Extremists and unconventional weapons: examining the pursuit of chemical and biological agents

Guarrieri, Thomas R.; Meisel, Collin J.

doi:10.1080/19434472.2019.1698633

Cited by 8 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…Furthermore, a concern has been raised that the jihadists will learn from the horrific world impact of COVID 19 and intensify their efforts to switch from the use of complicated devices, bombs, and suicide attacks to biological warfare, and bioterrorism. The interest of terror groups in the use of biological weapons is longstanding and it has waxed and waned over the years (Guarrieri & Meisel, 2019). Yet recently (in 2018), the British MI5 received information that returning British jihadists from Syria and Iraq were trained in developing basic bio-weapons like ricin and anthrax.…”

Section: A Call To Actionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Terrorism in time of the pandemic: exploiting mayhem

Kruglanski

Gunaratna

Ellenberg

et al. 2020

Global Security: Health, Science and Policy

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Despite the world's overwhelming preoccupation with the COVID-19 pandemic, the threat of international and domestic terrorism is not in decline according to available indicators. The angst that the pandemic induced in millions of people, and the incapacitation of major functions and institutions of world's societies are exploited by both jihadist and far-right terror organisations for the spread of conspiracy theories aimed to fuel hate against their alleged nemeses, the encouragement of easy attacks against vulnerable targets, and the spread of bedlam and confusion intended to bring down governments and promote the terrorists' agenda. In this paper, we illustrate and discuss terrorism trends manifest during the COVID-19 pandemic and consider the threat these trends pose to the world's security.

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Section: A Call To Actionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Terrorism in time of the pandemic: exploiting mayhem

Kruglanski

Gunaratna

Ellenberg

et al. 2020

Global Security: Health, Science and Policy

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“…Studies show that unemployed and extremist students are more likely to attack with chemical and biological weapons. Jobless and student extremists were each roughly 15 times as likely to pursue chemical and biological weapons relative to employed violent extremists (Guarrieri & Meisel, 2019).…”

Section: Covid-19 and Online Risksmentioning

confidence: 99%

Terrorism Risk During the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Outbreak Period

Esen¹

2022

jps

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The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, causes negative consequences for states in terms of political, economic, sociological, psychological and security. Due to the problems that have occured during the pandemic period, the capacities of states are under pressure. Terrorist organizations aim to put pressure on governments in line with their political objectives by creating anxiety, fear, and panic on the civilian population with their attacks. This study investigates how the COVID-19 process affects terrorism, and tries to answer the question whether there is a relationship between trust in authority and terrorist activities during this period, or not. Just as states were unprepared for terrorism, they were also caught unprepared for the pandemic. The responses of some states to COVID-19 may further broaden public concern and create conditions that are favorable to terrorism. According to the study, it is explicit that this anxiety environment created by COVID-19 is regarded as an opportunity by terrorist organizations, and it is also obvious that the concern among the population is used and led by terrorist organizations. Curfews and travel restrictions also create mitigating conditions for the terrorist threats in most parts of the world during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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“…(Ding et al 2017;Verma-Malhotra-Verma 2018). Két tanulmány a PIRUS adatbázist használta az iszlamista radikálisok azonosítására olyan adatok alapján, amelyek nem álltak kapcsolatban az ideológiai háttérrel (Al-Zewairi-Naymat, 2017), egy másik pedig a vegyi vagy biológiai fegyverek bevetésének valószínűségét becsülte meg (Guarrieri-Meisel 2019). Ezekben a tanulmányokban az előrejelzés pontossága 80% körül mozgott, tehát jónak mondható.…”

Section: A Hipotézis-vezérelt Megközelítésunclassified

Erőszakos radikalizmus kockázatbecslése – elméleti háttér és kutatási eredmények

Haller

2023

ScientSec

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Összefoglalás. A tanulmány a terrorveszély felismerésének és kezelésének elméleti és technikai összefoglalását nyújtja. Kiemelten foglalkozik a kockázatbecslés technikájával, és bemutat egy új, mesterséges intelligencián alapuló eljárást, amelynek segítségével 90%-os sikereséllyel lehet azonosítani azokat, akik terrortámadásokat hajthatnak végre. E mellett, az eljárás által szolgáltatott adatok felhasználásával sikerült leírni a radikálisok két típusát, amelyeket megközelítőleg az „alárendelt/erőszakos” és a „vezető/nem-erőszakos” szavakkal jellemezhetnénk. A két csoport között jelentős különbségek voltak a családi háttér, iskolázottság, radikalizálódási folyamat, állampolgársági múlt, bűnözői előélet, és szerepvállalási jellegzetességek tekintetében. Summary. Although Hungary is in a privileged position regarding the threat of terrorism, the history of other countries suggests that similar good positions can be temporary. The threat of terrorism can be investigated by several scientific approaches. After reviewing these, we analyze the theoretical and technical background of risk assessment, and present the results of our recently concluded research. In this we examined the US database PIRUS, which contained 112 types of personal data of 2,148 radicals. About half of them did carry out terrorist attacks the other half did not. Based on the individual characteristics of the radicals, the XGBoost machine learning algorithm correctly identified the perpetrators of the terrorist attacks with a probability of 87%. By using the data provided by the software, it was also possible to describe two types of radicals, which could be roughly characterized by the words “subordinate/violent” and “leader/non-violent”. The former usually had a criminal but not a radical background. They converted late in life (if their radicalization was of a religious nature) and adopted radical ideas as adults (if their radicalization was nonreligious in nature). They played a subordinate role in terrorist groups, required training and were largely influenced by social media. They also belonged to low social classes and had many personal problems. In contrast, non-violent extremists were characterized by a family tradition of radicalism, mostly had no criminal past, belonged to higher social strata, and played leading roles in terrorist organizations. Instead of committing attacks, they engaged in illegal activity by supporting terrorist organizations. The two main types probably consist of subtypes. Compared to violent extremists who were radicalized in prison, for example, those who were not radicalized in prison were mostly foreigners, were often unemployed despite their higher education, and compared to those radicalized in prison, they committed lesser crimes before radicalization. Similar subgroups occurred in both main groups, but their detailed characterization requires further research. Our findings suggest that artificial intelligence can become a good tool for the risk assessment of radicals concerning their proneness to perform terrorist attacks. Moreover, the risk assessment tool employed here may be useful in typifying radicals, and studying their radicalization routes.

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Extremists and unconventional weapons: examining the pursuit of chemical and biological agents

Cited by 8 publications

References 41 publications

Terrorism in time of the pandemic: exploiting mayhem

Terrorism in time of the pandemic: exploiting mayhem

Terrorism Risk During the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Outbreak Period

Erőszakos radikalizmus kockázatbecslése – elméleti háttér és kutatási eredmények

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