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From December 2007 through May 2011, Revolution Muslim, a radical Salafi-jihadist organization based primarily in New York City, brought al-Qaeda’s ideology to the United States. At its inception, many dismissed Revolution Muslim as amateurish. Yet the group developed an effective and deadly methodology for promoting “open-source jihad” via radicalization, recruitment, online propaganda, social media and covert communications.

The group was linked to many of the most serious terrorism investigations opened by the New York Police Department (NYPD) at the time and had international links with cases touching four continents. In 2012, federal prosecutor Gordon Kromberg, who prosecuted the cases of Yousef al-Khattab, Jesse Morton and Zachary Chesser, all figures at the core of Revolution Muslim, stated: “It is amazing from the perspective of time to look back at Revolution Muslim. In our pleading we listed … 15 different defendants … who engage[d] in terrorism or attempted to engage in terrorism [and] all were connected to Revolution Muslim.”¹ Though the group disbanded in May 2011, it laid the foundation for jihadist organizing in the United States that the Islamic State (ISIS) would later copy and take advantage of.

Revolution Muslim was a virtual terrorist group, before the term “virtual caliphate” became the en vogue way to conceptualize the future trajectory of ISIS following its loss of territory in Iraq and Syria. As a result, analyzing the history, operations and the means of thwarting Revolution Muslim is essential to understanding the challenge of ISIS’s “virtual caliphate.”

This report provides a unique, multifaceted lens into Revolution Muslim’s activities and how it catalyzed the jihadist scene in America and the West. It was written by Mitch Silber, the director of intelligence analysis at the NYPD at the time that Revolution Muslim was operating, and Jesse Morton (aka Younus Abdullah Muhammad, as he will be referred to throughout this paper), a founder of Revolution Muslim and now a former extremist.² Silber and Morton present an informed insiders’ account. Between 2006 and 2011, the two were working directly against each other.

The report is divided into five sections:

• A history of Revolution Muslim and its origins.
• A description of Revolution Muslim’s innovative approach to radicalization.
• A review of Revolution Muslim’s success in applying its new approach.
• A detailed examination of how Revolution Muslim’s efforts online foreshadowed and built the foundation for ISIS’ radicalization and recruitment efforts.
• A concluding discussion of what lessons Revolution Muslim holds for future counterterrorism efforts.