Islamic State grew out of al-Qaeda and its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, started out within that organization. Yet the newer group threw all the rules out the window. IS is like a young marketer who, frustrated with the bureaucracy and slowness of a Fortune 500 company, leaves to set up his own firm and sell the same product, but with more sophisticated social media marketing and a bolder, younger, more in-your-face image. 

Indeed, Islamic State seems to be more about marketing than planning. It’s pushing an umbrella brand for malcontents, an alternative to government-supported attitudes. The more Western governments try to quash IS, the more eagerly it claims credit for every miscreant with a gun. Political scientist Ethan Bueno de Mesquita wrote in 2005 that highly publicized government crackdowns tend to mobilize terrorist sympathizers. In a 2010 article, another political scientist, Aaron Hoffman, suggested that the more governments crack down, the more terror groups are motivated to take credit so they can show their supporters they are successfully fighting back. (Not cracking down at all may have a similar effect, though, as terrorists claim the West has capitulated.)

Those attracted to the IS brand are drawn by the idea that they can wreak havoc on societies that have rejected them in some way but claim allegiance to something bigger than themselves -- a moral or religious authority to absolve them, a link to turn them from criminals into martyrs. 

Orlando shooter Omar Mateen fit this type. The night of his attack on the Pulse nightclub, he called the police to pledge allegiance to Islamic State, and after the attack made headlines everywhere, the terror militia claimed credit, saying one of its fighters had done it. Yet again, there were no details to establish a credible connection.

As it turns out, he had frequented Pulse, the gay nightclub in Orlando that he shot up last weekend. He had come there to drink, sometimes turning aggressive, and he messaged another regular for a year on a gay chat app. Given Islamic State’s known aversion to alcohol and homosexuality, this was clearly not a model fighter. 

David Fuller's view

The paragraph I reproduced in bold above best summarises the appeal of IS for various miscreants in the West and elsewhere.  Easy access to assault weapons compounds the problem.  

The paragraph I reproduced in bold above best summarises the appeal of IS for various miscreants in the West and elsewhere.  Easy access to assault weapons compounds the problem.