Appendix 1 - – Socio-economic data on Saudi militants

Summary

ABOUT THE DATASET

• The dataset contains 539 unique biographies of Saudi militants active between 1980 and 2006. The sum of all sub-samples is higher because some individuals fought in more than one location.

• The dataset has been constructed by extracting as much biographical information as possible on as many individuals as possible using publicly available sources such as jihadist literature, press reports, secondary literature and legal documents.

• It includes individuals whose participation in violent activism – that is, fighting, training or weapons acquisition – can be established with a reasonable degree of certainty. In most cases the criterion for inclusion is either death/injury in combat, self-declared activism, or arrest and public accusation. Individuals arrested and not tried (such as Guantanamo detainees) have not been included unless they publicly admitted to training or fighting.

• No survey work or interviews with militants were conducted as part of the compilation process. The biographies are therefore very uneven in their length, focus and level of detail. The individuals for whom we have the best information are not a random sample, but rather the most active and prominent fighters.

• The dataset is coded according to thirty different variables, but for many variables there are too many missing values to allow for meaningful analysis. Below I have included data on those variables for which information is the most complete, namely age, geographic origin, education level and profession.