1. This article uses the definition of insurgencies provided in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) pamphlet Guide to the Analysis of Insurgency. This definition states: “Insurgency is a protracted political-military activity directed toward completely or partially controlling the resources of a country through the use of irregular military forces and illegal political organizations. Insurgent activity—including guerrilla warfare, terrorism, and political mobilization, for example, propaganda, recruitment, front and covert party organization, and international activity—is designed to weaken government control and legitimacy while increasing insurgent control and legitimacy. The common denominator of most insurgent groups is their desire to control a particular area. This objective differentiates insurgent groups from purely terrorist organizations, whose objectives do not include the creation of an alternative government capable of controlling a given area or country.” Using this definition, insurgencies typically, although not inherently, have three components: political mobilization, guerrilla warfare, and the use of terrorism. Central Intelligence Agency, Guide to the Analysis of Insurgency (n.d.), p. 2. The pamphlet was published in the 1980s and republished in 2012. This definition is more comprehensive than others, but the others to emphasize the importance of guerrilla warfare. Fearon and Laitin see insurgency has involving “small, lightly armed bands practicing guerrilla warfare from rural base areas.” James D. Fearon and David D. Laitin, “Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War,” American Political Science Review 97 (February 2003), pp. 75–90.

2. Anonymous (Michael Scheuer), Through Our Enemies Eyes (Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2006), p. xviii. Although the United States understandably focuses on Al Qaeda as a terrorist group, much of its energy has gone into promoting insurgencies around the Islamic world.

3. Adding further complexity to this challenge, in a surprising twist, the United States has at times backed rebels who are themselves allied with these jihadists, as in Libya and now Syria.

4. The term “Islamist” can be applied to a wide range of organizations, most of which have a peaceful agenda. In addition, the term is broad enough to include groups that define Islamism to simply mean an Islamic identity or a desire to slightly increase the Islamicization of the country. For purposes of this article, I focus on the subset of Islamists that French scholar Gilles Kepel has labeled “Salafi-jihadists.” See The Trail of Radical Islam (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2002). Salafi-jihadists, as the label implies, espouse a variant of Islam (Salafism) that is puritanical and hearkens back to the early generations of Islam's founders. In addition, they call upon the Muslim world to support violent struggles against the United States, the West in general, and Muslim regimes they deem unIslamic (often all of them). Often the particulars of Salafi-jihadism vary considerably in practice.

5. The concept of an insurgency as a set of inputs and outputs that can be modeled across countries draws on Nathan Leites and Charles Wolf, Jr., Rebellion and Authority (Chicago: Markham, 1970).

6. David Kilcullen, The Accidental Guerilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).

7. Arline and William McCord, “Ethnic Autonomy: A Socio-historical Synthesis,” in Ethnic Autonomy: Comparative Dynamics, ed. Raymond Hall (New York: Pergamon Press, 1979), p. 427.

8. See in particular Paul Collier, “Rebellion as a Quasi-Criminal Activity,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 44 (2001), pp. 839–53 and Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler, “Greed and Grievance in Civil War, Oxford Economic Papers 56 (2004), pp. 563–595.

9. Mao Tse-tung, On Guerrilla Warfare (Urbana: University of Illinois, 2000).

10. Idean Salehyan, “Transnational Rebels: Neighboring States as Sanctuary for Rebel Groups,” World Politics 59 (January 2007), pp. 217–242. Daniel Byman, Deadly Connections: States that Sponsor Terrorism (New York: Cambridge, 2005).

11. As Blake Mobley contends, militant groups “face an even more basic threat to their existence: the discovery of their activities, members, and plans by government law enforcement and intelligence agencies.” Blake Mobley, Terrorism and Counterintelligence (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012), p. 1. Mobley is writing about terrorist groups, but several of his cases also involve insurgent organizations, and the generalization applies across this substate spectrum.

12. Leites and Wolf, Rebellion and Authority, p. 10.

13. On the stages of insurgency as classically defined, see Tse-tung, On Guerrilla Warfare. For a discussion of how groups go from small entities to full-blown insurgencies, see Daniel Byman, “Understanding Proto-Insurgencies,” Journal of Strategic Studies 31(2) (2008), pp. 165–200.

14. Jarrett Brachman, Global Jihadism: Theory and Practice (Oxon: Taylor & Francis, 2009).

15. The literature on nationalism is vast. For a sample, see Anthony Smith, Nationalism (Polity Press, 2010); Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1983); Liah Greenfeld, Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003); Walker Connor, Ethnonationalism: The Quest for Understanding (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994); and Stephen Van Evera, “Hypotheses on Nationalism and War,” International Security 18(4) (Spring 1994), pp. 5–39.

16. Fouad Ajami, The Dream Palace of the Arabs (New York: Pantheon Books, 1998), pp. 200–204; Kepel, Jihad, pp. 275–289.

17. International Crisis Group, Radical Islam in Gaza, Middle East Report no. 104, 29 March 2011; and Barak Mendelsohn, “Al Qaeda's Palestinian Problem,” Survival 51(4) (2009), pp. 71–86.

18. Graham Fuller, The Future of Political Islam (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2004), p. 126.

19. Jarret M. Brachman and William F. McCants, “Stealing Al Qaeda's Playbook,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 29(4) (2006), pp. 309–321 and William McCants, Jarret Brachman, and Joseph Felter, Military Ideology Atlas (West Point, NY: West Point Combating Terrorism Center, November 2006).

20. A study done before the Arab Spring found that the majority of Middle East and North countries scored poorly on a political stability/absence of violence index, particularly outside the Persian Gulf states. See D. Kaufmann, A. Kraay, and M. Mastruzzi, The World Wide Governance Indicators: Methodology and Analytic Indicators (World Bank, 2010) available at papers. ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1682130 (accessed 12 February 2012).

21. See Daniel Byman, Deadly Connections: States that Sponsor Terrorism (New York: Cambridge, 2005) and Daniel Byman, Peter Chalk, Bruce Hoffman, William Rosenau, and David Brannan, Trends in Outside Support for Insurgent Movements (New York: RAND, 2001).

22. The U.S. Department of the Treasury reported in 2009 that in the mid-1990s a Salafi-jihadist with ties to bin Laden negotiated a secret relationship with Iran that allowed safe transit of jihadists via Iran to Afghanistan. In a 2008 interview with As-Sahab, then the number two leader of Al Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, admitted that prior to 9/11, Al Qaeda and Iran worked together “on confronting the American-led Zionist/Crusader alliance.”

23. “Country Reports on Terrorism 2011,” U.S. Department of State, 31 July 2012. For a discussion of how these tactics spread throughout the network, see Michael Horowitz, “Nonstate Actors and the Diffusion of Innovations: The Case of Suicide Terrorism,” International Organizations 64 (Winter 2010), pp. 33–64.

24. Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, “Al-Qaida Turns Tide for Rebels in Battle for Eastern Syria,” The Guardian, 30 July 2012. Available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/30/al-qaida-rebels-battle-syria (accessed 19 March 2013).

25. Marc Sageman, Understanding Terror Networks (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004).

26. C. Christine Fair, “The Enduring Madrasa Myth,” Current History 111(744) (April 2012), pp. 135–140 and “Militant Recruitment in Pakistan: A New Look at the Militancy-Madrasah Connection,” Asia Policy 1 (4) (Summer 2007). Available at http://home.comcast.net/~christine_fair/pubs/AP4_Fair.pdf (accessed 19 March 2013); and The Madrassah Challenge: Militancy and Religious Education in Pakistan (Washington, DC: USIP, March 2008). Available at  http://home.comcast.net/~christine_fair/pubs/Madrassah918_1As.pdf (accessed 19 March 2013).

27. Smuggling appears to be one of the most prominent sources according to this Reuters report: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/13/us-syria-arms-rebels-idUSBRE86C0KQ20120713 (accessed 19 March 2013). However, many arms are captured from government forces. See http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/29/world/middleeast/syrian-rebels-get-arms-from-a-diverse-network-of-sources.html?pagewanted=all (accessed 19 March 2013). Foreign suppliers (Saudi Arabia and Qatar) do not seem to be making a huge impact. See http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/arms-deliveries-to-syrian-rebels-delayed/2012/07/11/gJQA6hRIdW_story.html (accessed 19 March 2013).

28. For a discussion of these problems, see Daniel Byman, “Counterinsurgency and the War on Terror,” International Security 31(2) (2006), pp. 79–115.

29. Olivier Roy, Globalized Islam: The Search for a New Ummah (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006) and Thomas Hegghammer, “The Rise of Muslim Foreign Fighters,” International Security 35(3) (Winter 2010/11), pp. 53–94.

30. Jarret M. Brachman, “High Tech Jihad: Al-Qaeda's Use of New Technology,” Fletcher Forum for World Affairs 30(2) (2006) and Manuel R. Torres Soriano, “Jihadist Propaganda and Its Audiences,” Perspectives on Terrorism 1(2) (2007).

31. “Osama Bin Laden Largely Discredited Among Muslim Publics in Recent Years,” Pew Research Center, 2 May 2011. Available at http://www.pewglobal.org/2011/05/02/osama-bin-laden-largely-discredited-among-muslim-publics-in-recent-years/ (accessed 19 March 2013).

32. Neil MacFarquhar, “As Syrian War Drags On, Jihadists Take Bigger Role,” New York Times, 29 July 2012. Available at http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/world/middleeast/as-syrian-war-drags-on-jihad-gains-foothold.html?pagewanted=all&_moc.semityn.www (accessed 19 March 2013).

33. Much depends on whether ethnic Somalis who left Somalia are considered “foreign” or not. For different figures, see “UK Terrorism Analysis,” RUSI (February 2012). Available at http://www.rusi.org /downloads/assets/UKTA1.pdf (accessed 19 March 2013); Catherine Herridge, “Ranks of Somali Terror Group Swelling with Foreign Fighters, Including Americans, Official Says,” Fox News 17 November 2011. Available at http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/11/17/ranks-somali-terror-group-swelling-with-foreign-fighters-including-americans/?test=latestnews (accessed 19 March 2013); and David Shinn, “Al Shabaab's Foreign Threat to Somalia” in “The Foreign Fighters Problem, Recent Trends and Case Studies: Selected Essays,” FPRI April 2011. Available at http://www.fpri.org/pubs/2011/ForeignFighters Problem.pdf (accessed 19 March 2013). On Iraq see Aaron Zelin, “Foreign Fighters Trickle into Syrian Rebellion,” The Washington Institute, 11 July 2012. For Yemen, see Carl Prine, “Yemen and the Two Clocks,” Line of Departure, 11 June 2012. Available at http://www.lineofdeparture.com/2012/06/11/yemen-and-the-two-clocks (accessed 19 March 2013).

34. Daniel Byman, “Breaking the Bonds between Al-Qa'ida and Its Affiliate Organizations,” Saban Center Analysis Paper no. 27 (The Brookings Institution, August 2012).

35. Joseph Holliday, “Syria's Armed Opposition,” Institute for the Study of War (March 2012), pp. 32–34.

36. Beverley Milton-Edwards and Stephen Farrell, Hamas (Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2010); Matthew Levitt, Hamas:  Politics, Charity, and Terrorism in the Service of Jihad (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006), pp. 80–107, 171–202; Nicholas Blanford, Warriors of God: Inside Hezbollah's Thirty-Year Struggle against Israel (New York: Random House, 2011).

37. Nelly Lahoud et al., “Letters from Abbottabad: Bin Ladin Sidelined,” West Point Combating Terrorism Center (2012), p. 21.

38. As quoted in Lahoud et al., “Letters from Abbottabad,” p. 13.

39. Mobley, Terrorism and Counter-Intelligence, pp. 3–4.

40. For example, Sayf al-Adl claimed in an interview published in 2005 by Jordanian journalist Fu'ad Husayn that because of U.S. demands, after Iran released Hekmatyar in 2002, Iranian pressure “confused us and (we) aborted 75 percent of our plans” and that there were many arrests—suggesting Iran was helping disrupt Al Qaeda at this time.

41. Jason Burke, The 9/11 Wars (London: Allan Lane, 2011), p. 165.

42. Byman, “Friends Like These.”

43. “Arab Spring Fails to Improve U.S. Image,” Pew Research Center 17 May 2011. Available at http://www.pewglobal.org/2011/05/17/arab-spring-fails-to-improve-us-image/ (accessed 19 March 2013). Indonesia is a notable exception to this hostility.

44. Mobley, Terrorism and Counter-Intelligence, p. 4.

45. For an assessment of the drone campaign, see Bryan Price, “Targeting Top Terrorists: How Leadership Decapitation Contributes to Counterterrorism,” International Security (Spring 2012), pp. 9–46.

46. Kepel, Jihad, p. 320. Also, their violence often reflects a lack of grassroots support or organization.

47. “Most Muslims Want Democracy, Personal Freedoms, and Islam in Political Life,” Pew Research Center, 10 July 2012.

48. Evan Kohlmann, “State of the Sunni Insurgency in Iraq,” The NEFA Foundation (2007). Available at http://counterterrorismblog.org/2007/10/the_sunni_insurgency_has_becom.php (accessed 19 March 2013).

49. See Burke, The 9/11 Wars for more on the importance of “local nationalisms.”

50. Ken Menkhaus, “Somalia After the Ethiopian Occupation: First Steps to End the Conflict and Combat Extremism,” Enough Project, February 2009. Available at http://www.enoughproject.org/files/Somalia%20After%20the%20Ethiopian%20Occupation.pdf (accessed 19 March 2013).

51. As quoted in Andrew Higgins and Alan Cullison, “Terrorist's Odyssey,” The Wall Street Journal, 2 July 2002, p. A1.

52. “Egyptian Salafists Tell Israel They Will Keep the Peace,” Ahram Online, 21 December 2011. Available at http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/29870.aspx (accessed 19 March 2013).

53. U.S. support for minority rights, particularly women's rights, is a policy that Al Qaeda will use to try to turn locals against democracy. Although democracy in general has high levels of support, Western notions of women's rights do not. Al Qaeda tries to capitalize on claims that the United States is subverting Islam with its emphasis on women's rights, helping them counter the broader hostility to their anti-democratic message. See Arab Human Development Report 2002 (United Nations Devel opment Programme). Available at http://www.arab-hdr.org/publications/other/ahdr/ahdr2002e.pdf (accessed 19 March 2013).