A sober analysis by Olivier Roy, an expert on Political Islam and broadly consistent with an earlier post:
https://jtdevinemta.wordpress.com/2014/08/27/this-is-what-wannabe-jihadists-order-on-amazon-before-leaving-for-syria-new-republic/
“Radicalized young people, who rely heavily on an imagined Muslim politics (the Ummah of earlier times) are deliberately at odds with the Islam of their parents, as well as Muslim culture overall.
They invent an Islam which opposes itself to the West. They come from the periphery of the Muslim word. They are moved to action by the displays of violence in the media of Western culture. They embody a generational rupture (parents now call the police when their children leave for Syria), and they are not involved with the local religious community and the neighborhood mosques.
These young people practice self-radicalization on the Internet, searching for a global jihad. They are not interested in the tangible concerns of the Muslim world, such as Palestine. In short, they are not seeking the Islamization of the society in which they live but the realization of their sick fantasy of heroism (“We have avenged the Prophet Muhammad,” claimed some of the killers at Charlie Hebdo).”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/olivier-roy/paris-attack-muslim-cliches_b_6445582.html
IR Theory & Practice 