Close your eyes and picture an Islamic extremist. The stereotype your mind conjures up probably looks nothing like the man who's come to see me—“the white guy,” as he describes himself, who “is a celebrity because he's the jihadist.”
Meet Jesse Morton, 39. He's an ex-jihadist now, a onetime leader of a defunct New York-based extremist cell called Revolution Muslim. Visiting the Journal's offices, he's accompanied by Mitch Silber, 48, a former intelligence analyst for the New York City Police Department. Mr. Silber's investigative work helped send Mr. Morton to federal prison, but today the two men collaborate on counterterror projects. Mr. Silber says Mr. Morton's story of conversion and rehabilitation contains lessons for the West as it faces the next wave of terrorism, the “virtual caliphate” of a displaced Islamic State.
Mr. Morton's tale begins in 1995, when he fetched up in New York as a 16-year-old runaway from Pennsylvania. He was intelligent and curious, alienated and hungry for purpose: “I was looking for something that would give me meaning and significance and importance.”
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