The National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), a Department of Homeland Security Center of Excellence housed at the University of Maryland, offers a course looking at the who, what and how of Terrorism Studies, by introducing students to cutting-edge research from the social and behavioral sciences and the experts investigating these topics. The course will begin with a unit looking at widely held myths about terrorism and utilizing empirical data to discuss the realities of broad trends and patterns in terrorist attacks over time. The course will then review the psychological factors at play in individual radicalization and recruitment into terrorism, followed by an analysis of terrorist group dynamics. The course will next look at terrorist group operations, including their attacks and some of the supporting behaviors that allow them to carry out attacks, including use of media, financing, recruitment, and training. The course will conclude by looking at the factors that drive terrorist group persistence or endurance versus terrorist group desistance, and will bring the varied course concepts together through a detailed look at the case of Al-Qa’ida. Throughout the course, students will have the opportunity to study and work with the University of Maryland’s Global Terrorism Database (GTD), the largest database of terrorist incidents in the world, learning its capabilities and developing basic skills in searching and displaying terrorism data.
4.A: Kate Izsak (University of Maryland), "Introduction"
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Do curso por University of Maryland, College Park
Understanding Terrorism and the Terrorist Threat
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Module 4: Terrorist Operations
Conheça os instrutores
Dr. Gary LaFreeDirector
National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism
Bill BraniffExecutive Director
National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism
Kate IzsakEducation Director
National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Reponses to Terrorism
Joyce Rasing
Hi this is Dr.
Kate Isaac and I'm here to give you an introduction to our fourth module.
Before we begin discussion of this module's topic, terrorist
group operations, I want to remind you of where we are in our course and
what we've already covered as well as what we still have to discuss.
We used module one to provide a broad overview of our work in terrorism studies.
And to explain a set of global trends and patterns in terrorism,
we've discovered through our work with the Global Terrorism Database.
We used module two to look at what drives individuals to join terrorist groups.
We use module three to provide a discussion of some of the things that may
drive groups to use violence, and some of the characteristics that distinguish
violent groups from other groups that do not engage in violence.
In here, in module four we will look at what these groups do.
In large part, this means we will look at terrorist attacks and
what our research has told us about trends and patterns in attacks.
We also look at the behaviors groups engage in in order to make the attacks
possible, some of the operations that support
the attacks such as terrorist financing, recruiting and capacity building.
And this module moves nicely into our final week where we discuss the Al-Qa'ida
case study and bring together the concepts from previous modules.
So as suggested above this'll be a long module where we will look at a variety of
different terrorist group behaviors at their operations and
at the smaller activities they must engage in in order to support their operations.
This module is divided into three parts, and
we've given you two weeks to complete the materials.
Part one will outline a foundation for
understanding the goals of terrorist organizations.
The strategies they used to accomplish them and the various ways in which they
can understand whether an organization's been succesful or
effective in its strategic and tactical decision making.
Part two will focus on the type pf terrorist group operation we all probably
think about first when we think about terrorism.
This will focus on the attack.
Part three will focus on some of the enabling and
supporting behaviors that make the violent attacks possible.
We also have the opportunity to hear from our spotlight lecturer, NATO's Dr.
Juliet Bird, at the end of the module where she will answer questions
about countering terrorist operations.
We'll begin part one of this module with a lecture from Mr.
Branith on what he calls the strategic logic that motivates terrorist groups.
By this phrase, strategic logic, Mr.
Branith is referring to the idea that terrorist organizations have to make
certain decisions and engage in certain behaviors in order to achieve their goals.
And presents us with a model explaining these strategies using a set of five
broad categorizations, which researchers have argued can together explain
the strategies of all terrorist groups.
He'll talk to us about terrorist groups that use provocation as a strategy making
attempts to provoke a harsh governmental response to their activities and
to label the government in question as the aggressor.
He'll also talk to use about attrition.
A strategy terrorist groups engage if they want to slowly decrease
the will of the government they are challenging over time through a long and
drawn out campaign.
He'll also talk to us about terrorist groups use of spoiling or
the use of violence to halt an outcome or a milestone for a group or nation.
He'll talk about outbidding in which rival terrorist groups engage
in escalating violence and competition with one another.
And he'll talk about terrorist use of intimidation as a strategy or
efforts to force or scare a community that represents one of their grievances.
He'll provide a variety of teaching cases when describing these strategies,
discussing examples of groups who engage each of these strategies.
Mr. Branith will also use this video to talk to us about a set of five broad end
goals that researchers have argued can largely represent the intentions of
terrorists groups.
He'll talk to us about regime change, or
revolution, discuss an example of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad.
He'll talk to us about territorial control with the example of ETA,
or the Basque Fatherland of Liberty.
He'll discuss the terrorist group of policy change using the Animal Liberation
Front, and the Environmental Liberation Front as teaching cases.
He'll discuss the goal of social control, where they attempt to create change from
a grassroots, or bottom up perspective by intimidating individuals Rather than or
in addition to governments as the has done.
And he'll talk about the goal of status quo maintenance, or
efforts to maintain a current world order such as the Ku Klux Klan aims to do.
This lecture will lead into a video by one of our guest lecturers Boston College and
MIT affiliated political scientist Dr. Peter Krauss,
who will talk about how we can analyze terrorist group campaigns and how we might
understand their successes and failures on different levels of analysis.
Dr. Krauss's lecture will introduce to the idea that terrorist groups can succeed on
an individual tactical level, by killing civilians, destroying infrastructure, and
inspiring fear.
As well as on an organizational level by gaining recruits, funding, and support.
And or on a strategic or movement level by founding a state ending an occupation or
achieving any of the other goals that Mr. Brand discusses in the previous lecture.
We'll talk about trends in group success.
Making important points about the relative lack of strategic success for
international terrorism within the United States, and
about the types of groups that typically achieve measures of strategic success,
specifically those groups that are part of broader political movements.
He'll also discuss some important teaching cases,
including one group the FLM in Nigeria, which he'll describe as the terrorist
organization that achieved complete success on all three levels.
Tactical, organizational, and strategic.
Part one, therefore focuses on how groups select and engage in their behaviors or
their operations and
how we can go about determining whether they're being successful in their choices.
We created part one in order to give you a framework for
thinking about the types of both violent and
non-violent operational decisions that we'll discuss in parts two and three.
Part two will focus on a set of three lectures from Dr.
Lafree based on statistical analysis from the global terrorism database.
Dr, Lafree will look at trends in weapon use, trends in terrorist targets,
and trends in terrorists tactics as represented by GTD data.
Those of you who appreciate the discussion of specific terrorist incidents,
will be particularly interested in the wide variety of teaching cases Dr.
Lafree raises in this set of lectures.
Dr. Lafree's first of these lectures, will look at weapon trends in the GPD.
In this lecture,
he'll look at the different types of weapons used in terrorist attacks and
the large degree to which bombings and
firearms outstrip other terrorist weapons of choice.
He will also look at the ways in which weapon use varies across different
regions, noting that these trends reflect in part
the availability of different types of weapons in different parts of the world.
For instance, he'll talk about a relatively low usage of firearms
in terrorist incidents in East Asia, which may relate to difficulty
in obtaining firearms in that part of the world.
Dr. Lafree will also explore trends in weapon use over time,
noting specific points where weapon use appears to have changed.
For instance,
he'll show us that the use of explosives increased substantially after 9/11.
Dr. Lafree's second in the series of lectures will look at terrorist targets.
He begins each of these three lectures by considering existing stereotypes of
terrorism, and looking to the GTD data to show us a different picture.
In this lecture he'll start with the mention that we typically
think of terrorism as attacks on innocent civilians.
When, in fact, he'll show us a much more complicated targeting picture picture than
that in which only about one quarter of terrorist attacks are against civilians.
Even those that do target civilians, he'll discuss like the Bali nightclub bombings
also killed military police and government targets.
Dr. LaFree will give us a broad picture of the groups that have historically focused
on attacking police forces such as the Tamil Tigers, the IRA, ETA, and
Boko Haram.
He'll also discuss patterns on attacks on military targets but
the discretion of prominence that military recruiting centers have played this
terrorists targets, particularly in Afghanistan, Algeria, Iraq and Pakistan.
Dr. Lafree will discuss the parts of the world in which
businesses service department target for terrorists namely, North and
South America and Western Europe.
Those of you who actively followed the coverage of the Charlie Hebdo attacks in
Paris, may also be interested to hear about [INAUDIBLE] attacks on journalists
in the media.
Dr. Lafree has found, these attacks most often involve hostage or
barricade attacks, relating particular to a pattern prominent
in the 1970s in Latin America, in which groups would take over radio stations,
in order to broadcast their messages.
Dr. LaFree's third lecture in the series, and
the final lecture in part two of module four, focuses on terrorist tactics.
He'll introduce the following tactics to us.
Bombing.
Armed assault.
Unarmed assault, which might be the right category for chemical or
biological weapons attack.
Assassinations, hostage taking and facility or infrastructure attacks
have provide many teaching cases to explain these categories.
We'll also talk about how tactic turns across various different
parts of the world.
For instance, the armed assault rate is particularly high in Latin America.
Higher than bombings,
in large part because the persistence of two movements, the FML in El Salvador and
the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, using guerilla warfare tactics.
Dr. Lafree will also examine the evolution of tactic trends over time,
examining some notable points of interest such as the vastly higher rate of
assassinations taking place in the 1970s.
When this particular tactic outstripped even armed assaults.
Part two is therefore something of feast for those of you really interest in
statistical analysis, and in global patterns of terrorism.
We think it will also be popular among those of you interested in
hearing about individual terrorist groups, and
particular elements of those groups that distinguish them from their peers.
For those interested in exploring further some of START's analysis of
various trends and patterns in global terrorism,
I'd like to make a quick note of some of our optional readings.
We've included a number of background reports or research briefs that our global
terrorism database staff have produced in response to incidents in the news.
For instance, we provide a background report describing patterns and attacks in
educational institutions, which teaching and researchers produced for journalists,
analysts, researchers, and the general public in the wake of the December,
2014 Pakistani Taliban attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar.
We also provide a background report on terrorist attacks on U.S.
targets in foreign countries, which DTD researchers produced after the 2013
release of a U.S. State Department alert for all Americans traveling abroad.
You can find similar such reports on the Westgate Mall attack in Kenya And
ALF and ELF targeting, and ricin attacks.
There's also a detailed report detailing the use of improvised explosive devices,
or IEDs, between 1970 and 2004, which researchers conducted during
years of great concern over the use of IEDs in Iraq.
You may also be interested in a brief by University of Maryland political
scientist Dr. Gary Ackerman, which introduces a START dataset that hasn't
been discussed on video, the chemical and biological non-state adversaries database.
And provides some findings from related research projects, including
the conclusion that Al Qa'ida central, Al Qa'ida in the Berab, and Al Qa'ida and
the Arabian Peninsula, were at the time of this writing, the most likely chemical or
biological threats, alongside disgruntled phone actors, and apocalyptic groups.
Moving now to part 3 of this mantra long terrorist operations.
We want to add a small section.
Part three of this module toward discussion of operations as well,
because we believe it is important to understand that terrorist violence
is only the most public face of terrorist operations.
This section will delve a little deeper into what we call supporting or
enabling behaviors, the operations that allow terrorist
groups to develop the operational capacity necessary to carry out successful attacks.
We'll start part three with a lecture from Mr.
Branith on the behaviors necessary for a group to sustain a terrorist campaign.
Mr. Branith will emphasize the idea that terrorism is about violence and
about the threat of future violence.
And will make the note that the ability to creditably threaten future violence
makes a group more likely to achieve the different forms of success that Dr.
Krauss talked about earlier.
He'll talk about the importance of engaging in the series of these supporting
behaviors including exposing people to the group's ideology,
recruiting new members and supporters, securing and maintaining a safe haven,
fundraising, and communicating with other cells and networks.
And he'll introduce these behaviors in an innovative pedagogical approach.
He'll focus on the life journey of an individual terrorist,
Abdullah Mohammad Fazul, who participated in the 1998 U.S.
Embassy bombings in Kenya.
He'll describe for us the ways in which Fazul worked his
way through different positions and different responsibilities in
the East African Al Qa'ida cell that carried out the Embassy attacks.
He'll use Fazul's work within the cell in which he engages in a range of these
supporting behaviors to demonstrate the system terrorist groups must create
that makes them capable of engaging in violence.
What follows this lecture are two interesting guest lectures from
Georgia State social psychologist, Dr. Tony Lemiuex.
Dr. Lemiuex will talk about two media related
supporting behaviors of terrorist groups.
His first and longer lecture will be on Al Qa'ida's Inspire magazine.
Dr. Lemiuex will look at Inspire's goal of spurring individuals to terrorist action
of, in his words, creating the do it yourself or DIY terrorist.
He analyzes the manner in which Inspire aims to supply the right information and
provide the right motivation to result in these DIY terrorist attacks.
And he'll discuss, in particular, the Boston marathon bombing,
in which the Tsarnaev brothers are known to have learned the techniques for
their pressure cooker bombs from Inspire.
He'll also talk briefly about some similar, but lesser known,
magazines published by El-Shabaab, and the Pakistani Taliban.
And in his second lecture, just a short snippet, Dr.
Lemiuex will talk about terrorist group abuse use of music as a propaganda tool.
To discuss the use of music is a powerful tool capable of influencing perceptions,
attitudes and behaviors and he'll tell us a little about the white supremacist
movement history using music as the tool to influence in their group.
Dr. Lemiuex will end the that both magazines and
music play an important role in the terrorist propaganda machine.
If you're particularly interested in these types of enabling and
supporting behaviors of terrorist group engage in,
I'd also like to direct you to some of our optional readings in this module.
We have two interesting pieces on terrorists use of social media.
One by North Dakota State University political scientist Dr.
Jared Rachman, which looks at the new and
innovative ways foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq are leveraging social media and
mobile applications to recruit support in the west.
Dr. Rachman looks at terrorist use of YouTube, Flicker, Tumblr,
AskFM and Skype, among other online technologies.
We also have a brief from James Sheehan of the UK-based International Center for
the Study of Radicalization and Political Violence.
Which looks at al-Shebaab's use of Twitter through the model of influence warfare.
If you're interested in Dr. Lemieux's discussion of terrorist groups' use of
music as an influence tool, he has two blog entries for Psychology Today,
one that looks specifically at how terrorist groups have used music, and
one that looks more generally at the power of music in
building a collective identity, that you can explore further on your own.
And if you're interested in terrorist financing,
supporting behavior that is undeniably important, but we did not have a chance to
discuss in detail in video, I'd like to recommend that you take a look at Dr.
Juliet Bird's second spotlight lecture in this module.
As well as that you review UN criminologist,
Roberta Belly's brief on the financial activities of terrorists.
She looks specifically at the engagement of far right extremists and
tax avoidance schemes as well as Al Qa'ida affiliated and
Al Qa'ida inspired extremists engagement in money laundering.
We hope you enjoy module four and
I'll be back to talk to you again at the beginning of module five.
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