Paedophilia and terrorism seem to be at opposite ends of the spectrum. We think of men who prey on children, and those who are a step away, collecting child pornography over the internet, as depraved isolated individuals wallowing in their own obsessions.

By contrast, despite the destruction of innocent lives that they crave, the popular view is that terrorists are driven by some external, if distorted, ideology that they at least see as a noble cause. The illegal child porn images found on the computers of a number of extremists give the lie to this simple division.

It is probably sensible for the police to take stock before assuming there is an inevitable link between terrorism, especially the jihadi variety, and child pornography. But it is possible that an extreme interpretation of Islam that regards male sexual urges as so uncontrollable that all women have to cover themselves from head to toe generates in some men a confusion about their sexuality and appropriate sexual partners. An interest in child pornography may be one consequence.

In 2005 anti-terror police were monitoring Abdul Khalisadar, a Muslim preacher. They were astonished to find that his DNA came up on the national database for an unsolved rape in Whitechapel. His computer contained enough extreme child pornography for him to be charged with possession of this illegal material, but he was never convicted of terror offences.

Another religiously observant youth who was caught up in British anti-terror surveillance in 2006 was also found to have serious child pornography on his computer.

In Spain Abdelkader Ayachine, a man in his forties who is thought to be a leader of a terrorist cell, is awaiting trial accused of having thousands of extreme child pornography images. These files were on the same computers as videos of Osama bin Laden and other Islamic fundamentalist ideologues extolling jihad.

Just as anti-terror police have found that their investigations have led them to collectors of child pornography, so also have child protection officers found that their investigations have led them to people preparing to carry out terrorist acts. This overlap is seen as of such significance that Scotland Yard has considered whether child protection officers should be alerted to the possibilities of terrorists being among their suspects.

Anti-terror officers could also use child protection searches to enhance their ability to identify people planning attacks. Apparently, though, this plan has not been implemented.

The link between child porn and terrorism may be more prosaic than the police believe. The sheer scale of child pornography images on the web now beggars belief. It is growing exponentially by the month. Millions of images are now being passed around the world, drawn from thousands of websites. It has to be asked whether there is something special about aspiring terrorists that leads them into child porn, or vice versa.

In their search for explanations for the link, investigators have let their imaginations run riot. Perhaps the secret internet child porn networks are a good cover for clandestine communications between terrorists.

Another suggestion is that the grooming involved in child sexual abuse has parallels to the seduction of youngsters into radical Islam. But a recent report by the American Psychological Association has shown that the collection of child porn does not have very strong links to grooming and actual abuse of children directly by the collectors. Any sort of manipulation of youngsters from the Hitler Youth to the present day involves a form of grooming and there is no need to collect thousands of images to take advantage of vulnerable youngsters.

The problem is that much of our understanding of terrorism is derived from the official statements of the leaders who play up ideological and spiritual claims. It is rare for our ways of thinking about terrorists to be informed by direct contact with them, where we can see them for what they actually are. They are often people with a poor understanding of what they are trying to achieve or the real consequences of their actions.

In recent studies that I have been able to carry out, it has become clear that many jihadis come to acts of terror because of the social groups to which they belong, or even through criminal enterprises. Their ideological commitment is often much weaker than their loyalty to their associates and the group with which they identify.

It is therefore not surprising that some terrorists share predilections and obsessions with a frighteningly large proportion of the adult male population. Paradoxically it may therefore be more revealing about the nature of jihadi and other terrorists. It shows that terrorists are not all spiritually or ideologically focused men on a mission.

— David Canter is Professor of Psychology at the University of Liverpool

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