Introduction to terrorism: understanding and interviewing terrorists

This chapter discusses the viability of profiling terrorists in the context of the global war on Islamic extremist terror groups and the inherent problems with current nomothetic approaches and provides strategies for rapport-based interviewing of individual terrorists. It is intended to serve as a wake-up call to Western investigators, examiners, and researchers who think that they are capable of operating with the vaguest understanding of Islamic terrorist organizations despite not speaking or reading Arabic, to say nothing of their overall lack of contact with terrorists and the cultures they come from. Without this basic context, it seems unlikely that adequately informed research and casework can be performed. A step in the right direction would be to shift from an antagonistic and torture-oriented model of interrogating that builds resentment to a rapport-oriented model of interviewing that gains actual intelligence. In this way, the stereotypical thinking that has misled the efforts thus far can be combatted.