Terrorist attacks in the United States and in Western Europe have been rare, and public awareness of the terrorist menace has largely been molded by a few horrific events. In contrast, other countries have experienced chronic terrorism, with attacks on buses, restaurants, coffee shops, and retail establishments. In this review, we assess the impact of terrorism on civilian society in the United States, Northern Ireland, and Israel. We examine the psychological effects, the adaptations made by individuals to enhance their safety, and the consequent adjustments made by institutional actors and by commercial establishments to ensure continued economic viability. We review the various theories of societal adjustments to exogenous shocks and point out that a very different formulation is required for the case of chronic terrorism than for the societal experience of a one-time attack.

Enduring, violent, social, and political conflicts have often been interpreted as resulting directly from socioeconomic inequity. The advent of global terrorism is traditionally understood by the political left as representing a rational, albeit regrettable, third-world response to poverty. On the political right the alternative explanation tends to see the world in terms of the fight between good and evil—each side “Islamist” and “Western,” characterizing the enemy in similar opposing terms. This has recently been popularized as a clash of religions, cultures, or civilizations. Most poor societies do not, however, respond to their circumstances with violence (particularly terrorism), and indeed it is often at the point where the socioeconomic circumstances of a society or a region are improving that there is a breakdown into violence. Starting in Northern Ireland and then exploring other regions, including Peru, Nepal, and the Middle East, the author’s close observation of a number of societies where there has been persistent terrorism has revealed that the response is an emotional and self-destructive one rather than being marked by rational economic self-interest or an essentially religious/cultural conflict; it is often the sense of humiliation, disrespect, and injustice that is the most toxic stimulus; and, insofar as there is inequity or cultural division, it is the component of “unfairness” or “injustice” that is the potent element in the predisposing mixture. “Righting a terrible wrong” or responding to unfairness and injustice is, therefore, a key to understanding and addressing such violent social conflicts.

This article reviews the literature on the onset and dynamics of domestic terrorism, with special emphasis on the interactions between terrorist organizations, the state, and society. Because this literature has often been based on case studies, we seek to impose some structure to its findings. We challenge the distinction between domestic and international terrorism, which truncates the sample of violence, and we show that the actor-sense of terrorism (violence carried out by underground organizations) is the most appropriate model for causal analysis. Terrorist organizations tend to emerge in developed countries in which the state is able to prevent the loss of control over any part of its territory. Terrorists take advantage of the state’s mistakes (when, for example, it is over-repressive or makes ineffective concessions) in order to boost their support. Terrorists cannot survive without some degree of support. Consequently, levels of violence and targets are determined by social constraints.

Social network visualization has drawn significant attention over recent years. It creates images of social networks that provide investigators with new insights about network structures and helps them to communicate those insights to others. Visualization facilitates the social network analysis. It supports the investigators to discover patterns of interactions among the social actors including detecting subgroups, identifying central actors and their roles, and discovering patterns of interactions among social actors. However, visualizing a large heterogeneous social network has several challenges. The large size of networks, complex relations among social actors and limited number of available pixels on a screen make it difficult to present important information clearly to investigators and hence reduce the capability of investigators to explore the networks. In this work, we propose the fractal views to construct a visual abstraction of a large and complex social network with users selected social actors as focuses. The fractal views are focus and context visualization techniques using an information reduction approach. It controls the amount of information displayed by focusing on the syntactic structure of information. It is useful in discovering knowledge from terrorist social networks for combating the war on terrorism. Such application has formed an important research topic, known as intelligence and security informatics, in recent years due to the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001 (9/11) and several other terror attacks that have occurred within the last decade. We present several case studies to demonstrate the capability of the proposed technique on analyzing the Global Salafi Jihad terrorist social network. It extracts the hidden relationships among terrorists through user interactions. In addition, we have conducted a user evaluation to assess the efficiency and effectiveness of fractal views. It shows that fractal views outperform fisheye views and zoom-in windows to support users in visualizing and analyzing terrorist social networks.

Key Words: information visualization • terrorist social networks • social network analysis • fractal views • visual analytics

A new approach to analyzing social networks, reported in the current issue of the International Journal of Services Sciences, could help homeland security find the covert connections between the people behind terrorist attacks. The approach involves revealing the nodes that act as hubs in a terrorist network and tracing back to individual planners and perpetrators.

Dr Yoshiharu Maeno, Founder Management Consultant of the Social Design Group and Dr Yukio Ohsawa, Associate Professor at the School of Engineering, University of Tokyo, Japan, explain that their analytical approach to understanding terrorist networks could ultimately help prevent future attacks.

Reference:

• Yoshiharu Maeno & Yukio Ohsawa (2009). Analyzing covert social network foundation behind terrorism disaster International Journal of Services Sciences: 2009, 125-141
• PDF version available

The Mumbai terrorist attacks in India suggest the possibility of an escalating terrorist campaign in South Asia and the rise of a strategic terrorist culture, according to a study issued today by the RAND Corporation.

The RAND study identifies the operational and tactical features of the attack, evaluates the response of Indian security forces, and analyzes the implications for India, Pakistan and the United States.

Download study here.

Hat tip Docuticker

On Monday, December 15, the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), a Department of Homeland Security Center of Excellence based at the University of Maryland, launched the Terrorism Studies Syllabi Repository: www.start.umd.edu/education/syllabi. The repository currently contains 154 undergraduate, 56 graduate, and 1 K-12 syllabi relevant to the study of terrorism and responses to terrorism. Of those, a search on “psychology” returned 15 undergraduate and 4 graduate syllabi. The Web interface for the repository allows visitors to search by instructor name, course level, discipline, or one of 36 discrete keywords. Each syllabus is available for download in PDF format.

• How democracies fight insurgents and terrorists - Anthony Oberschall
• The language of violence: distinguishing terrorist from nonterrorist groups by thematic content analysis - Allison G. Smith; Peter Suedfeld; Lucian G. Conway III; David G. Winter
• The opposing forces diffusion model: the initiation and repression of collective violence - Daniel J. Myers; Pamela E. Oliver
• A theory of the dynamics of violence - Bert Useem
• Stretching military analysis to include asymmetric conflict - Barak Mendelsohn
• Looking backward and forward at the global war on terrorism - Mohammed M. Hafez
• Rethinking Al Qaeda: Leaderless jihad: terror networks in the twenty-first century - Lindsay Clutterbuck
• When zero-sum games go negative - Ian S. Lustick

• Stephen Vertigans - Introducing Militant Islam: Peoples, Places and Policing
• Richard Warnes and Greg Hannah - Meeting the Challenge of Extremist and Radicalized Prisoners: The Experiences of the United Kingdom and Spain
• Paul Gill - Suicide Bomber Pathways among Islamic Militants
• Minna Saarnivaara - Suicide Campaigns as a Strategic Choice: The Case of Hamas
• Thomas Baumert - Do Terrorists Play the Market? Or Can Their Attacks Serve as a Source of Financing for Terrorism?
• Donncha Marron - Money Talks, Money Walks: The War on Terrorist Financing in the West
• Annamarie Oliverio - US versus European Approaches to Terrorism: Size Really Does Matter

The sunset prayer had just ended, and Sheik Ahmad al-Jilani was already calling his class to order. When the latecomers slipped into the front row, Jilani nodded at them briskly. “Young men,” he began, “who can tell me why we do jihad?” […]

Jilani’s students, who range in age from 18 to 36, are part of a generation brought up on heroic tales of Saudi fighters who left home to fight alongside the mujahedeen in Afghanistan during the 1980s and who helped to force the Soviets to withdraw from the country. The Saudi state was essentially built on the concept of jihad, which King Abdul Aziz al-Saud used to knit disparate tribal groups into a single nation. The word means “struggle” and in Islamic law usually refers to armed conflict with non-Muslims in defense of the global Islamic community. Saudi schools teach a version of world history that emphasizes repeated battles between Muslims and nonbelieving enemies. Whether to Afghanistan in the 1980s or present-day Iraq, Saudi Arabia has exported more jihadist volunteers than any other country; 15 of the 19 hijackers on Sept. 11 were Saudis.

The Psychology of “The War on Terror” and Other Terms for Counterterrorism

By Arie W. Kruglanski, Martha Crenshaw, Jerrold M. Post and Jeff Victoroff

How we characterize an issue affects how we think about it. Replacing the “war on terror” metaphor with other ways of framing counterterrorism might help us curtail the violence more effectively

Suicide attacks have raised the stakes for officers deciding whether or not to shoot a suspect (Police Officer’s Terrorist Dilemma). Despite high-profile errors we know little about how trust in the police is affected by their response to the terrorist threat. Building on a conceptualisation of lay observers as intuitive signal detection theorists, a general population sample (N = 1153) were presented with scenarios manipulated in terms of suspect status (Armed/Unarmed), officer decision (Shoot/Not Shoot) and outcome severity (e.g. suspect armed with Bomb/Knife; police shoot suspect/suspect plus child bystander). Supporting predictions, people showed higher trust in officers who made correct decisions, reflecting good discrimination ability and who decided to shoot, reflecting an appropriate response bias given the relative costs and benefits. This latter effect was moderated by (a) outcome severity, suggesting it did not simply reflect a preference for a particular type of action, and (b) preferences for a tough stance towards terrorism indexed by Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA). Despite loss of civilian life, failure to prevent minor terror attacks resulted in no loss of trust amongst people low in RWA, whereas among people high in RWA trust was positive when police erroneously shot an unarmed suspect. Relations to alternative definitions of trust and procedural justice research are discussed. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

• Al Qaeda in the Tribal Areas of Pakistan and Beyond - Rohan Gunaratna; Anders Nielsen
• The Contradictory Effects of Ideology on Jihadist War-Fighting: The Bosnia Precedent - Jeni Mitchell
• Islamic Radicalism in East Africa: Is There a Cause for Concern? - Isaac Kfir
• Ghost Martyrs in Iraq: An Assessment of the Applicability of Rationalist Models to Explain Suicide Attacks in Iraq - Nick Ayers

After 9/11, studies concerning psychological and psychiatric effects of terrorism have greatly multiplied. Media exposure to terrorism has been shown to be a vital factor in these effects. However, there is a lack of pre-trauma research assessing the resilience of the civilian population in the face of a `mediated’ terrorist threat. This article discusses an eight-dimensional conceptual model of terrorism-related issues central to psychosocial resilience to terrorism. Survey results (N = 1040) are provided which present an index of these terrorism-related issues for Flanders (Belgium) in December 2004 and January 2005 and their correlations. They are also related to media use in the case of television, radio and the internet. The results clearly indicate the psychological repercussions of this terrorism threat in terms of media information-seeking behavior, risk perception and fear levels. Furthermore, the important role of government communication, the ambiguity of social support and the opposing outcomes of television and internet use are demonstrated.

Terrorism has been shown to influence domestic politics, for example, by altering the priorities of voters and politicians. This article argues that terrorism has broader political consequences than simply putting national security on the political agenda. In particular, it argues that terrorist activity influences government formation. A number of scholars have noted that the presence of an external threat provides an incentive to overcome internal disagreements, suggesting that larger and more inclusive coalitions should form. Terrorist activity may also influence government survival, as voters hold politicians accountable for failing to provide security. Politicians, in anticipation of terrorist activity, may, therefore, seek to form a more stable coalition. The literature on government survival suggests that the size of the coalition positively affects its durability but that its ideological breadth is expected to have an adverse effect on survival, which is the opposite of the prediction of the theory based on external threat. To test whether terrorism influences coalition formation, the author analyzes coalition formation in 17 (primarily Western European) parliamentary democracies over a 50-year period using data on domestic and transnational terrorism from, respectively, the TWEED dataset and the Terrorism Knowledge Base. The results show that government coalitions are more likely to be surplus coalitions and, consistent with the theory emphasizing government survival, more likely to have a low degree of ideological polarization in periods following terrorist activity.

Since September 11 the environment of contemporary policing has changed substantially. At the same time, it has become increasingly evident that police officers often demonstrate considerable resilience in the face of the critical incidents they face. This paper examines how resilience can be developed to promote officer well-being and performance when responding to acts of terrorism. It argues that to achieve this objective, it is necessary to expand the conceptualization of resilience in two important ways. First, terrorism has created an operating environment that differs qualitatively from that in which police agencies had been used to operating. Second, the agency itself plays a more important role in developing resilience than has hitherto been acknowledged. These new perspectives are integrated to argue that, when developing police resilience, the focus should be on recognizing the reality of contemporary policing and understanding how agencies and officers can learn from their experience of challenging events to develop in ways that facilitate their capacity to adapt and cope with challenges posed by their response to acts of terrorism. The ways in which agency and officer learning can occur and how the lessons learned can be sustained in the form of enhanced resilience are discussed.

The prominent role of the internet in propagating and perpetuating violent Islamist ideology is well known… A broad spectrum of individuals turn to the internet to seek spiritual knowledge, search for Islamist perspectives and attempt to participate in the global jihad. As such, identifying methods to short-circuit internet radicalization has become an urgent goal for numerous governments.

In recent years, Saudi Arabia has quietly supported initiatives to combat internet radicalization. One of the most developed programs is the Sakinah Campaign, which began several years ago to fight online radicalization and recruitment.

PDF download available.

Hat tip to Docuticker.

This article looks at the use of armed force in order to stop terrorist activity. There is little agreement among experts about the importance of the use of force in past counter-terrorism campaigns. Based on limited empirical investigation, it is indicated that police and judiciary measures have been much more frequently used than the military. Concerning the effectiveness of the use of force; there are few indications that it contributes to lessening terrorism. Rather the opposite is the case; the use of force makes things worse. It complies with the aim of terrorist organizations to provoke the state into overreacting. More research is warranted into the specific conditions under which force is used. It remains possible that in very specific circumstances, military force can make a difference.

Why do some terrorist organizations choose not to—or fail to—kill? Of the 395 terrorist organizations operating between 1998 and 2005 only 39% had actually killed anyone. What factors account for this outcome? This article examines a series of organizational factors, including ideology, capability, and “home-base” country context, that the literature suggests are related to the decision to “go lethal.” We then test six hypotheses using data from the Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism (MIPT). Our statistical modeling suggests that ideology, capabilities, and “dilettantism” explain a significant proportion of the variation in whether an organization chooses to kill or not to kill. Leftists, anarchists, and environmentalists are far less likely to kill than those organizations inspired by religious ideologies. Larger organizations and those with more alliance ties are more likely to kill, while others are too “dilatory” and unserious about the “terrorist enterprise” to become lethal.

The cross-Council programme focuses on the nature and interactions of five global issues: conflict, crime, environmental degradation, poverty and terrorism, and their implications for various concepts and contexts of security and insecurity. Within this framework, this fellowship call focuses specifically on how ideas and beliefs of individuals, communities and nation states relate to these five global phenomena.

Fellowship applications under this call must address one or more of the following key research areas:

1. How do individuals and communities develop their ideas and beliefs about security and insecurity?
2. Why do some ideas and beliefs lead to conflict, violence or criminal activity? What lessons can we learn… that provide the basis for countering those ideas and beliefs that reinforce conflict, violence and crime?
3. How do issues around the cycle of knowledge production and use interact with the creation, management and resolution of insecurities?
4. How are risks and threats communicated, constructed, represented and received by key actors and communities, using different media and cultural forms for different audiences, including the use of language, images and symbolism?
5. Is there an acceptable balance between national security needs and the protection of civil liberties and human rights? If so, can one be secured? And how do we balance local needs against global responsibilities within a security context?
6. How should institutions with responsibility for different aspects of a broad security agenda, including security forces themselves, evolve to meet new risks and threats?

It’s an exciting opportunity for researchers based in the UK, and the funding is also available to non-UK researchers looking for a chance to work at a UK institution:

Applications are open to both senior/professorial level researchers and to researchers at an earlier stage in their research career looking to achieve an international research leadership role during the period of the fellowship (minimum 3 years post-doctoral, or equivalent, research experience). Applications from leading overseas researchers seeking to conduct research on a relevant topic at an eligible UK research institution will also be welcomed. Applications from researchers who have not previously worked on security issues but wish to apply their expertise to research in this more broadly construed security agenda are encouraged.

The deadline for applications is 25th September 2008. Many more details, including FAQs [pdf] and a programme overview [pdf] via the ESRC website.

Are [terrorists] much different from conventional criminals, who tend to commit their crimes close to home? Research has shown that traditional criminals are spontaneous, but terrorists seem to go to great lengths preparing for their attacks — and may commit other crimes while doing so. How long does this planning take? And do different types of terrorist groups vary in preparation time?

To help answer these questions, the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) launched a series of projects to explore patterns of terrorist behavior.

More here. PDF here.

The growing use and manipulation of modern communications by terrorist organizations have led communication and terrorism scholars to reconceptualize modern terrorism within the framework of symbolic communication theory. Some applied the theater-of-terror metaphor to examine modern terrorism as an attempt to communicate messages through the use of orchestrated violence. This article examines the psychological importance of the mass media for modern terrorism, the media tactics of terrorists, and the challenges they present to media organizations and governments. Special attention is given to the use of the Internet by modern terrorists and the rhetoric of terrorist Web sites based on 8-year-long monitoring of terrorist presence on the Internet and the analysis of more than 5,000 terrorist Web sites. Finally, the article concludes with various responses of modern democratic societies to the challenge poised by media-oriented and media-savvy terrorists.

Undeniably the marginalization suffered by many Islamic emigrants (particularly from North Africa) and the consequent difficulties in fitting in the land of adoption, constitute contributory causes — of a socio-economic nature — of their drift into terrorism. However, a distorted view of the principles of Islam and a violent and criminal interpretation of the obligation of Jihad constitute the main factor of their drive. Statements made in the course of interrogation by arrested terrorists (especially by supergrasses, referred to in Italy as ‘repenters’) as well as ideological documents disseminated internationally on the internet or items seized in the course of various judicial enquiries consistently show that the religious view of the world, obviously in the distorted perspective specific to terrorists, constitutes the main reason for their behaviour, whereas practically no importance attaches to the aspiration to liberate specific occupied territories or oppressed peoples. Another possible motivation, at least for suicidal acts, is linked with those of an economic nature: in connection with various judicial investigations it has emerged that sums of money collected as voluntary contributions from the ‘faithful’ serves not to finance the ‘terrorist act’ as such, but to guarantee a future for family members of a suicide attacker, or someone who died in the course of a terrorist action.

Reference:

• Armando Spataro (2008). Why Do People Become Terrorists? A Prosecutor’s Experiences. Journal of International Criminal Justice 6(3):507-524

• Rethinking “Wana”: A Game Theoretic Analysis of the Conflict in the Tribal Region of Pakistan - Rabia Aslam
• Beyond the War on Terror: Into the Fifth Generation of War and Conflict - Donald J. Reed
• Faith in the System: Conceptualizing Grand Strategy in the Post 9/11 World Order - David Malet
• Terrorist Hostage-Taking and Kidnapping: Using Script Theory to Predict the Fate of a Hostage - Minwoo Yun; Mitchel Roth
• Democracies Fighting Ethnic Insurgencies: Evidence from India - Shale Horowitz; Deepti Sharma

During the 110th Congress, under the leadership of Chairman Joseph Lieberman (ID-CT), the Committee continued its investigation into the threat of domestic radicalization and homegrown terrorism inspired by violent Islamist ideology. The Committee has held five more hearings exploring a range of subjects, including an assessment of the homegrown threat in the United States, the European experience with domestic radicalization, the federal government’s efforts to counter the homegrown terrorist threat, the role of local law enforcement in responding to the threat, and the Internet’s role in the radicalization process.

More here. PDF here.

During the period of decolonization in Asia and Africa, the United Kingdom faced more insurgent activity than any other Western power. British government officials and military forces proved proficient at defeating or controlling these rebellions. However, these uprisings were much less complex than the modern jihadist insurgency. Past insurgent movements were primarily monolithic or national in form, had very specific local goals, and derived most of their power from the local population. These limitations made past rebellions vulnerable to strong military responses. In contrast, the modern jihadist insurgency is characterized by its complex and global nature. Unlike past insurgent forms that aspired to shape national politics, the jihadist movement espouses larger thematic goals, like overthrowing the global order. The modern jihadist insurgency is also more global in terms of its popular support and operational territory. It makes far better use of communications technology and propaganda to reach the minds and hearts of global audiences. The contemporary international security environment has therefore become a frustrating place for Western powers. Despite great technological and military advances, British and U.S. counterinsurgency (COIN) operations have been slow to respond and adapt to the rise of the global jihadist insurgency. Operational failures in Iraq and Afghanistan have highlighted the need for the West to rethink and retool its current COIN strategy. After analyzing past British COIN experiences and comparing them to the evolving nature of the modern jihadist insurgency, the authors suggest a new framework for future COIN operations.

More here, including access to previous reports in this series. PDF here.

This paper examines three cases in which people suspected of terrorist activity were questioned by Australian police and security officers. They are located in the context of fundamental shifts in criminal justice processes and principles. Debates about interrogating terrorist suspects are dominated by concerns about torture. It is argued here that such concerns need to be supplemented by paying more attention to everyday questioning in the increasing mass of ‘ordinary’ terrorist cases.

PDF here.

The Al-Qaeda media machine has grown steadily. Qaeda and its jihadist brethren use more than 4,000 web sites to encourage the faithful and threaten their enemies. The Al-Qaeda production company, As-Sahab, released 16 videos during 2005, 58 in 2006, and produced more than 90 in 2007. Like a Hollywood studio, As-Sahab has a carefully honed understanding of what will attract an audience and how to shape the Al-Qaeda message.

More here. PDF here.

All terrorist groups eventually end. But how do they end? The evidence since 1968 indicates that most groups have ended because (1) they joined the political process (43 percent) or (2) local police and intelligence agencies arrested or killed key members (40 percent). Military force has rarely been the primary reason for the end of terrorist groups, and few groups within this time frame have achieved victory. This has significant implications for dealing with al Qa’ida and suggests fundamentally rethinking post-9/11 U.S. counterterrorism strategy: Policymakers need to understand where to prioritize their efforts with limited resources and attention. The authors report that religious terrorist groups take longer to eliminate than other groups and rarely achieve their objectives. The largest groups achieve their goals more often and last longer than the smallest ones do. Finally, groups from upper-income countries are more likely to be left-wing or nationalist and less likely to have religion as their motivation. The authors conclude that policing and intelligence, rather than military force, should form the backbone of U.S. efforts against al Qa’ida. And U.S. policymakers should end the use of the phrase “war on terrorism” since there is no battlefield solution to defeating al Qa’ida.

More here, and download the full report via here.

• Radicalization in the Persian Gulf: Assessing the potential of Islamist militancy in Saudi Arabia and Yemen - Mohammed M. Hafez
• Jemaah Islamiyah’s radical madrassah networks - Justin Magouirk; Scott Atran
• Responding to asymmetric threat: The dual-use strategy - Eugene B. Skolnikoff
• Terrorism in the year 2020: Examining the ideational, functional and geopolitical trends that will shape terrorism in the twenty-first century - Paul J. Smith
• Self-sacrifice as innovation: The strategic and tactical utility of martyrdom - Jeffrey W. Lewis
• Conflict resolution in asymmetric and symmetric situations: Northern Ireland as a case study - James W. McAuley; Catherine McGlynn; Jon Tonge