Coercive non-state actors (NSAs) exploit socio-political-economic disparities to maintain control, gain power, manipulate others, or achieve similar objectives. Their tactics have improved over time with technological advancements. This paper hence reviews theoretical paradigms to understand the fertile ground for violent extremism (VE) and the role of digitalization in transforming the perceived deprivation into organized violence. Ted Robert Gurr theorizes that relative deprivation arises from constant comparisons with others; feeling demoted in any way may lead to violence. Contrasting groups of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and Al-Qaeda are used as case studies. Findings depict that Al-Qaeda’s ideology arises from symbolic deprivation by well-established and educated elites, who portray violence as sacred resistance rooted in the perceived erosion of identity caused by Western cultural dominance. ISIS, conversely, offers direct incentives and hence appeals to economically marginalized Sunni populations through material deprivation. Despite distinct radicalization trajectories, both groups pursue retributive justice through violence for sacred reasons and fulfill their moral duty to accelerate radicalization via social learning, i.e., adopting behaviors by imitating societal actions, and through encrypted propaganda on digital platforms. Since the findings negate the monocausal explanations of terrorism that merely reveal how deprivation is strategically weaponized across distinct contexts, it is argued that a hybrid concept of deprivation, encompassing physical, symbolic, and sectarian aspects, is the main driver of transnational terrorism. It has been intensified by digitalization in efforts to reach the targeted audience and gain support; hence, counterterrorism efforts must combine addressing structural inequalities with strategies to disrupt digital networks of radicalization.