The Jihadi Industry: Assessing the Organizational, Leadership, and Cyber Profiles

This report, commissioned by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), seeks to address this question by examining a sample of 10 active jihadi organizations through December 31, 2015. Drawing on longitudinal data analytics, organizational science literature, and computer science techniques, this report provides a picture of key organizations operating in the Jihadi Industry.The report’s main findings indicate that leadership, organizational structure, and innovation vary across the Jihadi Industry, which has implications for how government resources should be allocated for monitoring and analysis. In addition, the findings highlight the need for additional research to determine advanced indicator and warning signals of which groups will emerge as the most strategically differentiated and capable of malevolent innovation in coming years.