism in Europe’. In order to
demonstrate this statement, the book offers a
comprehensive examination of men (not a
single woman has carried out martyrdom oper-
ation in Europe) who have pursued martyrdom
terrorism in Europe. From this analysis, three
variables stand out from the control group:
criminality, psychopathology and substance
abuse. This confirms a reality of Islamist ter-
rorism in Europe that several authors have
already foreseen, that is, before starting the
process of radicalisation, the perpetrators were
mostly religiously unobservant, narcissistic
drug users and with a criminal record (65%,
however, surprisingly only 20% of the subjects
had a previous conviction for violence).
As for the substance abuse, this study shows
that ‘a remarkable percentage (74%) of the men
in our study presented with a significant history
of substance abuse. This figure increases to
80% if we include anabolic steroids’. Therefore,
it appears that the use of drugs is a very impor-
tant element to understand both the radicaliza-
tion process and the phenomenon of martyrdom
and it may help experts to develop both more
efficient counter-terrorism strategies and de-
radicalization programmes. Other two elements
stand out. On the one hand, several subjects
ceased using drugs use when Islamic extrem-
ism began while some subjects relapsed in the
days prior the attack. On the other hand, one
third of the subjects had used heavy narcotics
including both heroin and cocaine; however,
only 14% of young adults across Europe
reported use of narcotics in 2018.
The criminal record is interesting for two
reasons. First, previous studies have showed
that in the Middle East criminality can often be
a barrier to entry for men seeking martyrdom
because, for instance, Palestinian militant
groups would not facilitate criminals to pursue
martyrdom. This is not true in Europe and this
distinguishes such operations in Europe from
those in the Middle East. Second, not only a
criminal record is almost a constant issue in
martyrdom in Europe, but it is also an impor-
tant element of European foreign fighters.
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