C, B, R, or N: The Influence of Related Industry on Terrorists' Choice in Unconventional Weapons

Tishler, Nicole Alexandra

doi:10.15353/cgjsc-rcessc.v2i2.61

Cited by 6 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…According to Jackson and Frelinger (2008, p. 2), a perpetrator’s weapon of choice implies “the scale and scope of their violence”, and weapon choice has also been identified as important in understanding a perpetrator’s apparent intended lethality (Wilson & Lemanski, 2013). In regard to chemical, biological, and radiological weapons, the type of agent chosen may be indicative of factors such as the size of the chemical or biological industry in the country of attack or the perpetrator’s religious ideology, although there may also be differences based on whether these incidents are empty threats or actual attacks (Tishler, 2013). Indeed, previous research on product contamination has revealed that different agents may be used in threats and authentic attacks, as those agents which are easiest to obtain, such as household poisons (Dalziel, 2009) and foreign objects (Graves, Smith, & Batchelor, 1998), are most frequently used in attacks on the food supply, whereas more concerning and difficult to obtain biological agents may be more likely to be used in threats alone (Wilson & Kilbane, 2017).…”

Section: Assessing Threatsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Agent selection and threat actualization in contamination cases: Predicting action from perpetrator behavior.

Kilbane

2018

Journal of Threat Assessment and Management

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While existing research on the topic is sparse, previous works have shown that there is believed to be a substantial threat of intentional, malicious contamination of the supply chain by criminals and terrorists (CFSAN, 2001; WHO, 2008). Genuine contamination incidents have the potential to result in mass casualties, although empty threats are often enough to generate public fear and lead to considerable economic damage. While empty threats often appear indistinguishable from those which will result in contamination, it is thought that certain variables identified in perpetrator communications may be able to help separate empty threats from those which will be actualized. This research thus attempts to determine whether a perpetrator's reported choice of agent could offer functional predictions for the likelihood of actual contamination in future incidents. Findings indicate that chemical agents alone are more likely to be associated with genuine contamination, while the claimed use of biological agents alone as well as chemical, biological and radionuclear (CBRN) agents combined are more often associated with empty threats. The utility of these findings will be discussed, as well as suggestions for future research.

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Section: Assessing Threatsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Agent selection and threat actualization in contamination cases: Predicting action from perpetrator behavior.

Kilbane

2018

Journal of Threat Assessment and Management

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“…This again emphasises the importance of considering threats and hoaxes separately from actual attacks, which has been highlighted by previous authors (e.g. Tishler, 2013), despite the sparse attention given to threats and hoaxes in the literature to date.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 55%

“…Finally, in less than 15 per cent of non-expert and 10 per cent of expert cases the actual agent used was either unknown or unreported, which could have a relatively minor impact on some of the other agents categories discussed. While examining these agents in more specific detail could provide a better understanding of agent choice among experts and non-experts, it is first important to consider the distinction between cases of actual contamination and threats or hoaxes, as different desired outcomes may require the use of different agents (Dalziel, 2009; Tishler, 2013; Kilbane, (in press)), regardless of the perpetrator’s knowledge.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Poisoning expertise and outcomes in malicious contamination incidents

Kilbane

2018

JCP

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Purpose: It is often assumed that poisoners and product tamperers are likely to share an interest in or knowledge of poisonous substances. The purpose of this research is to determine whether perpetrators with existing poison knowledge will choose different contaminating agents than non-experts, as well as whether there is a link between poison expertise and outcomes in malicious contamination cases. Based on their expertise, it is expected that those perpetrators with some form of existing poison knowledge would select more concerning and difficult to obtain agents, and that attacks committed by experts would result in more harm than attacks by non-experts.Methodology: A content analysis was conducted on qualitative descriptions of malicious contamination events, with relevant behavioural variables identified as being present or absent for each individual case. Differences between experts and non-experts in agent choice and incident outcome were then explored using descriptive statistics, contingency tables and Mann-Whitney U tests.Findings: Agent choice was found to differ between experts and non-experts, with different agents chosen depending on whether the event was a threat or a genuine contamination incident. However, attacks by poison experts were found to be no more deadly than attacks perpetrated by non-experts.Value: This research provides the first known analysis comparing agent choice and outcomes in malicious contamination incidents as a factor of perpetrator knowledge. Investigative applications are discussed.

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“…In some cases, hoaxes are explicitly culled from analyses of terrorists' tactical choices (see, for instance, Asal, Ackerman, and Rethemeyer 2012;Ivanova and Sandler 2006;Ivanova and Sandler 2007), usually on the grounds that such events are not reflective of "serious" terrorism risk. 39 In others (Enders, Parise, and Sandler 1992;Enders, Sandler, and Cauley 1990;Prunckun Jr. and Mohr 1997;Rowlands, Littlewood, and Kilberg 2012;Tishler 2013a;Tishler 2013b), hoaxes are addressed-but always in relation (and usually subsidiary) to other tactical choices; they are never treated as the primary object of analysis.…”

Section: Insights Into Hoax Behaviour: Previous Empirical Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Regarding attack perpetrators, the authors find that a group's past CBRN use is a significant determinant of its future use; and that religious cults (but not religious fundamentalists) and transnationally-oriented groups are the most likely CBRN users. In Tishler (2013a;, multinomial logit regression-using chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear as a categorical dependent variable-is used to test the technological determinism assumption that the more readily CBRN technology, materials, and knowledge are accessible to terrorists, the more likely the terrorists will be to use unconventional weapons of the corresponding kind. The study tests the technological determinism hypothesis on the full sample of WMDDB incidents, and then compares a stratified sample of serious attacks with that of hoaxes.…”

Section: Cbrn Terrorism: Parallel Data Sources and Frequently-hoaxed mentioning

confidence: 99%

Fake Terrorism: Examining terrorist groups’ resort to hoaxing as a mode of attack

Tishler¹

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Little academic attention has been accorded to terrorism hoaxers-i.e. those perpetrators who use lies, benign materials and/or empty threats to give the impression that a terrorist act is or has been underway. This dissertation harnesses under-utilised terrorism events data to build a theory of hoaxes in pursuit of a dual aim: to provide a robust substantive answer to the empirical puzzle of why hoaxes are used, but not by all groups, and not all the time; and to evaluate the degree to which existing data can demystify the hoax phenomenon. The starting point is a rationalist framework for terrorist groups' strategic logics, which emphasizes the relative costs and benefits of hoaxes in relation to serious terrorism activity. In the empirical theory-building chapters, probit regression and qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) are used to identify various organizational conditions that differentiate hoaxers from non-hoaxers, thereby indicating which strategic logics are plausibly at play, and in which contexts. A statistical cluster analysis demonstrates that there are five broad classes of hoaxing terrorist groups, which differ from one another along motivational, structural, and campaign contextual lines. While the unit of analysis throughout is the terrorist group, these analyses rely on crossnational terrorism events databases-predominantly ITERATE and the Monterey WMD Terrorism Database-to identify which groups never hoax, and which groups sometimes do. In the dissertation's final section, earlier findings are tested against a new sample of terrorism perpetrators derived from the recently-released Canadian Incident Database (CIDB). Although the Canada-centric data reveals a biased under-reporting of hoax activity in the cross-national datasets, a QCA analysis of its perpetrators reveals roughly similar conditions differentiating hoaxers from non-hoaxers. The CIDB's comprehensive events coverage is further exploited to test whether these organizational indicators and their associated hypothesized mechanisms hold, when campaign activities are evaluated at the event-level. A fine-grained analysis of event sequencing in Canada's most prolific terrorism campaign (that of the Front de libération du Québec) corroborates a range of proposed strategic logics. The observational nature of available data is thus limited in its ability to clarify hoaxers' strategic logics, which are both over-determined and equifinal.iii

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C, B, R, or N: The Influence of Related Industry on Terrorists' Choice in Unconventional Weapons

Cited by 6 publications

References 0 publications

Agent selection and threat actualization in contamination cases: Predicting action from perpetrator behavior.

Agent selection and threat actualization in contamination cases: Predicting action from perpetrator behavior.

Poisoning expertise and outcomes in malicious contamination incidents

Fake Terrorism: Examining terrorist groups’ resort to hoaxing as a mode of attack

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