Terrorism And Lethality Essay, Research Paper

Although the total volume of terrorist incidents world-wide has declined in the

1990s, the proportion of persons killed in terrorist incidents has steadily

risen. For example, according to the RAND-St Andrews University Chronology of

International Terrorism,5 a record 484 international terrorist incidents were

recorded in 1991, the year of the Gulf War, followed by 343 incidents in 1992,

360 in 1993, 353 in 1994, falling to 278 incidents in 1995 (the last calendar

year for which complete statistics are available).6 However, while terrorists

were becoming less active, they were nonetheless becoming more lethal. For

example, at least one person was killed in 29 percent of terrorist incidents in

1995: the highest percentage of fatalities to incidents recorded in the

Chronology since 1968–and an increase of two percent over the previous year’s

record figure.7 In the United States this trend was most clearly reflected in

1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Since

the turn of the century, fewer than a dozen of all the terrorist incidents

committed world-wide have killed more than a 100 people. The 168 persons

confirmed dead at the Murrah Building ranks sixth on the list of most fatalities

caused this centuryin a single terrorist incident–domestic or international.8

The reasons for terrorism’s increasing lethality are complex and variegated, but

can generally be summed up as follows: The growth in the number of terrorist

groups motivated by a religious imperative; 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 neatly encapsulates the confluence of new adversaries,

motivations and rationales affecting terrorist patterns today. Admittedly, the

connection between religion and terrorism is not new.9 However, while religion

and terrorism do share a long history, in recent decades this form particular

variant has largely been overshadowed by ethnic- and nationalist-separatist or

ideologically-motivated terrorism. Indeed, none of the 11 identifiable terrorist

groups10 active in 1968 (the year credited with marking the advent of modern,

international terrorism) could be classified as "religious."11 Not

until 1980 in fact–as a result of the repercussions from the revolution in Iran

the year before–do the first "modern" religious terrorist groups

appear:12 but they amount to only two of the 64 groups active that year. Twelve

years later, however, the number of religious terrorist groups has increased

nearly six-fold, representing a quarter (11 of 48) of the terrorist

organisations who carried out attacks in 1992. Significantly, this trend has not

only continued, but has actually accelerated. By 1994, a third (16) of the 49

identifiable terrorist groups could be classified as religious in character

and/or motivation. Last year their number increased yet again, no to account for

nearly half (26 or 46 percent) of the 56 known terrorist groups active in 1995.

The implications of terrorism motivated by a religious imperative for higher

levels of lethality is evidenced by the violent record of various Shi’a Islamic

groups during the 1980s. For example, although these organisations committed

only eight percent of all recorded international terrorist incidents between

1982 and 1989, they were nonetheless responsible for nearly 30 percent of the

total number of deaths during that time period.13 Indeed, some of the most

significant terrorist acts of the past 18 months, for example, have all had some

religious element present.14 Even more disturbing is that in some instances the

perpetrators’ aims have gone beyond the establishment of some theocracy amenable

to their specific deity,15 but have embraced mystical, almost transcendental,

and divinely-inspired imperatives16 or a vehemently anti-government form of

"populism" reflecting far-fetched conspiracy notions based on a

volatile mixture of seditious, racial and religious dicta.17 Religious

terrorism18 tends to be more lethal than secular terrorism because of the

radically different value systems, mechanisms of legitimisation and

justification, concepts of morality, and Manichean world views that directly

affect the "holy terrorists’" motivation. For the religious terrorist,

violence first and foremost is a sacramental act or divine duty: executed in

direct response to some theological demand or imperative and justified by

scripture. Religion, therefore functions as a legitimising force: specifically

sanctioning wide scale violence against an almost open-ended category of

opponents (e.g., all peoples who are not members of the religious terrorists’

religion or cult). This explains why clerical sanction is so important for

religious terrorists19 and why religious figures are often required to

"bless" (e.g., approve) terrorist operations before they are executed.

"Amateur" Terrorists The proliferation of "amateurs"

involved in terrorist acts has also contributed to terrorism’s increasing

lethality. In the past, terrorism was not just a matter of having the will and

motivation to act, but of having the capability to do so–the requisite

training, access to weaponry, and operational knowledge. These were not readily

available capabilities and were generally acquired through training undertaken

in camps known to be run either by other terrorist organisations and/or in

concert with the terrorists’ state-sponsors.20 Today, however, the means and

methods of terrorism can be easily obtained at bookstores, from mail-order

publishers, on CD-ROM or even over the Internet. Hence, terrorism has become

accessible to anyone with a grievance, an agenda, a purpose or any idiosyncratic

combination of the above. Relying on these commercially obtainable published

bomb-making manuals and operational guidebooks, the "amateur"

terrorist can be just as deadly 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 cabin in the Montana hinterland, Kaczynski is believed to have

fashioned simple, yet sophisticated home-made bombs from ordinary materials that

were dispatched to his victims via the post. Despite one of the most massive

manhunts staged by the FBI in the United States, the "Unabomber" was

nonetheless able to elude capture–much less identification–for 18 years and

indeed to kill three persons and injure 23 others. Hence, the

"Unabomber" is an example of the difficulties confronting law

enforcement and other government authorities in first identifying, much less,

apprehending the "amateur" terrorist and the minimal skills needed to

wage an effective terrorist campaign. This case also evidences the

disproportionately extensive consequences even violence committed by a lone

individual can have both on society (in terms of the fear and panic sown) and on

law enforcement (because of the vast resources that are devoted to the

identification and apprehension of this individual). "Amateur"

terrorists are dangerous in other ways as well. In fact, the absence of some

central command authority may result in fewer constraints on the terrorists’

operations and targets and–especially when combined with a religious fervour–fewer

inhibitions on their desire to inflict indiscriminate casualties. Israeli

authorities, for example, have noted this pattern among terrorists belonging to

the radical Palestinian Islamic Hamas organisation in contrast to their

predecessors in the ostensibly more secular and professional,

centrally-controlled mainstream Palestine Liberation Organization terrorist

groups. As one senior Israeli security official noted of a particularly vicious

band of Hamas terrorists: they "were a surprisingly unprofessional bunch .

. . they had no preliminary training and acted without specific

instructions."23 In the United States, to cite another example of the

potentially destructively lethal power of amateur terrorists, it is suspected

that the 1993 World Trade Center bombers’ intent was in fact to bring down one

of the twin towers.24 By contrast, there is no evidence that the persons we once

considered to be the world’s arch-terrorists–the Carloses, Abu Nidals, and Abul

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 for their inability to avoid arrest, their modus operandi

arguably points to a pattern of future 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-minded individuals who shared a common religion, worshipped

at the same religious institution, had the same friends and frustrations and

were linked by family ties as well, who simply gravitated towards one another

for a specific, perhaps even one-time, operation.25 Moreover, since this more

amorphous and perhaps even transitory type of group will lack the

"footprints" or modus operandi of an actual, existing terrorist

organization, it is likely to prove more difficult for law enforcement to get a

firm idea or build a complete picture of the dimensions of their intentions and

capabilities. Indeed, as one New York City police officer only too presciently

observed two months before the Trade Center attack: it wasn’t the established

terrorist groups–with known or suspected members and established operational

patterns–that worried him, but the hitherto unknown "splinter

groups," composed of new or marginal members from an older group, that

suddenly surface out of nowhere to attack.26 Essentially, part-time 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 or non-governmental entity. The suspicious

transfer of funds from banks in Iran and Germany to a joint account maintained

by the accused bombers in New Jersey just before the Trade Center blast, for

example, may be illustrative of this more indirect or circuitous foreign

connection.27 Moreover, the fact that two Iraqi nationals–Ramzi Ahmed Yousef

(who was arrested last April in Pakistan and extradited to the United States)

and Abdul Rahman Yasin–implicated in the Trade Center conspiracy, fled the

United States28 in one instance just before the bombing and in the other shortly

after the first arrests, increases suspicion that the incident may not only have

been orchestrated from 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 a terrorist incident perpetrated by a group of

"amateurs" acting either entirely on their own or, as one of the

bomber’s defence attorneys portrayed his client manipulated by a "devious,

evil . . . genius"29 (Yousef), the original genesis of the Trade Center

attack may be far more complex. This use of amateur terrorists as

"dupes" or "cut-outs" to mask the involvement of some

foreign patron or government could therefore greatly benefit terrorist state

sponsors who could more effectively conceal their involvement and thus avoid

potential military retaliation by the victim country and diplomatic or economic

sanctions from the international community. Moreover, the prospective

state-sponsors’ connection could be further 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 was constructed out of ordinary, commercially-available

materials–including lawn fertiliser (urea nitrate) and diesel fuel–and cost

less than $400 to build.30 Indeed, despite the Trade Center bombers’ almost

comical ineptitude 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 a 1,000 others, gouging out a 180-ft wide crater six

stories deep, and causing an estimated $550 million in both damages to the twin

tower and in lost revenue to the business housed there31–as the more

"high-tech" devices constructed out of military ordnance, with timing

devices powered by computer micro-chips and detonated by sophisticated timing

mechanisms used by their "professional" counterparts.32

"Professional" Terrorists Finally, while on the one hand terrorism is

attracting "amateurs," on the other hand the sophistication and

operational competence of the "professional" terrorists is also

increasing. These "professionals" are becoming demonstrably more adept

in their trade craft of death and destruction; more formidable in their

abilities of tactical modification, adjustment and innovation in their methods

of attack; and appear to be able to 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. An almost Darwinian principle of natural selection seems to

affect subsequent generations of terrorist groups, whereby every new terrorist

generation learns from its predecessors, becoming smarter, tougher, and more

difficult to capture or eliminate. Accordingly, it is not difficult to recognise

how the "amateur" terrorist may become increasingly attractive to

either a more professional terrorist group and/or their state patron as a pawn

or "cut-out" or simply as an expendable minion. In this manner, the

"amateur" terrorist could be effectively used by others to further

conceal the identity of the foreign government or terrorist group actually

commissioning or ordering a particular attack. The series of terrorist attacks

that unfolded in France last year conforms to this pattern of activity. Between

July and October 1995, a handful of terrorists, using bombs fashioned with

four-inch nails wrapped around camping style cooking-gas canisters, killed eight

persons and wounded more than 180 others. Not until early October did any group

claim credit for the bombings, when the radical Armed Islamic Group (GIA), a

militant Algerian Islamic organization, took responsibility for the attacks.

French authorities, however, believe that, while "professional"

terrorists perpetrated the initial bombings, like-minded "amateurs"–

recruited by the GIA operatives from within France’s large and increasingly

restive Algerian expatriate community were responsible for at least some of the

subsequent attacks.33 Accordingly, these "amateurs" or new recruits

facilitated the campaign’s "metastasising" beyond the small cell of

professionals who ignited it, striking a responsive chord among disaffected

Algerian youths in France and thereby increasing exponentially the aura of fear

and, arguably, the terrorists’ coercive power. Likely Future Patterns of

Terrorism While it can be argued that the terrorist threat is declining in terms

of the total number of annual incidents in other, perhaps more significant

respects–e.g., both the number of persons killed in individual terrorists

incidents and the percent of terrorist incidents with fatalities in comparison

to total incidents–the threat is actually rising. Accordingly, it is as

important to look at qualitative changes as well as quantitative ones; and to

focus on generic threat and generic capabilities based on overall trends as well

as on known or existing groups. The pitfalls of focusing on known, identifiable

groups at the expense of other potential, less-easily identified, more amorphous

adversaries was perhaps most clearly demonstrated in Japan by the attention long

paid to familiar and well-established left-wing groups like the Japanese Red

Army or Middle Core organisation with an established modus operandi,

identifiable leadership, etc. rather than on an obscure, relatively unknown

religious movement, such as the Aum Shinri Kyu sect. Indeed, the Aum sect’s

nerve gas attack on the Tokyo underground34 arguably demarcates a significant

historical watershed in terrorist tactics and weaponry.35 This incident clearly

demonstrated that it is possible–even for ostensibly "amateur"

terrorists–to execute a successful chemical terrorist attack and accordingly

may conceivably have raised the stakes for terrorists everywhere. Accordingly,

terrorist groups in the future may well feel driven to emulate or surpass the

Tokyo incident either in death and destruction or in the use of a

non-conventional weapon of mass destruction (WMD) in order to ensure the same

media coverage and public 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 in the past. They

tend not to take responsibility much less issue communiquйs explaining why

they carried out an attack as the stereotypical, "traditional"

terrorist group of the past did. For example, in contrast to the 1970s and early

1980s, some of the most serious terrorist incidents of the past

decade–including the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing–have never been credibly

claimed–much less explained or justified as terrorist attacks once almost

always were–by the group responsible for the attack.36 The implication of this

trend is perhaps that violence for some terrorist groups is becoming less a

means to an end (that therefore has to be calibrated and tailored and therefore

"explained" and "justified" to the public) than an end in

itself that does not require any wider explanation or justification beyond the

groups’ members themselves and perhaps their specific followers. Such a trait

would conform not only to the motivations of religious terrorists (discussed

above) but also to terrorist "spoilers"–groups bent on disrupting or

sabotaging multi-lateral negotiations or the peaceful settlement of ethnic

conflicts or other such violent disputes. That terrorists are less frequently

claiming credit for their attacks may suggest an inevitable loosening of

constraints–self-imposed or otherwise–on their violence: in turn leading to

higher levels of lethality as well.37 Another key factor contributing to the

rising terrorist threat is the ease of terrorist adaptations across the

technological spectrum.38 For example, on the low-end of the technological

spectrum one sees terrorists’ continuing to rely on fertiliser bombs whose

devastating effect has been demonstrated by the PIRA at St Mary Axe and Bishop’s

Gate in 1991 and 1992; at Canary Wharf and in Manchester in 1996; by the

aforementioned World Trade Center bombers and the persons responsible for the

Oklahoma City bombing. Fertiliser is perhaps the most cost-effective of weapons:

costing on average one percent of a comparable amount of plastic explosive. Its

cost-effectiveness is demonstrated by the facts that the Bishop Gate blast is

estimated to have caused $1.5 billion and the Baltic Exchange blast at St Mary

Axe $1.25 billion. The World Trade Center bomb, as previously noted, cost only

$400 to construct but caused $550 million in both damages and lost revenue to

the business housed there.39 Moreover, unlike plastic explosives and other

military ordnance, fertiliser and its two favourite bomb-making

components–diesel fuel and icing sugar–are readily and easily available

commercially, completely legal to purchase and store and thus highly attractive

"weapons components" to terrorists and others. On the high-end of the

conflict spectrum one must contend not only with the efforts of groups like the

Aum to develop chemical, biological and nuclear weapons capabilities, but with

the proliferation of fissile materials from the former-Soviet Union and the

emergent illicit market in nuclear materials that is surfacing in Eastern and

Central Europe.40 Admittedly, while much of the material seen on offer as part

of this "black market" cannot be classified as SNM (strategic nuclear

material, that is suitable in the construction a fissionable explosive device),

such highly-toxic radioactive agents can potentially be easily paired with

conventional explosives and turned into a crude, non-fissionable atomic bomb

(e.g., "dirty" bomb). Such a device would therefore not only

physically destroy a target, but contaminate the surrounding area for decades to

come.41 Finally, at the middle-end of the spectrum one sees a world awash in

plastic explosives, hand-held precision-guided-munitions (i.e., surface-to-air

missiles for use against civilian and/or military aircraft), automatic weapons,

etc. that readily facilitate all types of terrorist operations. During the

1980s, Czechoslovakia, for example, sold 1,000 tonnes of Semtex-H (the explosive

of which eight ounces was sufficient to bring down Pan Am 103) to Libya and

another 40,000 tonnes to Syria, North Korea, Iran, and Iraq–countries long

cited by the U.S. Department of State as sponsors of international terrorist

activity. In sum, terrorists therefore have relatively easy access to a range of

sophisticated, "off-the-shelf" weapons technology that can be readily

adopted to their operational needs. Concluding Observations and Implications for

Aviation Security Terrorism today has arguably become more complex, amorphous

transnational. The distinction between domestic and international terrorism is

also evaporating as evidence by the Aum’s sects activities in Russia and

Australia as well as in Japan, the alleged links between the Oklahoma City

bombers and neo-Nazis in Britain and Europe, and the network of Algerian Islamic

extremists operating in France, Great Britain, Sweden, Belgium and other

countries as well as in Algeria itself. Accordingly, as these threats are both

domestic and international, the response must therefore be both national as well

as multinational in construct and dimensions. National cohesiveness and

organisational preparation will necessarily remain the essential foundation for

any hope of building the effective multinational approach appropriate to these

new threats. Without internal (national or domestic) consistency, clarity,

planning and organisation, it will be impossible for similarly diffuse

multinational efforts to succeed. This is all the more critical today, and will

remain so in the future, given the changing nature of the terrorist threat, the

identity of its perpetrators and the resources at their disposal. One final

point is in order given the focus of this conference on aviation security.

Serious and considerable though the above trends are, their implications

for–much less direct effect on–commercial aviation are by no means clear.

Despite media impressions to the contrary and the popular mis-perception

fostered by those impressions, terrorist attacks on civil aviation–particularly

inflight bombings or attempted bombings–are in fact relatively rare. Indeed,

they account for only 15 of the 2,537 international terrorist incidents recorded

between 1970 and 1979 (or .006 percent) and just 12 of 3,943 recorded between

1980 and 1989 (an even lower .003 percent). This trend, moreover, has continued

throughout the first half of the current decade. There have been a total of just

six inflight bombings since 1990 out of a total of 1,859 international terrorist

incidents. In other words, inflight bombings of commercial aviation currently

account for an infinitesimal–.003–percent of international terrorist

attacks.42 At the same time, the dramatic loss of life and attendant intense

media coverage have turned those few tragic events into terrorist

"spectaculars": etched indelibly on the psyches of commercial air

travellers and security officers everywhere despite their infrequent

occurrence.43 Nonetheless, those charged with ensuring the security of airports

and aviation from terrorist threats doubtless face a Herculean task. In the

first place, a defence that would preclude every possible attack by every

possible terrorist group for every possible motive is not even theoretically

conceivable. Accordingly, security measures should accurately and closely

reflect both the threat and the difficulties inherent in countering it: and

should therefore be based on realistic expectations that embrace realistic

cost-benefit. Indeed, there is a point beyond which security measures may not

only be inappropriate to the presumed threat, but risk becoming more

bureaucratic than genuinely effective.

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