There are many schemes by which to analyze the prevalence of terrorists in family units, aptly designated as family terror networks or family affiliated terrorism. This deviancy, occurring within the rubric of social networks, is not new. Terrorism within family units is a fact that has occurred throughout history. Family frameworks enable higher instances of conversion to radical beliefs, given the credibility and trust that attach as opposed to that in unaffiliated networks. Such radicalization has materialized across diverse ideologies: from religiously motivated precepts to national liberation and from hate-based ideologies to other right-wing perspectives.
The full spectrum of familial relations has participated in kin connected terrorism. For instance, three Canadian cousins of Somali descent (Mahad, Hamsa, and Hersi Kariye; the latter two were brothers) from Edmonton, along with another cousin, Hanad Abdullahi Mohallim, from Minnesota, were killed in Syria in November 2014. The family members died fighting for the Islamic State. The three Canadians left their home country in October 2013 for Syria. Also, a fifth cousin, Abdullahi Ahmed Abdullahi, was arrested in Canada in September 2017 following a US indictment accusing him of providing material support to terrorists by conducting a jewelry store robbery in Canada to fund his four cousins and another person to travel to Syria to join ISIS.