Terrorism: Understanding Motivations and Impacts

Terrorism

• Terrorism, from a governmental perspective, involves criminal acts targeting a state or organization to instill terror in individuals or groups. (League of Nations Convention, 1937)
• From an academic perspective, terrorism is used for idiosyncratic, criminal, or political reasons. Direct targets of violence are not the main focus.
• Immediate victims are often randomly or selectively chosen from a target population and act as message generators.
• Terrorism aims to convey messages through orchestrated violence.
• Terrorism includes acts of violence, victimization of innocents, advanced planning, criminal intent, attempts to gain attention, and the intention to instill fear.

Terrorism: Classification Through Motivation

• Individual terrorism may be overlooked due to its lower impact and lack of group involvement.

• Political-social terrorism is often carried out by those seeking to overthrow a government.

• Successful acts of political-social terrorism may be labeled as patriotism or heroism. Examples include the American colonists or Castro's 26th of July Movement.

• Nationalist terrorism may involve individuals sharing social commonalities or group identifications.

• These individuals might perceive oppression and persist with large memberships due to persecution.

• Environmental terrorists, or ecoterrorists, focus on conservation of natural resources and animal rights. Examples include the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) and Animal Liberation Front (ALF).

• State-sponsored terrorism involves governments committing acts of terror against their citizens (e.g., Nazi Germany) or against other governments (e.g., North Korea).

• Religious terrorism is considered the most virulent, dangerous, and persistent form due to zealous religious motivations. This includes, but is not limited to, Christian, Judaic, and Islamic groups.

Cyberterrorism

• Cyberterrorism, the act of internet terrorism, includes large-scale disruptions of computer networks using tools like computer viruses.
• It is a controversial term, involving disruption attacks against information systems to create alarm and panic.
• The goal is to cause destruction or harm to specific objectives (e.g., political or ideological).
• A cyberterrorism concept may emphasize communication over physical catastrophes or suffering. Key components include:
  • Transmitter (terrorist)
  • Recipient (audience, not necessarily the victim)
  • Medium (victims often randomly selected)
  • Message (often ideological)
  • Reaction (desired impact)

Cyberterrorism Types

• Simple-Unstructured: Basic hacking against individual systems using pre-existing tools. Limited target analysis, command/control, and learning capability.
• Advanced-Structured: Sophisticated attacks targeting multiple systems. Ability to modify or create hacking tools and possesses elementary target analysis, command/control, and learning features.
• Complex-Coordinated: Coordinated attacks causing major disruptions against integrated systems. Highly sophisticated hacking tools, target analysis, command/control, and learning capability.

Terror Online Activity

• Activities include propaganda, information dissemination, recruiting, fundraising.

• Terrorist justifications include claims of victimhood ("no choice") or perceived weakness that compels action.

• Terrorists may use peaceful rhetoric as a tactic for achieving settlements. Training may include web-based courses, films, checklists, and resources related to weaponry, including suicide vests, surface-to-air missiles, and fake identification. Research and planning involve locating critical information for attacks (e.g., blueprints for bomb-making).

• Communication is decentralized, cheap, reliable, and hard to trace in the online environment using techniques such as dead drops, steganography, social media,and encryption.

• Attack mechanisms can be quick, as seen in attacks on Estonia, or gradual, as in disabling Iranian centrifuges through Stuxnet.

• Physical infrastructure targets include power grids, water/sewer systems, dams, hospitals, GPS, air traffic systems, communications, and energy pipelines.

• Critical data targets aim to compromise computer systems, potentially leading to death, destruction, or economic disruption.

• Terrorism and crime overlap in criminal activities like identity theft, copyright infringement, cyberwarfare, and the use of computer viruses.

Organized Crime

• Organized crime involves transnational, national, or local groups of highly centralized criminal enterprises driven by money and profit.
• Activities frequently involve: trafficking in nuclear materials, human smuggling, identity theft.
• Online criminal groups often evolve from criminal gangs.
• Organizations are increasingly leveraging technology for complex and profitable crimes.

Organized Crime: Structure & Hierarchy

• Organized crime demonstrates a structured hierarchy including violence, recognizability, longevity, recruitment, innovative strategies, opportunistic operations, exclusive membership, and strict regulations.
• Ritualistic, profitability, corruption of political authorities, racketeering and infiltration of legitimate business, monopolistic practices, and criminal activity demonstrate a complex organizational structure.

Organized Crime and Technology

• Organized crime uses technological advancements to conduct traditional crimes, including extortion, fraud (bank, ATM/credit card, and stock fraud), money laundering, and human smuggling.
• Other technological crimes include confidence scams (Nigerian 419 letter), fencing of stolen property, data piracy, and counterfeit goods.

Cybergangs/Cyber-Criminal Organizations

• Cybergangs are groups of individuals who use the internet to engage in non-violent or violent criminal activities that exploit networked or interconnected systems.

Confronting Contemporary Organized Crime

• Recognizing diversity among emerging groups, exploring economic motivation (hacking/cyberattacks), and implementing "know your customer" (KYC) requirements in banking to reduce fraud are essential considerations.
• Acknowledging new methods used by organized crime groups to stay ahead of law enforcement, and the convergence of transnational organized crime and terrorism.

Intersection of Organized Crime and Terrorism

• Differences: Organized crime is often economically driven, whereas terrorism is ideological. Terrorism aims to replace governments, while organized crime seeks to corrupt them. Terrorists often thrive on publicity, while organized crime usually avoids it. Terrorist targets are frequently indiscriminate, while organized crime seeks to limit harm to outsiders.
• Similarities: Sophisticated tactics, similar methodologies, using the web for communication, money laundering, targeting weak government controls, or geographical locations distant from the control center of government.

This quiz explores the various dimensions of terrorism, focusing on its definition, motivations, and the effects of individual and political-social acts of terror. Participants will examine how terrorism is utilized as a tool for instilling fear and conveying messages. Gain insights into the complex nature of terrorism from both governmental and academic perspectives.