Abaaoud is the Man of the Year for personalizing the terror. He is Man of the Year for symbolizing Western impotence and indifference in the battle against ISIS. And he is Man of the Year for being the new thing. He is not like the old terrorists of the Middle East who were battle hardened against Soviet- or American-sponsored enemies at home. He is the monster creation of Western alienation and Middle Eastern religious radicalism. He is a terrorist well-fitted for the age of ambitious startups. And he is Man of the Year because he is the unwelcome reminder that even people who know the Western way of life intimately are capable of despising it.

— Michael Brendan Dougherty