Terrorists’ Target Selection

Drake, C. J. M.

doi:10.1057/9780230374676

Cited by 67 publications

(46 citation statements)

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“…A terrorist group might proceed to attack a well hardened target precisely in order to display its strength and capabilities, garner increased publicity, and advance the group's cause by carrying out a difficult and successful task. 201 …”

Section: Level Of Protectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…72 • "When operations are pre-planned, a number of people or things may be selected on the basis of their ideological legitimacy as targets, with the intention of choosing one of them as the final target after other factors have been considered." 73 • "Not all terrorist attacks are preceded by a detailed ideological inquiry. Where the target is readily identifiable, and any decisions as to the guilt of the target have been made, target selection is quite straightforward…" 74 • "Sometimes, the ideological justification for an attack is supplied after the attack has occurred rather than having been worked out beforehand."…”

Section: ) Ideologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…456,457 [Evidence Type: 2,3,4] The effectiveness with which the material resources a group possesses in terms of weapons and equipment are used is determined by the operational capability and human resources of a group. 458 [Evidence Type: 1] Those groups with members from higher socio-economic strata are more likely to have greater financial and other resources.…”

Section: Demographics and Operational Capabilities Affecting Resourcesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…He states that terrorists need to know the level of protection in order to estimate the degree of force needed to overcome any protective security. 574 [Evidence Type 1] The level of security at a CI facility is a very important factor that plays a role both in the selection of targets and in planning the operational level of attack. An increase in the security level for a facility might force terrorists to invest more time and money to overcome the increased security measures.…”

Section: Critical Infrastructure (Ci) Characteristics On Attack Modalmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Assessing Terrorist Motivations for Attacking Critical Infrastructure

Ackerman¹,

Abhayaratne²,

Bale³

et al. 2006

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The Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) strives to combat the spread of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) by disseminating timely information and analysis and training the next generation of nonproliferation specialists. CNS at the Monterey Institute of International Studies is the largest nongovernmental organization in the United States devoted exclusively to research and training on nonproliferation issues.Dr. William Potter established the Center in 1989 with a handful of Institute students. Today, CNS has a fulltime staff of more than 65 specialists and over 75 graduate student research assistants located in offices in Monterey, California, Washington, DC and Almaty, Kazakhstan. CNS is organized into five research programs: the Chemical and Biological Weapons Nonproliferation Program, the East Asia Nonproliferation Program, the International Organizations and Nonproliferation Program, the Newly Independent States Nonproliferation Program, and the WMD Terrorism Research Program (WMDTRP). Each program supports the Centerʹs mission by training graduate students, building a worldwide community of nonproliferation experts, publishing both on-line and print resources on all aspects of WMD, providing background material to the media, and producing analysis for use by educational institutions, government, and the general public.The WMD Terrorism Research Program conducts work on the use or potential use of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) weapons by non-state actors. The Program focuses on the motivational aspects of terrorism in the WMD context, bringing together terrorism scholars from the social sciences (history and political science) and technical experts from the sciences (microbiology, medicine, chemistry, and physics) to approach the WMD terrorism problem in an interdisciplinary fashion. Project Research Staff Project OverviewCertain types of infrastructure -critical infrastructure (CI) -play vital roles in underpinning our economy, security and way of life. These complex and often interconnected systems have become so ubiquitous and essential to day-to-day life that they are easily taken for granted. Often it is only when the important services provided by such infrastructure are interrupted -when we lose easy access to electricity, health care, telecommunications, transportation or water, for example -that we are conscious of our great dependence on these networks and of the vulnerabilities that stem from such dependence.Unfortunately, it must be assumed that many terrorists are all too aware that CI facilities pose high-value targets that, if successfully attacked, have the potential to dramatically disrupt the normal rhythm of society, cause public fear and intimidation, and generate significant publicity. Indeed, revelations emerging at the time of this writing about al Qa'ida's efforts to prepare for possible attacks on major financial facilities in New York, New Jersey, and the District of Columbia remind us just how real and immediate such threats to CI may be. Simply b...

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Section: Level Of Protectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: ) Ideologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Demographics and Operational Capabilities Affecting Resourcesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Critical Infrastructure (Ci) Characteristics On Attack Modalmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Assessing Terrorist Motivations for Attacking Critical Infrastructure

Ackerman¹,

Abhayaratne²,

Bale³

et al. 2006

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Some scholars have viewed these puzzles as a terrorist targeting question, or as one of choices from within a repertoire of actions. 4 Others talk about the logic of terrorism. 5 Following the September 2001 attacks, many turned their attention to innovation in terrorism-the question of why terrorists decide to do something they have not done before.…”

Section: Explaining the Adoption Of Kidnappingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Terrorist Learning: A Look at the Adoption of Political Kidnappings in Six Countries, 1968–1990

Rasmussen

2016

Studies in Conflict & Terrorism

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This article studies the epidemic of kidnappings across six countries between 1968 and 1990. The goal is to identify those factors that determine the operational decisions made by terrorists. Why and how do terrorists decide to engage in certain types of actions but not others? The article discusses a number of scholarly approaches, and the variables these studies have put forward to explain the decisionmaking processes within terrorist organizations. The argument made here is that the groups' ideological preferences, strategic analysis, and need to attract media attention did not appear to exert much influence in the terrorists' decision to kidnap. Organizational resources and the nature of the security environment in which the terrorists operated had some bearing. However, kidnappings became attractive when terrorists made a pragmatic evaluation of the reaction by governments and the public and consequently of the costs or benefits of a particular course of action. The decision to carry out a campaign of kidnappings, or to abstain from kidnapping, should be interpreted as clear evidence of terrorist learning. Two types of learning appear to have influenced the adoption of kidnappings: learning by observing others and learning by doing.In December 1973, the Basque Euskadi ta Askatasuna (Basque Homeland and Liberty, or ETA) assassinated the Spanish prime minister, Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco. This was a spectacular feat that eliminated any possibility of a continuation of Francoism after General Francisco Franco's death, greatly eased the advent of democracy, and therefore colored the Spaniards' views on ETA for a decade. ETA was quite candid in its book-length account of this operation:ETA was given a secret news report that in Madrid Luis Carrero Blanco went to mass every morning at 9 in a Jesuit church on Serrano Street … it appeared that there wasn't much guarding of Carrero. It might even be possible to kidnap him. That's the real way the idea of kidnapping Carrero came about. It would have been more logical for us to have planned to kidnap Carrero and then find the means of doing it. But life is always a little topsy-turvy, and in this case, we did it backwards. 1 Without that tip on Carrero's church attendance, which ETA obtained by chance, the operation might not have been conceived. Surveillance convinced ETA that the kidnapping CONTACT Maria Rasmussen

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Terrorism Risk

Woo¹

2008

Wiley Handbook of Science and Technology for Homeland Security

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Terrorism risk emerged as a quantitative modeling discipline after 9/11. This article describes methods that have been developed for modeling the terrorism risk from Islamist militants. While the damage wrought by a terrorist attack is amenable to engineering loss analysis, the terrorist modus operandi is a function of human behavior, and hence requires special methods drawn from fields such as game theory, social psychology, and network analysis. In order to analyze the global terrorist threat from Islamist militants, a coherent global perspective is required that tracks the radicalization of Muslim diaspora communities.

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Terrorists’ Target Selection

Cited by 67 publications

References 0 publications

Assessing Terrorist Motivations for Attacking Critical Infrastructure

Assessing Terrorist Motivations for Attacking Critical Infrastructure

Terrorist Learning: A Look at the Adoption of Political Kidnappings in Six Countries, 1968–1990

Terrorism Risk

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