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Terrorism and PoliticalViolencePublication details, including instructions forauthors and subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ftpv20
The confluence ofinternational and domestictrends in terrorismBruce Hoffman a b ca Director of the Centre for the Study ofTerrorism , St Andrews University , Scotlandb Reader in International Relations , St AndrewsUniversity , Scotlandc Chairman of the Department of InternationalRelations , St Andrews University , ScotlandPublished online: 21 Dec 2007.
To cite this article: Bruce Hoffman (1997) The confluence of international anddomestic trends in terrorism, Terrorism and Political Violence, 9:2, 1-15, DOI:10.1080/09546559708427399
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09546559708427399
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The Confluence of International andDomestic Trends in Terrorism
BRUCE HOFFMAN
This article assesses the changing nature of terrorism in the 1990s within the contextof the growing overlap between international and domestic terrorist trends and itspotential implications for aviation security. It argues that the emergence of eitherobscure, idiosyncratic millenarian movements or zealously nationalist religious groupspossibly represent a very different and potentially far more lethal threat than more'traditional' terrorist adversaries. Further, as these threats are both domestic as well asinternational, the response must therefore be both national and multinational. In thisrespect, national cohesiveness and organisational preparation will necessarily remainthe essential foundation for building the effective multinational approach appropriateto these new threats.
Terrorism is changing. New adversaries, new motivations and newrationales have surfaced in recent years to challenge much of theconventional wisdom on both terrorists and terrorism. More critically,perhaps, many of our conceptions - as well as government policies - datefrom terrorism's emergence as a global security problem more than aquarter century ago. They originated, and took hold, during the Cold War:when radical left-wing terrorist groups then active throughout the worldwere widely regarded as posing the most serious threat to western security.1
What modifications or 'fine-tuning' undertaken since are arguably no lessdated, having been implemented a decade ago in response to the series ofsuicide bombings against American diplomatic and military targets in theMiddle East that underscored the rising threat of state-sponsored terrorism.
The irrelevance of at least some of this thinking to various aspects of theterrorist problem as it exists today is perhaps most clearly evidenced by thechanges in our notions of the 'stereotypical' terrorist organisation. In thepast, terrorist groups were recognisable mostly as a collection of individualsbelonging to an organisation with a well-defined command and controlapparatus, who had been previously trained (however rudimentarily) in the
This paper was presented at the International Conference on Aviation Safety and Security in the21st Century, The White House Commission on Aviation Safety and Security and The GeorgeWashington University, Washington, DC, 13-15 January 1997. This article updates andincorporates some material published in 'Responding to Terrorism Across the TechnologicalSpectrum', Terrorism and Political Violence' 6/3 (Autumn 1994) pp.366-9O.
Terrorism and Political Violence, Vol.9, No.2 (Summer 1997), pp. 1-15PUBLISHED BY FRANK CASS, LONDON
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2 TERRORISM AND POLITICAL VIOLENCE
techniques and tactics of terrorism, were engaged in conspiracy as a full-time avocation, living underground whilst constantly planning and plottingterrorist attacks and who at times were under the direct control, or operatingat the express behest, of a foreign government.2 These groups, moreover,had a defined set of political, social or economic objectives and often issuedcommuniques taking credit for and explaining (often in excruciatinglyturgid and obtuse prose) their actions. Accordingly, however disagreeable orrepugnant the terrorists and their tactics may have been, we at least knewwho they were and what they wanted.
Today these more 'traditional' and familiar types of ethnic/nationalist andseparatist as well as ideological organisations3 have been joined by a varietyof 'entities' with arguably less comprehensible nationalist or ideologicalmotivations. This 'new generation' of terrorist groups frequently embracenot only far more amorphous religious and millenarian aims but arethemselves less cohesive organisational entities, with a more diffusestructure and membership. In this respect, the emergence of either obscure,idiosyncratic millenarian movements4 or zealously nationalist religiousgroups possibly represent a very different and potentially far more lethalthreat than the above-mentioned more 'traditional' terrorist adversaries.
Terrorism's Increasing Lethality
Although the total volume of terrorist incidents world-wide has declined inthe 1990s, the proportion of people killed in terrorist incidents has steadilyrisen. For example, according to the RAND—St Andrews UniversityChronology of International Terrorism,5 a record 484 international terroristincidents were recorded in 1991, the year of the Gulf War, followed by 343incidents in 1992, 360 in 1993, 353 in 1994, and falling to 278 incidents in1995 (the last calendar year for which complete statistics are available).6
However, while international terrorists were becoming less active, theywere nonetheless becoming more lethal. For example, at least one personwas killed in 29 per cent of terrorist incidents in 1995: the highestpercentage of fatalities to incidents recorded in the Chronology since 1968- and an increase of two per cent over the previous year's record figure.7 Inthe United States this trend was most clearly reflected in the 1995 bombingof the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Since the turnof the century, fewer than a dozen of all the terrorist incidents committedworld-wide have killed more than a 100 people. The 168 people confirmeddead at the Murrah Building ranks sixth on the list of most fatalities causedthis century in a single terrorist incident - domestic or international.8
The reasons for terrorism's increasing lethality are complex andvariegated, but can generally be summed up as follows:
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• The growth in the number of terrorist groups motivated by a religiousimperative;
• The proliferation of 'amateurs' involved in terrorist acts; and• The increasing sophistication and operational competence of
'professional' terrorists.
Religious Terrorism
The increase of terrorism motivated by a religious imperative neatlyencapsulates the confluence of new adversaries, motivations and rationalesaffecting terrorist patterns today. Admittedly, the connection betweenreligion and terrorism is not new.9 However, while religion and terrorism doshare a long history, in recent decades this form of particular variant haslargely been overshadowed by ethnic- and nationalist-separatist orideologically-motivated terrorism. Indeed, none of the 11 identifiableterrorist groups10 active in 1968 (the year credited with marking the adventof modern, international terrorism) could be classified as 'religious'.11 Notuntil 1980 in fact - as a result of the repercussions from the revolution inIran the year before - do the first 'modern' religious terrorist groupsappear:12 but they amount to only two of the 64 groups active that year.Twelve years later, however, the number of religious terrorist groups hasincreased nearly six-fold, representing a quarter (11 of 48) of the terroristorganisations who carried out attacks in 1992. Significantly, this trend hasnot only continued, but has actually accelerated. By 1994, a third (16) of the49 identifiable terrorist groups could be classified as religious in characterand/or motivation. Last year their number increased yet again, now toaccount for nearly half (25 or 45 per cent) of the 58 known terrorist groupsactive in 1995.
The implications of terrorism motivated by a religious imperative forhigher levels of lethality is evidenced by the violent record of various Shi'aIslamic groups during the 1980s. For example, although these organisationscommitted only eight per cent of all recorded international terroristincidents between 1982 and 1989, they were nonetheless responsible fornearly 30 per cent of the total number of deaths during that time period.13
Indeed, some of the most significant terrorist acts of the past 18 months, forexample, have all had some religious element present.14 Even moredisturbing is that in some instances the perpetrators' aims have gone beyondthe establishment of some theocracy amenable to their specific deity,15 buthave embraced mystical, almost transcendental, and divinely-inspiredimperatives16 or a vehemently anti-government form of 'populism'reflecting far-fetched conspiracy notions based on a volatile mixture ofseditious, racial and religious dicta.17
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Religious terrorism18 tends to be more lethal than secular terrorismbecause of the radically different value systems, mechanisms oflegitimisation and justification, concepts of morality and Manichaean worldviews that directly affect the 'holy terrorists" motivation. For the religiousterrorist, violence first and foremost is a sacramental act or divine duty:executed in direct response to some theological demand or imperative andjustified by scripture. Religion, therefore, functions as a legitimising force:specifically sanctioning wide-scale violence against an almost open-endedcategory of opponents (e.g., all peoples who are not members of thereligious terrorists' religion or cult). This explains why clerical sanction isso important for religious terrorists19 and why religious figures are oftenrequired to 'bless' (e.g., approve) terrorist operations before they areexecuted.
'Amateur' Terrorists
The proliferation of 'amateurs' involved in terrorist acts has alsocontributed to terrorism's increasing lethality. In the past, terrorism was notjust a matter of having the will and motivation to act, but of having thecapability to do so - the requisite training, access to weaponry andoperational knowledge. These were not readily available capabilities andwere generally acquired through training undertaken in camps known to berun either by other terrorist organisations and/or in concert with theterrorists' state-sponsors.20 Today, however, the means and methods ofterrorism can be easily obtained at bookstores, from mail-order publishers,on CD-ROM or even over the Internet. Hence, terrorism has becomeaccessible to anyone with a grievance, an agenda, a purpose or anyidiosyncratic combination of the above.
Relying on these commercially obtainable published bomb-makingmanuals and operational guidebooks, the 'amateur' terrorist can be just asdeadly and destructive21 — and even more difficult to track and anticipate -than his 'professional' counterpart.22 In this respect, the alleged'Unabomber', Thomas Kaczynski, is a case in point. From a remote cabinin the Montana hinterland, Kaczynski is believed to have fashioned simple,yet sophisticated home-made bombs from ordinary materials that weredispatched to his victims via the post. Despite one of the most massivemanhunts staged by the FBI in the United States, the 'Unabomber' wasnonetheless able to elude capture - much less identification - for 18 yearsand indeed to kill three people and injure 23 others. Hence, the'Unabomber' is an example of the difficulties confronting law enforcementand other government authorities in first identifying, much lessapprehending the 'amateur' terrorist and the minimal skills needed to wage
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an effective terrorist campaign. This case also evidences thedisproportionately extensive consequences even violence committed by alone individual can have both on society (in terms of the fear and panicsown) and on law enforcement (because of the vast resources that aredevoted to the identification and apprehension of this individual).
'Amateur' terrorists are dangerous in other ways as well. In fact, theabsence of some central command authority may result in fewer constraintson the terrorists' operations and targets and - especially when combinedwith a religious fervour - fewer inhibitions on their desire to inflictindiscriminate casualties. Israeli authorities, for example, have noted thispattern among terrorists belonging to the radical Palestinian Islamic Hamasorganisation in contrast to their predecessors in the ostensibly more secularand professional, centrally-controlled mainstream Palestine LiberationOrganization terrorist groups. As one senior Israeli security official noted ofa particularly vicious band of Hamas terrorists: they 'were a surprisinglyunprofessional bunch ... they had no preliminary training and acted withoutspecific instructions'.23
In the United States, to cite another example of the potentiallydestructive lethal power of amateur terrorists, it is suspected that the 1993World Trade Center bombers' intent was in fact to bring down one of thetwin towers.24 By contrast, there is no evidence that the people we onceconsidered to be the world's arch-terrorists - the Carloses, Abu Nidals andAbul Abbases - ever contemplated, much less attempted, to destroy a high-rise office building packed with people.
Indeed, much as the inept World Trade Center bombers were derided fortheir inability to avoid arrest, their modus operandi points to a pattern offuture terrorist activities elsewhere. For example, as previously noted,terrorist groups were once recognisable as distinct organisational entities.The four convicted World Trade Center bombers shattered this stereotype.Instead they comprised a more or less ad hoc amalgamation of like-mindedindividuals who shared a common religion, worshipped at the samereligious institution, had the same friends and frustrations and were linkedby family ties as well, who simply gravitated towards one another for aspecific, perhaps even one-time, operation.25
Moreover, since this more amorphous and perhaps even transitory typeof group will lack the 'footprints' or modus operandi of an actual, existingterrorist organisation, it is likely to prove more difficult for law enforcementto get a firm idea or build a complete picture of the dimensions of theirintentions and capabilities. Indeed, as one New York City police officer onlytoo presciently observed two months before the Trade Center attack: itwasn't the established terrorist groups - with known or suspected membersand established operational patterns - that worried him, but the hitherto
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unknown 'splinter groups', composed of new or marginal members from anolder group, that suddenly surface out of nowhere to attack.26
Essentially, part-time terrorists, such loose groups of individuals, may be- as the World Trade Center bombers themselves appear to have been -indirectly influenced or remotely controlled by some foreign government ornon-governmental entity. The suspicious transfer of funds from banks in Iranand Germany to a joint account maintained by the accused bombers in NewJersey just before the Trade Center blast, for example, may be illustrative ofthis more indirect or circuitous foreign connection.27 Moreover, the fact thattwo Iraqi nationals - Ramzi Ahmed Yousef (who was arrested last April inPakistan and extradited to the United States) and Abdul Rahman Yasin -implicated in the Trade Center conspiracy, fled the United States28 in oneinstance just before the bombing and in the other shortly after the first arrests,increases suspicion that the incident may not only have been orchestratedfrom abroad but may in fact have been an act of state-sponsored terrorism.Thus, in contrast to the Trade Center bombing's depiction in the press as aterrorist incident perpetrated by a group of 'amateurs' acting either entirelyon their own or, as one of the bomber's defence attorneys portrayed hisclient, manipulated by a 'devious, evil ... genius'29 (Yousef), the originalgenesis of the Trade Center attack may be far more complex.
This use of amateur terrorists as 'dupes' or 'cut-outs' to mask theinvolvement of some foreign patron or government could therefore greatlybenefit terrorist state sponsors who could more effectively conceal theirinvolvement and thus avoid potential military retaliation by the victimcountry and diplomatic or economic sanctions from the internationalcommunity. Moreover, the prospective state-sponsors' connection could befurther obscured by the fact that much of the 'amateur' terrorists'equipment, resources and even funding could be entirely self-generating.For example, the explosive device used at the World Trade Center wasconstructed out of ordinary, commercially-available materials - includinglawn fertiliser (urea nitrate) and diesel fuel - and cost less than $400 tobuild.30 Indeed, despite the Trade Center bombers' almost comicalineptitude in avoiding capture, they were still able to shake an entire city's- if not country's - complacency. Further, the 'simple' bomb used by these'amateurs' proved just as deadly and destructive - killing six persons,injuring more than 1,000 others, gouging out a 180-foot wide crater sixstories deep, and causing an estimated $550 million in both damages to thetwin tower and in lost revenue to the business housed there31 — as the more'high-tech' devices constructed out of military ordnance, with timingdevices powered by computer micro-chips and detonated by sophisticatedtiming mechanisms used by their 'professional' counterparts.32
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'Professional' Terrorists
Finally, while on the one hand terrorism is attracting 'amateurs', on theother hand the sophistication and operational competence of the'professional' terrorists is also increasing. These 'professionals' arebecoming demonstrably more adept in their trade craft of death anddestruction; more formidable in their abilities of tactical modification,adjustment and innovation in their methods of attack; and appear to be ableto operate for sustained periods of time while avoiding detection,interception and arrest or capture. More disquieting, these 'professional'terrorists are apparently becoming considerably more ruthless as well. Analmost Darwinian principle of natural selection seems to affect subsequentgenerations of terrorist groups, whereby every new terrorist generationlearns from its predecessors, becoming smarter, tougher and more difficultto capture or eliminate.
Accordingly, it is not difficult to recognise how the 'amateur' terroristmay become increasingly attractive to either a more professional terroristgroup and/or their state patron as a pawn or 'cut-out' or simply as anexpendable minion. In this manner, the 'amateur' terrorist could beeffectively used by others to further conceal the identity of the foreigngovernment or terrorist group actually commissioning or ordering aparticular attack. The series of terrorist attacks that unfolded in France in1995 conforms to this pattern of activity. Between July and October, ahandful of terrorists, using bombs fashioned with four-inch nails wrappedaround camping style cooking-gas canisters, killed eight people andwounded more than 180 others. Not until early October did any group claimcredit for the bombings, when the radical Armed Islamic Group (GIA), amilitant Algerian Islamic organisation, took responsibility for the attacks.French authorities, however, believe that, while 'professional' terroristsperpetrated the initial bombings, like-minded 'amateurs' - recruited by theGIA operatives from within France's large and increasingly restive Algerianexpatriate community — were responsible for at least some of the subsequentattacks." Accordingly, these 'amateurs' or new recruits facilitated thecampaign's 'metastasising' beyond the small cell of professionals whoignited it, striking a responsive chord among disaffected Algerian youths inFrance and thereby increasing exponentially the aura of fear and theterrorists' coercive power.
Likely Future Patterns of Terrorism
While it can be argued that the terrorist threat is declining in terms of thetotal number of annual incidents in other, perhaps more significant, respects- e.g., both the number of people killed in individual terrorists incidents and
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the percentage of terrorist incidents with fatalities in comparison to totalincidents - the threat is actually rising. Accordingly, it is as important tolook at qualitative changes as well as quantitative ones; and to focus ongeneric threat and generic capabilities based on overall trends as well as onknown or existing groups.
The pitfalls of focusing on known, identifiable groups at the expense ofother potential, less-easily identified, more amorphous adversaries wasperhaps most clearly demonstrated in Japan by the attention long paid tofamiliar and well-established left-wing groups like the Japanese Red Armyor Middle Core organisation with an established modus operandi,identifiable leadership, etc., rather than on an obscure, relatively unknownreligious movement, such as the Aum Shinrikyo sect. Indeed, the Aum sect'snerve gas attack on the Tokyo underground34 demarcates a significanthistorical watershed in terrorist tactics and weaponry.35 This incident clearlydemonstrated that it is possible - even for ostensibly 'amateur' terrorists - toexecute a successful chemical terrorist attack and, accordingly, mayconceivably have raised the stakes for terrorists everywhere. Terrorist groupsin the future may well feel driven to emulate or surpass the Tokyo incidenteither in death and destruction or in the use of a non-conventional weapon ofmass destruction (WMD) in order to ensure the same media coverage andpublic attention as the nerve gas attack generated.
The Tokyo incident also highlights another troubling trend in terrorism:significantly, groups today claim credit for attacks less frequently than inthe past. They tend not to take responsibility, much less issue communiquesexplaining why they carried out an attack as the stereotypical, 'traditional'terrorist group of the past did. For example, in contrast to the 1970s andearly 1980s, some of the most serious terrorist incidents of the past decade- including the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing - have never been crediblyclaimed, much less explained or justified as terrorist attacks once almostalways were by the group responsible for the attack.36
The implication of this trend is perhaps that violence for some terroristgroups is becoming less a means to an end (that therefore has to becalibrated and tailored and therefore 'explained' and 'justified' to thepublic) than an end in itself that does not require any wider explanation orjustification beyond the groups' members themselves and perhaps theirspecific followers. Such a trait would conform not only to the motivationsof religious terrorists (discussed above) but also to terrorist 'spoilers' -groups bent on disrupting or sabotaging multi-lateral negotiations or thepeaceful settlement of ethnic conflicts or other such violent disputes. Thatterrorists are less frequently claiming credit for their attacks may suggest aninevitable loosening of constraints - self-imposed or otherwise — on theirviolence: in turn leading to higher levels of lethality as well.37
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Another key factor contributing to the rising terrorist threat is the ease ofterrorist adaptations across the technological spectrum.38 For example, onthe low-end of the technological spectrum one sees terrorists continuing torely on fertiliser bombs whose devastating effect has been demonstrated bythe PIRA at St Mary Axe and Bishop's Gate in 1991 and 1992; at CanaryWharf and in Manchester in 1996; by the aforementioned World TradeCenter bombers and the people responsible for the Oklahoma City bombing.
Fertiliser is perhaps the most cost-effective of weapons: costing onaverage one per cent of a comparable amount of plastic explosive. Its cost-effectiveness is demonstrated by the facts that the Bishop Gate blast isestimated to have caused damage estimated at $1.5 billion and the BalticExchange blast at St Mary Axe $1.25 billion. The World Trade Centerbomb, as previously noted, cost only $400 to construct but caused $550million in both damages and lost revenue to the business housed there.39
Moreover, unlike plastic explosives and other military ordnance, fertiliserand its two favourite bomb-making components - diesel fuel and icingsugar - are readily and easily available commercially, completely legal topurchase and store and thus highly attractive 'weapons components' toterrorists and others.
On the high-end of the conflict spectrum one must contend not only withthe efforts of groups like the Aum to develop chemical, biological andnuclear weapons capabilities, but with the proliferation of fissile materialsfrom the former Soviet Union and the emergent illicit market in nuclearmaterials that is surfacing in eastern and central Europe.40 Admittedly, whilemuch of the material seen on offer as part of this 'black market' cannot beclassified as SNM (strategic nuclear material, that is suitable in theconstruction of a fissionable explosive device), such highly-toxicradioactive agents can potentially be easily paired with conventionalexplosives and turned into a crude, non-fissionable atomic bomb (e.g.,'dirty' bomb). Such a device would therefore not only physically destroy atarget, but contaminate the surrounding area for decades to come.41
Finally, at the middle-end of the spectrum one sees a world awash inplastic explosives, hand-held precision-guided-munitions (i.e., surface-to-air missiles for use against civilian and/or military aircraft), automaticweapons, etc., that readily facilitate all types of terrorist operations. Duringthe 1980s, Czechoslovakia, for example, sold 1,000 tonnes of Semtex-H(the explosive of which eight ounces was sufficient to bring down Pan Am103) to Libya and another 40,000 tonnes to Syria, North Korea, Iran andIraq - countries long cited by the US Department of State as sponsors ofinternational terrorist activity. In sum, terrorists therefore have relativelyeasy access to a range of sophisticated, 'off-the-shelf weapons technologythat can be readily adapted to their operational needs.
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Concluding Observations and Implications for Aviation Security
Terrorism today has arguably become more complex, amorphous andtransnational. The distinction between domestic and international terrorismis also evaporating as evidenced by the Aum sect's activities in Russia andAustralia as well as in Japan, the alleged links between the Oklahoma Citybombers and neo-Nazis in Britain and Europe, and the network of AlgerianIslamic extremists operating in France, Great Britain, Sweden, Belgium andother countries as well as in Algeria itself. Accordingly, as these threats areboth domestic and international, the response must therefore be bothnational as well as multinational in construct and dimensions. Nationalcohesiveness and organisational preparation will necessarily remain theessential foundation for any hope of building the effective multinationalapproach appropriate to these new threats. Without internal (national ordomestic) consistency, clarity, planning and organisation, it will beimpossible for similarly diffuse multinational efforts to succeed. This is allthe more critical today, and will remain so in the future, given the changingnature of the terrorist threat, the identity of its perpetrators and the resourcesat their disposal.
One final point is in order on the topic of aviation security. Serious andconsiderable though the above trends are, their implications for - much lessdirect effect on — commercial aviation are by no means clear. Despite mediaimpressions to the contrary and the popular /nis-perception fostered bythose impressions, terrorist attacks on civil aviation - particularly inflightbombings or attempted bombings — are in fact relatively rare. Indeed, theyaccount for only 15 of the 2,537 international terrorist incidents recordedbetween 1970 and 1979 (or .006 per cent) and just 12 of 3,943 recordedbetween 1980 and 1989 (an even lower .003 percent). This trend, moreover,has continued throughout the first half of the current decade. There havebeen a total of just six inflight bombings since 1990 out of a total of 1,859international terrorist incidents. In other words, inflight bombings ofcommercial aviation currently account for an infinitesimal - .003 -percentage of international terrorist attacks.42 At the same time, the dramaticloss of life and attendant intense media coverage have turned those fewtragic events into terrorist 'spectaculars': etched indelibly on the psyches ofcommercial air travellers and security officers everywhere despite theirinfrequent occurrence.43
Nonetheless, those charged with ensuring the security of airports andaviation from terrorist threats doubtless face a Herculean task. In the firstplace, a defence that would preclude every possible attack by every possibleterrorist group for every possible motive is not even theoreticallyconceivable. Accordingly, security measures should accurately and closely
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reflect both the threat and the difficulties inherent in countering it: andshould therefore be based on realistic expectations that embrace realisticcost-benefit. Indeed, there is a point beyond which security measures maynot only be inappropriate to the presumed threat, but risk becoming morebureaucratic than genuinely effective.
NOTES
1. Some observers argued that these groups were in fact part of a world-wide communist plotorchestrated by Moscow and implemented by its client states. See especially Claire Sterling,The Terror Network: The Secret War of International Terrorism (New York: Holt, Rinehartand Winston 1981).
2. To cite the most obvious, and perhaps best known, examples: In the late 1980s, ColonelQaddafi reputedly commissioned the Japanese Red Army (JRA) to carry out attacks againstAmerican and British targets (in retaliation for the 1986 US air strike against Libya). TheJRA used the name 'Anti-Imperialist International Brigades' in claiming responsibility forthese operations.
3. That is, the variety of aforementioned radical leftist (e.g., Marxist-Leninist/Maoist/Stalinistmovements) organisations active in years past (such as Germany's Red Army Faction andItaly's Red Brigades) as well as such stereotypical ethnic/nationalist and separatist terroristgroups like the PLO, PIRA, Basque ETA, etc.
4. Including the militantly anti-government, far right paramilitary organisations that havesurfaced in the United States and have been connected to the April 1995 bombing of a federalgovernment office building in Oklahoma City as well as the Japanese Aum Shinrikyoreligious sect which committed the March 1995 nerve gas attack on the Tokyo underground.
5. The RAND-St Andrews University Chronology of International Terrorism includes acomputerised database of international terrorist incidents that have occurred world-widefrom 1968 to the present. The Chronology has been continuously maintained since 1972(when it was created by Brian Jenkins), first by the renowned American think-tank, TheRAND Corporation, in Santa Monica, California, and since 1994 by the Centre for the Studyof Terrorism and Political Violence at St Andrews University, Scotland. The majority of theincidents in the chronology are concerned with international terrorism, defined here asincidents in which terrorists go abroad to strike their targets, select victims or targets thathave connections with a foreign state (e.g., diplomats, foreign businessmen, offices offoreign corporations) or create international incidents by attacking airline passengers,personnel and equipment. It excludes violence carried out by terrorists within their owncountry against their own nationals, and terrorism perpetrated by governments against theirown citizens. It should also be emphasised that the data contained in the Chronology isintended to be illustrative only and does not purport nor claim to be a definitive listing ofevery international terrorist incident that has occurred everywhere since 1968. Its value,accordingly, is as means of identifying terrorist trends and projecting likely future terroristpatterns.
6. For the purposes of The RAND-St Andrews Chronology of Terrorism, terrorism is definedby the nature of the act, not by the identity of the perpetrators or the nature of the cause.Terrorism is thus taken to mean violence, or the threat of violence, calculated to create anatmosphere of fear and alarm in the pursuit of political aims.
7. Terrorist trends for 1994 provide a particularly good illustration of this development. Forexample, while 1994 was an unexceptional year in terms of the total number of terroristincidents, the figure of 423 fatalities recorded that year was nonetheless the fifth highestannual figure recorded in the Chronology since 1968: viz., a record 800 fatalities wererecorded in 1987; followed by 663 in 1988; 661 in 1983; and 467 in 1993. Source: TheRAND-St Andrews Chronology of International Terrorism.
8. Other incidents include: (1) the arson attack at an Abadan movie theatre in 1979 that killedmore than 400; (2) the 1985 inflight bombing of an Air India passenger jet that killed all 328
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people on board; (3) the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 in 1988 that killed 278 people; (4)the 1983 bombing of the US Marine barracks in Lebanon that killed 241; (5) the 1989 inflightbombing of a French UTA flight that killed 171; (6) The Edward P. Murrah Building inOklahoma City; (7) a 1925 bombing of a crowded cathedral in Sofia, Bulgaria where 128people were killed; (8) the inflight bombing, as in 1989, of a Colombian Avianca aircraft onwhich 107 people perished; (9) the 1980 bombing at the Bologna, Italy railway station killed84 people; and, (10) the bomb placed inside a Teheran, Iran telecommunications centre in1974 that killed 82 people; As terrorism expert Brian Jenkins noted in 1985 of the list uponwhich the preceding is an expanded version: 'Lowering the criterion to 50 deaths producesa dozen or more additional incidents. To get even a meaningful sample, the criterion has tobe lowered to 25. This in itself suggests that it is either very hard to kill large numbers ofpersons or very rarely tried.' Brian M. Jenkins, The Likelihood of Nuclear Terrorism (SantaMonica, CA: RAND, P-7119, July 1985) p.7.
9. As David C. Rapoport points out in his seminal study of what he terms 'holy terror', untilthe nineteenth century, 'religion provided the only acceptable justifications for terror'; seeDavid C. Rapoport, 'Fear and Trembling: Terrorism in Three Religious Traditions',American Political Science Review 78/3 (Sept. 1984) p.659).
10. Numbers of active, identifiable terrorist groups from 1968 to the present are derived fromThe RAND-St Andrews University Chronology of International Terrorist Incidents.
11. Admittedly, many contemporary terrorist groups - such as the overwhelmingly CatholicProvisional Irish Republican Army; their Protestant counterparts arrayed in various Loyalistparamilitary groups like the Ulster Freedom Fighters, the Ulster Volunteer Force and the RedHand Commandos; and the predominantly Muslim Palestine Liberation Organization - allhave a strong religious component by dint of their membership. However, it is the politicaland not the religious aspect that is the dominant characteristic of these groups, as evidencedby the pre-eminence of their nationalist and/or irredentist aims.
12. The Iranian-backed Shi'a groups al-Dawa and the Committee for Safeguarding the IslamicRevolution.
13. According to The RAND-St Andrews University Chronology of International TerroristIncidents, between 1982 and 1989 Shi'a terrorist groups committed 247 terrorist incidentsbut were responsible for 1,057 deaths.
14. These include the March 1995 nerve-gas attack on the Tokyo underground perpetrated by aJapanese cult, the Aum Shinrikyo; the bombing the following month of an Americangovernment office building in Oklahoma City; the series of indiscriminate bombings thatrocked France between July and October 1995 and again in December 1996; the assassinationin November 1995 of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in Israel (and its attendant significance asthe purported first step in a campaign of mass murder designed to disrupt the peace process);the bombings of a joint Saudi-American military training centre in Riyadh in November 1995and of a US Air Force barracks in Dhahran the following June; alongside the bloody string ofsuicide bombings carried out by Hamas in Israel during February and March 1996.
15. For example, the creation of Islamic republics modelled on Iran in predominantly Muslimcountries like Algeria, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
16. The Aum Shinrikyo's nerve-gas attacks on the Tokyo underground in March 1995 as part ofa plot to overthrow the Japanese government and establish a new Japanese state based on theworship of the group's founder and Shoko Asahara.
17. The American white supremacists' alleged long-term aim in the Oklahoma City bombing tofacilitate a 'white revolution' in the United States and thereby spark a major 'race war' thatwould facilitate the establishment of a 'whites-only homeland' in the Pacific Northweststates in accordance with theological decree.
18. For a more complete and detailed discussion of this particular category of terroristorganisation, see Bruce Hoffman, 'Holy Terror: The Implications of Terrorism Motivated bya Religious Imperative', Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 18/4 (Winter 1995), which wasalso published in the RAND Paper series, under the same title, as P-7834 in July 1993.
19. For example, the fatwa (Islamic religious edict) issued by Iranian Shi'a clerics calling forSalman Rushdie's death; the 'blessing' given to the bombing of New York City's WorldTrade Center by the Egyptian Sunni cleric, Sheikh Omar Abd al-Rahman; and the
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dispensation given by Jewish rabbis to right-wing Jewish extremist violence against Arabsin Israel and the West Bank and Gaza; the approval given by Islamic clerics in Lebanon forHizballah operations and by their counterparts in the Gaza Strip for Hamas attacks; and thepivotal role played by Shoko Asahara, the religious leader of Japan's Aum sect, over hisfollowers.
20. For example, the estimated dozen or so terrorist training camps long operated under Syria'saegis in Lebanon's Bekka Valley; the various training bases that have been identified overthe years in Yemen, Tunisia, the Sudan, Iran and elsewhere and of course the facilitiesmaintained during the Cold War by the East Bloc.
21. Examples where this recently has been demonstrated include the Tokyo nerve-gas attacksperpetrated by 'amateur', self-trained 'terrorists' belonging to the Aum sect; the two whitesupremacists who are accused of mixing fertiliser and diesel-fuel together to bomb thefederal government building in Oklahoma City; the Algerian youths deliberately recruitedinto the terrorist campaign that was waged in Paris between July and October 1995 whichhad been initiated by their more professional counterparts in the Armed Islamic Group; andIsraeli Prime Minister Rabin's assassin.
22. Indeed, of all the preceding, the situation that unfolded in France during this time periodprovides perhaps the most compelling evidence of the increasing salience of 'amateurs'recruited or suborned by professional terrorists for operational purposes. French authorities,for example, believe that, while 'professional' terrorists belonging to the Algerian ArmedIslamic Group (GIA) may have perpetrated the initial wave of bombings, like-minded'amateurs' — drawn from within France's large and increasingly restive Algerian expatriatecommunity - were responsible for at least some of the subsequent attacks.
23. Quoted in Joel Greenberg, 'Israel Arrests 4 In Police Death', New York Times, 7 June 1993;and Eric Silver, 'The Shin Bet's "Winning" Battle', The Jewish Journal (Los Angeles),11-17 June 1993.
24. Matthew L. Wald, 'Figuring What It Would Take to Take Down a Tower', New York Times,21 March 1993.
25. In the case of the World Trade Center, the four bombers appear to have joined forces basedon their attendance at the same place of worship (a Jersey City, New Jersey mosque). In onecase as well, family ties - Ibrahim A. Elgabrowny who, although not charged with the TradeCenter bombing specifically, was nonetheless implicated in the crime and was convicted inthe subsequent plot to free the bombers, is the cousin of El Sayyid A. Nosair, who was alsoimplicated in the Trade Center bombing, and was among the 13 persons convicted in thefollow-on plans to obtain the bombers' release, and is already serving a prison sentence inconnection with the November 1990 assassination of Rabbi Meir Kahane. See Jim Mcgeeand Rachel Stassen-Berger, '5th Suspect Arrested in Bombing', Washington Post, 26 March1993; and, Alison Mitchell, 'Fingerprint Evidence Grows In World Trade Center Blast', NewYork Times, 20 May 1993.
26. Interview with RAND Corporation research staff in New York City, Nov. 1992.27. Federal authorities reported that they had traced nearly $100,000 in funds that had been
wired to some of the suspects from abroad, including transfers made from Iran. An additional$8,000 had been transferred into a joint bank account maintained by two of the bombers fromGermany. Ralph Blumenthal, '$100,000 From Abroad Is Linked to Suspects in the TradeCenter Explosion', New York Times, 15 Feb. 1993. According to one of the other convictedbombers, Mahmud Abouhalima, funds had also been routed through the militant EgyptianIslamic group, al-Gama'at al-Islamiyya, whose spiritual leader is Shiekh Omar Abd al-Rahman, who was convicted in connection with the June 1993 plot, and by the radicaltransnational Muslim Brotherhood organisation. Additional financing reputedly wasprovided by and via Iranian businesses and Islamic institutions in Saudi Arabia and Europe.Mary B.W. Tabor, 'Lingering Questions on Bombing', New York Times, 14 Sept. 1994.
28. Ralph Blumenthal, 'Missing Bombing Case Figure Reported to Be Staying in Iraq', NewYork Times, 10 June 1993.
29. Richard Bernstein, 'Lawyer in Trade Center Blast Case Contends that Client Was a Dupe',New York Times, 16 Feb. 1994. See also, Tom Morganthau, 'A Terrorist Plot Without aStory', Newsweek, 28 Feb. 1994.
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30. The Trade Center bomb was composed of some 1,200 lbs. of 'common sulphuric and nitricacids used in dozens of household products and urea used to fertilise lawns'. The detonatingdevice was a more complex and extremely volatile mixture of nitro-glycerine enhanced bytanks of compressed hydrogen gases that were designed to increase the force of the blast.Richard Bernstein, 'Lingering Questions on Bombing: Powerful Device, Simple Design',New York Times, 14 Sept. 1994. See also, Richard Bernstein, 'Expert Can't Be Certain ofBomb Contents at Trial', New York Times, 21 Jan. 1994; Richard Bernstein, 'Nitro-glycerineand Shoe at Center of Blast Trial Testimony', New York Times, 27 Jan. 1994; RichardBernstein, 'Witness Sums Up Bombing Evidence', New York Times, 7 Feb. 1994; EdwardBarnes el al., 'The $400 Bomb', Time, 22 March 1993; and Tom Morganthau, 'A TerroristPlot Without a Story', Newsweek, 28 Feb. 1994.
Similarly, in April 1988 a Japanese Red Army terrorist, Yu Kikumura, was arrested onthe New Jersey Turnpike while en route to New York City on a bombing mission.Kikumura's mission was to carry out a bombing attack against a US Navy recruiting stationin lower Manhattan on 15 April to commemorate the second anniversary of the 1986 USairstrike against Libya. He is believed to have undertaken this operation at the behest ofLibya's Colonel Qadafi. Between his arrival in the US on 14 March and his arrest a monthlater, Kikumura travelled some 7,000 miles by car from New York to Chicago, throughKentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia and Pennsylvania, purchasing materials for his bombalong the way. Found in his possession were gunpowder, hollowed-out fire extinguishers inwhich to place the explosive materials and roofing nails as crude anti-personnel weapons.Kikumura was sentenced to 30 years in prison. See Robert Hanley, 'Suspected JapaneseTerrorist Convicted in Bomb Case in New Jersey', New York Times, 29 Nov. 1988; and,Business Risks International, Risk Assessment Weekly 5/29, 22 July 1988.
31. N.R. Kleinfeld, 'Legacy of Tower Explosion: Security Improved, and Lost', New York Times,20 Feb. 1993; and, Richard Bernstein, "Lingering Questions on Bombing: Powerful Device,Simple Design', New York Times, 14 Sept. 1994.
32. This is in fact remarkably similar to the pattern of terrorist activity and operations thatunfolded in France nearly two years later. See the discussion below.
33. See, for example, Susan Bell, '16 hurt in Paris nail-bomb blast', Times (London), 18 Aug.1995; Adam Sage, 'Paris faces autumn of terror as fifth bomb is discovered', Times(London), 5 Sept. 1995; Adam Sage, 'French hold 40 in hunt for bomb terrorists', Times(London), 12 Sept. 1995 for accounts of the bombing campaign; Alex Duval Smith, 'Policefight "war" in French suburbs', Guardian (London), 1 Nov. 1995; and Craig R. Whitney,'French Police Arrest Suspected Leader of Islamic Militant Group', New York Times, 3 Nov.1995. See also, 'Terrorism: Political Backdrop to Paris Attacks', Intelligence Newsletter(Paris), no.274, 26 Oct. 1995, pp.6-7.
34. The Aum sect's goal in staging the nerve gas attack, as previously noted, was (among otheraims) to lay the foundations for a revolt against the Japanese government that would resultin the creation of a new regime dedicated to the service of the sect's founder and leader,Shoko Asahara. For the most complete account of the Aum sect's aims, motivations andcapabilities see David E. Kaplan and Andrew Marshall, The Cult at the End of the World:The Incredible Story of Aum (London: Hutchinson 1996).
35. Previously, most 'professional' terrorists had shied away from employing WMD. Radical intheir politics, it could be said that the vast majority of these terrorists were equallyconservative in their operations. Thus, whereas technological progress has producedsuccessively more complex, lethally effective and destructively accurate weapons systemsthat are deployed from a variety of air, land and sea platforms, contemporary terrorism hasmostly functioned largely in a technological vacuum, aloof or averse to the continualrefinement and growing sophistication of modern warfare. Indeed, for more than a centuryterrorists have continued to rely almost exclusively on the same two weapons: the gun andthe bomb. Admittedly, various terrorist groups - Germany's Red Army Faction, Italy's RedBrigades and some Palestinian organisations - had occasionally toyed with the idea of usingsuch lethally indiscriminate weapons, but none had crossed the critical psychologicalthreshold of actually implementing any of their half-baked plots (one notable exception wasthe attempt in 1979 by Palestinian terrorists who attempted to poison Jaffa oranges exported
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to Europe). Instead, most terrorists seemed almost content with the limited killing potentialof their handguns and machine-guns and the slightly higher rates that their bombs achieved:adhering to an established modus operandi that, to their minds at least, minimised failure andmaximised success. What innovation occurred was mostly in the methods used to concealand detonate explosive devices, not in the terrorists' choice of tactics or in their use ofchemical, biological or even crude nuclear weapons. Like most people, terrorists appeared tofear powerful contaminants and toxins they knew little about and, moreover, were uncertainhow to fabricate and safely handle, much less effectively deploy and disperse.
36. They include the 1985 inflight bombing of an Air India aircraft in which 328 peopleperished; a series of car bombings that convulsed Bombay in 1993, killing 317 people; thehuge truck bomb that destroyed a Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires in 1994, killing96; the bomb last year that demolished the aforementioned Alfred P. Murrah Building inOklahoma City, leaving 168 dead; and the recent suspected inflight bombing of TWA flight800. Pan Am 103, in which 278 people perished, is an especially notorious example.Although we know that two Libyan government airline employees were identified andaccused of placing the suitcase containing the bomb that eventually found its way onto theflight, no believable claim of responsibility has ever been issued.
37. For a more complete discussion of the no claim/increasing lethality issue, see BruceHoffman, 'Why Terrorists Don't Claim Credit', Terrorism and Political Violence 9/1 (Spring1997) and the more concise version published 'A New Kind of Terrorism: Silence isDeadlier', Los Angeles Times, Sunday Opinion Section, 18 Aug. 1996.
38. For a more complete discussion of this issue, see Bruce Hoffman, 'Responding to TerrorismAcross the Technological Spectrum', Terrorism and Political Violence 6/3 (Autumn 1994)pp.366-90, which was also published in the RAND Paper series, under the same title, as P-7874, June 1996.
39. Although, after adulteration, fertiliser is far less powerful than plastic explosive (i.e., Semtexexplodes at about 8,000 yards a second and has a high explosive rating of 1.3; improvisedexplosives explode at only about 3,000 yards a second and range between 0.25 and 0.8 inrating), it also tends to cause more damage than plastic explosives because the energy of theblast is sustained and less controlled.
40. See, for example, Graham T. Allison et al., Avoiding Nuclear Anarchy: Containing theThreat of Loose Russian Nuclear Weapons and Fissile Material (Cambridge, MA: The MITPress 1996); Frank Barnaby, 'Nuclear Accidents Waiting To Happen', The World Today(London) 52/4 (April 1996); Thomas B. Cochran, Robert S. Norris and Oleg A. Bukharin,Making the Russian Bomb: From Stalin to Yeltsin (Boulder, CO: Westview Press 1995);William C. Potter, 'Before the Deluge? Assessing the Threat of Nuclear Leakage from thePost-Soviet States', Arms Control Today, Oct. 1995; Phil Williams and Paul N. Woessner,'Nuclear Material Trafficking: An Interim Assessment', Transnational Organized Crime 1/2(Summer 1995) pp.206-38; and Paul N. Woessner, 'Recent Developments: Chronology ofNuclear Smuggling Incidents, July 1991-May 1995', Transnational Organized Crime 1/2(Summer 1995) pp.288-329.
41. For example, a combination fertiliser truck bomb with radioactive agents would not onlyhave destroyed the office bloc at Canary Wharf, but rendered a considerable chunk of primereal estate indefinitely unusable because of radioactive contamination. The disruption tocommerce that would be caused, the attendant publicity and enhanced coercive power ofterrorists armed with such 'dirty' bombs (which are arguably more credible threats thanterrorist acquisition of fissile nuclear weapons) hence is fundamentally disquieting.
42. Source: The RAND-St Andrews University Chronology of International Terrorism.43. Among the most recent incidents, for example, are the 1985 inflight bombing of an Air India
passenger jet which killed all 328 people on board; the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 in1988 which killed 278 people; the 1989 inflight bombing of a French UTA flight whichkilled 171; and the inflight bombing in 1989 of a Colombian Avianca aircraft on which 107people perished.
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