Jihadi terrorism in the Netherlands. A description based on closed criminal investigations

Abstract

What is the nature of jihadi terrorism in the Netherlands at the beginning of the 21st century, if we base our analysis on information about this phenomenon that has been collected by the police? That is the core question of this study. In order to increase the understanding of jihadi terrorism, the knowledge collected by the police during criminal investigations into jihadi activities has been analysed systematically. When we refer to jihadi activities, we mean activities which are aimed at making a contribution to the armed struggle being conducted by radical islamists against the West and against other perceived enemies of Islam. For the purpose of this project, we analysed a total of twelve (large-scale) criminal investigations conducted in the Netherlands between July 2001 and July 2005. In doing so, we have sketched the portrait of an era. The most recent criminal investigation we analysed was conducted in the spring of 2005. We cannot make any projection about how the phenomenon of jihadism may have since changed under the influence of national or international developments. We have based our research on police files. This entails considerable restrictions. Firstly, the police are not aware of all jihadi activities nor do they initiate criminal investigations into all jihadi activities of which they are aware. Secondly, we only selected a portion of the cases investigated during the period studied. This selection may have influenced our findings. Thirdly, we have based our research on the information collected by investigation teams who focused on reconstructing terrorist crimes and submitting these to the court, substantiated by evidence. This focus of the investigation teams, their investigation hypotheses and the related selection and interpretation of information have also influenced our perception. The findings presented below must be seen in this light. In order to obtain an objective analysis of the available investigation material, but also because different criminal investigations into jihadi activities are often interrelated, we considered the selected investigation material in its entirety, and chose to rely less on the structures of the separate criminal investigations. The raw empirical material was subsequently restructured, so that groups of cooperating persons and joint activities could be examined together. In analysing this material, we focused on three dimensions: (1) jihadi cooperations; (2) the activities carried out within these cooperations, and (3) the jihadi actors.