Ch 5.docx

Chapter Five: Terrorism and Counter-terrorism Elaboration on 4th Generation Warfare Terror from above and terror from below State sponsored terrorism Theories of terrorists’ motivation Organization of terror groups Weapons Tactics Intelligence collection and dissemination Discussion questions Interv...

Chapter Five: Terrorism and Counter-terrorism Elaboration on 4th Generation Warfare Terror from above and terror from below State sponsored terrorism Theories of terrorists’ motivation Organization of terror groups Weapons Tactics Intelligence collection and dissemination Discussion questions Interview/biography Suggestions for further reading Test bank Vocabulary Apophenia Assault rifle Bug Bureaucratic pyramid CCTV Chain organization Charismatic leader Cold War or World War III Cult of personality Destructive charismatic Frustration-Aggression Functionalism Ghost gun Improvised explosive device (IED) Intihar Istishad Junto Leaderless resistance Lone wolf terrorist Motivated perception Narcissism-Aggression Pareidolia Sarin State sponsored terrorism Submachine gun Terror from above Terror from below The Turner Diaries True believer Umbrella organization Zip gun Elaboration on 4th Generation Warfare The goal of 4th Generation Warfare is to win by not losing. The target of the 4th Generation warrior is a society rather than an army, territory, or a government’s means to sustain an army in the field. As such, police, firefighters, adults and babes in arms are legitimate targets for the terrorist, although they are not the terrorist true enemy. The enemy of the terrorist is the society itself, not its army or people or system of logistics but the moral fiber of the society; its culture, beliefs, and social and economic structure. The terrorist wins not by killing or destroying, per se; but by making society lose its faith in itself. As the terrorist kills the old society; the terrorist creates the new. In the classic and highly recommended film Battle of Algiers, the leader of the French paratroop battalion, Colonel Mathieu, states, ‘To kill a snake you cut off its head” and so he organizes his counter-terror campaign to find the head of the terrorist snake and remove it. His is a reasonable but flawed strategy. Although he decapitates the snake; the success is temporary, lasting only a few years. What the good Colonel failed to realize is that political and religious movements can regenerate; in effect growing new heads, just as some lizards can grow new tails. Eric Hoffer, the longshoreman philosopher, observed in his 1951 book The True Believer, “In fighting terrorism, one is fighting a concept or belief, as in a mass movement, not a group of people.” Therefore, the target for the counter-terrorist is the belief system of the mass movement; the ideological motivation of those who form or in some way support the mass movement; not simply the terrorist organization itself. In short, both sides are fighting for and against an ideology and the victory will go to the side with the greatest faith in their beliefs. And here is the dilemma of the counter-terrorist; the counterterrorist must in some way work to change the social conditions breeding terrorism just as the terrorist works to change many of those same conditions. Can the counterterrorist then win without compromising his or her values? Probably; but it will take a very long time and such fights so far, seem to have always ended in compromise at best for the counterterrorist; at worst for the counterterrorist outright defeat. Take for example Nguyễn Sinh Cung, better known as Ho Chi Minh, and Vietnam. The geography of Vietnam almost predisposed development of two different and in many respects opposing cultures in Vietnam, one north and one south. To further complicate the history of Vietnam, its geographical proximity to China made a high level of Chinese political and economic dominance inevitable, something the Vietnamese, north and south have always chafed against, perhaps creating a culture with a revolutionary mindset. Insert map of Vietnam including region here During the mid-19th Century, French Catholic missionaries entered Vietnam and were made to feel rather unwelcomed by the government if not the populace. Instead of taking the hint and leaving, the Church requested the assistance of French emperor Napoleon III who sent a naval force to assist the development of religious freedom in Vietnam; and incidentally to protect French property, mostly rubber tree plantations. Under the 1883 Treaty of Hue, the French assumed ‘custodianship’ over all of Vietnam and quickly became custodians of Cambodia and Laos adding these countries to what then became French Indo-China. The indigenous peoples pushed back and the next 90 or so years were filled with rebellions; most of which were small and easily repressed by French police, military, and local collaborators. Insert map of French Indo-China here Enter Ho Chi Minh, an idealistic young Marxist and one of a group of expatriate Vietnamese who were in Paris during the spring of 1919 seeking Vietnamese independence as part of the Treaty of Versailles; the treaty officially ending WWI. The Group of Vietnamese Patriots as they called themselves asked for French recognition of the right of self-determination for the Vietnamese people. Despite French hostility, they took their case to the powers working out the Treaty, citing US President Wilson’s 14 Points or War Aims that he announced when the US entered the War. One of these War Aims was the right of national self-determination; in effect, an end to European colonization in Africa and Asia. President Wilson was somewhat sympathetic to Ho, but nothing more. The British and the French were strongly opposed to such a consideration as their national economies were heavily dependent on overseas colonies. Ho, bitterly disappointed, left Paris and travelled extensively over the next several years; especially, through the newly created Soviet Union as well as China and elsewhere, waging a ‘paper’ Vietnamese revolution of propaganda using newspapers and pamphlets. In 1941 he returned to Vietnam to lead the Viet Minh, a Marxist independence group, against the 1941 Japanese invasion. With the defeat of Japan 1in 1945, the French returned and Ho led a revolution against the French. With the defeat of the French in 1954, political compromise led to the legal partition of Vietnam into North and South Vietnam (Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the Republic of Vietnam, respectively). After a short period of peace, or more likely regrouping, Ho began work to unite the divided country into a single Marxist state. As part of the United States’ Cold War strategy, advisors and equipment were sent to South Vietnam beginning during the late 1950s, a process that by 1964 escalated into a serious US investment in maintaining a ‘free’ South Vietnam. Ho died in 1969, about the time newly elected President Nixon began working seriously to remove the US from Vietnam while still maintaining South Vietnamese status as a non-communist state. By 1972, US forces were mostly out of Vietnam and the South Vietnamese found themselves increasingly on their own as the US Congress eliminated any future role for US troops in that country. During the spring of 1975, North Vietnamese and local communist guerilla fighters called Viet Cong staged major attacks using traditional third generation warfare tactics, taking over South Vietnam in a few weeks. In terms of 4GW, consider that Ho started fighting the Japanese in 1941 and his goal of a united, communist Vietnam came into existence in 1975; thus, with intervals we have a fight that lasted some 34 years. Counting the early advisor years, US involvement lasted from roughly 1959 to 1973, so, 14 years? The US did not lose the Vietnam War so much as we, in practical terms, got tired and quit. One can consider this to be the goal of the 4th Generation Warrior; drag out the conflict until the desired change occurs by wearing down the enemy until they no longer can or care to prevent the change. Consider also the words of Eric Hoffer, who writing in 1951, observed: Though ours is a godless age, it is the very opposite of irreligious. The true believer is everywhere on the march, and both by converting and antagonizing he is shaping the world in his own image. Hoffer continued to express the belief that people join mass movements to become part of something over and above themselves. The ‘true believer’ as Hoffer calls such people gladly sacrifice themselves for whatever they see as a sacred cause. In short, 4GW is ideal for the person looking for a reason to live as well as something worth dying for. Dying for one’s sacred cause may be seen as a form of immortality; one dies but the cause goes on. Last one standing wins. In short, the true believer is in for the long haul. Terror from above and terror from below As discussed in Chapter One, terror from below is the use of terrorism to bring about social or religious change. Terror from above is the use of terror to prevent such change. Terror from below is the tool of the revolutionary while terror from above is the tool of governments, or organized quasi-government agents, such as the civilian Protestant ‘marching clubs’ in Northern Ireland. Terror from above is provided in a few countries by government ‘morals police’ who ensure that certain public standards of ‘decency’ are maintained. In some countries these morals police are strictly civilians providing ‘guidance’ (notably Saudi Arabia) while in other countries, Iran, for example, they are a subdivision of the criminal justice system and may arrest women for violation of the country’s religiously mandated dress code. Seemingly inevitably, if the revolution wins, the revolutionaries will institute their own campaign of terror from above to secure the revolution from counter revolutionary activity. Quite often, these campaigns are a mere pretense for reprisals and social control by fear. In effect, the oppressed, oppress in turn. Whether terror from above or below, the goals are the same, deter the other side from acting, deter the other side’s supporters from supporting, message the general population that the other side is ineffective in achieving its goals, and over time through attrition and erosion of support destroy the other side’s ability to act. In both terror from above and below, the message is that the side you support is unworthy of your support, much less any sacrifice on your part. Overtime the terrorist destroys society’s belief in itself or the government destroys the terrorists’ belief in their ideology. In terror from below operations, police and soldiers may be killed for their firearms; in terror from above, the goal may be to deprive terrorists of arms and equipment. Terrorists may kidnap wealthy persons for ransom or to secure the release of imprisoned terrorists. Governments may kidnap suspected terrorists and sympathizers for extra-legal interrogations (torture). Governments may also kidnap anti-government sympathizers as a warning to would-be terrorists. In Argentina for example, during the rule of a right-wing military junto between 1974 and 1983, upwards of 30,000 people were victims of such government kidnappings (victims of these kidnappings are called los desaparecidos or disappeared ones) most of whom were likely murdered by government security forces, a conclusion supported by the discovery of mass graves in rural areas near Buenos Aires beginning during the late 1980s. State sponsored terrorism A nation-state may see its national interests advanced by sponsoring 4th Generation Warfare within another nation-state. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union financed revolutions in Southeast Asia and Africa; in many cases providing training and ‘advisors’ or ‘volunteer fighters’ as well as arms and equipment. The Soviets also provided such assistance to Marxist governments employing terror from above to secure or maintain power. The wars in Angola are an exemplar of Soviet assistance given during and after a successful revolution. Likewise, Operation Phoenix, US assassinations of communist agents during the Vietnam War could be seen as state sponsored terrorism. These so-called ‘proxy wars’ were a major feature of the Cold War. During the US-Vietnam War the Soviet Union openly aided North Vietnam against the US. During the Angolan Civil War, the US supported the National Union for total Independence of Angola (UNITA) and the Soviets backed the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA). The proxy wars were a ‘safe’ way for the US and USSR to fight for what each side perceived as its national interests without the risk of a direct confrontation and likely nuclear war. Although pirates are the subject of historical novels and a well established mythos of popular culture, real pirates still operate in various parts of the world; sometimes with state sponsorship. The Somali pirates operating in the Gulf of Aden and the Ethiopian pirates in the same region have targeted oil tankers and other cargo ships and forced wealthy Saudis to protect their yachts by employing large numbers of well-armed private operatives. These pirates likely receive protection and support from Iran although the Iranian government denies it. Insert map of Gulf of Aden about here Insert map of South China Sea about here Pirates operating in the South China Sea also choose oil tankers as prime targets. These pirates operate with some level of complicity from regional governments although this complicity is likely a matter of government corruption rather than government interests. There is some belief that China sponsors pirates working the South China Sea, benefiting politically from the unrest and commercial uncertainty caused by these pirates. Alternatively, China or individual Chinese officials may financially benefit from clandestine sales of stolen cargos to the level they cheerfully ignore the problem. Regardless of possible motivations, China has shown no action in suppression of these criminals. Drug cartels operating from Mexico may receive the tacit support from individual, corrupt officials. Although the pirates and the cartels are not terrorists as defined in Chapter One, their actions do disrupt routine activities of the law abiding to the point they may destabilize a government to the advantage of actual terrorist groups or foreign states with an interest in destabilizing a rival government. Theories of terrorists’ motivation As students of homeland security as well as members of a society for whom terrorism has become a social issue, it would be reasonable to expect that somewhere, perhaps in the files of the FBI or INTERPOL, there is a comprehensive database of terrorist groups and individual terrorists; at least the main players. No such database exists. Again, as students and members of society, it would be reasonable to expect a comprehensive psychological profile of the typical/stereotypical terrorist; again, scholars as well as law enforcement intelligence agencies fall short as there is no such profile. We do know that most terrorists like most common criminals are male and most terrorist leaders are male, although there are exceptions. We know that criminals are most likely 15-25 years of age; terrorists tend to be older at both ends of the spectrum. The average age of the 9/11 hijackers was 24; the oldest was 33, the youngest 20. The average age of a suicide bomber during the early 2000s was 21 according to Benmelich and Berrebi (2007) although this research is dated. More recent research cites age 28 as the average age of suicide attackers with an age range from 17 to 49; but this conclusion is based on a very small sample of a specific type of terrorist and may not be representative of terrorists in general. Most terrorists are single; not especially surprising especially in regard to those who make suicide type attacks. Many terrorists are poorly educated; but many have college degrees. Likewise, many come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds while many are quite well off; Osama bin Laden being a striking example of the latter. Consider also that the prime recruiting grounds for terrorists are jails, prisons, universities, and militaries; any place there are young adults separated from family and familiar social norms, perhaps without strong attachments of any kind and who are looking for something to believe in; something to give meaning to what may be a seemingly purposeless life. The evidence suggest that overall, terrorists are mostly drawn from the extremes of society; the poor and uneducated and those born into wealth and privilege. People of the ‘middling sort’ with strong attachments to others rarely join violent social movements. These are things we do know about terrorists; what little there is. Much of the rest of our discussion here must needs be based on theory or mere speculation as facts are scarce. The study of terrorists and terrorism is still relatively new and we cannot yet be certain we even know the right questions to ask in pursuit of that study. The odds are that over the course of the past 100 years at least one person woke up one morning and just randomly decided to become a terrorist that day. Such cases are undoubtedly rare; rare to the point of invisibility. Even non-terrorist mass shooters plan their actions over a protracted period of time. The odds are that almost all terrorists became terrorists as part of a process resulting from grievances, a personal search for meaning, peer pressure and perhaps boredom. In truth, there are many, many reasons for terrorism and for one to become a terrorist. Returning to the idea of the search for meaning, our friend Eric Hoffer, in writing of the true believer stated: All mass movements generate in their adherents a readiness to die and a proclivity for united action; all of them, irrespective of the doctrine they preach and the program they project, breed fanaticism, enthusiasm, fervent hope, hatred, and intolerance; all of them are capable of releasing a powerful flow of activity in certain departments of life; all of them demand blind faith and single-hearted allegiance. However different the holy causes people die for, they perhaps die basically for the same thing. The less justified a man is in “claiming excellence” for himself, the more assuredly he is ready to claim “all excellence for his/her nation, religion, race, or holy cause. (1951) Hoffer concludes that the frustrated make up the ranks of the true believer and thus we may conclude that the terrorist organization is made up disproportionately of the frustrated. In Hoffer’s view, those who lead an empty, threadbare life are most likely to become terrorists to give meaning and a sense of purpose to life. He acknowledges that most people frustrated from a sense of personal worthlessness do not become revolutionaries. Some become religious fanatics and some become rabid sports fans (soccer hooligans, perhaps?). But it should be noted the frustrated and dissatisfied ‘eagerly sacrifice themselves’ for any cause that might give some sense of significance to their life (George and Wilcox, 1996). With the exception of the lone-wolf or single actor terrorist, becoming a terrorist is a process much like that of joining an organized crime group. Criminal gangs and terrorist organizations need recruits they can trust both to protect the organization and do as they are told. Informants and agents provocateur are a major threat to such organizations as such organizations must rely on secrecy to simply to exist, much more so to operate. The FBI’s use of infiltrators and paid informants was a major factor in the FBI’s neutralization of the Ku Klux Klan during the 1960-70s. Becoming a terrorist In many cases; perhaps most, the recruit has no interest in becoming a terrorist, but they are sympathetic to some degree to a group’s cause. Recruits sometimes come from student political organizations or student activist groups or in the case of the incarcerated, the person may join a prison ‘study’ group, some of which claim a religious foundation. As the individual becomes engaged in such groups, they may move from sympathizer to supporter. A negative encounter with the police or simply witnessing such an encounter may motivate the individual to seek a more active role in the group. Throughout one’s involvement with such a group, the organization is observing the individual for their suitability to play an increasing role in the organization. Some recruits are deemed untrustworthy as they are suspected of being government agents. Some recruits are deemed untrustworthy because they clearly lack the intelligence or ability to play a greater role in the organization. Some sympathizers are clear that they have no desire to play a greater role, thus marking themselves as unreliable. As an aside, a general rule is that no matter what the type of organization, 10% of the members typically do 90% of the organization’s work; most members mostly sit on the sidelines. For the 10% or so, the process of becoming an active member of a terrorist group is gradual. The classic film Battle of Algiers does an excellent job of showing the process of a petty criminal becoming a ranking member of a terror group. Theoretically speaking Theories of why one becomes a terrorist are many. In basic terms we have the old debate as to whether personality is a matter nature or nurture. That is, are we mere products of our DNA or mere products of our environment? The Hoffer true believer hypothesis is more a statement of an end result than that of explaining a developmental process. After all, there are many disaffected persons in the world looking for a meaning to life and very few of them become terrorists. So, the actual question should be why then, those particular few? During the 19th Century, early criminologists claimed that some people were simply born criminals. Specifically, such people were born with physical and/or personality traits that more or less made them commit criminal acts. Applied to terrorists, the idea would be that some people are born with a terrorist personality. People with a terrorist personality would be driven to seek groups and opportunities to exercise their proclivity to commit terrorist acts. The theory of the terrorist personality is not widely accepted today; although Illich Ramirez Sanchez, aka Carlos the Jackal does make one pause before entirely rejecting the idea. Carlos the Jackal His real first name Illich should be a bit of a giveaway. Although his father was a wealthy lawyer, he was also a dedicated Marxist who named his son in honor if Illich Lenin. A bit of what we would call a trust fund baby, Illich Ramirez, aka Carlos the Jackal, lived a lavish lifestyle with a marked lack of success in school. After being expelled during 1970 from a Soviet university for third world students, he travelled to the Middle East and joined a Palestinian terror group (the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine or PFLP) where he adopted, or was given, the alias of Carlos; the ‘Jackal’ was added when a journalist noted that ‘Carlos’ left a copy of a novel called ‘The Day of the Jackal’ at a safe house in London when fleeing a police raid. Although an academic failure due to a lack of interest in education and a proclivity for acting out in an academic setting, Carlos excelled at the study and practice of terror and led a series of terror attacks across Europe. But Carlos’ main cause was Carlos. He was later expelled from the PFLP when the organization’s leadership found that he was extorting millions of dollars from potential targets; in others words he was operating a protection racket on the side. Carlos continued to lead terror attacks with the backing of several mostly Middle Eastern governments and notably he received support from the Stasi; the East German Secret Police. By the 1980s, his seeming inability to work with anyone for any length of time made him a nuisance to even to other terrorists and he ‘retired’ to Syria with the blessing of the Syrian government. During the early 1990s rumors began that he was coming out of retirement to master-mind a terror campaign targeting the US and France. As a result, French agents tracked him to and arrested him in Sudan in 1994. A series of trials in France found him guilty of several terror related murders as well as other related offenses and he is still serving three life sentences in a French prison as of this writing. Carlos the Jackal may well be a violent psychopath and such disturbance may be caused by genetic as well as environmental factors. The explanation of the terrorist as mentally ill is not well supported by research. Carlos the Jackal and a few others aside, it appears the suicide bomber, for example, may not be as different from ourselves as we might want to believe. Prominent in the literature on terrorism is discussion of the frustration-aggression hypothesis. Frustration-aggression is closely related to the relative deprivation theory from criminology. Relative deprivation says essentially that people turn to crime not because they are per se poor; but because they believe themselves to be poor; especially, in comparison to those around them. Applying the same idea to terrorism, the terrorist may be allowed great personal freedom, but do not see themselves as free compared to, say, persons of a different religious or ethnic group. A potential terrorist may be part of a group enjoying political power on a par with other groups in their society, but see themselves as actually powerless. This perceived disparity creates frustration which in turn causes aggressive behavior towards what the individual believes to be the source of the disparity and thus the cause of the frustration. Fanon in his book The Wretched of the Earth hypothesized that extreme violence against the cause of one’s frustration was necessary to purge one of the ‘slave mentality’ caused by chronic injustice (or what one perceived as injustice). This slave mentality is the means for the weak to tolerate oppression. That is, one develops the slave mentality to deal with the frustration caused by oppression and one can never be free until one accepts that frustration can only be overcome through violence. Freedom can only be achieved through violence. But, most people experience high levels of frustration during their lives and even generationally oppressed peoples generally neither adopt Fanon’s idea of a slave mentality nor act out violently. The frustration-aggression hypothesis may seem applicable to some terrorists (and common criminals) but apparently not to most. In explaining the terrorist, this hypothesis has been dismissed by most researchers for that reason, citing the idea as simplistic, explaining too much with too little. Criticism of the frustration-aggression hypothesis aside, before we leave Carlos the Jackal to his French prison cell, we note the hypothesis of narcissism-aggression. This idea centers on the early childhood of the terrorist. Small children are normally selfish, self-absorbed, and demanding. For most of us, the grandiose self-image is largely mitigated by experience. That is, our parents, siblings, friends, teachers, and others tend to ‘step on us’ when we become too obnoxious. This process is known as socialization. If one does not experience such often painful interactions with others, they will likely reach puberty with the grandiose-self intact and will reach adulthood as an individual who is narcissistic or sociopathic, grossly self-centered with little or no regard for others, easily frustrated, and who will act out violently towards others seen as a source of frustration. This description does seem to fit Carlos and may fit Osama bin Laden, Yassar Arafat, and other terror group leaders. Diagnosis is best left to experts and should probably not be done at distance of time or space but the idea does seem to fit some terrorists. Before leaving the conjecture of terrorists as mentally ill, mention should be made of Dr Woflgang Huber and Klaus Junschke and the Socialist Patients Collective (SPK) of (West) Germany in 1970. The ideology and history of the group are complex, but the organization formed around mental patients under the care of Dr Huber who believed in a ‘Marxist paradigm’ for the treatment of mental illness. The group is mentioned here because they were alleged to be affiliated with the Red Army Faction, better known as the Baader-Meinhof Gang; an allegation that is unverifiable. It is known that members of the SPK were diagnosed with various forms and mental illness and some of them received training that could be construed as preparation for terrorism. Additionally, although it was noted here that the vast of majority of terrorists are not mentally ill, Dr Huber and his patients would likely dispute a ‘capitalist’ definition of mental illness as invalid, anyway. Taking that point of view, it would be impossible to determine what mental illness is, much less to make a diagnosis. Psychological or physiological? Hubbard concludes that the cause of terrorist violence is physiological rather than psychological stating that media coverage of government injustice produces stress resulting in a, “stereotyped, agitated tissue response.” For example, a teenager watching news reportage of the shooting of a young African-American male by a police officer may become so angry that the teen begins attacking the police and persons and organizations seen as supporting the police. This could cause a contagion effect as persons watching government response to acts of terrorism grow increasingly stressed by what they perceive as an unjust or unjustifiable response and in turn seek opportunities to commit terrorism themselves; in other words, Hubbard’s theory explains much of terrorism as a copy-cat phenomenon or what he calls a contagion effect. Vengeance is mine! Another theory of the terrorist is that one uses terrorism to avenge harm brought to one’s family or culture. This theory would explain the act of a Palestinian suicide bomber as retaliation for Israeli occupation of land claimed by Palestinians. During the late 1960s through the 1970s, African-American groups such as the Black Panthers justified acts of violence against the police as revenge for police brutality against black citizens. This theory would also explain the trust fund baby turned anarchist justifying acts of terrorism as retaliation against their parents for some grievance real or imagined and/or the culture of their parents for some grievance real or imagined. Campus radicals of the 1960s were known to justify acts of vandalism or violence as retaliation for the superficiality of American culture. Functionalism Arguably more viable theories cite the social environment of the terrorists and terror group as the cause of terrorism. Starting from the idea that terrorism as based in politics, economic inequality, and religion, the idea is that the nature of the cause itself generates terrorism. More specifically, terrorism is a rational choice of a group; individual motivation is not of interest to such theorists. Crenshaw (1990) states that terrorism is committed by a group as the result of consensus based in practical concerns. Again citing Battle of Algiers, in one scene a journalist castigates a captured terrorist leader for using bombs hidden in women’s market baskets to which the terrorist offers to trade the market baskets for the armored cars and helicopters used by the French counter-terrorists. In other words, terror is simply a matter of practicality. Mao saw guerilla warfare, including terrorism, as a logical weapon of the weak to be used in a process of gaining strength to eventually defeat one’s enemy on equal terms. Applying the functionalist argument to the Middle-East, Arab nations were unable to defeat the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) in traditional warfare over several conflicts, leaving individual groups to adopt terror tactics as an alternative. Suicide It would be remiss to move on without mention of the suicide terrorist. More than the suicide bomber, any terrorist who makes their attack without at least some notion of an escape plan should be considered as a suicide terrorist. Western culture since the rise of Christianity traditionally stigmatized suicide as a sin. Ancient Greeks and Romans saw suicide as a pleasant means of ending an unpleasant life; the early Church disagreed and the Church stigma against suicide came to predominate western thought. Other cultures see suicide differently. Asian cultures tended to see suicide as means to avoid or remove dishonor (as did some upper class Europeans) or as the means to make a point as with Thich Quang Duc, Vietnamese Buddhist monk who self-immolated in Saigon during June of 1963 to protest government persecution of Buddhists. Such acts by Buddhists, Muslims, and others have a religious and cultural context unlikely to be understood by Westerners steeped in Judeo-Christian belief of the unacceptability of suicide. Cultures that approve of suicide may delineate between suicide over personal despair as compared to suicide in the name of religion or to advance a cause. The latter idea is that such acts of ‘suicide’ are actually martyrdom rather than suicide, per se. In Islam, for example, suicide over personal despair is a sin (called intihar); deliberate martyrdom related to jihad is called istishad meaning ‘self-sacrifice in the path of God’ and is laudable (Schweitzer, 2008). Buddhism never condones suicide, but neither does it condemn the person who commits suicide, particularly in such cases as Thich Quang Duc. Shintoism, the historical religion of Japan allows suicide as a matter of honor, hence the mass suicide of the 47 Ronin, or in an honorable cause; hence the kamikazes of WWII. Organization of terror groups Traditionally, terrorist organizations have been built around the leadership of a single, charismatic person the so-called ‘great man’. Yassar Arafat was such a leader; the operations of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) essentially being expressions of his will. However, the charismatic leader is a feature in a range of organizations from business to the religious, but the charismatic personality seems to thrive under the stresses inherent in the world of the terrorist. However, many charismatics are attracted to challenges and most charismatic leaders are a positive influence on others; Mother Theresa, for example. What is being alluded to for our purposes is the so-called ‘destructive charismatic’ who may deliberately lead his or her followers to destruction. Although not a terrorist, David Koresh leader of the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas during the 1990s is an example of the destructive charismatic as was Jim Jones who caused his followers at Jones Town, Guyana to commit mass suicide in November of 1978. Hitler was most certainly a destructive charismatic. In short, groups led by a charismatic leader attract members because of the leader’s personality as much or more than their ideology. Or as in the case of Hitler, people said the he clearly expressed what they only hazily thought. The term, ‘cult of personality’ coined originally to describe followers of Stalin fits such terrorist groups, resulting in organizations more like a religious cult than a quasi-military group. Generally, charismatic leaders will have one or more trusted assistants and as such an organization grows they tend to adopt a structure and chain of command following the classic bureaucratic pyramid. The great person structure has numerous weaknesses. Charismatics rarely trust their subordinates and are always looking for a conspiracy to displace them as the great person with another. These are not always paranoid fears as such organizations do seem to generate plots and counterplots at all levels. A second issue is that quite often the leader’s personal goals become more important than the organization’s existence. Over time, a great deal of the PLO was devoted to the enrichment of Arafat and his close friends and family rather than establishing a Palestinian state or benefiting the Palestinian people. Finally, such organizations are very vulnerable to attack both internally and externally. Internally, the threats are the plots and counterplots to obtain the leader’s favor or to replace those in favor or replace the leader. Externally, if the leader is arrested or killed, the organization may simply fall apart or self-destruct from internal battles over new leadership. As terrorist organizations have developed over the past 100 years or, most have retained the bureaucratic chain of command, but have decentralized along the lines of the modern business corporation. By becoming more dispersed, such organizations are less vulnerable to external threats such as removal of a leader by assassination or arrest or destruction of a central command by, say a drone strike. Additionally, the dispersal may minimize internal threats by creating more leadership roles thus reducing internal dissension. Another advantage to this structure is that it provides plausible deniability for terrorist acts. That is, believable denial of responsibility for an act or even deniability the group condones terrorism. Of note, however is that more disbursed organizations tend to perpetrate more violence than the more centralized groups. Although less vulnerable due to decentralization, such groups by nature are also less capable of concerted action or internal cooperation. Likewise, it is difficult for such groups to maintain action and cohesion over time. As a result, some organizations devolve into mere organized crime groups; for example the Shining Path a Maoist terrorist group in Peru found drug trafficking preferable to politics and only recently seem to have moved back to basing operations on politics. Disbursed organizations generally follow one of two formats, the umbrella organization and the chain organization. Umbrella organizations may be quite open in terms of fundraising and publicity and may present themselves as political parties rather than terrorist groups. The Irish political party Sinn Fein has operated as a political party in Ireland, both the Republic as well as Ulster while denying deep ties with the IRA. Arafat’s PLO presented a public image as a political party leading a legitimate government while directing terrorists. Afghanistan’s Taliban would certainly seem to fit this concept, as well. Umbrella organizations are careful to ensure that specific acts of terrorism cannot be directly tied back to them. Al Qaida rarely engaged in terror operations but supported other groups ensuring that those groups had needed personnel, training, and supplies; al Qaida means ‘the base’, by the way. Specifically, the umbrella organization acts as a front for disbursed terror groups or cells while maintaining actual or apparent legality. Such fronts incite, aid and abet, command and control, and supply. All the while, they may condemn terrorism as a strategy and specific terrorist acts in the strongest of terms. Many of the groups actively raise funds; ostensible for welfare purposes and may maintain a professional presence on the Internet and in other media. Media presence may extend into radicalization and recruitment cloaked under the First Amendment of the Constitution. Chain organizations are made up of small, independent groups united by a common cause or philosophy. Think in terms of a franchise made up of independent operators following a common format. Chain organizations are not in competition, but they rarely work together common cause or not. They communicate, when they communicate, through liaisons or linking pins to ensure a certain level of cooperation while maintaining independence. An example would be the modern Ku Klux Klan and similar racist organizations. Inset on The Turner Diaries (1978) Written by William Pierce under the pseudonym of Andrew MacDonald, the Turner Diaries is a late 1970s white supremacist version of an early 1960s dystopian novel. The plot revolves around the character Earl Turner and his association with a racist, anti-government chain type organization named, The Organization. The Organization develops a corporate structure and merges smaller anti-government groups under its control following the corporate takeover strategy popular in business circles during the 1960s-80s. The Organization inspired an actual group calling itself The Order during the early-mid 1980s and may have inspired Timothy McVeigh’s bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City April 19, 1995. In short, the Turner Diaries have served as a political manifesto and anti-government operations manual to the far right. Leaderless Resistance and Lone Wolves There was a widespread belief during the 1950s of an impending nuclear war or communist invasion of the US and acting on this belief, many Americans built fall-out shelters in their basements or backyards. Others, likely few in number, prepared to fight a guerilla war against the Soviet invaders; China was not then seen as a threat. In addition to the complicated milieu of the Cold War itself, the civil rights movement was viewed by some whites as a communist plot, and when combined with anxiety caused by general post World War II social change, impetuous was given to creation or strengthening of right wing political groups. The Ku Klux Klan, a causality of the Great Depression and WWII experienced a resurgence, perpetrating acts of terror in the South. The John Birch Society, though a strictly political group, propagandized Americans’ fears and its spokesmen emerged on the scene with a master plan to save America. Among the many would-be saviors of America to emerge during the 1950s-early ‘60s was Robert de Pugh who popularized, at least among people like himself, the idea of leaderless resistance. de Pugh’s biography is sketchy. At one time he claimed to have been an agent of the Office of Strategic Services who was parachuted into Nazi occupied France to organize and train cells of the French Resistance during WWII. Such service cannot be substantiated; de Pugh claimed his work was top secret thus it would not be verifiable. Based on his claim of extensive knowledge if not experience of the French resistance he envisioned and advocated the idea of Americans forming thousands of small, essentially leaderless groups that could not only oppose an invading Soviet Army, but could fight the communist elements that had infiltrated the US government. How many such groups organized after reading de Pugh’s pamphlets is impossible to estimate, but it is certainly a viable means for like minded terrorist groups to work alone or in concert with similar groups to conduct terror operations. Lacking a central command or coordinating group and small in terms of membership, such groups would be difficult to track and disrupt. McVeigh, Terry Nichols, and Michael Fortier worked together to blow up the Oklahoma City Federal Building and could be considered to have comprised such a group. The teens portrayed fighting Cubans and Russians in the movie Red Dawn are a fictionalized example of what de Pugh advocated. A few pages ago we referenced the unlikely possibility of someone waking up on a bright spring morning (likely mid-April) and deciding to be a terrorist. If there really is such a person, they are probably a lone wolf functioning without a supporting organization or assistance of any kind. More likely, through, the path to lone wolf terrorism is gradual and follows our earlier discussion of the process of becoming a terrorist and lone wolves are likely motivated similarly to those who seek group membership. John Allen Muhammed (aka Williams) and Lee Boyd Malvo carried out a series of crimes including several murders in the Washington D.C. area in 2002 worked together on these attacks. Muhammed the former Williams joined the Nation of Islam in 1987 while serving in the US Army, but it is unclear how he became radicalized. In turn, he radicalized Malvo, his stepson and together they murdered 17 people. Ted Kaczhynski, the Uni-Bomber, acted entirely alone, as did Eric Rudolf, who exploded a bomb at the 1996 summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia as well as a gay bar and an abortion clinic in that city as well as an abortion clinic in Birmingham, Alabama. In total, Rudolf killed two people and injured over 100 others. Finally of note here is ex-Army Major Nidal Hasan who murdered 13 people in a mass shooting at then Ft Hood (now Ft. Cavazos), Texas in November of 2009. Hasan, a noted loner became radicalized through his incessant listening to radical sermons on-line and was shunned by the local (Killeen, Texas) Islamic community as a radical. Lone wolves are virtually impossible to detect unless their conduct arouses the suspicion of alert law enforcement officers or citizens. In another incident near then Ft Hood, a potential lone wolf sought to buy a large amount of gunpowder at a Killeen gun store; store employees became suspicious and called police after his questions regarding use of gunpowder as an explosive and his total ignorance of reloading ammunition. Some lone wolves are known to make their plans known via the internet as have non-terrorist mass shooters. So far, most lone actor terrorist have had short careers; Kaczhynski being an exception. Either they are caught in the act, or lacking a support system are unable to maintain themselves as terrorist actors over time. Often, as in Timothy McVeigh’s case, they make careless mistakes leading to arrest and with no supporting organization, there is no one to continue a terror campaign. Weapons and Tactics Discussions of weapons and tactics are inseparable as one always influences the other. Weapons can easily be improvised but this book is not a how to for doing so. The reader is in fact cautioned against experimenting as some improvised munitions are quite dangerous to the user and generally quite illegal with manufacture and possession carrying hefty fines and lengthy incarceration for those who manage to survive the manufacture and/or use of such items. It is no secret that numerous instructions are available on-line and in various print publications for the manufacture of explosives, poison gas, conversion of semi-automatic firearms to full auto capability, etc. If one’s curiosity leads them to read about these topics, go ahead; going further than simply reading is a major mistake and indicates a lack of basic common sense, at best. During your author’s childhood, movies and television used ‘zip-guns’ as a plot device. A zip-gun is a homemade firearm that may have made for an interesting plot, but were invariably more dangerous to the user than to the target. We must make an exception, though, in the case of Tetsuya Yamagami who assassinated former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe using a homemade shotgun firing homemade ammunition (gun ownership in Japan is so limited as to be practically impossible). Although 3-D printing may have created new possibilities for homemade firearms, the need for steel barrels and springs would limit home firearms manufacture to persons with access to these components. So-called ‘ghost guns’ made from kits have been presented as justifying more sweeping gun control laws, but kit guns have seen very limited usage in crimes of any kind thus making a need for further regulation questionable. Besides, why build when one can purchase on the dark web or other illegal outlets? As mentioned earlier in this chapter, during the Algerian Revolution and numerous other 4th Generation Wars, police officers have frequently been murdered for their guns. The Boston Marathon bombers (2013) murdered a campus police officer from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology solely to take his sidearm. Contrary to media, AR-15 type rifles are neither machine guns nor weapons of war. AR stands for Armalite, a division of a company that made small aircraft; it does not stand for assault rifle or automatic rifle. Colt Industries bought Armalite and the patents as well as the name AR-15 during the early 1960s. AR-15 rifles and pistols are semi-auto firearms; that is, they fire one cartridge for each squeeze of the trigger, unlike a fully automatic firearm that fires so long as the trigger is depressed or until the ammunition is exhausted or the gun jams. That is, an AR-15 functions similarly to a Glock or any other semi-automatic firearm and poses no greater danger than any other firearm. Contrary to media and political hype, the AR-15 is not a weapon of war. AR-15 type firearms and semi-automatic AK-47 type rifles are not easily converted into machine guns and lack the heat treatment necessary for such usage without danger to the shooter. Additionally, converting a semi auto firearm to full auto is illegal and carries quite severe penalties. A final point here is the term ‘assault weapon.’ Technically, there is no such thing. Assault weapon is a media, political, and purely legal term with no technical meaning; therefore, any firearm can be labelled an assault weapon by law or by politicians and media persons. An assault rifle on the other hand really is a type of machine gun. Technically, a machine gun is a large, crew served weapon firing a battle rifle cartridge or larger, that is the 30/06, 7.62/.308 Winchester, or .50 BMG. A submachine gun is a fully automatic weapon, usually shoulder fired, shootng a pistol cartridge; the .45 caliber ‘tommy gun’ for example. An assault rifle is a shoulder fired weapon firing a cartridge between in power of a pistol and a battler rifle/machine gun. An example is the 5.56 or .223 cartridge fired from the M16, FNSCAR, and TAVOR among others; and yes, AR-15 type rifles. Unfortunately, gun ownership of any kind has ceased to be a public safety issue and has become a political issue thus clouding the reality of firearms and crime in general as well as terrorism. In most states, it is legal for a civilian to legally own a real machine gun. However, the process of legally purchasing a machine gun is quite lengthy and relatively expensive. In addition to the process, a legally transferable M16 cost $25,000 and up; a Thompson submachine gun, the infamous ‘tommy gun’ will cost about the same. Terrorists operating in the US have not used fully automatic firearms; at least so far. However, terrorists operating in other parts of the world have easier access to such firearms. The AK-47, the real ones, that is the fully automatic ones are easily available in many parts of the world. Since 1950, some estimates claim as many as 50 million have been manufactured worldwide. Its use in revolutions has been so widespread that three countries have an image of the AK on their national flags. Despite the popular image in the US of mass shootings as common; mass shootings are uncommon events, depending of course on how one defines mass shooting. The FBI states four or more dead in a single incident; Congress defines it as three or more dead. How one counts the ‘victims’ is an issue as well as some sources include a perpetrator killed during the incident as a victim. The stereotypical mass shooting is not terrorism related, depending on how one defines terrorism. Mass shootings in the US have so far mostly been criminally rather than politically or religiously motivated and the overwhelming majority of such shootings have involved handguns rather than rifles of any kind. According to FBI figures, in the US, one is more likely to be beaten or kicked to death than shot to death with a rifle or shotgun. The ex-Army major who committed the mass shooting at Ft Cavazos used a pistol. The husband and wife team who murdered 14 at a Christmas party in Calabasas, California in 2015 were armed with semi-auto rifles and pistols; they also had a cache of pipe bombs. In terms of effectiveness, depending on how measured, explosives can achieve a greater body count in a shorter period of time with less danger to the perpetrator than a firearms based attack. Explosives are not easily purchased, but they are not uncommon as their use in a variety of industrial settings is a necessity. For example, certain construction projects require explosives to move rock or remove tree stumps; needs also not uncommon among land owners in rural areas. Explosives are not always stored safely or securely and are thus open to theft. Explosives can also be made. The Oklahoma Federal Building was blown up using ammonium nitrate fertilizer and diesel fuel; both quite commonly available. During the 1960s, radicals were known to make bombs using gasoline in a glass bottle; the so called ‘Molotov Cocktail’ of WWII which proved an effective weapon against the armored vehicles of the time. In May of 1927, Andrew Kehoe used dynamite, and an explosive called pyrotol to blow up the Bath, Wisconsin School killing 45 people. Jet fuel also makes an excellent improvised explosive when delivered using an airliner as occurred 9/11/2001. Acetone peroxide is used to bleach flour as well as in some manufacturing processes. It has also been used as an improvised explosive (think about that the next time you eat a sandwich), notably at the Ariana Grande concert attack (Manchester, UK May 22, 2017) that killed 22 concert goers and the terrorist. Concert attendees had to pass though security stations to enter the concert area. The suicide terrorist blew himself up outside the secure zone as concert goers were leaving through the narrow, secure exits; thus, they were still bunched up as they entered the kill zone. This was not so much a security failure as it was a matter of a terrorist using the security in place to protect concert goers as creating an opportunity to attack. Remember that one tenet of 4GW is to use the other side’s strengths against them. In this case, security and attendees to the concert thought the elaborate precautions to get into and out from the concert were more than sufficient when in reality those precautions effectively set up the terrorist act. In third world war zones, it is quite common for terrorists to obtain explosives from ‘dud’ bombs and artillery shells recovered from battle fields; a method used by Afghan and Iraqi insurgents. Poison gas is not easily obtained but it can be made. Burning PVC pipe produces effects on people and animals similar to that of nerve gas. Chlorine is extremely hazardous, commonly available, and easily purchased although its use as a terror weapon could be challenging. It would be effective in a small, enclosed space; but any other use would be dependent on prevailing winds. During WWI, Imperial German forces initiated the use of chemical warfare by means of transporting drums of chlorine to front line trenches and allowing the wind to carry the fumes over and onto the opposing French trenches. Chlorine is a chemical necessary for water purification and safety, therefore, municipalities must store chlorine at water purification plants. Destruction of chlorine storage tanks at a water works would not only cause panic due to release of the dangerous gas, but would also disrupt a city’s water and sewer system. That said, a religious cult in Japan called Aum Shinrikyo, used Sarin, a type of nerve gas, in a series of coordinated attacks in Tokyo during the mid-1990s. The Aum Shinrikyo group was a doomsday cult whose members tended to be well educated and financially independent. The wealth and knowledge as well as status of members, allowed the cult to smuggle assault rifles and ammunition from Russia and to reverse engineer these weapons for local production. In terms of the Sarin attack, the group also operated their own biological and chemical weapons lab producing botulism and anthrax in addition to Sarin nerve gas. The first attack occurred at an office complex in 1994 killing seven and injuring at least 500. The most notable event occurred March 20, 1995 when five cult members launched a carefully coordinated series of attacks in the Tokyo subway system during the afternoon rush hour. The five attackers, posing as commuters on five different trains, almost simultaneously punctured bags of Sarin as their trains were stopping at targeted stations. They exited their trains and were picked up by automobile; each attacker making a ‘clean’ get away. The attacks killed 12, over 500 persons sought hospital care and another 5,500 sought evaluation for exposure thus nearly overwhelming the emergency medical care system in Tokyo. Numerous survivors suffer post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and the attacks had a long-term, unsettling effect on Japan as whole. The police investigation of the Sarin attack was exhaustive including interviewing more 200 persons. As a result, 189 cult members were indicted on a variety of charges related to the attacks. Of these, 13, including the cult leader, were executed in 2018. Five cult members were given life imprisonment with another 80 receiving prison sentences of varying length while 87 others were given suspended sentences. Insert on Sarin gas Sarin gas is an extremely toxic organophosphate, a colorless liquid with no odor, and the most volatile of the nerve agents (Bryant, et al, 1960). Sarin may be absorbed through any body surface. The vapor form of sarin may be absorbed through respiratory tract (inhalation) in seconds and the liquid form may be absorbed through skin in minutes to hours. Sarin inhibits cholinesterase enzymes throughout body, resulting in muscarinic and nicotinic symptoms as well as central nervous system effects such as small pupils, runny nose, shortness of breath, sweating, vomiting, convulsions, and cessation of respiration. The treatment for sarin includes decontamination, ABC’s (i.e. Airways, Breathing, and Circulation), and the timely administration of nerve gas antidotes such as atropine, pralidoxime chloride (2-PAM-Cl), and diazepam. (Grob & Harvey, 1953) The Japanese Aum cult had very poor results in producing biological weapons which may be the reason they turned to Sarin. Another cult had better results with producing and delivering a bio weapon. In 1984, a religious cult based in the teaching of Rajneesh, a Hindu holy man made a biological attack (bio-terror) in September of 1984 in the city of The Dalles, Oregon. This attack was actually a practice run for a more widespread attack planned for November, on election day, intended to incapacitate enough voters to ensure the election of cult members to county offices. That is, the attack was planned as a means for taking over the county government. In the September practice run cult operatives used a form of salmonella to contaminate the salad bars in 10 of the city’s restaurants sickening at least 750 people. The cult operated a large compound near The Dalles, and investigation found what was essentially a bio-terror lab being run within the compound. Notably, most cult members were well educated and, in many cases, quite well off financially thus the cult had the resources needed for this type of terror operation, as did the cult in Japan. So far, the salad bar attack at The Dalles is the only known act of bio-terror committed with in the US. Insert on Salmonella Salmonella infection (salmonellosis) is a common bacterial disease that affects the intestinal tract. Salmonella bacteria typically live in animal and human intestines and are shed through stool (feces). Humans become infected most frequently through contaminated water or food. Some people with salmonella infection have no symptoms. Most people develop diarrhea, fever and stomach (abdominal) cramps within 8 to 72 hours after exposure. Most healthy people recover within a fe