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Video-recorded decapitations have an enormous impact, they are cheap and easy, and they allow the terrorists to exploit the potential of the Internet. With these advantages, the tactic would have been expected to quickly spread across the globe as a favored tactic. Yet, years after its invention in 2002, this has not happened. This paper using evolutionary theory finds that video-recorded decapitations have not caught on for locally specific reasons: in the West because the tactic is less accessible than one might expect; in Iraq because of the unwillingness to be associated with Zarqawi, and in the Afghan context, it has not spread because it is mainly relevant for mobilizing resources from abroad, which is not a priority for the Taliban. These are however situational variables, and just as suicide bombings took years to spread, there may be campaigns of video-recorded decapitations as conditions change.

This article investigates the effects of the Iraq war on terrorism in the West. Arguments from academics and from war-opponents and adherents are distilled into three hypotheses which are tested. To do this, a measure is created of terrorist activities in the West based on terrorist attacks and failed and foiled plots. The causal logic of the hypotheses is examined by piecing together data from various sources. Effects of the Iraq war are surprisingly hard to identify on terrorism in the West: It is difficult to corroborate that the Iraq war has drawn Islamist militant resources from the West, that Jihadist returnees should pose a significant threat, or that Muslims in greater numbers have been mobilized to terrorism. This does not disqualify transnational dynamics! Rather, it exemplifies how transnational dynamics in terrorism connects some parts of the globe, but not all, and not necessarily those most globalized. Immaterial factors, such as tactics from Iraq, have not been relevant in the West, but have had an effect in Afghanistan. Material factors like the return of Jihadists have not permeated to the West, but have had an effect in neighbouring countries.