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What We Can Learn From a Young, Grassroots Jihadist in Pittsburgh

Scott Stewart

VP of Tactical Analysis, Stratfor

Jun 25, 2019 | 10:00 GMT

Police respond to the site of a mass shooting at synagogue on Oct. 27, 2018, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

A mass shooting at Pittsburgh synagogue left four dead in October 2018. The shooter surrendered to authorities and was taken into custody.

(Jeff Swensen/Getty Images)

Highlights

A recent case involving an attempted terrorist attack on a Pittsburgh church provides a potent illustration of the persistent, low-level threat posed by grassroots jihadists.
The FBI has done a laudable job identifying grassroots jihadists and establishing communications with them before they can conduct attacks.
Most grassroots attackers lack sophisticated terrorist tradecraft and are unable to conduct complex attacks against secured targets.
But soft target locations, such as houses of worship, nonetheless remain in the crosshairs of homegrown jihadists, which is why it's important to remain vigilant for signs of attack planning.

The long and brutal civil war in Syria all began in March 2011, when the arrest of 15 young men in the southeastern city of Daraa spurred a cascade of escalating protests against the government. The city was then bombed, besieged, starved and squeezed for nearly a decade, until the Syrian army and its allies finally reconquered what little of it remained in July 2018. During the years of peak violence, many residents fled to nearby Jordan, where they were placed in camps alongside the Syrian border. While many remain in those camps to this day, a fortunate few were able to apply for refugee status and receive resettlement in third countries. A young man from Daraa, who I will intentionally not name here, was among the lucky ones. Upon being granted refugee status, he and his family were flown to the United States in August 2016, where they were resettled in a public housing...

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