CIA Report

“Radical Islam will have a
significant global impact…
rallying disparate ethnic and
national groups and perhaps even
creating an authority that
transcends national boundaries.”

Radical Islam.

Most of the regions that
will experience gains in religious
“activists” also have youth bulges, which
experts have correlated with high
numbers of radical adherents, including
Muslim extremists.11

• Youth bulges are expected to be
especially acute in most Middle
10 Philip Jenkins, consultations with the National
Intelligence Council, August 4, 2004.
11 We define Muslim extremists as a subset of Islamic
activists. They are committed to restructuring political
society in accordance with their vision of Islamic law
and are willing to use violence.
Eastern and West African countries
until at least 2005-2010, and the
effects will linger long after.

• In the Middle East, radical Islam’s
increasing hold reflects the political
and economic alienation of many
young Muslims from their
unresponsive and unrepresentative
governments and related failure of
many predominantly Muslim states to
reap significant economic gains from
globalization.


The spread of radical Islam will have a
significant global impact leading to 2020,
rallying disparate ethnic and national
groups and perhaps even creating an
authority that transcends national
boundaries. Part of the appeal of radical
Islam involves its call for a return by
Muslims to earlier roots when Islamic
civilization was at the forefront of global
change. The collective feelings of
alienation and estrangement which
radical Islam draws upon are unlikely to
dissipate until the Muslim world again
appears to be more fully integrated into
the world economy.


Radical Islam will continue to appeal to
many Muslim migrants who are attracted
to the more prosperous West for
employment opportunities but do not feel
at home in what they perceive as an alien
culture.