• I. Why Do Foreign Fighters Matter?


• Definitions


• Key Arguments


• 1. Why do they fight?


• 2. What do foreign fighters offer a local militant group?


• 3. Why do foreign fighters often prove disastrous?


• 4. What is the role of the state?


• 5. What happens after fighters return?


• 6. How can counterterrorism be improved?


• Book Structure


• II. The Prophet: Abdullah Azzam and the Anti-Soviet Jihad in Afghanistan


• Jihad and the Rifle Alone


• The Afghanistan Jihad


• Azzam the Organizer


• State Support?


• Azzam's End


• Enter Al Qaeda


• When the Jihad Ends


• Warnings Unheeded


• III. Barbaros: The Red Beard


• Looking for Jihad


• Inspired to Fight


• Hearing the Call


• A Mixed Reaction in Bosnia


• An Abrupt End


• IV. The Trainer: Ali Mohammad and Afghanistan in the 1990s


• Jihad at a Crossroads


• Why Did Fighters Go to Afghanistan?


• Getting There


• What Did Fighters Learn in the Camps?


• Tensions in the Ranks


• The Weak Response


• The 9/11 Disaster


• Afghanistan after 9/11


• V. Chechnya and the Sword of Islam


• Russian Dogs


• The First Chechen War


• Enter the Jihadists: Khattab and Basaev


• The Interim: Exploiting the Vacuum


• VI. Hubris and Nemesis: The Chechen Foreign Fighters Overreach


• Russia Exploits the Foreign Fighter Presence


• Chechnya after Khattab


• VII. The Slaughterer: Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi and Ascendant Iraqi Jihad (2003-2006)


• Sowing the Wind in Iraq


• The City of Mosques


• A Magnet for Foreigners


• Who Went to Iraq and How Did They Get There?


• Zarqawi's End


• VIII. The Dreamer: Abu Ayyub al-Masri and the Self-Destruction of the Iraqi Jihad


• Reaping the Whirlwind


• The Tide Turns


• A Defeat for the Cause


• IX. The Gadfly: Omar Hammami


• Jihadism Emerges in Somalia


• The Rise of the Shebaab


• The Frustrations of Jihad


• The Shebaab's High Water Mark - A Mini Islamic State


• Hammami's Fall


• The Shebaab as a Terrorist Group


• Foreigners Fighting the Shebaab


• The Shebaab Settles in for a Long War


• X. John the Beatle and the Syrian Civil War


• The Rise of the Islamic State


• The Appeal of Jihad in Syria


• Propaganda, Social Media and Recruitment


• A Five-Star Jihad


• The Turkish Highway


• Training Camps and Hard Fighting


• Life in the Islamic State


• The Terrorism Threat


• Leaving the Islamic State


• The Western Response


• XI. The Facilitator: Amer Azizi and the Rise of Jihadist Terrorism in Europe


• The Origins of the Europe as a Jihadist Battlefield


• Jihadism in Europe post-9/11


• The Islamic State in Europe


• Jihad Returns to Europe


• The European Response to Foreign Fighters


• XII. America Squares Off against the Legion


• Who Are the American Foreign Fighters?


• The Limits of the Internet


• Attacks in America


• Stopping American Foreign Fighters


• Law Enforcement


• Military operations


• Intelligence Operations


• What's Next?


• XIII. How to Stop Foreign Fighters


• Halting the Foreign Fighter Production Process


• The Decision Stage


• The Travel Stage


• Training and Fighting in the War Zone


• The Return Stage


• Thinking Beyond the Plot Stage


• Bibliography

Daniel Byman is a Professor at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service and a Senior Fellow at the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution.

Road Warriors is a history of the modern jihadist movement, detailing the lives and struggles of foreigners who left their homes to wage jihad in another country. Some died there, while others became professional fighters, going from one war to the next. Still others sought to return home or to the United States and Europe, some to peaceful retirement but a deadly few to conduct terrorist attacks. This book shows how governments have tried to fight the group and assesses what worked and what needs to be done.