Paris attacks show how hard it is to profile ISIS recruits

The fact that most of the Paris attackers identified so farwere European-born radicals has once again shined the spotlight on the growing problem in the West of homegrown extremism.

Authorities have identified four Frenchmen and two Belgians as suspectsintheshootings and suicide bombingsthat killed 129 people on Friday. That puts them among ISIS's legion of foreign fighters,estimated by the CIAto number over 20,000.

A seventh suspect's body wasfound near aSyrian passport, but its authenticity has come under scrutinyafter Serbian police arrested a man with an almost identical copy, the Guardian newspaper reported.

The European backgrounds of the perpetrators puts France and the Westin the difficult position of trying to understand why their own citizens would sacrifice their lives to murder their neighbours on behalf of anextremist organization inanother part of the world aquestion radicalization analystssay is almost impossible to answer.

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There is no reliable profile for many of thecandidates being recruitedby extremist Islamic groups, PhilGurski, aformer intelligenceanalyst with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, told CBC News.

"Throughout my career atCSISand looking at a lot of thesethings,we simply found that there were no useful elements in terms of profiles,whether itwas age or ethnicity or employment status or education orpsychological or criminal background," Gurski said.

Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the suspected mastermind of the Paris attacks, killed in a police assault,wasa lifelong Muslim and thechild of Moroccan immigrants.

By contrast,DamianClairmont, theCalgary man who died fighting with ISIS in Syria last year, was a white Muslimconvert with an Acadian ancestry.

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Even gender is not a guaranteed common factor, as there have been multiple reports ofCanadian women joiningISIS.

"We've had people poor, rich, married, unmarried, mental illness, converts,not-converts and so there's nothing really there in terms of profile," saysAmarnathAmarasingam, a post-doctoral fellow who researches terrorism and radicalizationat Halifax'sDalhousie University.

"What all of them do tend to have in common ...is youth, [with a] thrust towards meaning and purpose and significance. Alot of these youth don't feel like they fit into the broader society, they don't feel like they belong."

Giving ISIS what they want

The fact that ISIS preys on those who feel isolated and excluded should be a wake-up call for Western nationsto build more inclusive societies, saysRima Berns-McGown, aUniversity of Torontohistory professor who researches how government policy affectsyouth radicalization.

She's concerned that certainstate responses to the Paris attacks, likeclosingdoors to Syrian refugees, play into ISIS's hands.

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"The reason ISIS does these things, launches these attacks and so on, is because it actually wants to create an environment in which the West appears to be hostile to people who are not of the West. It wants to create a sort of civilizational war," she said.

"Itwants to create anger and resentment. It wants to create Islamophobia. It wants to create racism. Because if it does that, it makes the lives of individual Muslims more uncomfortable, and it wants to say, 'You cannot be at home in the West. You need to come and be at home in the only place that will respect you.'"

'Utopian' vision

For his part, Amarasingamsaid ISIS is unique among Islamic extremists organizations in selling this "utopian" vision of a caliphate, orIslamic state,where people can find asense of belonging.

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"It's a state where they believe that Islamic law is being practiced in its purest and fullest form,and therefore all Muslims around the world have an obligation to make migration to that state," he said.

"The fact that the vast majority ofMuslimsaround the world disagree that this is the authentic Islamic state doesn't seem to bother them too much." But many of the youth it is able to recruit "are drawn to that nation-building, utopian vision that they're portraying themselves to be."

The warning signs

When people start to buy into this propaganda,they exhibit certain behaviours.

In his bookThe Threat From Within: Recognizing al-Qaeda-Inspired Radicalization and Terrorism in the West,he outlines 12 indicators ofradicalization,including:

• Expressing vocal opposition to Western values.
• Spending lengthy amounts of time on violent jihadistwebsites.
• Exhibiting hatred towards non-Muslims,moderate Muslims or Shia Muslims.
• Isolating themselvesfrompeople who disagree with them.

He cautions that while all homegrown radicals exhibit some or all of these behaviours, not everyone who shows these warning signs crosses the line into violence and criminality.

People withfriends or family members who fit this profile shouldn't necessarily makeaccusations or call 911, he said. Instead, just talk to them and find out what's going on.

"These are warning signs. In the same way that if you think someone is engaged in gang activity or illegal substances or whatever, you don't just kind of sit back and say 'Oh that's interesting.' You take action."