A Social Network Analysis of Jemaah Islamiyah: The Applications to Counterterrorism and Intelligence

This article attempts to contribute to and advance the growing literature on social network analysis and terrorism studies, through a social network analysis of the Jemaah Islamiyah cell that was responsible for the Bali bombings in 2002. In doing so, the article endeavors to provide a potential framework for the intelligence analysis of terrorist cells. Such a framework will assist in (1) understanding the communication and structure of such cells and (2) assist in predicting the likely outcomes of terrorist cells when employed in real-time intelligence analysis.     

The Politics of Negotiating the Terrorist Problem in Indonesia

Although Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) is a pan-Southeast Asia jihadi network, it has been able to headquarter itself in Indonesia, where it has also been able to find the lion's share of its recruits. This article finds that there is little support for hardline Islamic political movements, or even violent jihadi groups, from the wider population. Yet at the same time the public is skeptical about the existence of an international terrorist problem. Not only is there general denial amongst the Indonesian population but Indonesia's political leaders have had to tread carefully on the issue. Indonesia has had a degree of success in denting the JI network but confronting terrorism on the whole is fraught with political difficultiesnotably the impression that the war on terrorism might be a plot to weaken the Islamic world.     

From a Counter-Society to a Counter-State Movement: Jemaah Islamiyah According to PUPJI

The General Guide for the Struggle of Al-Jama’ah Al-Islamiyah (Pedoman Umum Perjuangan Al-Jama’ah Al-Islamiyah)—commonly known under its acronym PUPJI—is an essential document for understanding Southeast Asia's most deadly terror network. Issued by Jemaah Islamiyah's Central Executive Council (Qiyadah Markaziyah), it outlines the group's administrative structure and guiding religious principles, in addition to providing insights into its organizational development, membership recruitment, and operational strategy. From the time Jemaah Islamiyah was established on 1 January 1993—as the result of an internal split within the Darul Islam (DI) movement—until the time it first engaged in terrorist activities—with the Medan church bombings on 28 May 2000—the group was structured and managed in accordance with this handbook. To understand Jemaah Islamiyah, therefore, one must understand PUPJI. ¹ 1. A copy of the original PUPJI document was obtained and translated by the International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR) at the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. The author first reviewed and analyzed the document while working as Manager for Research at ICPVTR. The results of this study can be found in Rohan Gunaratna, Elena Pavlova, and Muhammad Hassan Haniff, “A Preliminary Analysis of the General Guide For the Struggle of Jemaah Islamiyah,” ICPVTR, IDSS, February 2004.      

Organizational Versus Individual Attribution: A Case Study of Jemaah Islamiyah and the Anthrax Plot

Recent studies have taken an important first step in examining which terrorist groups, based on their organizational characteristics and the characteristics of the environment in which they operate, are more likely to pursue chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) weapons. This approach, however, assumes that individuals who perpetrate events act on behalf of the organization to which they primarily belong. Using the case of Jemaah Islamiyah's alleged attempt to develop the pathogenic bacterium Bacillus anthracis, or anthrax, the authors demonstrate the importance of including individual-level variables to the analysis. In particular, the attendance by several key Jemaah Islamiyah members at an Al Qaeda-affiliated training camp is argued to set a chain of events into motion that ended in their involvement in the anthrax cultivation program.     

Terrorism Where Terror Is Not: Australian and New Zealand Terrorism Compared

Despite many commonalities in national security priorities, Australia and New Zealand approach the threat of terrorism quite differently. Both had twentieth-century manifestations of domestic terrorism which were generally downplayed. The emergence of jihadist-inspired threats globally have affected Australia much more than New Zealand, and Australian counterterrorism strategy has developed significantly since 9/11. New Zealand has watched global events so far untouched by any jihadist threat, and has implemented few effective counterterrorism measures. The reasons for the differing experience, it is contended here, are the varying historical perceptions of threat, and consequent differing approaches each country has taken to mitigate perceived threat.     

Something Must be Done-Military Intervention

In the late twentieth century, the United States' federal government responded to the threat of terrorism by passing a wide range of counterterrorist laws. The vigor that accompanied these initiatives echoed at a state level where, virtually unnoticed, states passed similar legislation. This article examines state measures in three areas: the funding of foreign terrorist organizations, the use or threatened use of weapons of mass destruction, and definitions of terrorist activity. While these statutes, as a legal matter, may not violate any specific federal provisions or constitutional prohibitions, they raise important questions about federal supremacy in foreign affairs and the constitutional protections afforded citizens. More significantly, as a policy concern, these provisions threaten America's ability to speak in one voice, introducing divisions into the domestic realm and diminishing the ability of the federal government to negotiate with foreign states and organizations. They also mask an appropriate role for the states in fighting terrorism. Both the policy implications and legal considerations suggest that such measures may ultimately undermine America's ability to counter the terrorist threat.     

Rewarding Fire with Fire: Effects of Retaliation on Terrorist Group Dynamics

Abstract

Comparative studies of the psychology of terrorism indicate that there is no one terrorist mindset, A theme in common among the disparate groups is the strong need of marginal alienated individuals to join a group of like‐minded individuals with a similar world view that “it's us against them, and they are the cause of our problems.” This strong need to belong gives particular force to the power of group dynamics. While the ideology is the glue that holds the group together and serves as the rationale for its actions, terrorists do not commit acts of terrorism for ideological reasons. The amelioration of the societal injustice which they indicate incites and justifies their terrorism does not reduce the lure of terrorism, because of the powerful hold of the group on its members.

Paradoxically, a policy of reactive retaliation with the goal of deterring terrorist acts may have the opposite effect and reinforce the mind set of the terrorist. For the group under threat, the external danger has the consequence of reducing external divisiveness and uniting the group against the outside enemy. The survival of the group is paramount because of the sense of group identity it provides.

Identifying the locus of control is of crucial significance in estimating the effects of counter‐terrorist policies upon a terrorist group. For the autonomous terrorist cell, active retaliation may reinforce the cohesion of the group; for the corporate terrorist organization, issues of organizational survival may become paramount. Neither the terrorist group nor the terrorist organization can be forced to give up terrorism, for to do so would be to lose their reason for being. For state‐supported and directed terrorist groups on the other hand, the terrorist group in effect serves as a paramilitary group under central government control. In this situation, group and organizational considerations are less relevant, for the object of the counter‐terrorist policy is the government of the sponsoring state. Since the survival of the state and national interests are the primary values, retaliatiatory policies, can, in the short run, have a deterring effect. In the long run, the most effective anti‐terrorist policy is one which renders the terrorist career less attractive to potential members, facilitates terrorists leaving the group, and reduces external support.     

Fear,Anxiety and the State of Terror

The 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon marked the advent of an unprecedented preoccupation with terrorism. Although Australia's actual terrorist risk profile remains marginal in comparison with other mortality risks, in times of crisis, the reasoned negotiation of risk is marginalised. Drawing on the findings of qualitative research, this article offers an analysis of how Australians are responding to the threat of terrorism embodied in a developing discourse of the war on terror and how they construct their perceptions of terrorist risk. The findings implicate community fear as a factor that should be considered in the development of counter terrorism strategies that emphasize community engagement as a mechanism for challenging radicalisation in democratic states.     

Analytic Models and Policy Prescription: Understanding Recent Innovation in U.S. Counterterrorism

The threat of terrorism, particularly terrorism involving a weapon of mass destruction (WMD), has received enormous attention in the last decade. Since the mid1990s, the federal government has embarked on a concerted national effort to prepare the country for acts of WMD terrorism. A key component of the counterterrorism agenda is the domestic preparedness program, a series of initiatives aimed at reducing America's vulnerability to a WMD terrorist attack. However, there is a heated debate over whether or not the United States needs a domestic preparedness program at all. This article argues that much of the debate originates in disparate approaches to analyzing terrorism. Terrorism studies specialists use an internal model that analyzes the root causes, motives, and historical patterns of terrorism and concludes that the threat of WMD terrorism against the United States is not sufficient to warrant the domestic preparedness budget. Policy makers and national security experts, however, rely on an external risk assessment model that considers terrorism within the context of the many risks to American security. This assessment model evaluates WMD terrorism on the basis of risk and consequences, and reaches a logical conclusion that the potential for mass destruction not only merits, but also requires a level of domestic preparedness.     

The Evolution of the U.S. Government's Annual Report on Terrorism: A Personal Commentary

This article examines the evolution of a key U.S. Government annual publication on terrorism. From its inception in 1977 to the present, the U.S. Government's annual terrorism report has been the primary statistical compiler of international terrorist incidents. Given the magnitude of this task and the inherent difficulty in defining the term “terrorism,” this report has been controversial and criticized. Love it or hate it, for many decades, this report was the sole source of statistics on international terrorism. The author argues that despite its flaws, this unclassified annual report does provide value and usually paints a fairly accurate picture of the international terrorism landscape. Over the last two years however, there have been claims that this report has become politicized and tailored to fit the views of the administration on the terrorist threat. The author rejects this charge and claims that this publication has been objective and that it has evolved over time into a more credible and useful report.     

Looking for the Pattern: Al Qaeda in Southeast Asia--The Genealogy of a Terror Network

The aim of this study is to analyze the process by which Al Qaeda has sought to co-opt essentially localized struggles in Southeast Asia into an evolving network of worldwide jihad. The article illustrates how, long before it was appropriate to speak of an entity called Al Qaeda, Islamists have been thinking transnationally since the 1980s. The argument attempts to piece together available evidence to reveal a plausible explanation of the origins, growth and direction of the main Islamist grouping in Southeast Asia, Jemaah Islamiyah, and its deepening relationship with Al Qaeda. The article suggests that the roots of a Southeast Asian terror network can be traced to two geographically separate ethno-religious struggles in the Philippines and Indonesia. The analysis demonstrates that these guerrilla groups orchestrating their distinct struggles were eventually combined through the auspices of Al Qaeda and the globalized franchising opportunities it exploited from the early 1990s.‐     

Failure and Disengagement in the Red Army Faction

This article examines the factors that have contributed to the end of the Red Army Faction (RAF), and places particular emphasis on the causes and characteristics of individual disengagement of RAF members from the armed struggle. It discusses the evolution, ideology, and decline of each of the three generations of the RAF. The article's contribution is twofold. First, by assessing both contextual- and individual-level factors that led to the group's demise, the article bridges two approaches to analyzing the demise of terrorist organizations—the literature on how terrorism ends and why individuals disengage from terrorism. Second, the article helps build a growing empirical body of work on the demise of terrorist groups that can be used to confirm, challenge, or refine existing hypotheses on how terrorism ends, while formulating new ones. The article concludes that different factors contributed to the decline of each subsequent generation of the RAF. Successful German police efforts played a critical role in thwarting the RAF's first generation. Lack of public support and recruits, due in large part to an escalation of terrorist violence, hastened the decline of the second generation of the group. The third generation suffered from serious interorganizational strife, exacerbated by a government initiative that offered to release those RAF members from prison who renounced terrorism.     

The Enemy Within? The Connection between Insider Threat and Terrorism

ABSTRACT

While the threat from terrorism has gained widespread acknowledgment over the last decade, the infiltration of organizations by “terrorist” insiders has not, and the potential dangers these individuals present has not been fully explored. There is a need to understand the wider aspects of insider threats, including motivations and attack methodologies, and to be able to demonstrate the potential devastation that could be caused. Organizations can attempt to mitigate the potential for insider infiltration by both terrorist and other hostile actors, and if such individuals were within an organization, there are procedures and strategies that can be employed to prevent exploitation of existing organizational vulnerabilities and detection of insiders. This article provides an informed and new approach to the connection between insider threat and terrorism.     

Subversion and Countersubversion in the Campaign against Terrorism in Europe

This article examines how Europe fits into the broader international campaign against terrorism. It argues that Europe is both a source and a target of terrorist activity, and faces threats including Al Qaeda–inspired terrorism, extremist political parties, insurgent sympathizer networks, subversive movements, and the overlap between crime and terrorism. The article argues that the primary threat is terrorist-linked subversion, which seeks to manipulate and exploit the sociological and ethnographic features of immigrant communities. Islamic theology is a strictly secondary factor, and a focus on Islam as such is likely to be an analytical dead-end. The article examines countersubversion as a conceptual framework for counterterrorism in Europe. The article concludes that an approach based on trusted networks and close collaboration with communities is most likely to succeed.     

Medical technology in combatting terrorism

State‐sponsored terrorism is a form of coercion, backed up by the threat and use of violence, to achieve political ends. These terrorist tactics also involve signaling of intentions and responses between the terrorist sponsor and those whom it targets. Accordingly this study examines Iranian state sponsorship of anti‐U.S. terrorism in the period of 1980–1990 as an example of political communication aimed at manipulating U.S. policy through the threat and use of violence. Official Iranian media are quantitatively content‐analyzed to demonstrate their systematic use of threat‐projections as warnings and indications to the U.S. in this period.     

In search of an anti‐terrorism policy: Lessons from the reagan era

Abstract

During the 1980s, terrorist activities became a real threat to Americans at home and abroad. The Reagan administration's policy response to this threat was encumbered by several factors, both of commission and omission. Dominant anti‐communist ideological perceptions in the administration at times blurred the disparate causes of international terrorism and the varied motives of terrorist groups. The administration was unable to back up its words with consistent, resolute policy action. And U.S. intelligence operations were not able to detect or prevent several terrorist strikes against U.S. facilities, especially in the Middle East.

The U.S. air raid on Libya served notice that the United States would strike militarily at state sponsors of terrorism. It also called into the question the Reagan administration's willingness to adhere strictly to international law in its efforts to prosecute certain governments who aid and abet terrorist groups. There is no policy panacea for terrorism; terrorism can only be countered by a resolute policy which combines protection, prevention, and prosecution, including military retaliation if it is necessary and can be carried out proportionate to the aggrieved terrorist offense. The lessons gleaned from the Reagan administration's anti‐terrorist experience are both constructive and instructive. However, only if more deliberate efforts are made to integrate these lessons into policy considerations will they become utilitarian assets to counter terrorist activities, at home and abroad.     

Land Cruising the Road to Hell

This article provides a preliminary assessment of the agroterrorism threat to Australia. Based on primary research conducted among Australia's biotechnology and agriculture sectors, it examines current threat scenarios and existing vulnerabilities within Australia. It argues that the threat of agroterrorism to Australia is real, and, for prudential reasons, should be taken more seriously by government authorities. The article concludes with a series of broad policy options to mitigate the threat of agroterrorism to Australia.     

Terrorism and the Kenyan Public

Since 11 September 2001, terrorism has been a global security threat. One of the partners in the war on terrorism is Kenya. Considering Kenya"s recent experience with terrorist acts, their effects on its public psyche, and Kenya"s reactions to them in domestic and foreign policies, this study presents perceptions on terrorism from an exploratory survey in Kenya. Respondents feel most threatened not by terrorism but by AIDS and local criminals. Among terrorist acts, the most threatening include suicide terrorism, a plane crash, and stabbing attacks. Media reports on terrorism not only intensify feelings of anxiety and helplessness but also strengthen feelings for both peaceful and revengeful reactions. In order to prevent terrorist attacks, routine security checks, recognizing a Palestinian right to statehood, and intelligence collaboration with the CIA and Mosad are considered the most effective measures. Kenya"s commitment to the war on terrorism may be less a response to Kenyans" perceptions of terrorist threats than a policy to support the United States against terrorists in exchange for U.S. support against AIDS and for political stability, democracy, pluralism, and economic development.     

The analytical foundations of extortionate terrorism

Extortionate terrorism is the threatened use of terrorist acts to gain concessions from the victim. In this article, game theory is used to seek answers to the following questions: (a) When will people resort to extortionate terrorism? (b) When will extortionate terrorism succeed and when will it fail? (c) What constitutes an “optimal” threat, i.e., what bribes, extortion, ransom, or payoff should be asked in exchange for which hostages or property? (d) When should unsuccessful threats be carried out and when should they be abandoned? (e) How should a victim choose among potential responses to specific terrorist threats and to the general problem of terrorism? Two different game theoretic models of terrorism are examined— one using ordinal preferences, the other von Neumann‐Mor‐genstern utilities. Terrorism is considered not simply as isolated incidents; institutions are potential victims of repeated terrorism. The terrorist and the victim, in formulating a response to each incident, are guided not only by present gains and losses, but by the effect their response has on others’ perception of their credibility and resolve—two long‐run variables.     

Explaining the Chinese framing of the “terrorist” violence in Xinjiang: insights from securitization theory

This paper critically examines the Chinese framing of the “terrorist” violence in Xinjiang. Drawing on the Copenhagen school of securitization theory, it examines how the historical perception of the region as a primary source of security threats to inner China has led today’s China to continue with representing the Han Chinese–Uyghur discord as an existential threat. In framing the ethnic conflict as a security issue, China has capitalized on the global “war on terror” of the early 2000s to transform the unrest into acts of Islamist terrorism to legitimize its counter-insurgency policies in Xinjiang. However, both the 2009 Urumqi riots and the 2014 Kunming attack lead us to conclude that the securitization strategy fails to quell the unrest. Not only have the Strike-Hard campaigns served to radicalize Uyghur nationalists, but also Han Chinese are not convinced that the Chinese government can contain the “terrorist” threat. Yet securitization blinds the leadership to the dysfunctional ethnic policy.