Islamic terrorism in the west and international migrations: the 'far' or 'near' enemy within? what is the evidence

Abstract

The primary aim of this paper is to enhance our understanding of the immigration-terrorism nexus at a time when the massive inflow of immigrants in Europe coincides with the rise of the so-called Islamic State and a spike of terrorist incidents on European soil driven by the war in Syria. The article goes onto survey theoretical contributions on immigration, security and terrorism and research evidence on whether terrorism is driven by recent immigrants or nationals. As an extension of this analysis, this paper also takes on a supplementary, related question: to what extent may the main terrorist threat to Western countries not actually come from immigrants or refugees, but rather from home-grown extremists inspired by the ongoing jihad in Syria?