Internal Debates, Doubts and Discussions on the Scope of Jihadi Violence: The Case of the Turnup Terror Squad

Do Islamist extremists express any doubts on the use of violence? This article seeks to address this question by studying private conversations between Islamist militant sympathisers, including ISIS supporters and those who went on to plan acts of terrorism. It identifies internal brakes on violent escalation from these threads and groups these according to four overlapping debates concerning group identity, targeting and exclusion, family and friendship dynamics, and knowledge acquisition. It examines how these brakes relate to logics of strategy, morals, ego-maintenance, out-group boundaries and organisation, shedding light on the interplay between macro-, meso-, and micro-level dynamics and developments in the in-group’s external environment. It finds that while consensus regarding the legitimacy of mass-casualty terrorism remained consistent, disagreements emerged regarding the exclusion and targeting of members of the faith community, knowledge acquisition and evidence, the legality and morality of public executions, and the impact of organisational splits. Yet, the article also finds that despite these differences, in-group cohesion was not undermined, and violence may have been redirected, rather than abandoned, as a result of braking dynamics.