From car bombs to logic bombs: The growing threat from information terrorism

The vulnerability of the critical infrastructure has led to increasing concern that it will be the target of terrorist attacks. This article explores definitional aspects of information terrorism and identifies two groups likely to find information terrorism attractive: conventional terrorist groups and information culture groups. As computer sophisticated youth move into the ranks of conventional terrorist groups, the groups will increase their reliance on computer technology, and information terrorism will be incorporated into a hybrid tactical repertoire. Information culture groups, however, confine their attacks to cyberspace. In contrast to the powerful group dynamics of the traditional underground terrorist group, networked groups, particularly information culture terrorists, may only be in contact electronically, and are subject to a radically different group psychology, virtual group dynamics, that significantly affects their decision making and risk taking, and has dangerous security implications.     

When Terrorism Goes to Sea: Terrorist Organizations and the Move to Maritime Targets

Terrorist groups are often relatively conservative in their choice of strategy, tactics, and targets, and it is worth asking what characteristics are associated with unconventional behavior. In this article we explore the question of why terrorist organizations move to one type of unconventional attack that has been a focus of concern of policymakers in recent years, namely attacks on maritime targets. Through an investigation of the organizational capacity and ideology of terrorist groups that committed maritime attacks between 1998 and 2005, we argue that this kind of violent behavior is driven by capability. Certain organizational characteristics of terrorist groups—territorial control, involvement in the drug trade, organizational size, and connections with other groups—provide groups with the capabilities that make maritime attacks both realistic and desirable. Terrorist groups' ideology—what they believe, and what their goals are—does not have the same impact, with the possible exception of groups affiliated with al-Qaeda. Our findings have implications for future research.     

Why Target the “Good Guys”? The Determinants of Terrorism Against NGOs

Why would a terrorist group target nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)? We theorize that certain types of NGOs, namely those using mainly nonviolent pressure to advocate for changes in government human rights practices, influence the behaviors of potential terrorist group supporters in ways not liked by terrorist organizations. These advocacy-based human rights NGOs make terrorism attacks against the whole NGO sector more likely by changing the dynamics of terrorist-domestic audience relations in ways that threaten to limit audience support of terrorist groups. Other types of NGOs, especially those that do not have an advocacy focus, are less likely to directly challenge the terrorist organization or the state and can provide resources utilized by terrorist groups and potential sympathizers. Thus, their presence would not increase the likelihood of any NGO-targeted terrorist attacks. A global test of these dynamics supports our basic hypotheses.     

What Makes Terrorism Salient? Terrorist Strategies,Political Competition,and Public Opinion

This article analyzes the determinants of terrorism saliency in public opinion. It is usually assumed that after a terrorist attack, terrorism becomes automatically salient. However, this assumption is only true in those countries where terrorist attacks are exceptional events. In democracies that have suffered domestic terrorism for decades, the evolution of terrorism saliency does not only depend on the frequency or intensity of terrorist attacks. In this article it is claimed that the tactics carried out by terrorist groups (the type of victim, especially) and the dynamics of political competition (especially the ideology of the incumbent) are also factors that explain the evolution of terrorism saliency. The article also analyzes how these two factors interact with citizens’ predispositions to explain variation in their reactions to terrorist threat. The empirical test relies on a novel database from monthly public opinion surveys in Spain from 1993 to 2012.     

The Ancient Fire: Religion and Suicide Terrorism

Does religion lead to greater destructiveness from suicide terrorism? And if so, how does it influence this form of political violence? Recent analyses of terrorism point to the significance of religion, but are divided as to whether religion itself matters, or certain types of religious terrorist groups are actually driving suicide terrorist violence. This article draws on social movement theory and recent work in the study of suicide terrorism to argue that religion influences the severity of suicide terrorist attacks as an ideology groups use to justify their struggle and gain public support. This effect occurs regardless of a group's goals or organizational nature. The theory is tested using a generalized estimating equation to account for multiple attacks by several groups. The study finds that the religious ideology of a group greatly increases the number of deaths from a suicide attack, even if varying group motivations and structural factors are taken into account. The article helps to clarify the effect of religion on contemporary terrorism, contributing to the study of both terrorism and religion and politics.     

CBRN Incidents: Political Regimes,Perpetrators, and Targets

This article investigates the relationship between regime characteristics and the likelihood of chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) terrorist incidents. Odds ratios establish that democratic ideals—democratic rule, strong rule of law, and honest regimes—are associated with more CBRN incidents. Failed states may be where some terrorist groups form or take refuge, but these states have not been the venue of choice for CBRN incidents. Religious (cults and fundamentalists) and nationalist/separatist groups are not more likely than others to engage in CBRN attacks. To date, indiscriminate CBRN attacks are as likely as discriminate attacks to cause casualties. Transnational terrorist groups are less adept than others in concealing their acquisition of CBRN substances. For some regressions, democratic rule and strong rule of law are positive determinants of CBRN incidents.     

Transnational Terror and Human Rights

Do terrorist attacks by transnational groups lead governments to restrict human rights? Conventional wisdom holds that governments restrict rights to forestall additional attacks, to more effectively pursue suspected terrorists, and as an excuse to suppress their political opponents. But the logic connecting terrorist attacks to subsequent repression and the empirical research that addresses this issue suffer from important flaws. We analyze pooled data on the human rights behavior of governments from 1981 to 2003. Our key independent variable of interest is transnational terrorist attacks, and the analysis also controls for factors that existing studies have found influence respect for human rights. Repeated terrorist attacks lead governments to engage in more extrajudicial killings and disappearances, but have no discernable influence on government use of torture and of political imprisonment or on empowerment rights such as freedom of speech, assembly, and religion. This finding has important implications for how we think about the effects of terrorism and the policy responses of states, non-governmental organizations, and international institutions interested in protecting human rights.     

Terrorism and fear: do terrorists really want to scare?

There is a widespread tendency among academics, state institutions and international organisations to regard intention to cause fear and intimidation as a key definitional characteristic of terrorism. This article argues that such a conceptualisation of terrorism is unfounded. A survey of mainstream terrorist doctrines (propaganda by the deed, foco theory–urban guerrilla warfare and armed propaganda, and jihadist doctrines) and writings of several pre-eminent terrorist ideologues provides little evidence to suggest that the main tactical goal of terrorism is to spread fear and intimidation. Rather, regardless of their ideological orientation and the historical period in which they operated, terrorists seem to be preoccupied with similar goals: mobilising what they regard to be their constituency, avenging their fallen comrades, extracting retribution for their allegedly wronged constituency, or, simply, with the physical destruction of their perceived enemies. This survey is complemented with a number of “crucial case studies”, where “most-likely cases” of terrorist justification of indiscriminate attacks and a detailed analysis of terrorist literature, which explicitly deals with the question of “fear”, are used to test the validity of the claim that terrorists aim to cause fear and intimidation. In both type of cases the hypothesis is invalidated. In cases of justification of indiscriminate attacks, there is no evidence to suggest that the aim of the terrorists is to spread fear and intimidation. Moreover, in the case of one particular terrorist ideologue who explicitly addresses the question of fear, the analysis of the texts indicates that fear among a population is not seen as an aim to be achieved but as an obstacle for mass mobilisation: an obstacle, which can only be overcome by the terrorist tactics. Thus, in this particular “most-likely case” the aim of terrorist tactics turns out to be encouraging masses for insurrection rather than intimidating them.     

How Al Qaeda Innovates

Innovative terrorist organizations pose exceptionally dangerous threats because of their potential to surprise declared enemies, inflict heavy costs upon them, and set new trends that other militant groups seek to emulate. Despite this importance, researchers have shed little light on where terrorist innovation originates. Although military innovation scholars have emphasized the importance of both top-down and bottom-up innovation, the few existing studies on terrorist innovation have acknowledged the importance of the terrorist leadership but largely ignored the role played by middle- or lower-ranking operatives in the innovation process. This study examines the planning of the September 11, 2001 attacks and finds that, contrary to the predominant claims on terrorist innovation, the 9/11 attacks featured both top-down and bottom-up processes of innovation, with the latter including a critical role played by an independent terrorist entrepreneur. Theoretically, the findings suggest that the conventional wisdom of the predominance of top-down innovation in terrorism is dependent on a problematic assumption, namely that terrorist groups are centralized, hierarchical, and localized entities. As more terrorist groups adopt decentralized structures, they are increasingly likely to display multi-directional processes of innovation. The study has important implications for counterterrorism policy. It suggests that thwarting the most innovative terrorist groups requires targeting senior- and middle-management operatives of the group itself and expending greater effort at apprehending independent terrorist innovators with fluid organizational affiliations. A mix of offensive and defensive counterterrorism strategies, coupled with greater international cooperation, is critical to achieving this goal.     

Representative Democracy and Fighting Domestic Terrorism

Does more representative government improve states' ability to fight domestic terrorism? In prior work, democracies are seen as more susceptible to terrorism because their respect for human rights prevents them from fully eliminating terrorist groups. However, such extrajudicial aggression could also alienate large portions of the population and create the ideal conditions for an insurgency. I argue that since terrorism is the lowest-capacity form of political violence, it is natural that states that do best at deterring political violence experience the most terrorism. While representative democracies should see terrorist groups initiate spells of attacks at a greater frequency, full political representation should also galvanize major political actors to unite and eliminate terrorist threats. I test this assertion through statistical models that treat the process of terrorist group initiation and its duration and intensity separately. Results not only show that less consolidated democracies and autocracies experience longer and more intense terrorist campaigns, but that, in support of the theory's mechanisms, groups are more likely to shift to terrorism from insurgency when their political base gains more political representation. The results call the division among research programs of various political violence types into question.     

Competing to Kill: Terrorist Organizations Versus Lone Wolf Terrorists

Are organizationally linked suicide attacks deadlier than those launched by lone wolf terrorists? This article elaborates a perpetrator-based distinction among suicide terrorist attacks between organizations and lone wolf terrorists, who operate in the absence of a financially or physically supportive terrorist organization. The expectation is that terrorist organizations would serve as commitment tools that increase the loyalty of suicide bombers to their missions through material and non-material incentives. Findings demonstrate that when terrorist organizations are involved in the planning and execution of suicide terrorist attacks, not only do they increase the lethality of these attacks but they also accentuate the tactical advantages of suicide terrorism. These findings suggest that despite the recent upsurge and concern about lone wolf terrorism, the lethality and security impacts of suicide terrorism continue to be driven by terrorist organizations.     

What's Special about Female Suicide Terrorism?

This study analyzes the interaction between the motivations of individual attackers and terrorist group strategies. To do so, I combine a quantitative analysis of all known suicide terrorist attacks between 1981 and July 2008 with a strategic account of why terrorist organizations employ female suicide terrorism (fst) and case studies of individual female attackers. I advance five central claims. First, I reveal the superior effectiveness of fst from the perspective of the groups that employ women. Second, I explain that terrorist groups increasingly enlist women as suicide attackers because of their higher effectiveness. Third, I demonstrate that terrorist groups adapt their discourse, catering to the specific individual motives of potential female suicide attackers in order to recruit them. Fourth, I show that female attackers are driven by the same general motives and circumstances that drive men. Furthermore, and in contrast to the existing literature, women attackers uphold, rather than eschew, their societies' norms for gender behavior. Attempts to transform these societies into gender-neutral polities are therefore destined to increase fst. Finally, I conclude that, unless target states adapt their defensive strategies, we should expect an increase in fst.     

International Cooperation,Spoiling, and Transnational Terrorism

Do interstate relations influence the sources and targets of transnational terrorism? A considerable body of recent research suggests that the answer to this question is yes, and that one state may sponsor terrorist attacks to weaken the bargaining positions of other states. We suggest, in contrast, that positive or cooperative actions invite terrorist attacks from a different source: nonstate groups wishing to spoil interstate cooperation that they oppose. We assess this argument with a dyadic dataset using monthly data on transnational terrorist attacks and cooperative and noncooperative actions between states. Our results suggest that spoiling in response to interstate cooperation is an important determinant of transnational terrorism.     

Hit the Core or Weaken the Periphery? Comparing Strategies to Break the Circle of Violence with an Embryonic Terrorist Group: The Case of Galician Resistance

This article studies whether the action-reaction model holds on an “embryonic” terrorist group like Galician Resistance (REGA). After presenting an overview of REGA’s history, structure, financing, terrorist campaigns, and the police measures adopted against them, the text empirically contrasts whether deterrence is an efficient measure in reducing an incipient terrorist group’s actions. Our results show that deterrence does in fact reduce the number of attacks when aimed at the group’s periphery. However, it causes a backlash of new attacks when aimed at the group’s core. In addition, we prove that an increase in the number of attacks also causes a reaction by police forces and a higher number of detentions of core members. Our results give some meaningful insights into the design of counter-terrorism strategies aimed against “embryonic” groups.     

Foreign Terrorist Organization designation,international cooperation,and terrorism

How does branding militant groups as “Foreign Terrorist Organizations” (FTOs) affect them? Beyond its obvious policy importance, this question speaks to debates about counterterrorism, terrorism financing, and organizational dynamics of subnational violence. This article analyzes FTO designation, a key policy used by the U.S. government since 1997 to impose costs on foreign terrorist groups and those who might support them. Contrary to arguments that sanctions are ineffective and that terrorism is too “cheap” to be affected, it is argued that designation should weaken terrorist groups, reducing their attacks over time. However, the effect is probably conditional. FTO designation should be especially effective against groups operating in U.S.-aligned countries, given the importance of international cooperation in counterterrorism. Global quantitative analyses suggest that FTOs operating in U.S.-aligned countries carry out fewer attacks over time than other groups, taking many other factors into consideration.     

International bounty hunting: From problem to opportunity

Scholars have traditionally argued that Islamist terrorist groups tend to commit higher casualty attacks. Noting that casualty rates of attacks vary widely across Islamist terrorist groups, this study advances an alternative hypothesis that group organizational features and goal structures better explain differing casualty rates than does the overarching ideological type. Using both cross-national analysis and a case study of post-invasion Iraq, I demonstrate that there are two basic types of Islamist terrorist groups whose organizational and goal-structure features explain divergent casualty rates: “strategic groups” that function similarly to secular national-liberation and regime-change movements and “abstract/universal groups” that are affiliated with the global al-Qaeda network.     

Effective but inefficient: understanding the costs of counterterrorism

This article analyses state counterterrorism (CT) policy on two dimensions: its effectiveness and its efficiency. It points out that CT is likely to be effective but inefficient. The material weakness of terrorist groups in relation to their state opponents, and different organisational dilemmas, increases the probability of an effective CT policy. However, states frequently overreact to terrorist attacks, which are valued in normative instead of strategic terms. Hence, they spend more resources on CT than justified by the threat posed by the terrorist groups. The article concludes that CT should be framed as an allocation of scarce resources that could be used in other important contexts.     

Alessandro Orsini. Anatomy of the Red Brigades: The Religious Mind-Set of Modern Terrorists

ABSTRACT

Those who study terrorism are familiar with the claim that suicide attacks are the most lethal form of terrorism today. Suicide attacks kill more people on average than non-suicide attacks, thereby justifying why terrorist organizations use this costly method of attack and explaining in part why suicide tactics have proliferated. However, extant empirical support for this claim is largely insufficient, focusing only on macro-level analysis of lethality data. Using data from the Global Terrorism Database, this study examines variation in lethality among suicide and non-suicide attacks based on geographic location, attack type, and target/victim type. It also introduces a new metric—the lethality ratio—to measure costs and benefits of attacks in terms of lives lost. It finds that, although suicide tactics are generally more lethal than non-suicide tactics, they also come at greater costs to the organization. This analysis also finds behavior that is inconsistent with the premise that terrorist groups are focused on maximizing lethality while reducing costs in all cases; that despite certain advantages, suicide attacks may remain a suboptimal tactic from the perspective of the terrorist group; and that additional criteria may help explain why suicide tactics are used.     

More Bang for the Buck: Media Coverage of Suicide Attacks

ABSTRACT

This paper provides empirical evidence that suicide attacks systematically draw more media attention than non-suicide terrorist attacks. Analyzing 60,341 terrorist attack days in 189 countries from 1970 to 2012, I introduce a methodology to proxy for the media coverage each one of these attack days receives in the New York Times. Suicide attacks are associated with significantly more coverage. In the most complete regression, one suicide attack produces an additional 0.6 articles—a magnitude equivalent to the effect of 95 terrorism casualties. This link remains robust to including a comprehensive list of potentially confounding factors, fixed effects, and country-specific time trends. The effect is reproduced for alternative print and television outlets (BBC, Reuters, CNN, NBC, CBS), but remains weak for Google Trends (worldwide and in the U.S.), a more direct proxy for people’s interests, and is non-existent for C-SPAN, a television station dedicated to broadcasting political discussions directly. Thus, the media appears to cover suicide missions in an extraordinary fashion, which may in turn explain their prominence among terrorist organizations.