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Original research article, critical terrorist organizations and terrorist organization alliance networks based on key nodes founding.

• 1 School of Economics and Management, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou, China
• 2 School of Science, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing, China

The past years have witnessed increasingly widespread terrorism, violently destroying world peace and regional prosperity. Therefore, uncovering terrorist plots has become the most crucial step for eliminating terrorist attacks. However, with the terrorist scheme being disguised under the huge amount of data flow on the internet, identifying terrorist organizations still remains challenging. Since many terrorist organizations are prone to launch terrorist attacks together, here, we model their relationships as a Terrorist Organization Alliance (TOA) network and propose a novel method to identify the key terrorist organizations in the TOA network. The TOA network utilizes existing key nodes in order to extract useful information, and, with the help of the entropy weight method, the new solution to the TOA network is effective and precise. The experiments are performed on the dataset from the Global Terrorism Database, and the results are statistically validated through t-tests and convergence analysis. Compared with the traditional methods, our method is proven to be superior in terms of measure the harm of terrorist attack organizations and find the key terrorist organizations.

1 Introduction

In recent years, terrorist attacks have happened frequently around the world. With the rapid and widespread data flow on the internet and media contents, terrorist attacks are becoming increasingly serious. Terrorism has a significant and lasting impact on the social security, political process, and social ecology of all countries [ 1 , 2 ]. The task of counter-terrorism and terrorism prevention is urgent and arduous; however, the cost is extremely expensive.

Globally, with terrorist organizations such as Al-Qaeda (and the extremist group Islamic State in 2017) suffering heavy blows, terrorist organizations have begun to change their operational strategies. Their activity areas have begun to show a diffuse expansion from the center to periphery, illustrating a new trend of organizational terrorism to individual terrorism, cyber terrorism, and so on. Compared with the government, terrorist organizations are generally relatively weak, and they often cooperate with each other in order to enhance their strength. This is becoming a new trend in the current development of terrorism, manifesting in international cooperation.

In the research of terrorist activity, the traditional studies mostly focus on the forecast of the terrorist attack event based on the terrorist activity characteristic. Xue A. et al (2011) proposed a prediction algorithm PBCS based on context subspace, and it aims to predict terrorist behavior [ 3 ]. Nurudeen. M et al. (2018) proposed a hybrid neural fuzzy model in order to predict criminal behavior in a wide range of areas through simulating crime indication events extracted from wide-area surveillance networks [ 4 ]. Li Z. et al.(2018) proposed a comprehensive framework that combines social network analysis, wavelet transform, and the pattern recognition approach to investigate the dynamics and eventually predict the attack behavior of terrorist group [ 5 ]. According to the new characteristics of terrorist organization cooperation, scholars introduce network analysis methods to the investigation of terrorist organizations and terrorist attacks. Carly et al (2002) analyzed the terrorist network and suggested that the corresponding terrorist attack prevention strategy should be formulated according to the time of the terrorist attack [ 6 ]. Li G. et al.(2019) analyzed the construction process of the terrorist attack alliance network and adopted a new dynamic interactive clustering algorithm to analyze the subgroups of tourist organizations [ 7 , 8 ]. Hakim et al.(2020) studied the role social contexts played in the link between interpersonal networks and social identity dynamics of a mujahid, found that constraints for the participation in different interpersonal networks. The constraints influenced the process of identity negotiation as a mujahid versus alternative identities of a family member and belonging to a neighborhood [ 9 ].

There exist various methods to evaluate the importance of nodes in networks, and many are essentially derived from graph theory [ 10 – 11 ] and graph-based data mining [ 13 , 14 ]. The research on the importance of nodes in complex networks originates from the field of sociological network analysis [ 15 – 18 ]. Freeman and other scholars have done a lot of research on sociological networks in the early stage. Since then, the fields of system science research, information search, and document retrieval have raised similar problems independently and explored the important sections in networks. The importance of nodes in networks has become a basic problem in various research fields of complex networks.

In this paper, we proposed a new way to analyze the key terrorist organizations. In section 2, a definition of the TOA network is provided, and a figure is given to explain the construction process of this network. In section 3, some traditional methods are given to find the key terrorist organizations, and an entropy method to find critical organizations is also given base on these traditional methods. In section 4, we calculate the importance of nodes by using the traditional method and our method, respectively; In section 5, we use the t -test and convergence analysis to test the results, which found that the accuracy of our method is better than that of traditional methods.

Up to now, various countries have been attacked by terrorist organizations, as shown in Figure 1 , The frequencies of attacks occurring in South Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, and Sub-Saharan Africa amount to 81 % , which means that these places are frequently affected by terrorist attacks. In the future, some countries might also be attacked, and it is thus of great significance to analyze the regular pattern of the terrorist attack is very meaningful. In this section, we first propose a Critical Nodes Finding Model for Terrorist Organization Alliance Networks and present a solution.

FIGURE 1 . The number of countries suffering from terrorist attacks from terrorist organizations: In this map, there are 15 levels (from 1 to 15). If the number of attacks is fewer than 100, the level is 1; if the number of terrorism attacks is more than 100 and fewer than 200, the level is 1. Thus, the corresponding level will be increased by 1 if the number of terrorism attacks is increased by 100.

2.1 Problem Definition

We know that there exist certain social relationships between terrorist groups, including but not limited to sectarian, blood relatives, ethnic relations, etc. At the same time, within the same regions and similar terrorist organizations of related skill fields, resources, and tasks, there is often cooperation. In terms of terrorist attacks, there will be the phenomenon of coalition, and these coalitions will often make some terrorist attacks escalate.

Figure 2 illustrates the construction process of the terrorist groups network. When a terrorist attack event occurs, some groups usually claim that this attack was launched by them. Based on this fact, we suppose there is a relationship between these groups, and these groups will be linked. Thus, a complex network G = ( V , E ) of terrorist organizations is built. The point set V ( G ) is the terrorist groups, and the link in E indicates that they make the same attacks at the same time.

FIGURE 2 . Terrorist organization alliance network construction diagram; In (A) , the letters A to G are the terrorist groups’ name, and a − j are the locations attacked by a terrorist group; if the terrorist groups attacked the same location in the same time, we think that there is a cause to link these two nodes. Thus we can get the terrorist group network as in (B) .

3 Preliminaries

3.1 centrality measures of the terrorist organizations graph.

This is a terrorist organizations graph G = ( V , E ) with n = | V | nodes and  m = | E | edges. Various methods are proposed to measure the importance of nodes, such as Degree centrality (DC), closeness centrality (CC), and betweenness centrality (BC) [ 19 ]. The TOA network as shown in the Figure 3 .

FIGURE 3 . Terrorist organization alliance network.

3.1.1 Degree Centrality

The degree centrality (short for DC) of terrorist organization alliance network’s node i , being denoted as C D ( i ), is defined as

where i is the focal node, j represents certain node, N is the total number of nodes, and x ij represents the connection between node i and node j . The value of x ij is defined as 1 if node i is connected to node j , and 0 otherwise.

3.1.2 Betweenness Centrality

The betweenness centrality (short for BC) of terrorist organization alliance network’s node i , being denoted as C B ( i ), is defined as

where g jk denotes the number of the shortest paths between nodes j and k , and g jk ( i ) means the number of the shortest paths between nodes j and k that go through node i .

3.1.3 Closeness Centrality

The closeness centrality of terrorist organization alliance network’s node i , being denoted as CC ( i ), is defined as

where d ij denotes the distance between node i and node j .

3.1.4 Eigenvector Centrality

Let A be an n × n similarity matrix. The eigenvector centrality x i of terrorist organization alliance network’s node i is the i th entry in the normalized eigenvector, which belongs to the largest eigenvalue of A . In the matrix A , λ is the largest eigenvalue and n is the number of vertices.

with proportionality factor u = 1 λ so that x i is proportional to the sum of similarity scores of all nodes connected to it.

3.1.5 PageRank

The PageRank is a eigenvector centrality which is used to rank the websites, PageRank is one of these key nodes fingding ways for the key nodes. Mathematically, the PR value of terrorist organization alliance network’s node v i at t step is

where n is the total number of nodes in the network, and k j out is the out-degree of node v j . The above iteration will stop if the PR values of all nodes reach the steady state.

3.2 Information Entropy

In information theory, entropy is defined as measuring the level of uncertainty. The order of the data determines the degree of entropy, i.e., according to the definition of information entropy, we know that the information entropy of this group of data will be greater when a group of data contains more information. Therefore, the larger the entropy of the data, the greater its weight.

Whether people can get high-quality decision-making information is determined by the quality of data. Therefore, it is particularly important to find high-quality data in multiple data. Entropy is utilized to measure the data’s order, which can reflect the importance of data. Thus, based on the information theory, we can find the important factors, which are the high-weight data. In the multi-index decision-making problem, the greater the variability of the index is, the smaller the information entropy is, thus we can more information from this index. Therefore, the weight of this index is bigger than other indexes [ 20 – 22 ].

Definition 1. Among the problems of evaluating n objects and M evaluation indicators, the entropy of the i −th evaluation indicator is

where K = ( ln ⁡ n ) − 1 , f i j = r i j ∑ j = 1 n r i j , assume that,f ij = 0 ,f ij   ln  f ij = 0 .

Because 0 ≤ f ij ≤ 1, we can get 0 ≤ − ∑ j = 1 n f i j ⁡ ln f i j ≤ 1 and 0 ≤ H i ≤ 1.

Definition 2 In the problem of (m, n) evaluation, the entropy weight of the first evaluation index is defined as

From the above definition and the properties of the entropy function, the following properties of the entropy weight can be obtained:

1) When the values of each evaluated object on index i are identical, the maximum value of entropy is 1 and the weight of entropy 0. This also means that the indicator does not provide any useful information to decision makers, and the indicator can be considered to be canceled.

2) When the values of each evaluated object on index i are quite different, the entropy value is small, and the entropy weight is large, it shows that the index provides useful information for decision makers. At the same time, it is pointed out that in this problem, there are obvious differences among the objects in this index, which should be investigated emphatically.

3) The bigger the index’s entropy is, the smaller its entropy weight is. The less important the index is, the more satisfied it is.

4) Entropy weight, as a weight, has special significance. It is not the actual importance coefficient of an index in decision-making or evaluation, but the relative intensity coefficient of each index in the sense of competition when the value of various evaluation indexes is determined after the set of evaluated objects is given.

5) Considering from the information point of view, it represents the extent to which the index provides useful information in this problem.

6) The Size of the Entropy Weight is Directly Related to the Targets Being Evaluated

Algorithm 1 Calculating entropy weight.

(1) Case 1 the Large Value of the indicator, the Better indicator

Case 2 the less value of the indicator, the better indicator

(2) For i ← 1: n for j ← 1: m

(3) For i ← 1: n

(4) For i ← 1: n

4 Application

In this section, we used a network of Terrorist Organization Alliance Network to demonstrate that the proposed method does a lot better than other centrality approaches when the influential nodes in the network are not entirely determined by a high degree or good robustness. The Terrorist Organization Alliance Network is a network of Terrorist Organizations between 567 organizations with similarities. The Statistical characteristics of the TOA Network are shown in Table 1 .

TABLE 1 . The statistical features of terrorist organization alliance network.

According to Table 1 , we find that the number of nodes in the TOA network is 567, which means that in this network, there are 567 terrorist organizations with a joint attack on the same area. The average degree of this network is 2.399, which means that the number of other organizations joined by each organization is two. The weight average degree of this network is 6.68.

Figure 3 depicts the network topology of the TOA network. As a simple corollary of community funding [ 23 ] of our analysis, we found there is a community structure in this network. Thus there is evidence that terrorist organization make attacks with other terrorist organizations. Mining the terrorist organizations for details is very useful. Various community detection algorithms can be applied [ 24 ].

As shown in the Figures 4 , 5 , 6 , the double-logarithmic relationship between cumulative node degree function P ( k ) and degree k , node weight degree function P ( k ), and weight degree k is described. First of all, we used the power law fitting for the degree distribution and weight distribution and found that all R2 are greater than 0.9, which means that the TOA network is a scale-free network. Thus the TOA network is a social network. And in the TOA network, we find that there are a large number of nodes with degree 1. According to analysis of the source data, most of the organizations carry out the attack once or the event is only between the two organizations creating terrorist attacks. However, such organizations are not rare. It is very likely that these organizations are temporarily organized to launch an attack and then disband or change their names.

FIGURE 4 . The degree of TOA Network: Plot the number of the degree on the vertical Y -axis to logarithmic against weight degree on the horizontal x -axis to logarithmic.

FIGURE 5 . The weight degree distribution of the TOA Network: Plot the number of the weight degree on the vertical Y -axis to logarithmic against weight degree on the horizontal x -axis to logarithmic.

FIGURE 6 . The relationship between the degree and the weight degree of TOA Network: The linear relation between the degree and the weighted degree in TOA network is shown in this figure. After applying a linear fitting method, an linear equation, y = 4.28881 x − 3.34209, is plotted. Note that the Pearsons r , R -Square, Adj . R -Square are all greater than 0.5, meaning that this fitting is quite appropriate.

As shown in the Figures 7–8 , we find that the distribution of the eigencentrality of the TOA network is a power law.

FIGURE 7 . The distribution of eigencentrality and RangeRank of the TOA Network: Plot the number of the number of eigencentrality on the vertical Y -axis against eigencentrality on the horizontal x -axis.

FIGURE 8 . The distribution of betweeness centrality of the TOA Network: Plot the betweeness centrality on the vertical Y -axis against betweeness centrality on the horizontal x -axis.

The Figure 9 to Figure 10 display the distribution of CC, BC, EC, and RR, respectively. The distribution of the BC, EC, and RangeRank are the same; however, the distribution of CC is different from the three, which is very interesting.

FIGURE 9 . The distribution of closness centrality of the TOA Network: Plot the number of the number of closness centrality on the vertical Y -axis against closness centrality on the horizontal x -axis.

FIGURE 10 . The distribution of RangeRank of the TOA Network: Plot the number of the number of RangeRank on the vertical Y -axis against RangeRank on the horizontal x -axis.

The top-20 ranked groups by betweenness centrality (BC), degree centrality (DC), eigenvector centrality (EC), and PageRank (PR) in TOA network as shown in the Table 2 .

TABLE 2 . The top-20 ranked Terrorist Organizations base on degree centrality (DC), betweenness centrality (BC), eigenvector centrality (EC), and PageRank (PR) in TOA network.

Table 2 compares four identity nodes finding ways in the TOA network and gives the top 20 critical terrorist organizations in different ways. The terrorist organization ISIL always occupies the top one in the DC, EC, and RR ways, and in the BC, the ISLT is the second critical organization. Due to the closeness of the 130 Terrorist Organizations (centrality of 1), it is not possible to display these Terrorist Organizations. Comparison of the proposed method ranks ISIL, TTP, AI-Musrah Front, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, LeT, BIFM, and ASG all as being in the top 20; others are not all in the top 20, as some are in three methods like the Taliban only note in the RangRank and PKK only in the DC and BC, some are in two methods like the Free Syrian Army in the DC and RangRank, some are in one method like the Garo National Liberation Army only in the DC.

In this part, we compare the traditional methods with the results obtain in the DC, BC, CC, EC, and RR. At the same time, from Table 2 and Table 3 , we can find the results of these traditional ways are different; thus, a global way to measure the key nodes is very necessary.

TABLE 3 . The top-20 ranked Terrorist Organizations.

5 Significant Analysis

In this section, we used the two-tail test to find the significant among these ways. The t-text is shown below.

Where X 1 ̄ and X 2 ̄ are the mean of the two samples, respectively; σ X 1 2 and σ X 2 2 are the variance of the two samples, respectively.

As shown in Tables 3 , 4 and Table 6 , H = 0 indicates that the zero hypothesis is not rejected under 5 % confidence; H = 1 indicates that the zero hypothesis is rejected, that is, that there is discrimination.

TABLE 4 . Statistical description of the results of traditional methods and our ways.

TABLE 5 . The p -value of these ways.

TABLE 6 . T-test results of these ways.

6 Conclusion

At present, the research on terrorist attacks is mainly based on multi-agents, such as Refs. reference [ 25 , 26 ]. These two articles analyze terrorist organizations through multi-agent simulation and study their change rules. In this paper, the complex network method is used to find the key terrorist organizations. The entropy method is used to measure the harm of terrorist attack organizations and find the key terrorist organizations. Compared with other models, it is relatively novel.

In this paper, we sort the terrorist organizations by using the calculation model of the key nodes in the complex network and find the key terrorist organizations. Through the previous calculation, we find that the terrorist attacks made by terrorist organizations are very harmful, and their concentration will obviously concentrate some weapon resources together, and attack at different locations at the same time, These researches seriously endanger the security of today’s society. The purpose of this paper is to better prepare for the fight against terrorist organizations and the maintenance of world peace. And we observe some characteristics of the TOA network. Based on the traditional methods, a new method is given to find the key nodes as soon as critical organizations. We find that there are significant differences among these traditional methods; comparing these ways, we found that there is no significant difference among CC, HC, and Pageranks, and there is no significant difference between EC and our way. There are significant differences between other indicators. Therefore, through t-tests and Figure 11 , we found that there are differences between the integrated score and each centrality, which also shows that the information obtained by traditional methods is local information and cannot fully reflect the importance of nodes. Therefore, the weighted method can better integrate all the information, and we can get the more accurate and important nodes.

FIGURE 11 . The relationship between node strength and different centrality values.

Data Availability Statement

Publicly available datasets were analyzed in this study. This data can be found here: https://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/ .

Author Contributions

JH: Visualization, Software, Computation, Drawing and Writing CC: Writing-Reviewing and Editing LX: Conceptualization, PW: Investigation, Visualization, Software HL: Methodology, Validation.

This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 71871233, 71701049, and 717871159), the Fujian Science and Technology Economic Integration Service Platform, Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China (Nos.2020XD-A01-1).

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Keywords: terrorist organization alliance, key terrorist, complex network, centrality, social network

Citation: Hu J, Chu C, Xu L, Wu P and Lia H-j (2021) Critical Terrorist Organizations and Terrorist Organization Alliance Networks Based on Key Nodes Founding. Front. Phys. 9:687883. doi: 10.3389/fphy.2021.687883

Received: 30 March 2021; Accepted: 07 June 2021; Published: 09 August 2021.

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Copyright © 2021 Hu, Chu, Xu, Wu and Lia. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Peng Wu, [email protected] ; Hui-jia Lia, [email protected]

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Article contents

Transnational organized crime and terrorism.

• Katharine Petrich Katharine Petrich Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy, University at Albany, SUNY
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.013.705
• Published online: 19 October 2022

A significant, policy-relevant relationship exists between terrorist groups and transnational organized crime. However, definitional challenges, disciplinary boundaries, and legal logistics all contribute to the mischaracterization of the relationship, leading to piecemeal responses and uneven academic attention. International studies research tends to focus on one or the other, with an emphasis on terrorist group dynamics and choices. Two enduring rationales for separating the study of terrorism from that of transnational organized crime exist: the “greed versus grievance” debate, which argues that organizations pursue either private (financial) goals or public (social or organizational change) goals and the “methods not motives” argument, which suggests groups may overlap in their tactics but diverge in their strategic goals. Terrorist violence by criminal groups is largely held separate from the “transnational crime and terrorism” literature, often categorized instead as “criminal governance” rather than terrorism studies. The reality is much more nuanced: both group types pursue a variety of objectives and engage with a spectrum of actors which may or may not share their aspirations. Members are diverse in their priorities, a fact that is often lost when analysis collapses the rank and file with leadership into a monolithic bloc. Additionally, globalization has increased opportunities for groups to pursue different activities in different theaters. In areas where terrorist groups are contesting for political control and seeking to present themselves as viable alternative governance actors, they may be less likely to work openly with illicit actors, but in areas (or countries) where they have little governance ambition, criminal networks may be important public partners.

These groups intersect in a spectrum of ways, from engaging in temporary ad hoc relationships designed to achieve a specific goal, to fully incorporating the opposite type’s motive into organizational priorities. Political ambitions largely center on power and control, but illicit activities are wide ranging, with the most prominent involving firearms, drugs, and people. Further, there are several important enabling factors that foster these relationships, including corruption, illicit financial flows, fragile states, and lootable resources. When these enabling factors are present, diversification and relationship building are more likely, increasing organizational resilience and making demobilization less likely. These factors, particularly corruption, also increase the chances of organized crime entering the political system.

Looking ahead, both policymakers and academics should consider transnational organized crime and terrorism more holistically. Work that engages with only one element will fall short in assessing the dynamics of irregular conflict, leading to incomplete analysis and weak policy recommendations. Observers should cultivate the flexibility to think in terms of networks and variety across geographic contexts—the way that a terrorist group behaves in one area or with one type of criminal group does not necessarily predict its behavior globally.

• transnational organized crime
• irregular conflict
• illicit economies
• trafficking
• black market
• law enforcement

Introduction

Globalization has brought many benefits for the world in the 21st century : global interdependence means a richer, more peaceful world where people, goods, and ideas move quickly and easily beyond their places of origin. But alongside the benefits, disruptive actors have also capitalized on the shift. Products of “deviant globalization,” these challengers include transnational organized crime groups and terrorist organizations. Powerful on their own, together their impact could be devastating, especially for developing states. Thus, a key question for policymakers is whether the “crime-terror nexus” is an overblown fear or a legitimate relationship. From there, other important questions follow. If it does occur, what are the contours of the interaction? Do criminal terrorists represent a greater or lesser threat than their politically oriented counterparts? Are organized crime groups poised to topple governments? Where is it most likely to occur? How best can governments, organizations, and individuals respond to it?

The history of transnational crime and terrorism relationships can largely be split into before and after the September 11 attacks. Before 2001 , transnational criminal groups and terrorist organizations interacted in a largely transactional manner ( Schmid, 2018 ). For example, terrorist groups might seek out “specialist” organized criminals for help securing counterfeit passports or smuggling members across borders, and transnational organized crime groups might negotiate with terrorists for the right to operate within their sphere of influence ( Shelley & Picarelli, 2002 ). Some groups did rely on crime to support their operational efforts, like extortion and “tiger kidnapping” campaigns run by the Provisional Irish Republican Army and the Ulster Defense Forces during the 1990s ( Silke, 1998 ). During the 1980s and 1990s, these sorts of piecemeal interactions flourished due to increasing economic interdependence outstripping international regulation; further, nonstate actors did not warrant the same type of attention as states did in the international rebalancing after the Cold War. Terrorist group excursions into criminality during this period were generally focused on domestic populations closely situated to the group—this was the era of the petty and domestic offense, not sophisticated international networks. In the post-9/11 security environment, terrorism remains one of the most significant security concerns among policymakers. Such groups’ convergence with or diversification into sophisticated criminal activity represents a major force multiplier, augmenting their ability to disrupt and undermine legitimate governance, resist demobilization, and continue to carry out attacks against civilian populations. In reaction to the upswing in attention, some authors have argued that the relationship is overhyped and represents a much smaller set of interactions than what is portrayed in the discourse. Nexus naysayers argue that the two group types can be differentiated by a bright line due to their dramatically different goals: for terrorist groups, having a politically violent operational goal means that the need to spend money actually outweighs the imperative to earn money ( Aliu et al., 2017 ).

After the attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001 , the United States dramatically increased scrutiny of terrorist financial networks—a move that was followed by other states as attacks struck India ( 2002 ), Russia ( 2004 ), Spain ( 2004 ), and the United Kingdom ( 2005 ). Such attention, in the form of sanctions, asset seizure, account freezes, international arrest and apprehension, and military operations targeting group leadership led terrorist groups to diversify their sources of funding as well as their operational capabilities and recruiting pools. No longer could groups consistently rely on financial support from sympathetic state actors or wealthy individuals, as al-Qaeda and Hezbollah did during the 1990s.

Cut off from “angel investors” after 2001 , terrorist groups have become significantly more likely to rely on illicit or “grey market” financing schemes to support their work. At a minimum, counterterrorism financing measures require terrorist groups to become at least partially competent money launderers because these laws criminalized the movement of money to terrorist groups. Following the money also became a critical component in counterterrorism operations, making groups that did not or were unable to launder funds well particularly vulnerable to disruption.

Interactions between transnational organized crime and terrorism are deeply nuanced and context specific and can be broadly separated into four nodes: ad hoc, continuing, diversified, and converging relationships. Understanding the enabling and demand factors that provide oxygen to terrorist criminal opportunities is key to both understanding the interwoven dynamics as well as developing effective policy responses. Particular attention should be paid to the role of corruption, illicit flows, and lootable resources.

Researching transnational organized crime and terrorism is challenging. Both actor types are incentivized to hide their activities, scope of influence, organizational relationships, and financial assets. Because of this active concealment, quantitative scholars generally rely on government and law enforcement reporting or externally observable actions like attacks. Criminal activity is often overlooked in these studies because it serves logistical or financial purposes for a terrorist group, as opposed to directly contributing to kinetic attacks. Relying on official figures is not without its challenges: what gets counted and how is an inherently political act ( Andreas & Greenhill, 2010 ). States have their own incentives to misrepresent levels of both violence and criminality, and the same accessibility issues that hinder independent researchers can hinder official sources as well. Qualitative scholars struggle with issues of access, data triangulation, and generalizability, resulting in an oversaturation of particular cases and sources. Existing scholarship focuses primarily on developing states, particularly those with weak institutions, preexisting criminal economies, and high levels of corruption ( Shelley, 2014 ). In truth, however, transnational organized crime touches every corner of the world, including the WEIRD countries ( Henrich et al., 2010 ). 1 In fact, many of the most problematic and durable linkages are situated in the Global North ( Makarenko & Mesquita, 2014 ).

What Is Terrorism?

Terrorism has a long history, appearing in nearly every asymmetric conflict. One of the earliest accounts of terrorism centers on nonstate actor resistance to the Roman Empire in the Judea Province in the 1st century ce ( Chaliand & Blin, 2016 ). Groups of all religions, national origins, political aims, and ideological creeds have used violence or the threat of violence against civilian targets to seek political or social change. In the 21st century , there is an unfortunate tendency to associate terrorism with fundamentalist Islamist groups and to assume al-Qaeda “invented” terrorism in September 2001 ( Laqueur, 2001 ). In reality, in 2019 , 265 distinct terrorist groups were active across six continents and carried out attacks in more than 70 countries ( National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), 2019 ).

Terrorism is a tactic, commonly understood to mean the use of violence (or threat of violence) by a nonstate actor against a civilian or other nonlegitimate target, with the intent of achieving a political, social, economic, or ideological goal ( Ganor, 2002 ; National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), 2019 ; Saul, 2019 ). Generally, the true targets of terrorism extend beyond the immediate victims of violence to include the broader community. The purpose of terrorist attacks is to generate fear due to indiscriminate violence. Because terrorism is a tactic and may be used as part of a suite of activities, deciding exactly who is a terrorist is a fraught political endeavor. For nonspecialists and the media, terrorist groups can be difficult to differentiate from rebel, insurgent, criminal, or guerrilla groups, despite variations in their technical definitions.

Why Is Terrorism Problematic?

Terrorism generates far more consternation among policymakers and fear among the public than other forms of violence, particularly in WEIRD countries. This is true for terrorist attacks of all types and ideologies and has spurred major counterterrorism initiatives both domestically and internationally. Most terrorist attacks and associated deaths occur in areas experiencing high levels of violence in general, up to the level of civil war; geographically, this maps onto the Middle East and Africa ( Ritchie et al., 2019 ). By the numbers, crime kills and harms far more individuals than terrorist groups do, in all areas of the world. Indeed, in the United States, driving a car or taking a bath are more likely to kill you than a terrorist attack ( Mueller & Stewart, 2018 ). However, despite the large divergence between perceived and actual danger, terrorism occupies far more media and policymaker attention than statistically more risky activities.

This gap between real danger and perceived threat is one of the reasons terrorism is so problematic: the effects of an attack are exponentially greater than the direct harm caused by the violence. Terrorism creates trauma and uncertainty among observers, due in part to the apparently random nature of victims, attack patterns, or attack locations ( Mueller & Stewart, 2018 ). In response, individuals are less likely to invest in long term, durable activities, businesses, or communities. Further, terrorism erodes the social contract enacted between the citizen and state, undermining confidence in governance institutions with negative follow-on effects, particularly in democracies. To prevent and respond to terrorist attacks, governments often turn to draconian counterterrorism measures, creating cures that are worse than the disease. At best, they may resort to “security theater”—measures that may make citizens feel safer but have little functional purpose ( Schneier, 2008 ). Both types of response do little to reduce the risk of terrorism or the feeling of insecurity terrorism provokes.

Transnational Organized Crime

What is transnational organized crime.

Like terrorism, transnational organized crime is an activity (or tactic). Thus, there is controversy over the specific dimensions of transnational organized crime—every legal jurisdiction defines the concept a little differently ( Allum & Gilmour, 2022 ). Practitioners and academics understand it differently too, with variations appearing depending on whether the writer is a political scientist, economist, or criminologist. Some of the debate and controversy over the relationship between transnational organized crime and terrorism is simply a function of researchers and commentators using terms interchangeably when they in fact vary in their definition, making it challenging to range the relationship ( Picarelli, 2012 ).

International conventions represent the broadest definitional category. Under the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC), transnational organized crime are serious crimes carried out by organized criminal groups of more than three individuals, “in order to obtain, directly or indirectly, a financial or other material benefit” ( UNTOC, 2000 , p. 5). To be transnational, criminal activity must occur across interstate borders; this can happen in several ways and is not simply confined to physically moving across an international border. A crime is transnational if a substantial amount of the preparation, planning, or direction took place in a state other than the one in which the crime actually took place, or if the group that committed the crime is active in multiple states ( UNTOC, 2000 ). A crime can also be transnational if it has significant follow-on effects in a second state. This scope is wide enough to compensate for the jurisdictional challenges created by Westphalian sovereignty, and this framing is regularly used by academics as a starting point for their own definitions.

Academic definitions of transnational organized crime vary according to study scope and are largely concentrated on organized crime, tacking on the transnational element as appropriate. Some exceptions exist: Allum and Gilmour (2022) , for example, offered that transnational organized crime is “the passing of illegal goods and/or services over national borders and/or rendering criminal support to criminal activities or related persons in more than one country” (p. 8). Van Dijk and Spapens (2013) viewed transnational organized crime as “a group of actors moving from one country to another to execute illegal activities” (p. 17). More often, authors offer a survey of common organized crime elements. Shelley (2005) identified several themes, including the ongoing nature of the criminal activity, the fact that multiple (at least two) people are involved, and that groups pursue “profit and power” goals through the use of violence or threat of violence ( Shelley 2005 , p. 14). In general agreement, Albanese (2011) also highlighted the literature’s attention to the rational orientation of criminal groups, which propagate themselves through “use of force, threats, monopoly control, and corruption” (p. 4).

One of the most significant mistakes in the discussion of crime and terrorism is the conflation of different types of criminal sophistication. While some definitional debates appear pedantic, this one has real relevance. The misuse of petty, organized, and transnational organized crime creates interventions that are grossly inappropriate for the type and intensity of criminal behavior. In essence, by using the “wrong” term and overestimating the level of criminality, academics and policymakers alike can recommend surgery with a chainsaw over a scalpel. Underestimating the level of sophistication has its own drawbacks, as it can open the door for institutional capture and endemic corruption. In addition, conflation erases the important variations in how terrorist groups engage with different types of crime—for example, those seeking legitimacy are less likely to engage in petty crime but may well involve themselves in organized and transnational crime ( Asal et al., 2019 ). These mistakes can be made from actors as wide ranging as individual academics writing an editorial to intergovernmental organizations drafting policy.

Why Is Transnational Organized Crime a Problem?

The idea that transnational organized crime, and organized crime more generally, represents a national and international security challenge is not new ( Williams, 1994 ). However, following the end of the Cold War and the shift toward globalization, the scale and reach of transnational criminal organizations has grown exponentially. At the individual level, criminal syndicates exploit, extort, and harm people—creating fear and trauma that makes it difficult to invest in the future, trust one’s neighbors, or pursue legitimate enterprise. At the community level, high levels of crime divert public resources into increased law enforcement, drug treatment and deradicalization programs, and safeguarding public officials. Crime also effects communities by decreasing travel and tourism, along with investment from both external and internal entrepreneurs, and skimming off government revenue that should be reinvested into the community. At the state level, crime impacts the workings and reach of institutions, eroding the legitimacy critical for their missions. It undercuts the social contract by demonstrating that the state cannot effectively provide security to its citizens, making the state more vulnerable to overthrow or capture by illegitimate actors ( Williams, 1994 ). The associated corruption (or perceived corruption) of governance actors makes it difficult for the state to act in the international arena, to advance foreign policy interests, and to defend itself against predatory state competitors. Finally, at the international level, a high level of criminality makes other states less like to invest, trade, or engage with a state. A state characterized by powerful criminal actors, particularly transnational ones, can act as a “safe haven” for those groups to avoid disruption and prosecution. This can lead to sanctions, isolation, or even intervention in an attempt to disrupt criminal networks based there. These actions have negative consequences for the civilian population of the state, cause significant amounts of collateral damage, and can result in cyclical violence as power vacuums created by intervention generate increased competition among the remaining actors.

Sophisticated, large scale criminal organizations can outstrip the capabilities of the state they inhabit, creating a dynamic in which legitimate institutions are crowded out and criminality is effectively institutionalized ( Coggins, 2015 ). The World Atlas of Illicit Flows ( Nellemann et al., 2018 ) assessed that 38% of worldwide conflict financing comes from environmental crime alone—suggesting that the true impact of crime on conflict is much broader. Conflict economies centered on criminality, particularly those crimes involving the transportation of goods and people across borders, are key enablers of violence. Even short of war, transnational organized crime creates and sustains violent dynamics that harm the communities in which they are embedded in a multitude of ways.

Types of Transnational Organized Crime

Transnational organized crime is usually organized either by the type of activity or the type of target. The so called “big three” most prevalent and profitable crimes are drugs, arms, and people, followed by cybercrime and environmental crime. Boister and Currie (2014) used three “buckets” to understand transnational crime: substantive crimes (those involving people as products), commodity crimes (those broadly involving the movement or production of illicit goods), and facilitative and organizational crimes (those that allow other forms of criminal activity to occur or be successful). Another way to conceptualize transnational organized crime is to differentiate between origin, transit, and market countries, or where illicit materials begin, move through, and end up. Most illicit goods and profits flow from the developing to the developed world, with the major exception being firearms. Differentiating between these types of crime is important because they have different enabling conditions, spillover effects, and solutions.

Drug trafficking is perhaps the most notorious of all transnational organized crime and has been the target of innumerable domestic and international disruption initiatives. Drugs are a major source of revenue for many types of nonstate (and state) actors. According to the annual World Drug Report produced by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (2021) , drugs can be categorized into five broad categories: cannabis, opioids, cocaine, amphetamine-type stimulants, and new psychoactive substances. The scale of drug usage, markets, and trafficking is staggering: in 2020 , approximately 275 million people used drugs globally ( United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2021 ). Assessing the market is a complicated task, because of the large quantity of drugs as well as the concerted efforts of buyers and sellers to hide their activities, but best-guess estimates place the market at over $1 billion annually ( United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2021 ). Large-scale trafficking requires both organizational sophistication and enabling conditions like weak state institutions, corruption, and relevant labor populations. Because of these factors, states with significant drug production economies are often also home to violent nonstate political actors, or see drug trafficking organizations enter the political realm, resulting in the so-called narco-terrorism phenomenon.

Firearms trafficking, or the illicit movement and sale of guns, is both a form of transnational crime and a key driver of nonstate actor violence. Gun trafficking is a complicated issue in part because the traditional origin and market countries are reversed. Most firearms on the black market are produced licitly in the Global North and then diverted into illicit marketplaces and transactions in the Global South, though markets vary significantly across time and space ( Marsh & Pinson, 2021 ). States are often the merchants or brokers of firearms transactions, making interdiction difficult. As a durable good, large quantities of available illicit guns are those remaining from interstate or civil conflicts, creating an opportunity window for terrorist groups operating in weak (or weakened) states to divert, use, and sell firearms in support of their continued activities. Terrorist groups and transnational organized criminals use firearms both as a tool of violence and as a form of currency, making the buying and selling of weapons a key issue.

Crimes involving people as goods generally fall into two categories: human trafficking and smuggling. While the activities are similar and may overlap, they are distinct. Human smuggling involves individuals paying for covert or illicit transportation, across one or more borders. They are free to leave at their destination or may be able to part ways with the smugglers en route if they wish. Individuals who participate in smuggling are usually migrants seeking to enter a new country without documentation, or people seeking to avoid official attention or a record of their entry into (or exit from) another country ( McAdam & Baumeister, 2010 ).

Human trafficking involves

the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation ( United Nations General Assembly, 2000 ).

In essence, trafficked individuals are not free to leave, even if they entered into the arrangement voluntarily ( McAdam & Baumeister, 2010 ). While the majority of trafficking occurs across borders, domestic human trafficking—for the purposes of sex, domestic, and other forms of labor—represents approximately 25% of human trafficking ( United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2012 ). Humans are “durable goods” and represent consistent revenue for illicit organizations. Forced prostitution and sex work are the most widely known aspects of trafficked labor, but sectors like childcare, household cleaning, construction, fishing, or farming are all major destinations for trafficked persons. In addition to producing a profit through their labor or sale, they may also be used as fighters or support staff for terrorist groups. Beyond their labor, trafficked people may be used as “rewards” for loyalty or bravery from terrorist group members. One high-profile example of this dynamic was the enslavement of Yazidi women by ISIS beginning in 2014 ( Vale, 2020 ). Further complicating the issue, smuggled and trafficked people may move along the same routes, by the same facilitators, even in the same shipment.

Intersections Between Transnational Organized Crime and Terrorism

In some contexts, diversifying into transnational crime contributes to a terrorist group’s overall mission. The operational emphasis largely centers on charity groups being used to funnel monies to terrorist groups, a weight that continues today to the exclusion of other sources. It is important to differentiate monies that begin from licit sources and are diverted into terrorist control from funds that originate from illicit activities, because the policy implications and community impacts are significantly different. Terrorist group funding supports direct financial benefitsdistribution to constituent populations, as well as the provision of jobs or social services. Groups can further their goal of political disruption by diverting funds that would otherwise go to the government, particularly in the cases of natural resource theft and tax extortion. By capturing these funds, the terrorist organization effectively reduces the governmental means to fund counterterrorism efforts or fulfill the social contract. Resource diversion in fragile states is particularly harmful: Rai found that the most vulnerable countries to terrorism operate at a $3 trillion to $5 trillion infrastructure deficit, a gap that terrorist groups and disruptive actors actively exploit and increase ( 2017 ). Terrorist groups that disrupt state capacity also reduce legitimacy, worsening the degree of fragility and making the state more vulnerable to illicit capture.

Funding source diversification has become exponentially more important to terrorist groups in the post–9/11 strategic environment, as both international law and financial regulators catch up to “traditional” methods of financing ( Brisard & Martinez, 2014 ). Illicit activity is a huge potential revenue stream, and it makes intuitive sense that terrorist groups would explore existing criminal opportunities in their area of operation. In 2018 , the largest portion of terrorist illicit funds came from the drug trade, followed closely by oil, gasoline, and diesel smuggling ( Nellemann et al., 2018 ). Regional differences alter the proportion of funding streams, but in addition to drugs and fuel, terrorist groups also earn money through taxation/extortion, kidnapping for ransom, human trafficking, arms smuggling, commodities smuggling, and antiquities trafficking. Beyond the direct harm caused by transnational crime, such criminal economies can create an economic incentive for terrorist groups to continue hostilities and resist demobilization ( Cornell, 2007 ).

Greed Versus Grievance Debate

One of the primary justifications for separating transnational organized crime and terrorism linkages is the theorized tension between “greed” (profit motive) and “grievance” (social or ideological motives), a concept borrowed from work by Collier and Hoeffler on civil wars ( 2004 ). In this greed-grievance debate, criminal groups are assumed to be “greedy” actors: largely rational, cost-benefit motivated groups who make operational and organizational choices based on financial considerations. In Hoeffler’s words, criminal groups are “private” actors, interested in personal gain rather than the public good created by government transition ( 2011 ). Terrorist groups, in contrast, are understood as “grievance” actors, who pursue actions based on their ideological or social visions and are ultimately interested in the “public good” of their desired social and political system. Based on these apparently conflicting motivations, it seems unlikely that the two types of groups would work effectively together over the long term.

This presumed divergence undergirds most work conducted before 2001 , and a good deal of the policy literature produced in the early years of the 21st century . However, as the field of terrorism studies attracted more attention in the years following September 11, 2001 , the academic community began to challenge this assumption. In 2004 , Makarenko (2004) argued that the relationship between criminals and terrorists should be more appropriately understood as a spectrum, in which both types of groups learn and adapt based on lessons learned from each other and incorporate the other’s behaviors into their organization. The supposed greed versus grievance debate breaks down further when logistical constraints imposed by stringent terrorism financing measures are considered: some terrorist groups quite literally cannot afford to have moralistic views on illicit activities. Finally, the greed versus grievance cleavage overlooks the human ability to balance competing aims. Criminals can hold political and social views and work to shape their communities like citizens with licit employment, just as terrorist organizations can seek both personal enrichment and political change ( Hutchinson & O’Malley, 2007 ).

Political Activities by Criminal Groups

Political scientists have historically focused on the terrorism side of the crime-terror equation. This imbalance is due to several factors. First, disciplinary boundaries and security studies frameworks steer researchers toward actors with explicitly political goals. Second, it has seemed far less common for criminal groups to diversify into sustained political violence, particularly at an organizational level. Finally, disagreements about “methods or motives” classifications have siloed some of the research, among both academics and policymakers ( Shelley & Picarelli, 2002 ). However, a growing body of scholarship is seeking to address the use of political violence by criminal groups gap ( Phillips, 2018 ). Crime-terror and criminal governance researchers are coming together to build a broader understanding of the political diversification of criminal groups, with a strong emphasis on drug trafficking organizations, particularly those in Latin America ( Blume, 2017 ; Longmire & Longmire, 2008 ; Phillips, 2018 ; Trejo & Ley, 2020 , 2021 ). As a result, criminal political violence is most commonly characterized as a function of “narco-terrorism,” a term first applied to Peru’s Sendero Luminoso in the 1980s ( Shelley, 2014 ). Criminal groups actively seek to influence the political context in which they operate, and some criminal groups do use terrorist tactics to advance their organizational interests. A small number develop broader political ambitions. However, while criminal groups may leverage terrorist tactics, they do not seem to seek wholesale control of the state as terrorist groups do and show willingness to rely on indirect means like corruption and intimidation to coopt state actors.

Violence against political systems and representatives by criminal groups is usually understood as a method to incentivize the state to “leave [them] alone” and allow them to carry out profit seeking activities ( Phillips, 2018 ). Less central is the desire to provide governance benefits, though in some instances criminal groups enforce both formal and informal institutions within their areas of operation ( Feldmann & Mantilla, 2021 ). In keeping with the desire for the state to stay out of their way, political contestation may be violent, but the scope is narrow. Thus, the most common terrorist tactic employed by criminal groups is targeted violence against highly visible individuals. Trejo and Ley (2021) argued that terroristic political assassination is an avenue for criminal groups to consolidate the territorial control necessary for licit and illicit market control, resource extraction through extortion, and establishing a criminal monopoly. They suggested that organized crime (specifically Mexican drug cartels) uses targeted attacks to establish governance regimes, with limited territorial aims.

Types of Relationships

Relationships between criminal and terrorist groups vary greatly across time, space, and organization. They range from transitory to deep enmeshment. Just as there are a range of relationships, so too are there a range of disruption responses, ways to study group interactions, and opportunities to engage with involved actors. Relationships can be conceptualized on a spectrum ( Makarenko, 2004 ), beginning with “ad hoc” before moving to continuing, diversified, and converging dynamics.

Ad Hoc Relationships

The lowest level of interaction between transnational organized crime and terrorism can be characterized as “ad hoc” relationships: interactions or exchanges of goods and services designed to fulfill a specific need. This may be purchasing a falsified passport for a terrorist operative from a counterfeiting ring or paying a terrorist group for the right to transit goods through their area of influence in the same way legitimate businesses pay customs dues to state governments. Examples of this type of relationship abound, but one of the most consistent is the purchase and use of counterfeit documents, as exemplified by Ahmed Ressam, the “Millennium Bomber,” who used both fake French and Canadian passports at various points in his activities ( Hewitt, 2008 ). Hutchinson and O’Malley (2007) argued that ad hoc relationships are the most common because while groups do cooperate based on need, interactions are generally limited for several reasons. Firstly, transnational organized crime groups would rationally perceive terrorist organizations as either a rival or a liability. Further, participating in political violence would be risky business for organized crime, as introducing grievance logics into a “greedy” organization would make the group less profitable and make leadership vulnerable to internal dissent and betrayal. In the same way, incorporating profit motivations into a group with “pure” grievance causes would increase vulnerability to ideological erosion, corruption, and loss of moral legitimacy. For terrorist groups, the loss of externally perceived legitimacy could be particularly devastating—insurgency requires a significant popular support for fighters to remain ahead of government prosecution, a concern shared by terrorist groups ( Tse-tung, 2005 ). Further, the centrality of profit motivation could make it more likely that criminals would betray their terrorist counterparts to the authorities in exchange for a payout. Therefore, terrorist groups may seek out the assistance of criminal groups for specific benefits or in situations where criminal groups dominate the relevant illicit market, but only in situations where cooperation will not compromise political aims ( Hutchinson & O’Malley, 2007 ).

Continuing Relationships

Continuing relationships are often built on ad hoc foundations, where organizations find they need the services of the other group type more consistently than a one-off exchange. Examples of these types of interactions include terrorists paying off powerful criminal groups for the right to create a “safe haven” in their territory or regularly buying guns for their fighters from a trafficking ring. Alternatively, continuing relationships may involve criminal groups paying “taxes” for the right to operate within an area controlled by a terrorist group, as Colombian cocaine cartels did to the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia in the 1990s and early 2000s ( Freeman, 2016 ). Finally, continuing relationships include those where the two network types “exchange” criminal assistance, as Italian organized crime did by trafficking arms for North African terrorist groups, in exchange for help for their narcotics trafficking enterprise ( Makarenko & Mesquita, 2014 ). Shelley and Picarelli (2002) argued that both criminal and terrorist groups operate using a network of “loosely organized cells” to maximize operational security and flexibility (p. 307), a format that lends itself to both ad hoc and continuing relationships as individual cells can cooperate based on their specific operational needs. Unsurprisingly, ad hoc and continuing relationships are the most common type of the crime-terrorism nexus in states with developed and sophisticated law enforcement capabilities because they are the most resilient to disruption ( Makarenko & Mesquita, 2014 ).

Diversification

Diversification seems to be most commonly an evolutionary response for terrorist groups squeezed by resource constraints. Pursuing criminal activity can be a reaction to a loss of revenue from another source and so may result from factors like more stringent government counterterrorist financing measures, or the loss of a major sponsor (both private individuals and states). An example of this need-based diversification can be seen in the 1970s Northern Ireland conflict, when the Irish Republican Army (IRA) began “smuggling livestock, cars, and weapons; running protection and extortion rackets; managing underground brothels; orchestrating prison breaks; bank robbery, tax evasion, and construction fraud” in response to losing diaspora funding from increased U.S. law enforcement ( Hamm, 2007 , p. 6). Diversification may also be prompted by the recognition of the benefits of bringing certain criminal capabilities “in house,” thereby eliminating the need for (and vulnerability posed by) relationships with external criminal organizations. Finally, it may also be a result of the increased recruitment of individuals with criminal histories and skills; rank-and-file members may continue to “freelance” while participating in terrorist activities, or leadership may recognize that new recruits represent a new resource and incorporate criminal activities at the organizational level ( Basra & Neumann, 2017 ).

Diversification is similar to continuing relationships in that it involves a more consistent incorporation of opposite-type activities but differs because skills are developed within an organization, rather than presenting as a relationship between two groups. It is distinct from convergence because the diversifying group does not try to balance criminal and political goals; rather, it remains primarily interested in its original mission set. Often diversification for terrorist groups involves seeking the financial benefit of low-priority crimes like cigarette smuggling or intellectual property theft ( Shelley, 2014 ). For example, Boko Haram fighters might traffic and consume tramadol or trade illicitly mined gold, but the group is uninterested in balancing these activities with its larger political aims at the organizational level ( Ogbonnaya, 2020 ; Santacroce et al., 2018 ). For criminal groups, diversification may be prompted by increased competition, either between other criminal groups or from the state. Continued political violence may serve to create or maintain the operational space needed to carry out illicit activities.

Convergence

The merger of criminal groups with terrorist organizations is something of an ahistorical policy bogeyman—much discussed, greatly feared, but (so far) mythical. However, there have been instances of terrorist organizations broadening their strategic interests so completely as to become a transnational criminal enterprise ( Makarenko & Mesquita, 2014 ). Often, convergence is a criminal or terrorist group and may be more appropriately understood as an organization shifting toward governance rather than disruption. Asal et al. (2019) found that insurgent groups that are older and control territory are more likely to diversify into crime, particularly those activities that require building and maintaining physical and administrative infrastructure (like extortion and drugs), as compared to newer organizations. Thus, convergence may be an indicator of a terrorist group “ending” by transitioning to insurgency or devolving into another violence type ( Cronin, 2011 ).

Both diversification and convergence are most common in states experiencing endemic conflict, with weak or nonexistent institutions. It may be more helpful to conceptualize convergence as the relationship moving from distinct organizations into interwoven networks, where individuals are characterized less by in-group identity and more by specific skill sets. One recent example of convergence is the Islamic State (IS). The size and scope of the Islamic State’s area of territorial control made it the wealthiest terrorist group in world history; the group controlled around 34,000 square miles (an area the size of Maine) and earned an estimated $2.9 billion annually, allowing it to be effectively self-sustaining ( Brisard & Martinez, 2014 ; Carter Center Syria Project, 2019 ). IS earns its money through kidnap and ransom, protection money, forced taxation/extortion, oil smuggling, political corruption, and the seizure of existing banks and financial institutions in its area of control ( Brisard & Martinez, 2014 ; Warrick, 2018 ). IS benefits from having a strong organizational structure and experience managing logistics and financial issues that make the group well suited to “converge.”

Enabling Conditions

Often the broader contexts that allow transnational crime and terrorism to flourish are underappreciated in both the academic literature and policy solutions. In part, this is due to scale—Where does one stop when assigning causality? Solving endemic poverty and exclusionary political systems would undoubtably stabilize vulnerable regions and sectors, but such initiatives are often outside the scope of the agencies tasked with disrupting crime-terror intersections. However, there are some variables that significantly increase potential vulnerabilities, expansions, or evolutions because of their enabling capacity and that should be included in any solution or analysis of crime-terror linkages. These include corruption, global illicit flows, state fragility, and lootable resources.

Corruption—the misuse of public office through the giving or withholding of an advantage by a public official—facilitates a variety of disruptive activities, including transnational organized crime and terrorism ( UNTOC, 2000 ). Corruption enables both profit and logistical support activities for illicit groups, even in geographic areas that are not operational targets. For terrorist groups, corruption can create a “policy window” through which they can position themselves as a legitimate alternative to existing institutions, a way to circumvent investigations or prosecutions, and an opportunity for kinetic attacks ( Shelley, 2014 ). Purely criminal groups also benefit from corruption. This connection is more widely acknowledged; under the UNTOC for example, corruption is recognized as a key condition of transnational organized crime, and signatories to the accord must adopt domestic legislation criminalizing corruption ( UNTOC, 2000 ). For groups that combine profit-motivated illicit activities with political disruption, corrupt officials and institutions are key enablers of their continued success.

Illicit Financial Flows

Illicit financial flows, defined as “money that is illegally earned, transferred, or utilized” (Issues: Illicit Financial Flows), inhibit a state’s ability to raise, retain, and invest domestic resources ( Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development [OECD] and United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime [UNODC], 2016 ). Examples of these kinds of flows include funds with criminal origins (such as the proceeds of a crime), funds with a criminal destination (such as bribery, terrorist financing, or conflict financing), commercial tax evasion, mis-invoicing of consumer goods, and the trafficking of humans or goods. Illicit flows are also transfers to, by, or for entities subject to financial sanctions under UN Security Council Resolutions and transfers that seek to evade anti–money laundering or counterterrorism financing measures ( OECD and UNODC, 2016 ). 2 Monies that should have been invested into local populations are diverted, bypassing currency controls, tax regulations, and law enforcement oversight. While illicit flows have a clear relationship with criminal groups, they also directly intersect with terrorist group capability: illicit flows gift terrorist groups with improved “freedom of action” and widen the scope of both tactical and strategic considerations ( Comolli, 2018 ). Tracking and limiting illicit financial flows is challenging because they occur within the larger global financial system.

Fragile States

Fragile states are countries with low capacity and legitimacy, poor provision of public goods, weak institutions, uneven governance, and an anemic social contract between the state and citizen ( Miraglia et al., 2012 ; USAID, 2005 ). Some are caught in cycles of internal violence and all experience high levels of criminality, making them vulnerable to penetration by illicit actors. Fragile states cannot project power throughout their whole territory, creating governance vacuums transnational organized crime and terrorist groups can exploit. Thus, fragile states act as safe havens and areas of cooperation, even for groups that are not permanently located there. They also serve the important function of logistical nodes that allow shipments of illicit goods to be “laundered” during their movement from origin to market country ( Miraglia et al., 2012 ). Fragile states often are collocated with other enabling conditions such as corruption and lootable resources.

Lootable Resources

Beyond “traditional” illicit goods like firearms and people, terrorist and criminal groups also exploit natural resources. Lootable resources, or natural assets that are highly profitable and easy to sell, have been extensively linked to nonstate actor violence and civil conflicts ( Cheng, 2018 ; Findley & Marineau, 2015 ; Fortna et al., 2018 ). They may even act as direct drivers for terrorist activity: Fortna et al. found that because such funding sources reduce the need for violent nonstate actors to rely on domestic populations for support, groups are more likely to turn to terrorism ( 2018 ). Examples of such goods include diamonds, timber, oil, and drugs. Lootable resources extend conflict duration, increase other enabling factors like corruption, and make it more likely that third-party states will intervene in the conflict ( Fearon, 2004 ; Findley & Marineau, 2015 ). While entering the market for these goods is “easy” for illicit actors because of the high level of demand and unevenly regulated international marketplaces, it still requires criminal knowledge and capability, making lootable resources a major intersection point for transnational crime and terrorism.

Responding to Terrorism and Transnational Organized Crime

Responses to transnational crime and terrorism have historically been uneven, both geographically and politically. Most interventions have focused on the developing world and been executed through state and military actors. This pattern occurs because Global North countries generally prefer to disrupt illicit networks “over there,” without applying equivalent effort to their own role as facilitators, perpetrators, and markets. By externalizing the threat, and by consistently framing themselves as “markets” where problematic products and political activity are sent, they reduce the need to examine domestic policies and dynamics. However, demand is key, and responses must account for underlying and enabling conditions that allow crime-terror relationships to emerge and evolve.

There are some actionable steps both domestic governments and international institutions can pursue that would make the escalation of the relationship less successful. Any efforts to respond to terrorist-crime linkages must be a “whole government” approach that includes actors and departments that are not traditionally understood to have a counterterrorism mission because they have unique strengths and leverage over a multifaceted problem. Further, states can treat large terrorist groups with major financial assets like states by sanctioning linked businesses and pushing them out of the international monetary system. Terrorist groups are less successful at illicit activity than professional criminals, which provides an opportunity for interdiction and disruption ( Irwin et al., 2012 ). Continued cooperation and government oversight of anti–money laundering efforts increases the likelihood that illicit financial activity would be detected. Effective, high-profile prosecution of corruption would also pay significant dividends by making the operational environment less hospitable to illicit actors.

Part of the policy challenge is that international law enforcement does not functionally exist. While there are many cooperative agreements between individual states, and WEIRD countries can pursue unilateral intervention in developing countries, sovereignty dictates there is no independent global police force. Investigation, prosecution, and disruption efforts are centered on the tails of the criminal-terrorist bell curve: high profile leaders like Pablo Escobar or Osama Bin Ladin, or on rank-and-file members who may have sought to traffic illicit arms across the Sahel or travel to join al-Nusra in Syria. The heart of the relationship, however, is the middle management of both group types. Challenging some of the precepts of Westphalian sovereignty by developing a more robust structure for international investigation and prosecution may be an effective response to disincentivizing crime-terror relationships. This would also help to mitigate the “safe haven” challenge of uneven state capabilities.

Disrupting trafficking routes serves to inhibit both operational and logistical aims of violent nonstate actors. States, professional bodies, and international organizations have the power to require consistent documentation requirements for goods, or at least the most abused commodities like precious minerals, oil, or timber. Another avenue of disruption is in the increased scrutiny of nonintuitive shipments, specifically a closer examination of goods being shipped by companies with no history or logical need to trade in such goods or using inappropriate methods of transport ( Delston & Walls, 2009 ).

Looking Ahead

Both transnational criminals and terrorist networks are innovative, adaptive types of organizations, and it makes intuitive sense that they would pioneer new ways of circumventing obstacles. However, while the intersection may be inevitable, integration is not. Not all terrorist groups will have the opportunity or inclination to diversify or ally with transnational criminal networks. As proto-state actors seeking to demonstrate their “qualifications” as governance actors, some groups will eschew or even attack criminal groups. Others lack a criminal infrastructure in their area of operation to link up with; this is particularly true for areas characterized by illicit activities with low labor requirements. Finally, still others will determine that such associations would bring unnecessary scrutiny by domestic and international law enforcement. From the criminal side, many of the same logics apply: some transnational criminal groups avoid significant or lasting relationships with terrorist groups because of concerns regarding official scrutiny. Others may be engaged in breaking domestic and international laws but have strong political preferences or affiliations and do not want the existing government overthrown ( Hutchinson & O’Malley, 2007 ). A desire for governmental stability may also be a function of logistical concerns—if you have already bought the judge (or customs officials, border guards, prison staff, etc.), shooting them is counterproductive and bad business.

To effectively develop workable solutions, policymakers, academics, and law enforcement must confront the reality that globalization is not an unmitigated good. Greater international integration, increased technology, and the dramatically increased flows of goods and people makes everything move more easily, which includes criminality and political violence. WEIRD countries must acknowledge their role as demand markets and financial havens that “pull” illicit flows of criminal funds and goods out of the developing world, creating an unintentional revenue stream for violent nonstate actors.

As avenues for terrorism financing continue to constrict and state governments in the developing world gain capacity, intersections between transnational criminal groups and terrorist organizations will persist. Those interested in disruption need to think long and hard about how to address the challenges of sovereignty in a world that currently (and necessarily) extends the protections of borders to actors who circumvent them with ease.

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1. WEIRD stands for Western, Educated, Industrial, Rich, and Democratic states and has been suggested as an alternative to problematic terms like “First World” or “developed,” which suggest some countries are more evolved or have reached a completed stage, rather than remaining dynamic entities.

2. It is important to note that illicit flows are distinct from informal flows, which include legitimate international monetary transfers (usually remittances from workers abroad to families at home) which may not transit through a formal bank ( Reed & Fontana, 2011 ). Informal flows can be made illicit, however, by the involvement of terrorist or criminal actors. For example, one of the ways ISIS both makes and integrates money is by transforming informal flows into illicit flows. The group reportedly manages millions of dollars in hawala transactions every week ( Kenner, 2019 ). In the case of ISIS, participation in hawala allows it to circumvent international sanctions, Syria’s collapsed formal banking industry, and external scrutiny, in addition to serving as a revenue stream.

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Computational techniques to counter terrorism: a systematic survey

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Terrorist Network Analysis (TNA) is the field of analyzing and defining the scope of terrorism and researching the countermeasures in order to handle exponentially increasing threats due to ever growing terrorist based activities. This field constitutes several sub-domains such as crawling the data about terrorist attacks/groups, classification, behavioral, and predictive analysis. In this paper we present a systematic review of TNA which includes study of different terrorist groups and attack characteristics, use of online social networks, machine learning techniques and data mining tools in order to counter terrorism. Our survey is divided into three sections of TNA: Data Collection, Analysis Approaches and Future Directions. Each section highlights the major research achievements in order to present active use of research methodology to counter terrorism. Furthermore, the metrics used for TNA analysis have been thoroughly studied and identified. The paper has been written with an intent of providing all the necessary background to the researchers who plan to carry out similar studies in this emerging field of TNA. Our contributions to TNA field are with respect to effective utilization of computational techniques of data mining, machine learning, online social networks, and highlighting the research gaps and challenges in various sub domains.

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This work was partially supported by Cyber Security Research Centre, Punjab Engineering College (Deemed to be University), Chandigarh, India.The author Jaspal K Saini is grateful to Visvesvaraya PhD scheme for Electronics and IT for funding this research.

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Saini, J.K., Bansal, D. Computational techniques to counter terrorism: a systematic survey. Multimed Tools Appl 83 , 1189–1214 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-023-15545-0

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The War Comes Home: The Evolution of Domestic Terrorism in the United States

Photo: LOGAN CYRUS/AFP/Getty Images

Table of Contents

Brief by Seth G. Jones , Catrina Doxsee , James Suber , Grace Hwang , and Nicholas Harrington

Published October 22, 2020

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CSIS Briefs

White supremacists and other like-minded extremists conducted two-thirds of the terrorist plots and attacks in the United States in 2020, according to new CSIS data. Anarchists, anti-fascists, and other like-minded extremists orchestrated 20 percent of the plots and attacks, though the number of incidents grew from previous years as these extremists targeted law enforcement, military, and government facilities and personnel. Despite these findings, however, the number of fatalities from domestic terrorism is relatively low compared to previous years.

Introduction

There has been growing concern about the threat of domestic terrorism, with extremists motivated by political, racial, ethnic, economic, health, and other grievances. In October 2020, the FBI arrested Adam Fox, Barry Croft, and several other accomplices in a plot to kidnap and potentially execute Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. Members of this network, which had ties to militias in Michigan and other states, referred to Governor Whitmer as a “tyrant” and claimed that she had “uncontrolled power right now.” 1 They also discussed kidnapping Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, in part because of his lockdown orders to slow the spread of Covid-19. 2

Some U.S. government agencies have outlined the threat from domestic extremists, though most have not provided recent data about terrorist incidents. In its Homeland Threat Assessment released in October 2020, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security concluded that “racially and ethnically motivated violent extremists—specifically white supremacist extremists (WSEs)—will remain the most persistent and lethal threat in the Homeland.” 3 The report also assessed that anarchists and other individuals inspired by anti-government and anti-authority ideologies posed a threat. But it did not provide 2020 data. The Federal Bureau of Investigation similarly argued that the “top threat we face from domestic violent extremists” is from racially- and ethnically-motivated violent extremists, including white supremacists. 4 Nevertheless, FBI officials have not publicly released their data, making it difficult for U.S. civilians to judge the degree and type of threat.

To help fill this gap, this analysis provides new data on the domestic terrorist threat in the United States. It asks several questions. What are the main trends in domestic terrorism in 2020 in such areas as terrorist motivation, tactics, and targets? How did 2020 compare to previous years? To answer these questions, the authors constructed a data set of terrorist attacks and plots in the United States from January 1, 2020 to August 31, 2020, which updated a broader CSIS data set of terrorist incidents in the United States from 1994 to 2020. 5

Based on the data, this analysis has several findings, which are discussed at greater length later in this assessment. First, white supremacists and other like-minded extremists conducted 67 percent of terrorist plots and attacks in the United States in 2020. They used vehicles, explosives, and firearms as their predominant weapons and targeted demonstrators and other individuals because of their racial, ethnic, religious, or political makeup—such as African Americans, immigrants, Muslims, and Jews. Second, there was a rise in the number of anarchist, anti-fascist, and other like-minded attacks and plots in 2020 compared to previous years, which comprised 20 percent of terrorist incidents (an increase from 8 percent in 2019). These types of extremists used explosives and incendiaries in the majority of attacks, followed by firearms. They also targeted police, military, and government personnel and facilities. Third, far-left and far-right violence was deeply intertwined—creating a classic “security dilemma.” 6 Since it is difficult to distinguish between offensive and defensive weapons, armed individuals from various sides reacted to each other during protests and riots, and each side’s efforts to protect itself and acquire weapons generally threatened others.

Despite these findings, this violence needs to be understood in historical context. The number of fatalities from terrorist attacks in the U.S. homeland is still relatively small compared to some periods in U.S. history, making it important not to overstate the threat. 7 Roughly half of the years since 1994 had a greater number of fatalities from terrorism than 2020—at least between January 1 and August 31, 2020. There were also no mass-casualty terrorist attacks, a stark contrast from such incidents as the April 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, which killed 168 people; the September 2001 attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people; and the June 2016 Orlando attack, which killed 49 people. Still, violence levels in the United States could rise over the next year depending on political polarization, the persistence of the Covid-19 pandemic (and reactions to policy decisions to mitigate its spread), worsening economic conditions, growing concerns about immigration (whether real or perceived), racial injustice, or other factors. It is also possible that the organizational structure of extremism could evolve from today’s decentralized landscape to include more hierarchically structured groups.

The rest of this report is divided into three sections. The first defines terrorism and differentiates this report’s focus on terrorism from other phenomena, such as hate crimes and riots. The second section outlines and analyzes the 2020 terrorism data. The third explores future developments, including the potential for violence after the 2020 presidential election.

Defining Terrorism

This report focuses on terrorism—not other issues, such as hate crimes, protests, riots, or broader civil unrest. Terrorism is the deliberate use—or threat—of violence by non-state actors in order to achieve political goals and create a broad psychological impact. 8 Violence and the threat of violence are important components of terrorism. This analysis divides terrorism into several categories: religious, ethnonationalist, violent-far-right, violent-far-left, and other (which includes terrorism that does not fit neatly into any of the other categories). 9 Terms such as far-right and far-left terrorism do not correspond to mainstream political parties in the United States, such as the Republican and Democratic parties, which eschew terrorism. Nor do they correspond to the vast majority of political conservatives and liberals in the United States, who do not support terrorism. Instead, terrorism is orchestrated by a small set of violent extremists. As terrorism scholar Walter Laqueur argues, “terrorist movements are usually small; some very small indeed, and while historians and sociologists can sometimes account for mass movements, the movements of small particles in politics as in physics often defy any explanation.” 10

Religious terrorism includes violence in support of a faith-based belief system, such as Islam, Judaism, Christianity, or Hinduism. The primary threat from religious terrorists in the United States comes from Salafi-jihadists inspired by the Islamic State and al-Qaeda. 11 Ethnonationalist terrorism refers to violence in support of ethnic or nationalist goals, which often include struggles of self-determination and separatism along ethnic or nationalist lines. Due to the relatively low levels of ethnonationalist terrorism in the United States—no such incidents occurred in 2020—this brief does not address ethnonationalist terrorism. 12 Far-right terrorism refers to the use or threat of violence by subnational or non-state entities whose goals may include racial or ethnic supremacy; opposition to government authority; anger at women, including from the involuntary celibate (or “incel”) movement; belief in certain conspiracy theories, such as QAnon; and outrage against certain policies, such as abortion. 13 Some extremists on the violent far-right have supported “accelerationism,” which includes taking actions to promote social upheaval and incite a civil war. 14 Far-left terrorism involves the use or threat of violence by subnational or non-state entities that oppose capitalism, imperialism, and colonialism; advocate black nationalism; pursue environmental or animal rights issues; espouse pro-communist or pro-socialist beliefs; or support a decentralized social and political system such as anarchism. 15 Other involves the use or threat of violence by subnational or non-state entities that do not neatly fit into any of the above categories, such as the anti-government Boogaloo movement, whose adherents aim to start a civil war (or “boogaloo”) in the United States. 16

In focusing on terrorism, this report does not cover the broader categories of hate speech or hate crimes. There is some overlap between terrorism and hate crimes, since some hate crimes include the use or threat of violence. 17 But hate crimes can also include non-violent incidents, such as graffiti and verbal abuse. Hate crimes and hate speech are obviously concerning and a threat to society, but this analysis concentrates only on terrorism and the use—or threat—of violence to achieve political objectives. In addition, this analysis does not focus on protests, looting, and broader civil disturbances. While these incidents are important to analyze—particularly in light of the events in 2020 following the death of George Floyd—most are not terrorism. Some are not violent, while others lack a political motivation. For instance, some of the looting following the death of George Floyd was perpetrated by apolitical criminals. 18 Nevertheless, coding incidents as terrorism is challenging in some cases, which is addressed in the methodology that accompanies this analysis.

Finally, while there is often a desire among government officials and academics to focus on terrorist groups and organizations , the terrorism landscape in the United States remains highly decentralized. Many are inspired by the concept of “leaderless resistance,” which rejects a centralized, hierarchical organization in favor of decentralized networks or individual activity. 19 As Kathleen Belew argues in her study of the white power movement in the United States, the aim of leaderless resistance is “to prevent the infiltration of groups, and the prosecution of organizations and individuals, by formally dissociating activists from each other and by eliminating official orders.” 20 In addition to their decentralized structures, the violent far-right and far-left in the United States include a wide range of ideologies. The decentralized nature of terrorism is particularly noteworthy regarding the use of violence, which CSIS data suggests is often planned and orchestrated by a single individual or small network. Consequently, this analysis frequently refers to terrorist individuals and networks, rather than groups.

Data Analysis

To evaluate the terrorism threat in the United States, CSIS compiled a data set of 61 incidents that occurred in the country between January 1 and August 31, 2020. (The link to the methodology can be found at the end of the brief.) These incidents included both attacks and plots. The authors coded the ideology of the perpetrators into one of four categories: religious, violent far-right, violent far-left, and other (there were no ethnonationalist attacks or plots during this period). All religious attacks and plots in the CSIS data set were committed by terrorists motivated by a Salafi-jihadist ideology. Of the four attacks coded as “other,” all were committed by adherents of the Boogaloo movement. This section analyzes the data in three parts: number of attacks and plots, targets and tactics, and fatalities.

Attacks and Plots: Most domestic terrorist attacks and plots between January 1 and August 31, 2020 were committed by white supremacists, anti-government extremists from the violent far-right, and involuntary celibates (incels). As shown in Figure 1, far-right terrorists committed 67 percent of attacks and plots, far-left terrorists committed 20 percent, and extremists with other motivations (such as supporters of the Boogaloo movement) and Salafi-jihadists each committed 7 percent.

In mid-January 2020, six members of The Base, a transnational white supremacist group, were arrested in Georgia and Maryland and charged with plotting terrorist attacks. 21 On May 8, the FBI arrested anti-government extremist Christian Stanley Ferguson in Cleveland, Ohio, who was planning to ambush and execute federal law enforcement officers and then start an uprising. 22 Ferguson also posted violent messages on the digital distribution platform Discord. In one of three attacks in 2020 linked to the online “manosphere,” Armando Hernandez, Jr. was arrested in Glendale, Arizona, after a shooting spree targeting couples at the Westgate Entertainment District that injured three individuals. 23

Targets and Tactics: The increase in protests and political rallies over the summer of 2020 resulted in notable changes in targets and weapons adopted by violent far-left and far-right extremists.

Actors of both orientations targeted demonstrators in a large percentage of their attacks. 24 Demonstrators were the primary targets of far-right terrorists—in 50 percent of attacks and plots—including attacks from white supremacists and others who opposed the Black Lives Matter movement. For example, on May 30 Brandon McCormick threatened Black Lives Matter protesters in Salt Lake City, Utah, with a knife and a loaded compound bow while shouting racial slurs. 25 As in previous years, violent far-right extremists frequently targeted government, military, and police targets (18 percent of incidents) and private individuals based on race, gender, and other factors (18 percent of incidents).

While the primary targets (58 percent) of anarchists and anti-fascists were police, government, and military personnel and institutions, 42 percent of their attacks and plots in 2020 also targeted demonstrators. These included crowds supporting the police and Donald Trump, as well as protesters against abortion. The rise in violent far-left and far-right attacks against demonstrators may have been caused by the emerging security dilemma in urban areas, where there was a combustible mix of large crowds, angry demonstrators, and weapons.

There was also an increase in vehicle attacks, most of which targeted demonstrators and most of which were committed by white supremacists or others who opposed the Black Lives Matter movement. On June 7, for instance, Harry H. Rogers—a member of the Ku Klux Klan—intentionally drove his blue Chevrolet pick-up truck into a crowd of Black Lives Matter protesters, injuring one. 26 Rogers was later convicted and sentenced to six years in prison. From January to August 2020, vehicles were used in 11 violent far-right attacks—27 percent of all far-right terrorist incidents—narrowly making them the weapons most frequently used in far-right attacks. This marked a significant increase from 2015 to 2019, during which a vehicle was used in only one violent far-right attack. Although vehicle attacks against demonstrators were most common among white supremacists, one such attack was committed by a violent far-left perpetrator as well. On July 25, Isaiah Ray Cordova drove his sports utility vehicle into a crowd in Eaton, Colorado, which had gathered for a Defend the Police rally. 27

This spike in vehicle attacks may have been caused by the ease of using a vehicle to target large gatherings, such as protests. As a Department of Homeland Security assessment concluded, “Attacks of this nature require minimal capability, but can have a devastating impact in crowded places with low levels of visible security.” 28 While a concerning development, these vehicle attacks were not as lethal as those in such cities as Nice, France in July 2016, which killed 86 people; Barcelona in August 2017, which killed 16 people; or New York City in October 2017, which killed 8 people.

Explosives, incendiaries, and firearms remained common in both violent far-right and violent far-left attacks and plots, despite the increase in vehicle attacks linked to rallies and protests. Firearms were used in nearly a quarter of violent far-right incidents and were used in 34 percent of violent far-left attacks and plots. On June 6, local police arrested Brandon Moore in Coos Bay, Oregon, after he threatened protesters with a handgun while saying, “White lives matter.” 29 Meanwhile, explosives and incendiaries were used in half of far-left incidents—all of which targeted government or police property or personnel—and in 25 percent of violent far-right attacks and plots. On May 28, far-left extremists in Minneapolis, Minnesota, conducted an arson attack against the Minneapolis Police Department’s Third Precinct, as the crowd shouted “Burn it down, burn it down.” 30 The U.S. Department of Justice charged four men—Dylan Shakespeare Robinson, Davon De-Andre Turner, Bryce Michael Williams, and Branden Michael Wolfe—with conspiracy to commit arson and other crimes in the attack at the Third Precinct. 31

Overall, the data suggest that domestic terrorism evolved based on the surge in public demonstrations that began in May. These trends were not a commentary on the protests themselves, but rather on the ability of extremists to adapt to opportunities and the proximity of armed individuals in cities with different political and ideological motivations. Data compiled by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED) found that out of 10,600 demonstrations between May and August, nearly 95 percent were peaceful, while approximately 5 percent—fewer than 570—involved violence.” 32

Fatalities: Despite the large number of terrorist incidents, there were only five fatalities caused by domestic terrorism in the first eight months of 2020. There were four times as many far-left terrorist incidents and the same number of far-right terrorist incidents in 2020 as in all of 2019. Yet only 5 of the 61 incidents (8 percent) recorded between January and August 2020 resulted in fatalities, excluding the perpetrator. Some of these incidents were plots foiled by the FBI or other law enforcement agencies, which suggested that law enforcement agencies were effective in preventing several major attacks. Still, the number of fatalities in 2020 was low compared to the past five years, in which total fatalities ranged from 22 to 66 fatalities. All five fatal attacks in 2020 were conducted with firearms. 33

Of the five fatal attacks—each of which resulted in the death of one individual—one was committed by an Antifa activist, one by a far-right extremist, one by an anti-feminist, and two by an adherent of the Boogaloo movement. 34 In the fatal far-left attack, Michael Reinoehl, an Antifa extremist, shot and killed Aaron “Jay” Danielson in Portland, Oregon, on August 29. 35 On July 25, Daniel Perry shot and killed a protester in Austin, Texas. 36 On July 19, anti-feminist Roy Den Hollander shot the family of U.S. District Judge Esther Salas, killing her son and wounding her husband. 37 Finally, there were two fatal Boogaloo attacks in 2020. On May 29, Steven Carrillo shot and killed Pat Underwood, a protective security officer, and wounded his partner in Oakland, California. 38 Carrillo also killed a Santa Cruz County Sherriff’s Deputy in Ben Lomond, California, with an assault rifle on June 6, 2020. 39

The relatively low number of fatalities compared to the high number of terrorist incidents suggests that extremists in 2020 prioritized sending messages through intimidation and threats rather than killing. Given that a large portion of attacks were conducted with vehicles or firearms, there was a high potential for lethality—but an apparent lack of will.

Future Developments

A growing number of U.S. federal and state threat assessments have concluded that domestic terrorism could persist in the United States for the foreseeable future, including in 2021 and beyond. For example, the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness projected that “domestic extremists—primarily anarchist, anti-government, and racially motivated—will continue to manipulate national incidents” and remain a threat at least through 2021. 40 Looking toward the future, there are several issues worth monitoring.

First, there are various scenarios for a continuation—and even a rise—of violence after the November 2020 elections, which could persist into 2021 and beyond. Rising political polarization, growing economic challenges, the persistence of Covid-19, and growing concerns about immigration could lead to a rise in domestic terrorism.

The actions of far-left and far-right extremists are likely to be interlinked as various sides respond to others during protests, riots, demonstrations, and online activity. There appears to be an assumption by some extremists that others are prepared to use force, which heightens the possibility of violence. All sides have access to firearms, incendiaries, crude explosives, and other weapons, and are willing to bring them to demonstrations. This situation is a classic security dilemma. 41 Each side’s efforts to increase its own security and acquire weapons inadvertently threaten the other side. Since it may be difficult for individuals to distinguish between offensive and defensive arms, even efforts by one side to protect itself may motivate others to arm, creating a spiral of actions that leads to violence. 42 As Figure 6 highlights, domestic terrorism incidents have not been isolated to specific geographic locations, suggesting that a rise in terrorism would likely be a national problem, not a regional one. The broad scope of domestic terrorism also makes it difficult to predict where future incidents will occur.

In the event of a Democratic presidential victory, the threat could involve specific attacks by radicalized white supremacists, militias, and other related individuals. In these incidents, the primary weapons—particularly for fatal attacks—are likely to be firearms and explosives, as highlighted in the 2020 militia plots against the governors of Michigan and Virginia. Based on data from the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), the number of firearm background checks for gun purchases spiked to its highest level ever in 2020—which doubled over the past decade. 43 The pervasiveness of guns—including automatic weapons—is particularly concerning in the United States’ ultra-polarized political climate. Based on our data, the targets are likely to be demonstrators, politicians, or individuals based on their race, ethnicity, or religion—such as African Americans, Latinos, Muslims, and Jews.

In the event of a Republican presidential victory, for example, the primary threat may come from large-scale demonstrations in cities, some of which become violent. Anarchists, anti-fascists, and other far-left extremists have utilized digital platforms and other publications to argue that Donald Trump is a neo-fascist and that violence is legitimate. 44 As the Antifa-aligned journal It’s Going Down argued, “Suddenly, anarchists and antifa, who have been demonized and sidelined by the wider Left have been hearing from liberals and Leftists, ‘you’ve been right all along.’” 45 A Baltimore-based Antifa activist explained the use of violence as graduated and escalating: “You fight them with fists so you don’t have to fight them with knives. You fight them with knives so you don’t have to fight them with guns. You fight them with guns so you don’t have to fight them with tanks.” 46 Anarchists, anti-fascists, and other far-left individuals and networks have increasingly used firearms—in addition to explosives and incendiary devices—in conducting attacks. In this scenario, the primary targets could be government, military, and police facilities and personnel.

Digital platforms will likely continue to be a major battlefield. Far-left extremists will likely continue to use social media platforms—such as Reddit, Facebook, and Twitter—to release propaganda and instigate violence against political opponents, law enforcement, military, and the government. 47 Many adopted slogans, such as ACAB (“all cops are bastards”), that were used in memes as part of their propaganda campaigns. Far-right extremists will likely use a multitude of mainstream platforms (such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Telegram, and Reddit), lesser-known platforms (such as Gab, Discord, Minds, and Bitchute), forums (such as Stormfront and IronForge), and other online communities to instigate violence against African Americans, Jews, immigrants, and others. 48 Extremists from all sides will likely utilize digital platforms to fundraise, communicate, issue propaganda, conduct doxing campaigns (releasing an individual’s personally identifiable information), intimidate targets, and coordinate activity.

Second, the domestic landscape could shift from a decentralized milieu of extremists to more organized and hierarchically structured groups. As one study concluded, Louis Beam’s concept of “leaderless resistance” has been “a near total failure as a method of fomenting widespread armed resistance against the U.S. government.” 49 Most effective militant organizations have established centralized organizational structures to enable their leaders to control how violence is orchestrated and how finances are secured and managed. 50

In the United States, there are a handful of groups—such as The Base, the Atomwaffen Division (including rebranded versions such as the National Socialist Order), and the Feuerkrieg Division—with some leadership structure and command-and-control arrangements. There are also loose extremist movements that have a limited structure—especially in local areas or online—but lack a clear hierarchy and ideology. Examples include the Three Percenters, Oath Keepers, Boogaloos, QAnon, and some local networks of anarchists, anti-fascists, and militias. There have been some indications of greater organization, including the establishment of online hubs, such as MyMilitia, that provide a venue for individuals to find existing militias in the United States—or even to start their own. 51

A shift toward more hierarchical groups could have at least two implications. It could increase the competence and professionalism of these organizations in numerous areas, such as planning attacks, recruiting, training, improving operational security, and fundraising. In the 1960s and 1970s, extremists in the United States established more centralized groups—such as the Order, Mau Mau, and White Knights—to improve their effectiveness. 52 But research on terrorist and other militant groups indicates that centralized groups are more vulnerable to penetration by law enforcement and intelligence agencies. 53

Fortunately, there is some good news. The number of fatalities from domestic terrorism today is relatively low, and the possibility of a civil war—which some experts have worried about and some extremists have predicted—is negligible. 54 The United States has endured more violent periods in the past. Examples include a surge in white supremacist terrorism in the 1950s and 1960s (such as the Ku Klux Klan), black nationalist violence in the 1960s (such as the Black Liberation Army), revolutionary leftist violence in the 1960s and 1970s (such as the Weather Underground), and Puerto Rican nationalist violence in the late-1960s and 1970s (such as the Armed Forces of National Liberation, or FALN). 55 In addition, the United States faced serious threats from Salafi-jihadists after September 11, 2001—such as Najibullah Zazi, Faisal Shahzad, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, Nidal Hasan, Omar Mateen, and Mohammed Alshamrani—who perpetrated or plotted mass-casualty attacks.

But the United States weathered these periods thanks to the resilience of Americans and the effectiveness of U.S. law enforcement, intelligence, and other national security agencies. During his second inaugural address, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln said it best in encouraging Americans to come together during divisive times:

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish, a just and lasting peace, among ourselves and with all nations. 56

President Lincoln’s words are just as relevant today.

Seth G. Jones is the Harold Brown Chair and director of the Transnational Threats Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. Catrina Doxsee is a program manager and research associate with the Transnational Threats Project at CSIS. Nicholas Harrington is a program manager and research associate with the Transnational Threats Project at CSIS. Grace Hwang is a research assistant with the Burke Chair in Strategy at CSIS. James Suber is a research associate with the Transnational Threats Project at CSIS.

The authors give special thanks to Brian Michael Jenkins, Colin Clarke, Jacob Ware, and Alex Friedland for their review of the document—including the data set—and their helpful critiques. Also, thanks to David Brannan and Paul Smith for their comments.

For an overview of the methodology used in compiling the data set, please see here .

This brief is made possible by general support to CSIS. No direct sponsorship contributed to this brief.

CSIS Briefs   are produced by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a private, tax-exempt institution focusing on international public policy issues. Its research is nonpartisan and nonproprietary. CSIS does not take specific policy positions. Accordingly, all views, positions, and conclusions expressed in this publication should be understood to be solely those of the author(s). 

© 2020 by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. All rights reserved.

Please consult the PDF for references.

Seth G. Jones

Catrina Doxsee

James suber, grace hwang, nicholas harrington, programs & projects.

Terrorism Research Paper

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Interdisciplinarity of Terrorism

The definition of terrorism, the history of terrorism, the new terrorism, terrorism and new technologies, terrorism in the contemporary world scene, terrorism and globalization, secular, religious, and fundamentalist terrorism, new areas of inquiry, future opportunities, more terrorism research papers:.

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Terrorism is an interdisciplinary topic that requires the contributions of experts in the areas of history, political science, social science, philosophy, religion, psychology, sociology, finance, strategic studies, international relations, criminal justice, crime prevention and control, public safety, warfare, counterterrorism theory and practice, anthropology, languages, and cultural studies. History, the social sciences, political science, and psychology are especially useful in understanding the origins, reasons, justifications, motivations, and changes in the meaning and definition of terrorism. The recent emergence of terrorism, which is inspired by religious fundamentalism and ethnicseparatist elements rather than political ideology, serves as but one critical example of the complex nature of this phenomenon. For these reasons, diverse theoretical approaches are needed to explain the worldwide growth and expansion of terrorism within the complex matrix of social, cultural, economic, religious, psychological, political, and strategic variables (Ross 1996; Sharif 1996).

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Terrorism is political in its objectives and motives; violent or threatening violence; meant to have wide and deep psychological repercussions beyond the particular victim or target; committed by an organization with a command hierarchy that can be identified or a cell configuration that permits conspiratorial activities; and carried out by a subnational group or nonstate body. Thus, terrorism can be defined as the deliberate generation, instillation, and exploitation of fear into a competing group, party, government, or public opinion through violence or the threat of violence with the goal of introducing political change (Noble 1998).

Terrorists may be loners or people working in cells, small groups, or large coalitions. They do not answer to nor are they dependent on any government, they function across national borders, use advanced technology, and receive funding from anywhere in the world. Contemporary terrorists are not worried about limiting casualties. Current terrorism takes great advantage of ease and speed of travel, advanced communications and technology, anonymous financial transactions, and scientific and technological breakthroughs that greatly facilitate its mission. Most of all, the “new” terrorism has a global dimension. Indeed, globalization and religious extremism have greatly facilitated the activities of terrorism.

The interest of the social sciences in terrorism dates back to the analysis by political sociologists of anarchism, revolutionary movements, and insurgencies. Sociologists focusing on social change have also dedicated considerable space to the topic. In the past, Marxist and leftist sociologists addressed issues related to terrorism but did so within the context of liberation movements. The analysis and development of the area expanded in the 1970s, spurred by the growth of terrorism in the Middle East, related especially to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict; in Europe, particularly in Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom (Northern Ireland), and Italy; and in various Latin American countries. In South America, reformers involved in the liberation theology movement and the struggle for social and political change in the hemisphere also contributed to the field. Work on the phenomenon was no doubt influenced and colored by political currents such as Marxism and other left-leaning approaches that stressed themes related to the struggle of the oppressed against subjugation and exploitation by colonialism and capitalism. On the opposite side of the spectrum, the center and center-right perspectives emphasized instead the darker, criminal, or antidemocratic side of terrorist activities. Sociology provided the conceptual approaches, theories, and tools to analyze, understand, and explain terrorism as a social phenomenon and to formulate remedial and preventative interventions.

The statutory definition that the U.S. government uses to track and keep statistics on terrorism is as follows: “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against non-combatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience” [22 U.S.C. 2656f (d)]. By this definition, terrorism has several elements:

• There must be an intent and a prior decision to commit an act that entails this type of violence.
• Political motivation, thus eliminating criminal violence for monetary gain or personal revenge. Of course, criminal violence can have political repercussions too as it generates more and more fear of crime. And, on the other hand, terror is often connected with criminal activities but its goal is serving a greater good as defined by the terrorists.
• Attacking people who cannot defend themselves or respond in kind.
• Planned and carried out by a group. There is debate whether or not there can be a case of “individual” terrorism. The place and the role of clandestine agents and subnational groups is a delicate issue because at times governments, including the United States, have used both. This has sometimes meant the use of force, which has generated civilian casualties.

It is noteworthy that the definition does not include the threat of violence and thus serves to establish that terrorism is but one form of behavior along a continuum of possible political behaviors people engage in to express themselves and to cast attention toward the social, economic, and political conditions they desire to change. In this area, then, it is essential to bear in mind that terrorism is first and foremost a method that is centered on what people do rather than who they are and what they are attempting to achieve. Thus, counterterrorism can be viewed as an attempt to civilize the way in which a heated political contest is waged.

Terrorism is basically and fundamentally political in nature. It is also very much about power—that is, pursuing power, acquiring power, and using power to cause political change. Consequently, terrorism is also violence or, just as importantly, the threat of violence used and aimed in the pursuit of or in the service of a political objective.

The word terrorism initially became popular during the French Revolution when it did have a progovernmental, “positive” connotation. The régime de la terreur of 1793–1794, from which the English word originates, was established as a means to impose and consolidate power during the transient anarchical time of disorder and unrest that followed the revolution of 1789. Thus, instead of meaning an antigovernment operation, like it does today, the régime de la terreur was a government tool used to consolidate and firm up the power of the new government by intimidating, terrifying, and eliminating counterrevolutionaries, political opponents, and other dissidents deemed to be “enemies of the people.” Less than a year after the execution of Robespierre, the word terrorism was popularized in English by Edmund Burke (1790) in his polemic tract against the French Revolution where he wrote about “thousands of those Hell hounds called Terrorists. . . . let loose on the people” (p. 34).

One of the major outcomes of the French Revolution was the growing rejection of absolute monarchical systems that claimed to derive their authority directly from God and therefore to be entitled to a divine right to rule without constraints or limits. It also inspired the overall political awakening of Europe. Independence and nationalist movements flourished and succeeded in creating modern nationstates in some parts of Europe, as in the case of Germany and Italy. At the same time, dramatic socioeconomic changes were taking place as a consequence of massive industrialization, particularly in England and Germany. The alienation and exploitation of workers by nineteenthcentury capitalism provided the fertile ground for the sprouting and growing of new “universalist” ideologies. The most important ones are socialism and eventually communism.

During this period of social change in Europe the concept of terrorism was expanded and elaborated on. For example, an Italian revolutionary, Carlo Pisacane, who forsook his nobility status to lead an ill-fated rebellion against the Bourbon monarchy in Southern Italy, developed the idea of “propaganda by deed,” a concept that has exerted considerable influence on revolutionaries, insurgents, and terrorists ever since. Pisacane argued that violence is needed not only to attract attention to the cause or to generate publicity but to inform, educate, and, in the end, get the masses behind the revolution. Pamphlets, wall posters, or gatherings will never effectively substitute for the didactic value of violence.

One of the most notable groups to put Pisacane’s theory into practice was probably the Narodnaya Volya (people’s will or people’s freedom), a small group of Russian proponents of constitutional government in Russia started in 1878 to limit the unconstrained power of the tsar. Ironically, the success of the group in assassinating Tsar Alexander II on March 1, 1881, led to its complete suppression. The message of Pisacane and of Narodnaya Volya deeply affected the growing anarchist movement. An anarchist conference in London in 1881 endorsed the killing of the tsar and supported the idea of tyrannicide as a means for achieving revolutionary change.

By the 1930s, terrorism did not mean so much revolutionary movements and violence against governments or empires but rather the politics and practices of mass oppression and repression used by dictatorships and their leaders against their own citizenry. In other words, it meant again, like at the end of the terror regime in France, governmental abuse of power as it was taking place especially in Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and the Stalinist Soviet Union.

Similar forms of state-planned, imposed, or directed violence have taken place and are still occurring in various parts of the world. Violence has been a well-known aspect of right of center military dictatorships in Latin America, Europe, Asia, and Africa, especially in Chile, Argentina (Buchanan 1987; Cox 1983), Brazil, Greece, Spain, Portugal, various African countries, the Philippines, Indonesia, Burma, and Pakistan. Use of violence and intimidation by government authorities against their own people is generally identified as terror to distinguish such behavior from terrorism or violence that is carried out by nonstate entities (Moxon-Browne 1994).

The meaning of terrorism changed once more after World War II, thereby reclaiming the revolutionary reputation with which it is associated today. In the late 1940s, 1950s, and into the 1960s, terrorism was connected with the uprisings by indigenous populations in various parts of the world—Africa, Asia, the Middle East—to expel European colonial powers from their countries. At times they involved long guerrilla wars or terrorism. Well-known examples are Algeria, Cyprus, Israel, Kenya, and Vietnam. Many nationalistic rebellions took the form of guerrilla war. The Cuban Revolution of 1956 became a model for left-wing ideologues as a struggle against capitalist powers. Because these movements were perceived internationally as a struggle for liberation, decolonization, and self-determination, thanks in part to adroit public relations campaigns by the insurgents and their supporters in the First World, the term freedom fighter became increasingly used to describe them. This was also part of the Cold War’s psychological and political warfare between the Soviet Union and its supporters, which praised the insurgents fighting against capitalism, and the United States and Western European countries, which resisted them, for instance, in the Philippines and Puerto Rico.

At the end of the 1960s and into the 1970s, terrorism was still viewed within a revolutionary framework even though usage of the term was expanded to encompass nationalist and ethnic separatist groups beyond a colonial or neocolonial context as well as radical and ideologically driven organizations. In particular, ethnic minorities seeking independence or autonomy used terrorism not only to inflict casualties and serious damage to the dominant group but also to attract international attention, sympathy, and aid. The late 1960s also saw major student’s upheavals in Western Europe and the United States that had in some cases terrorist overtones and rhetoric (Wilkinson 1994).

More recently, the term terrorism has been used to describe broader, less narrow phenomena. In the early 1980s, terrorism was considered a planned and calculated strategy to destabilize the Western world as part of a vast global conspiracy. Claire Sterling (1981) in her book The Terror Network described apparently isolated terrorist events committed by different groups around the globe that were actually connected elements of a secret plan, under the direction of the former USSR and implemented by its Warsaw Pact countries to annihilate the free world. At the time the Cold War atmosphere offered the theory as appealing, particularly to the American and some western European governments.

The communist conspiracy was eventually overshadowed in the mid-1980s when a series of suicide bombings aimed mostly at American diplomatic and military targets in the Middle East abruptly called attention to the growing menace of state-sponsored terrorism. Several renegade foreign governments such as Iran, Iraq, Libya, and Syria were suspected and accused of being actively involved in sponsoring or commissioning terrorist acts.

In the early 1990s, the meaning and use of the term terrorism were once again changed by the appearance of two new expressions—narco-terrorism and the “gray area phenomenon.” Narco-terrorism was initially linked to an overall communist and Soviet plot to sabotage Western society. It presumably involved the use of drug trafficking to support and implement the objectives of certain governments and terrorist organizations, such as the Soviet Union, Cuba, Bulgaria, and Nicaragua. But the emphasis on this supposed type of narco-terrorism may have effectively diverted attention from yet another emerging trend— namely, the alliance of criminal and violence-driven organizations with terrorist and guerrilla entities that employed violence not only for the advancement of their business activities but for achieving political ends as well. One of the best-known examples of this was the growing power and influence of the Colombian cocaine cartels with their close alliance with left-wing terrorist groups in Colombia and Peru (Brown and Merrill 1995).

In the 1990s, terrorism was also cast by some analysts into a “gray area phenomenon,” thereby stressing the difficulty in clearly pinpointing what terrorism is. Basically, this approach reflects the growing fluidity of subnational conflict in the post–Cold War era. Terrorism in this sense represents threats to the stability of nation-states by nonstate actors and violence affecting large regions of the world or major urban areas where the central government has lost its influence and control to new half-political, half-criminal groups. It also covers different types of conflicts that do not fit well into traditionally recognized concepts of war as the fighting between clearly marked armed forces of two or more countries. It involves instead irregular forces as one or more of the combatants. The shift here is clearly toward nonstate conflict. Consequently, one could argue that terrorism is simply a manifestation of violence in a particular time period and thus it evolves and manifests itself in different ways. In a sense, terrorism is always changing (Alexander and Latter 1990; Baumel, 1999; Coates 1987; Corcoran, 1995; Smith 1994; Stern 1996; Walter 1995).

The United States and the world, particularly the Western world, were awakened to the existence of a new form of terrorism based in the Middle East by a series of events that ultimately culminated in the September 11, 2001, catastrophic attacks in New York and Washington, D.C. Since then, the names of Osama Bin-Laden and Al-Qaeda have become universally known and immediately connected with a violent struggle with an international reach and a strong religious dimension (Stern 1999) against the United States and Western interests based in the Middle East. The new terrorism has greater potential to cause damage to the United States, the West, and other countries, including parts of the Muslim world. The dangerous nature of the new terrorism stems from its being organized around loosely linked cells that do not depend on a single leader or a state sponsor. It is transnational, borderless, and carried out by nonstate actors. In comparing the “new” with the “old” terrorism, one would emphasize the following:

• The new terrorism is more violent. In the old model, terrorists sought attention, not mass casualties. Presently, they want both.
• The most dangerous terrorists today are transnational nonstate actors who operate at the global level and want to inflict damage and even destroy all secular state systems, including those with Islamic roots. Previous terrorist organizations held locally oriented aspirations; today’s terrorism is global in reach and has strategic objectives. Its members are transnational, nonstate actors whose allegiance goes to a cause, not a particular state or political entity.
• The new terrorism is much better financed than its predecessors that depended on state sponsors to fund their activities.
• Current terrorists are more impenetrable than previous groups. The loose, but networked, cellular structure of Al Qaeda and similar terrorist organizations are especially difficult. Religious and highly motivated extremists are also difficult to entrap using money, entertainment, and sex.
• The reputed availability of weapons of mass destruction greatly raised the risk on the threat posed by contemporary terrorists and the potential damage they can inflict. In the past, the major concern was about small arms; explosives, particularly Semtex or plastique; rocketpropelled grenades and an occasional shoulder-fired antiaircraft missile (Gavel 2002).

The planned use of liquid explosives in London to down airplanes is the latest addition to the growing list of terrorist tools.

Significant changes in the terrorists’ methods include the use of new technologies, the deployment of terrorists across international frontiers, and changes in the origins of support. Information technologies used by terrorists include the Internet, cellular phones, instant messaging, and real-time photographic and filming capabilities. Such capabilities have amplified the global reach of terrorist organizations. As but one example, hacking has been used. Internet sites have been placed under attack; Web sites have been hijacked or defaced; there are documented cases of denial of Internet service, automated e-mail bombings, and Web sitins. Management and administrative functions of terrorist organizations; coordinating operations; recruiting possible members; improving communications between members; attracting people sympathetic to the cause; collecting, managing, and transferring funds; and spreading the group’s message and philosophy have been greatly facilitated by the impressive technological advances in global information. This has facilitated the tasks of the terrorists and allowed them to expand the range of their activities. In particular, the synchronization of terrorist attacks, such as those of September 11, 2001, and those on various U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998, was made possible by the use of contemporary information technology (Denning 2000).

Globalization and the establishment of regional trading zones such as the European Union, Mercosur, the North American Free Trade Area, and others have made it easier for terrorists to expand their activities across international borders, borders that seemingly no longer exist. Thus, terrorists recognize their efforts are less easily detected through the Internet. This has facilitated the territorial expansion of terrorist groups, assisted in the establishment of terrorist cells, and promoted free movement across vast regions of the world in the planning and execution of terrorist activities.

Technological innovations and the ease of financial operations worldwide have also assisted terrorists in expanding their operations. While Al-Qaeda is reputed to be one of the best-financed terrorist networks, it is reported that Aum Shinrikyo, Hamas, Hezbollah, the IRA (O’Day 1994), the Tamil Tigers, and others groups benefit from the vast network of funding sources. These sources may include legal enterprises such as nonprofit and charitable organizations, legitimate companies, and illegal enterprises such as drug production, trafficking, smuggling, bank robberies, fraud, kidnappings, and extortion. Web sites have also been used to raise funds (Center for Strategic and International Studies 1998).

The smooth movement of terrorists’ financial resources is illustrated by the reported movement of gold and U.S. currency across the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Once the gold and currency arrived in Pakistan, they were swiftly transferred to the informal hawala or hundi banking system to other Middle Eastern countries. There it was converted into gold bullion and dispersed around the world. Additionally, terrorist funds have been converted into other commodities such as diamonds and tanzanite. In general, terrorist groups, whose assets may be a small fraction of the total amount of funds moved daily by organized transnational crime groups, use a variety of vehicles for the transfer of money, from couriers to banks, money changing enterprises, and informal exchanges such as the hawala or hundi systems (Viano 2003).

Samuel Huntington (1996) outlined a theory of conflict for the twenty-first century, stating that particular types of conflict are known to dominate different historical periods. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States is the world’s only superpower. The struggles that may threaten world peace will no longer focus on nationalism or ideology. Rather, most conflicts result from cultural confrontations that threaten to spread violence; one such cultural conflict is religion. In Huntington’s view, international peace will be especially threatened in “torn countries,” where more than one sociocultural orientation exists. The Balkans, where violent ethnic and religious strife and ethnic cleansing took place in the 1990s, represents but one example of Huntington’s thesis in which religion and terrorism are linked.

According to Huntington’s thesis, terrorism will probably continue to find supporters among violent, true believers in areas of conflict. The implications for the United States seem clear: First, it will be targeted by religious zealots from different cultural backgrounds because they believe that the United States has wrongly intervened and violated their religious norms. Western Europe and Japan may be targeted as well. Second, since the United States routinely is open to immigration there is a growing potential for religious strife. While the United States is not a “torn” country, it does provide a fertile field for zealots of different religions who want to change or punish America with violence and for right-wing extremists who violently object to the increasing diversity of the country and forcefully oppose those who tolerate it and the government that makes it possible. The 1995 Oklahoma City bombing is a clear example of the latter.

Bruce Hoffman (1998) and Walter Laqueur (1996, 1997, 2000) state that we are not only witnessing a resurgence and expansion of terrorist groups motivated by religion, but the situation is made even more difficult by the fact that religious terrorists behave differently than ethnic and nationalistic terrorists. The reason is that they are not constrained by the same factors that may inhibit other types of terrorists. In Hoffman’s view, religious terrorists differ from political terrorists in many ways. Holy terror represents a value system that is opposite to “secular terror,” secular terrorists function within the dominant political and cultural reality that they to replace with their own. Religious or “holy” terrorists are under no such constraint. Although fundamentalist and violent extremists may be attracted to any religion (Sargent 1995), for holy terrorists the world is a battlefield between the forces of good and evil, light and darkness. Winning is not understood in political terms. Rather, the enemy must be completely destroyed and, for this reason, killing is the outcome of an operation. For holy terrorists, killing is a sacramental act; the goal of their operation. For Islamic terrorism, the purpose of terrorism is to kill the enemies of God or to convert them to Islam (Rapoport 1988).

The current threat posed by terrorism is the product of the collision of different elements: maximum Western power, particularly that of the United States; globalization, driven mostly by Western interests; and the fundamentalist reaction to these trends affecting centuries-old ways of life in different parts of the world (Barber 1996). The root causes of and the growth of religious terrorism can be located in the declining influence of traditional forms of social and cultural cohesion within societies. The impact of globalization, political repression, economic disparity, and social change enhance the sense of fragility, instability, and unpredictability that exists throughout various parts of the world. Presently, the scale, amount, and intensity of religious terrorism, rather unprecedented in militancy and activity, indicate the depth of perception that those particular faiths and the communities linked to them stand at a critical survival juncture and that extreme measures must be taken to ensure that they continue to exist.

The perceived corruption of indigenous customs, religions, languages, economies, and entertainment are blamed on an international system that is frequently associated with American culture and values. The resulting distortions in local communities that result from being exposed to the global marketplace of ideas, goods, and values are more frequently blamed on the U.S.-led modernization. Christopher Coker (2002) aptly observes that while globalization is reducing the propensity for instrumental violence between states and communities, it is increasing the incentives for expressive violence or violence that is ritualistic, symbolic, and communicative. The current international terrorism is more frequently rooted in a need to assert identity or meaning against the advancing forces of homogeneity, particularly on the part of those cultures that are threatened by or are left behind by the secular atmosphere created by Western-led globalization.

According to a report published by the United Nations Development Program, one of the regions with the biggest deficit in terms of human development—the Arab world— is also the epicenter of the world’s most intense religiondriven terrorism. There is discontent in disenfranchised areas of the region of the world where the belief exists that the promises of globalization that include greater freedom, economic prosperity, and access to education, training, and knowledge are unfulfilled. As a result, there are dashed expectations, increasing resentment toward the hegemonic and often corrupt governments supported by the United States, and a desire to strike at the forces of modernization and globalization. There is also a desire to change the course of U.S. policy in the Middle East and Persian Gulf, particularly as it affects the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Given the enormous military power of the United States, the preferred course of action is not direct confrontation but the asymmetrical response that is terrorism.

The United States is a preferred target because of its involvement in the politics and conflicts of various regions of the world and because it is perceived to be the primary force behind globalization. Thus, today it is not possible to analyze terrorism without taking into consideration globalization. Both are tightly interwoven forces that affect and characterize global security in the twenty-first century. The main concern is whether or not terrorism will be able to disrupt the promise of a better life for millions of people.

Thus, one could say that terrorism is a by-product of larger historical shifts in the worldwide distribution of power and economic, military, political, ideological, and cultural resources. Assuming that current trends will continue, global disparities and inequalities will also continue to grow. Thus, we can anticipate that terrorism will not only continue to exist but will grow and expand. At the same time, terrorists will have continued access to more powerful technologies, increased territory and more targets, enhanced recruiting techniques, and more exploitable sources of discontent and rage than before (Laqueur 2004).

A serious problem is that the response of the West to terrorism is inadequate, superficial, and unlikely to dampen or mitigate any of the long-term trends already mentioned above. The benign intentions of the mostly and increasingly secular West do not necessarily appear benign to those who are marginalized by globalization. To frustrated people in the Arab and Muslim world and elsewhere, the strict following of fundamentalist religious doctrines and practices appear to be a rational response to the perceived threat when their own governments offer no alternative solution. The reality is that small groups of dedicated terrorists could not survive and operate for any extended period of time without the widespread support of the larger population. Any effective interventions by the West would begin at and focus on the broader, enabling environment that must be studied and understood (Kupperman 1985; Kupperman and Trent 1979).

Moreover, a panoply of long-term policy instruments should be used to address the international environment that makes it possible for terrorist networks to remain formidable organizations (Howard 2002). There is no question that the more effective policy tools are probably nonmilitary in nature such as intelligence, public diplomacy, cooperation with allies, updated international conventions and treaties, reforms leading to genuine democratization, and economic assistance (Burton 1976; Campbell 1988; Cobban 1984).

Religious beliefs are a useful, powerful, and ready-made source for justifying terrorism because beliefs sanctify the terrorist and deify the terrorism. Religious terrorism employs theological issues to justify violence and terror. Thus, terrorists are not subject to social limitations relating to violence and killing is justified given those being killed are enemies of their deity. To be “deified” means that the act of terrorism itself is made sacred and holy. The religious terrorists are mortals who are on a mission from God (Kibble 1996).

There is yet another difference between secular and religious terrorists. Political terrorism is also the theater aimed at influencing a wider audience to spread a message and obtain support. Thus, targets must be carefully chosen and there are some limits to what one can do. On the other hand, religious terrorists work only for their god. Thus, they need no wider audience or social approval. Juergensmeyer (1992, 1999) describes the conditions that must exist for terrorists to reach these conclusions: Believers must identify with a god and believe they are participating in a struggle to change the course of history by addressing good and evil. True-believing terrorists actually mimic and exaggerate mainstream social patterns and beliefs. They use the established social paths and models of religion and ideology to justify their actions (Oliverio 1998; Pearlestein 1991).

Fundamentalist terrorism in the twenty-first century exists mostly in the Middle East and/or in Islamic countries. The roots of terrorism in the Middle East are complex but can be reduced to four major areas: (1) questions on the political control of Palestine or the IsraeliPalestinian conflict (Nusse 1998); (2) who should rule the Arab world or intra-Arab rivalries and struggles; (3) the relations between the two main branches of Islam, Sunnis, and Shiites; and (4) how to eliminate and expel Western colonialism and imperialism and once again create a panArab “Caliphate” or realm of Islam.

Terrorism originating in this area is especially driven by anti-Western feelings because of the historical colonial domination and exploitation of the region. France and especially Great Britain dominated the region or attempted to for centuries. The Soviet Union also made forays attempting to gain a warm water port and counteract the other two colonial countries’influence. The United States has also played an increasingly dominant role in the region linked to the exploitation of its energy resources and at times in direct or indirect confrontation with the other Western colonial powers and the Soviets. The rejection of Western influence is connected with the colonial experience and also with the deeply held feeling that this entire region should be an exclusive Islamic realm. The presence of foreign troops in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the region is perceived as colonialism, sacrilegious, and as a modern version of the medieval crusades. The ideology of Al Qaeda and of other groups inspired or associated with it stresses both themes—anticolonialism or “anticrusaders” and the reestablishment of the Caliphate—as a justification for their terrorist activities (Gurr 1993; Hoffman 1998; Howard and Sawyer 2003, 2004; Johnson 1997). The terrorist is fundamentally an altruist who believes he is serving a good cause. The terrorist is basically a violent intellectual ready and committed to use force in the realization of his goals (Perdue 1989).

After September 11, 2001, interest and research in terrorism has grown exponentially. One such area of inquiry addresses the mind-set of the terrorists and the tactics they employ in their quest for power and, ultimately, political and social change. Although terrorists bank on the efficacy of violence in achieving change, their actions are not random, crazed, or capricious acts as politicians maintain they are. On the contrary, these actions are carefully planned and conservatively executed. Innocent and harmless people get caught in the middle just as they are in acts of war. Both the military and the terrorists claim that they are performing carefully targeted acts—“precision bombing” in U.S. military parlance. Recently, there have been increases in the use of violence. Possibly due to the “CNN effect” or the need to attract worldwide media coverage for maximum impact, terrorists have been engaging in more dramatic and destructively lethal deeds to garner the same amount of attention that a less violent and bloody action would have obtained in the past, looking for recognition and publicity. In a world saturated with violence and aggression by the media, entertainment, movies, video games, and sports such as football, hockey, boxing, terrorists seem to have understood that to hold a jaded public’s attention they must increase the level and drama of their actions (Miller 1982).

Another element that is affecting terrorism’s organizational and operational dynamics is the Internet. The rise and expansion of network forms of organization is a central outcome of the continuing information revolution. The speed of communications, the facility of sharing and diffusing information, and the ease and instantaneity of transferring funds worldwide have changed contemporary life, including terrorism’s conduct and modes of operation.

This permits the creation of organizations with multiple, dispersed leaders and private sources of funding. The reasons, motives, and rationales of the terrorists may not have changed but their modus operandi certainly has. What the information and Internet age have made possible are flatter, less hierarchical, very flexible, and localized structures and networks of power with centripetal dynamics fueled by intense and easy communications and exchanges (Picard 1993).

Terrorism is evolving. Terrorists’ shift toward less hierarchical organizational structures and their growing use of advanced communications technologies for command, control, and coordination will further empower small terrorist groups and even individuals. While most of the governmental efforts and public concern, anxiety, and attention are focused on preventing and foiling traditional violent terrorist acts, the next 9/11 might very well be an act of cyberterrorism or massive netwar, disabling regional, national, or even international computer-driven systems that control practically every aspect of our lives (Whine 1999). The content of information and the conduits of information infrastructures very likely will become the new targets. In this area, the destructive power of terrorism will be exponentially greater than it has been in the past, even if it had been able to use “weapons of mass destruction.” It is also true, of course, that the frequency and extent to which terrorist organizations use information infrastructures to carry out their activities may eventually make them vulnerable to detection and destruction by counterterrorist entities (Rubin 1991).

The widespread uncertainty of the forces of globalization and the search for a new world order create a fertile ground for the creation and development of religious terrorist groups, with religious conviction functioning as a firm anchor. These groups perceive an opportunity to shape history and the world in line with their divine duty, cause, and mission. It is essential that we understand the inner logic of these groups and the dynamics that produce terrorism. As we progress further into the twenty-first century, it is doubtful that the United States and other Western governments are adequately prepared to meet this challenge (Juergensmeyer 1999). Thus, the need exists for further research in areas such as nationalistic and ethnic terrorism, technological terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, changing group structures and the metamorphosis of terrorism, the origins of terrorism in the Middle East, and the role of the media (Zanni 1999).

Future public policy concerns include counterterrorist measures and the impact such policy will have on democratic society. The passage and reauthorization of the Patriot Act is a clear indication that in the future a democratic government will respond to a real or perceived terrorist threat by introducing measures that greatly limit civil and political liberties. In the wake of 9/11, population movement control, transportation security, the protection of infrastructures deemed vital, the introduction of a system of threat warnings, and immigration and border control measures were quickly introduced. The de facto adoption of a national identity card, in the form of a federally standardized driver’s license, was approved. Moreover, the federal government has engaged in widespread detention and interrogation; introduced new surveillance tools, instituted new financial regulations, controls, and rewards; modified the administration of the justice system; and promoted greater information sharing among law enforcement and intelligence agencies. The public desire for a completely risk-free life and society in a world dominated by science and technology, which promise and deliver a constantly increased control of daily life and death situations, provided vast popular support for this approach (Labeviere 2000). However popular the international war on terrorism is, the civil and human rights of citizens and noncitizens alike were reduced and at times violated in the process. This is a fertile field for investigation, analysis, inquiry, and affirmation of democratic values for the social scientist (Merari 1985).

The lack of a comprehensive strategy to address terrorism based on a deep-rooted, well-grounded comprehension of the history, patterns, motivations, and types of terrorism reflects the lack of understanding of terrorism in the academic community. Some academics consider terrorism a too policy-oriented area to be worthy of serious research. Since terrorism is a miltidisciplinary topic it depends on the interaction and collaboration of a number of disciplines. In the United States, most of the analyses on terrorism are being conducted in policy-oriented research institutes, which are often narrowly defined to fit the interests and time frame attendant to government-supported contracts.

The academy, on the other hand, is no more strategically oriented, visionary, and creative than the government. There is an urgent need for multidisciplinary collaboration that also includes law enforcement, intelligence, and finance. What is most needed is a concerted effort to move beyond the episodic interest in this phenomenon and instead develop, plan, and fund a long-term research and policy development agenda. Sociologists and in particular political sociologists can have a major role to play in researching the impact of antiterrorism measures and exposing whatever threats are posed to democracy, human freedom, and individual rights. And sociologists who focus on mass movements, group-think, mob reactions, and race and ethnic relations also have much to offer to a society in need of such information.

Additionally, the repercussions of the “war on terrorism” on international human rights and humanitarian laws provide a fertile ground for research and analysis for the sociologist of law. The creation of the “enemy combatant” label to facilitate weakening of the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war and the alleged mistreatment and torture of prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the Bagram base in Afghanistan, and Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, among others, serve as important sociological reminders of the effects culture and civil society have on human nature and the aggressive and violent instincts of Homo sapiens.

There is no question that social scientists have a major contribution to make to the analysis, understanding, prevention, and policymaking relative to terrorism. But within sociology it will also be important, given the political nature of actions identified as terrorist, that the sociologist be vigilant, adhere to professional standards, and maintain an independence of thought, analysis, and vision. In the future, the discipline may again be confronted with issues relating to Howard Becker’s question and critical challenge of the past, “Sociology for whom?”

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