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By Mariya Y. Omelicheva
For over a decade, Russia has struggled with persistent domestic insurgency and terrorism. The country has experienced a multitude of terrorist and militant attacks, and the turn of the century was marked by a series of high-profile terrorist incidents involving a large number of civilian casualties. In response to this threat, Russian authorities adopted extensive counterterrorism legislation, established and modified institutions responsible for combating terrorism, and streamlined the leadership and conduct of counterterrorist operations. According to recent statements...
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By Luis de la Corte and Andrea Giménez-Salinas
Suicide bombings have become a method of growing use by terrorist groups and insurgents. This article reviews the strategic objectives as well as tactical and operational advantages of this modality. It also presents and analyzes factors increasing the risk of suicidal campaigns, as well as some of the measures that can be applied to counter and prevent suicide attacks.
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By Charles S. Faddis
Several years ago, while I was working operationally overseas, a team of analysts visited our office from headquarters in Washington, DC. These officers were on a tour of the region, and one of them offered to give a briefing to our local personnel regarding a terrorist group active in the country to which I was assigned and on which a lengthy piece of finished analysis had just been completed. The briefer, who had written the analysis, had reached a number of very interesting conclusions concerning the evolution of the group and believed that he was able to make a number of very detailed predictions regarding the direction this group would take in the future. Among other things, he was convinced that the group was losing support, was unable to maintain its previous level of activity and...
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By Dipak K. Gupta
One of Professor David Rapoport’s contributions to the academic inquiries into terrorism is his theory of waves of international terrorism. Rapoport argues that there have been four waves in the history of modern terrorism, where an idea has spurred violence across the world. Although his idea has become mainstream, there is no research on how ideas actually spread. This article attempts to bridge this important gap by combining recent advances in the fields of business, advertisement and mass communication with research on terrorism. I argue that understanding the process by which these ideas spread across the world can provide us with the tool to manage future waves of international terrorism.
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By Vera Eccarius-Kelly
Since the Kurdish Worker’s Party (PKK) unexpectedly abducted three German hikers near Mt. Ararat in Turkey on 8 July 2008, and then released them on 20 July, intelligence sources in Europe have intensified their surveillance of PKK operatives among members of the particularly numerous Kurdish Diaspora in Germany. According to German newspaper reports, the PKK demanded that in exchange for the release of the hikers “Berlin stop its hostile politics towards the Kurds and the PKK in Germany”. While the exact purpose of the abduction requires further analysis, it is clear that it was the armed branch of the PKK, known as the People’s Defense Forces (HPG), that kidnapped the German hikers at their Mt. Ararat encampment at 10,500 feet in the evening hours—only to release them unharmed some two weeks later.
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by Raffaello Pantucci
This article will attempt to show how a recent plot in the United Kingdom, known by its police codename Operation Praline, and the broader international conspiracy that supported the group responsible may constitute an organic evolution of terrorist networks towards 'al-Qaeda' “architect” Abu Musab al-Suri’s nizam, la tanzim – “a system, not secret organization.” This is not to conclude that Aabid Khan and his broader network were necessarily purposefully moulding themselves in this direction – as the author has not seen evidence supporting this assertion – but rather this article attempts to show how al-Suri’s framework for global jihad offers a good prism through which to analyse this group since they would appear to have developed in broad accordance with al-Suri’s principles, whether wittingly or no.
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By Will H. Moore and Stephen M. Shellman This essay is written in the midst of the recent calls for social scientists to perform research projects for the US Department of Defense. In that light, the essay makes an argument for what kinds of information the conflict processes school of thought can provide policymakers. Specifically, the authors contend that the current conceptual and theoretical orientation scholars are taking toward the study of dissent, repression, and violent conflict can illuminate causal mechanisms and answer questions other traditional schools of thought cannot. The essay argues that political scientists are on the cusp of being able to say very interesting things about the violent behavior of dissidents and governments as the outcome of dynamic processes that vary over time and space across the countries in which such conflicts take place. |
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By Irm Haleem
Pakistan is no stranger to military coups, as apparent from its experience in 1958, 1977 and then again in 1999 (the first two leading to military rule spanning a decade or more). The recent volatile combination of events within Pakistan has, I argue, once again brought Pakistan to the brink of a military coup. Area experts such as Ayesha Jalal disagree with the likelihood of this scenario, arguing that the Pakistani military would rather leave the civilians in charge so as to leave them with the political responsibility of the consequences of their military actions in the north of Pakistan. [1] In this article, however, I argue instead that a coup is very likely in Pakistan. I base this assessment on the following events that seem to create a textbook formula for a military coup: the continued unauthorized US military incursions into Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) violating Pakistani sovereignty; the continued alienation of tribal populations in FATA from both the Pakistani military and civilian establishments as well as from the Americans; the unexpectedly aggressive and well organized battle that is on-going between the Pakistani army and the radicalized elements in FATA's Bajaur agency; the increasing incidences of terrorism in Pakistan and then in the country's capital no less; and the embarrassing remarks made by the new Pakistani President Asif Zardari in his recent visit to the US indicating at best his autocratic mentality and at worst his potential incompetence in leading a nuclear state. These events together are likely to increase the saliency of a military coup. A coup in such circumstance would of course be a measure of last resort to restore stability within Pakistan.
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