美国人为何加入ISIS，与国为敌？

根据一份权威报告，目前约有4500名西方人离开祖国，加入极端圣战组织，其中至少有250名美国人。寻求身份认同，是这些西方人参加伊斯兰圣战组织的主要原因。

在美国官方确认一对美国夫妇于12月2日在加州圣贝纳迪诺的节日聚会上枪杀14人之后，有一个问题变得日益紧迫：是什么导致西方人加入穆斯林极端组织，比如盘踞在伊拉克和叙利亚的伊斯兰国（ISIS）？

美国国家安全新闻网站Defense One发表文章指出，已有专业市场研究公司对恐怖分子加入极端组织的动机进行了更为完整的总结。这家名为Quantum Communications的机构，位于黎巴嫩贝鲁特。他们悉心研究了沙特阿拉伯和伊拉克电视台对之前和现役极端组织战士的一对一采访。

根据该公司在今年早些时候公布的研究结果，美国人和其他西方人之所以加入伊斯兰极端组织，最主要的原因是寻求身份认同。报告称，在西方文化当中，他们感觉自己是外来者，一直在寻找能够给他们带来归属感的规则、结构和群体凝聚力。

这份报告这样描述“寻求身份认同者”：“归属感决定了他们的身份、角色、朋友，以及他们与社会的互动方式。”在这一群体中，有超过60%来自西方，包括美国、法国和英国公民。“在这种情况下，伊斯兰乌玛（身份）提供了一种现成的跨国身份。”

该报告将西方的皈依者形容为“自信，孩子气，别有用心。”在这些“寻找身份认同者”中，有一位22岁，名叫莫纳•默罕默德•阿布萨尔哈的佛罗里达人。据官方消息，2014年，他在叙利亚使用汽车炸弹炸死了自己和其他人。他当时为基地组织的分支“努斯拉阵线”效力。

为了收集人们的动机，这项于2015年完成的研究采用一位加拿大心理学家发明的心理情境分析法。今年早些时候，负责特别行动/低强度战争的美国国防部副部长迈克尔•伦普金向国会作证时曾表示，五角大楼将采用一种类似的框架，侦察和识别本国出生的伊斯兰恐怖分子。

除了加入极端组织的西方国家公民，这家市场研究公司还研究了电视台采访的ISIS支持者，这些人来自叙利亚和伊拉克，以及包括沙特阿拉伯在内的其他阿拉伯国家。该公司根据他们自己所说的加入伊斯兰极端组织的原因，将其分成9类。除了寻找身份认同者，其他类别包括：

•地位追求者，希望通过金钱和认可，提高社会地位；

•复仇者，同情受到西方压迫的人；

•寻求救赎者，他们在努力消除以往犯下的罪孽。

•责任追求者，多数来自战区，他们寻找更好的途径来支持和保护自己的家人；

•寻求刺激者，他们在追求冒险；

•意识形态追求者，他们希望将伊斯兰教的观点强加给他人；

•正义追求者，他们相信他们正在纠正错误；

•寻死者，这些人往往在冲突中有亲人丧生，现在希望作为烈士死去，而不是自杀。

西方人中更为常见的理由是寻找身份认同，但也不乏寻求刺激者。报告中给出的一个例子是30岁的美国老兵埃里克•哈龙，他在2013年加入叙利亚自由军，后来死于服药过量。

来自伊拉克和叙利亚的极端组织战士，主要是受到金钱和地位的刺激。他们更有可能承认，加入极端组织的理由是养家或者改善家人的生活条件。在被问到为什么加入战斗时，不论来自西方还是当地的战士，最常见的答案是保卫逊尼派，参加圣战。

根据智库New America在11月份公布的第二项研究，目前约有4,500名西方人离开祖国加入了极端圣战组织，其中至少有250名美国人。

当然，这还不包括制造圣贝纳迪诺惨案的枪手赛义德•里兹万•法鲁克和他的妻子塔什芬•马利克，或者2013年波士顿马拉松爆炸案的凶手塔米尔南•察尔纳耶夫和19岁的弟弟焦哈尔。

New America的报告指出，加入伊斯兰极端组织的西方人中，女性占到了前所未有的比例。在报告研究的474人当中，有七分之一为女性。此外，加入极端组织的西方人均非常年轻，男性和女性的平均年龄仅有24岁。

在New America确认前往叙利亚的23名美国人当中，有9人已经丧生，有9人仍逍遥法外，另有5人被监禁。（财富中文网）

译者：刘进龙/汪皓

审校：任文科

After authorities disclosed an American couple killed 14 people at a holiday party in San Bernardino, California, December 2, the question has become urgent: What causes Westerners to join Muslim extremist groups, like the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)?

A Lebanese market research company says it has coaxed out a more complete profile of their motivations, according to an article in Defense One, a national security news website. The Beirut-based firm Quantum Communications studied televised one-on-one interviews with former and current fighters shown on Saudi and Iraqi channels.

According to the study, released earlier this year, Americans and other Westerners are more likely to be drawn to Islamic extremist groups as they search for identity. They feel like outsiders in Western culture and seek out the rules, structure and cohesiveness of the group to provide them a sense of belonging, the report says.

“Belonging defines them, their role, their friends, and their interaction with society,” as the group of “identity seekers” is described in the report; more than 60 percent of this group was from the West that included U.S. French and British nationals. “In this context the Islamic Ummah (identity) provides a pre-packaged transnational identity.”

The report succinctly describes Western converts as “confident na?fs with an axe to grind.” Among the identity seekers the report identified Moner Mohammad Abusalha, a 22-year-old Florida man who, according to authorities, blew himself and others up using a truck bomb in Syria in 2014. He was fighting with an al-Qaeda splinter organization known as al-Nusra Front.

The 2015 study uses a psy-cho-con-tex-tu-al ana-lyt-ic-al technique developed by a Canadian psychologist to glean people’s motivations. In testimony to Congress earlier this year, Mi-chaelLumpkin, as-sist-ant de-fense sec-ret-ary for spe-cial op-er-a-tions/low-intensity con-flict, said the Pentagon would use a framework similar to that in the Quantum study to analyze, detect and deter homegrown Islamic terrorists.

Besides the Western recruits, the market researcher also studied televised interviews with ISIS supporters from Syria and Iraq as well as other Arab nations, including Saudi Arabia. The firm grouped the fight-ers in-to nine cat-egor-ies, based on why they said they joined Islamic radical groups. Besides identity seekers, the other categories included:

Status seekers who want to improve their social status through money and recognition;

Revenge seekers who identify with those oppressed by the West;

Redemption seekers who are seeking to erase past sins;

Responsibility seekers, most often from the war zone, who are looking to better ways to support and protect their families;

Thrill seekers who are looking for adventure;

Ideology seekers who are looking to impose their view of Islam;

Justice seekers who believe they are righting a wrong; and

Death seekers, who are often people who have lost people in the conflict and now seek to die as martyrs, rather than commit suicide.

A more common reason among Westerners was a search for identity. But a few also were characterized as thrill seekers. An example given by the report was Eric Harroun, a 30-year-old American veteran, who went to fight in Syria in 2013 with the Free Syrian Army. He later died of a drug overdose.

Recruits from Iraq and Syria were much more motivated by money and status. They were far more likely to acknowledge the need to support families or improve their living conditions as reasons. When asked why they were fighting, the most frequent answer given by all the various recruits—whether Western or from the region—was a desire to defend Sunnis and to fight in the name of Jihad.

About 4,500 Westerners—at least 250 of which are Americans—have left their home countries to join up with radical jihadist groups, according to a second study released in November by think tank New America.

That, of course, doesn’t count the San Bernardino shooters, Syed RizwanFarook and his wife Tashfeen Malik, or TamerlanTsarnaev and his 19-year-old brother Dzhokhar who perpetrated the 2013 bombing at the Boston Marathon, according to authorities.

The New America report points out that an unprecedented number of these Western recruits are women. Of the 474 studied for the report, one out of seven were women. The recruits—both men and women—also tend to be young with an average age of 24.

Of the 23 Americans identified by New America who reached Syria, nine have died, nine are at large, and five are in custody.