CHARACTERISTICS OF TERRORISM

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What are the key characteristics of the “new terrorism”?

The changing nature of the terrorism was first felt in the 1990s. In 1993, World Trade Center in New York was attacked with a view to kill thousands.[1] With such attacks like AumShinrikyo,[2] and the September 11 attacks,[3] shocking in their scale and execution style, the belief that “anew terrorism has arrived” was established.

Some of the key characteristics of “the new terrorism” are:

Networked, Cell-like Organizational Structure

The new terrorist organizations have a networked organizational structure, with various members having equal authoritative rights, and the reporting structure more flat denoting a cell-structure.[4] The new terrorist organizations have moved on to decentralization; thereby each one of the several leaders is independently responsible for carrying out terrorist activities.[5]

Extreme Religious-based Ideology

Unlike old terrorism which was influenced by political beliefs, the new terrorism is influenced by extremist religious beliefs, mostly Islam.[6] For these terrorists, there is only one right way; and the people coming in the way have to be destroyed.

Asymmetric Warfare[7]

The new terrorists’ way of practicing terror is way different from traditional military approach. With the war no more run on political beliefs, their targets are no more the Government or military, but the countries as a whole.They run clandestine attacks; attack important buildings and destroy innocent human lives.

Global Operations

The new terrorist organizations are more like multinational companies, spread across the geographical boundaries. Al Qaeda, for instance, has been found to have presence all over the world, with its members coming from different countries.[8]

Lethality of Actions

Even with the number of terrorist incidents since 1990s decreasing, the fatalities associated with the terrorist attacks have been on a rise.[9] The use of modern equipment, weapons of mass destruction like nuclear weapons and suicidal bombers, the unpredictability of the places of attack and unconventional attack methods like cyber-terrorism[10] have made the new terrorism much more demonic.

Critical Infrastructure and Innocent Human Beings as Targets

New Terrorists do not have any particular section as their enemy, thus, they have no qualms in attacking innocent people, mostly civilians. Their targets are mostly critical infrastructure[11], the destruction of which may have severe socio-economic impacts on the country. Some examples of such infrastructure are trade exchanges, hospitals, national icons, railways etc.[12]

How does ideology influence the way different terrorist groups approach their struggle?

A terrorist group’s foundation is its ideology.As said by Martha Crenshaw, ‘Shared ideological commitment and group solidarity are much more important determinants of terrorist behavior than individual characteristics’.[13] The ideology defines how the terrorist group operates, what the limits of its actions are and who its targets are. Ideology can be said to be the blood flowing through the veins of each member of the terrorist group, binding them together.

For e.g. a national-separatist terrorist group aims for an independent state. Its struggle is basically with the Government; hence it targets Government buildings and officials to terrorize and communicate its message. These terrorists generally act in order to protect their community/geography from foreign attacks/capture, and enforce social justice/equity.[14]

The role of ideologies has increased over the time. For the “new-terrorists”[15] ideologies serve as structural glue for the networked-structure.[16]Through the centuries, the ideologies have differed; resulting in different terrorist behaviors.19^th and early 20^th century saw leftist and anarchist ideologies, which resulted in many international leftist movements.[17] In the latter half of 20^th century, separatist ideologies came into being.[18] 1990s was marked by two main ideologies: radical nationalism and religious extremism.[19]Comparing the number of terrorism-casualties, we can form an idea about the difference in their approach of terrorism. While the religious terrorists were responsible for 1640 deaths in 1968-97, the leftist groups were responsible for 829 deaths.[20]

Let us take examples of political and religious ideologies to understand how the ideologies affect the terrorists’ approach to struggle. Political ideologies are concerned with political beliefs related to Government, its structure and its actions.[21]Political terrorists evaluate their success by evaluating the psychological effects of the violence on the viewers.[22] There is minimum physical destructiveness; just enough to demonstrate their power and lessen the Government’s dependability. The members are recruited through connections.[23]

Religious extremists on the other hand recruit through exploiting the distrust of West, invoking events that have deep significance for Muslims (for e.g. Iraq war).[24]  They feel that there is only one way and that is complete destruction. For them, the targets are the entire Western countries; hence they attack soft targets (like restaurants, gathering places) as well as hard targets (like critical infrastructure).[25] They use weapons of mass destruction without any care for civilian casualties.[26]

Thus, ideologies affect the way terrorists affect their struggle in the following ways: ideologies define who the targets are and what is the limit of destruction; ideologies show how they recruit and motivate their members; and ideologies dictate the terms for success of terrorist acts.

What are some of the key elements of a comprehensive counterterrorism strategy?

A comprehensive counter-terrorism strategy, as its name suggests, is a comprehensive way incorporating various counter-terrorism strategies available. This term is used extensively in Crelinsten’s book Counterterrorism and the answer tries to capture the essence of the chapter ‘Conclusion: A Comprehensive counterterrorism strategy’. In a time-space division with actions basically divided into coercive and persuasive, the hard power and soft Power can be described through the following figure.[27]

Thus the comprehensive counterterrorism strategy is actually a delicate balance between hard and soft power, and long-term and short-term strategizing.The upper- left quadrant denotes short-term coercive activities like preemption and criminal justice. The upper-right quadrant denotes long-term coercive strategies like criminal intelligence, security intelligence. Similarly the lower-left quadrant denotes short-term persuasive activities and the lower-right depicts long-term persuasive activities.

As said by famous counterterrorism expert Bruce Hoffman, we have to go beyond the traditional military means for effective counter-terrorism.[28] Thus soft power becomes essential for effective counter-terrorism activities. Negotiations and Reforms are an important part of how a country deals with terrorists, and care has to be taken that negotiations are done with extreme care so as to protect the values of democracy.[29]Hard power activities or the coercive activities are required to protect the civilians and help in being prepared for attacks through the criminal intelligence. In case of hard power activities, involvement of police is still a debatable topic.[30] However, many experts are of the view that involvement of police in counter-terrorism strategies should be done by creating special police forces and not involving the community police.[31]

Another important consideration in the fight against terrorism is maintaining the balance between acceptability and effectiveness.[32] Just because an action is effective doesn’t mean it is acceptable. For example, democracies negotiating with terrorist groups might be effective, however the acceptability is determined by what are the demands of the terrorist groups and whether conceding to those demands will question the concept of democracy.

What are some of the different types of crime that terrorists engage in? Give examples to support your answer.

Terrorists generally engage in organized crimes to obtain financial support for their terrorist activities.[33] During the Cold-war era, terrorists were generally funded by Soviet Union or the West. Post-cold-war era saw a reduction in funding from states and increased counter-terrorism measures, thus the terrorist groups had to find new means to finance their main purpose.[34] Thus they resorted to crimes like bank-robberies, drug-trafficking, kidnappings etc.

The different types of crime that terrorists engage in are:

• Drug Trade: Terrorist groups are involved in the cultivation, manufacture and distribution of drugs around the world.[35]It is used as a source of finance, and also employed as method to weaken the enemies by providing drugs to them.[36]  An example is Peru. In Peru one terrorist group obtains financial support by protecting drug traffickers.[37] Terrorist- drug connections have destabilized the Government of Colombia, as reported by Bibes.[38]
• Smuggling: Terrorist Groups are involved in various types of smuggling, ranging from arms smuggling to human smuggling. According to UN estimates, “human smuggling has grown to a $10billion per year global criminal industry”.[39] There are evidences of two major west European nations involved in arms trafficking.[40]
• Kidnapping, Robberies and Extortion: Kidnapping of foreign nationals, prominent personalities, hijacking airplanes etc. are used by terrorists to get their demands from the Governments, and sometimes for financial resources.[41] Members of Abu Sayyaf Group and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front have been kidnapping foreigners and aid-workers in the southern Philippines for profit.[42]
• Counterfeiting Goods and Money: Gale Nettles, who was convicted for his role in plotting to bomb the Dirksen Federal building in Chicago, was also found guilty of selling, exchanging and delivering counterfeited US notes.[43]Another crime associated with terrorists which is on rise is the sale of counterfeit goods. ImadHammoud and his associates were convicted in March 2006 for carrying out cigarette trafficking ring, worth millions of dollars, to fund the terrorist group Hezbollah.[44]
• Corruption and Bribery: Although not very rampant, terrorists attempt to reduce the risks of being arrested by law enforcement agencies, and the scrutiny by bribing officials. Some examples here bribery of US Government officials by several individuals( FnuLnu, MurugesuVinayagamoorthy etc.) to protect the interests of LTTE, a Sri Lankan terrorist group.[45]
• Immigration and Identity Crimes: To protect their identities, the terrorists are also involved in a number of identity crimes. Leila Kahaled, a PFLP terrorist, underwent several plastic surgeries to hide her identity so that she could commit more skyjackings undetected.[46]

Is it possible to negotiate with terrorists?

It is sometimes possible to negotiate with terrorists; but the debate among most of the experts is whether or not such negotiations should be done. As Peter Neumann says, “The argument against terrorism is simple: Democracies must never give in to violence, and terrorists must never be rewarded for using it”.[47] In his view, giving in to terrorists’ demands shows the helplessness of a democracy, and gives legitimacy to the terrorists.[48] However, according to another segment of the counter-terrorism experts, negotiation is one integral part of counter-terrorism. Bruce Hoffman has said that for defeating Al Qaeda, US has to go beyond the military means.[49]

Whether or not negotiation is possible can be decided by knowing the type of terrorists. Terrorists can be classified based on their reasons as Contingent terrorists (kidnappers, hostage takers) and Absolute terrorists (suicide bombers).[50]  Contingent terrorists are the ones who seek negotiations. Negotiation as such is not bad, the results dictate whether it is for the good or not. For e.g. if on negotiation, the terrorist groups reduce their terms, we may say negotiation was successful.

The challenge of negotiation is to convert Absolute terrorists into conditionals, and work on Contingent terrorists so as to reduce their terms.[51] While negotiation with contingent terrorists is a short-term thing, negotiating with Absolute terrorists requires a long term strategy.[52] It sometimes requires us to read between the lines about terrorist broadcasts of messages. For example, it appears Al Qaeda might be interested in negotiation with the US.[53] If what the Al Qaeda leaders profess (they profess that they want to remove western military presence from Islam countries) is actually true, then indeed negotiations are possible.[54]

The role of negotiator is important in the process of negotiations. The negotiator’s true challenge is not to succumb to the whims of the terrorist groups, rather offer concessions to terrorists for abandoning violent terrorism.[55] This can be achieved in two ways:

• Negotiators need to influence the terrorist’s decision making abilities to think in terms of lowered expectations or lowered demands.[56]
• Negotiators can show an opportunity for future personal situation bargain and not bargain of the original demands.

Some other tactics available to the negotiator are ‘take it or leave it’.

Negotiation is thus possible, care has to be taken that we do not end up giving more than we are getting.

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Bibes, P. 2001, ‘Transnational Organized Crime and Terrorism- Colombia, a Case Study’, Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, vol. 17, no. 3 (August 2001), pp 243-258

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