Connecting Terrorist Networks

Magouirk, Justin; Atran, Scott; Sageman, Marc

doi:10.1080/10576100701759988

Cited by 86 publications

(32 citation statements)

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“…As events unfold, some agents will become more or less central to action and communications efforts (Magouirk et al, 2008). These changes to network structure can undermine traditional static measures of centrality .…”

Section: Features Of Covert Social Networkmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Dynamic criminal and terrorist networks are also often decentralized (Sageman, 2011). Organized crime and terrorist networks often have clusters at different levels of analysis due to features such as kinship, where smaller criminal cells operate independently within larger organizations (Magouirk et al, 2008; (Pfeffer & Carley, 2012). Consequently, an automated, or semi-automated process for analyzing network structure can be executed in a more timely fashion.…”

Section: Features Of Covert Social Networkmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Detecting Covert Networks in Multilingual Groups: Evidence within a Virtual World

Triplet¹,

Harrison²,

Mennecke³

et al. 2016

JVWR

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This paper introduces an approach for the examination and organization of unstructured text to identify relationships between networks of individuals. This approach uses discourse analysis to identify information providers and recipients and determines the structure of covert organizations irrespective of the language that facilitate conversations between members. Then, this method applies social network analytics to determine the arrangement of a covert organization without any a priori knowledge of the network structure. This approach is tested and validated using communication data collected in a virtual world setting. Our analysis indicates that the proposed framework successfully detected the covert structure of three information networks, and their cliques, within an online gaming community during a simulation of a large-scale event.

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Section: Features Of Covert Social Networkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Features Of Covert Social Networkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Detecting Covert Networks in Multilingual Groups: Evidence within a Virtual World

Triplet¹,

Harrison²,

Mennecke³

et al. 2016

JVWR

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Networks are widely recognized as the dominant social structure of extremist groups (Buchanan, 2002;Featherstone, Phillips, & Waters, 2007;Magouirk, Atran, & Sageman, 2008) insofar as they link actors who are working toward common goals (Powell, 1990). They make it possible for terrorists to overcome collectiveaction problems arising out of complexity and the uneven distribution of assets that they need to carry out attacks.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Cross-border terror networks: a social network analysis of the Canada–US border

Leuprecht

Hataley

Skillicorn

2013

Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression

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“…Among others, covert networks have been formally characterized by Tsvetovat and Carley (2005), McAllister (2004) and McCormick and Owen (2000), and their optimal network structures have been analyzed and approximated by Lindelauf et al (2009a) and Enders and Su (2007). Other approaches concern covert network destabilization strategies, see Farley (2003) and Carley et al (2003), and tools to identify the most important members of the corresponding organizations, see Koschade (2006), Magouirk and Sageman (2008) and Sparrow (1991).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Leaderless Covert Networks: A Quantitative Approach

Husslage

Lindelauf

Hamers

2012

Handbook of Computational Approaches to Counterterrorism

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Lindelauf et al. (2009a) introduced a quantitative approach to investigate optimal structures of covert networks. This approach used an objective function which is based on the secrecy versus information trade-off these organizations face. Sageman (2008) hypothesized that covert networks organize according to leaderless principles, i.e., clear leaders can not be identified. This flat organizational structure is quite robust to destabilization tactics which target the most important persons in a network. There exist several centrality measures to express the importance of persons in a network. The most recent one introduced in the field of covert networks is a game theoretical centrality measure which takes into account both the structure of the covert network, which usually reflects a communication structure, as well as non-network features, which represent individual parameters like financial means or bomb building skills, see Lindelauf et al. (2011). The question we try to answer in this chapter is whether there is a relationship between the quality of a covert network based on their optimality with respect to the trade-off between secrecy and information and the variance of the game theoretic centrality measures of the respective individuals in the network. The leaderless hypothesis seems to suggest that good covert networks do not have a high distinction between centrality of the individuals, i.e., they are leaderless. We investigate this by looking at homogeneous networks and heterogeneous networks in which the links between individuals are weighted. We find that (approximate) optimal networks have low variance in game-theoretic centrality, i.e., we find evidence that supports the leaderless hypothesis. However, if the networks are heterogeneous in the sense that, for instance, certain individuals communicate much more often than others, we find that the variance increases significantly. Finally, we look at the Jemaah Islamiyah 2002 Bali bombing. We find that the operational network used to conduct and to coordinate the bombing not only facilitated both secrecy and efficiency but also adhered to the leaderless principle.

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Connecting Terrorist Networks

Cited by 86 publications

References 1 publication

Detecting Covert Networks in Multilingual Groups: Evidence within a Virtual World

Detecting Covert Networks in Multilingual Groups: Evidence within a Virtual World

Cross-border terror networks: a social network analysis of the Canada–US border

Leaderless Covert Networks: A Quantitative Approach

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