How Religion Influences Terrorism

1. Terrorist Organizational Structures

http://www.raytheon.com/capabilities/c4i/

To begin, it is necessary to understand the changing structures of terrorist organizations. One

must understand that just as it is important in conventional warfare to have an understanding of

an adversary's infrastructure for maintaining Command, Control, Communications and

Intelligence (C4I), it is also critical to understand how these structures and functions perform in

the context of a terrorist adversary. The systems developed by Raytheon supporting the U.S. and

international military show how sophisticated international terrorist organizations conduct their

operations in the 21st century.

Raytheon’s MAINGATE Radio System

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQx9df2s2XQ

MAINGATE is the world's most advanced battlefield radio specifically designed to provide high

capacity networked communications on the move.

Modern international terrorist organizations are complex, specialized, and disciplined. An

outcome to this is that sophisticated international terrorist organizations are not likely to be very

comfortable domains for individuals who are overtly psychopathic, at least to the extent that such

persons may be unable to submit to group discipline or disregard their immediate self-

gratification to group aims and values. These are generalizations and there, of course, are

exceptions.

Hezbollah as an organization had its origins as an Iranian-backed political movement but found

support inside Lebanon from the indigenous Lebanese Shia minority; similarly, the Liberation

Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) is more broadly supported within the Tamil minority in Sri Lanka

and Southern India. Both of these movements have been successful in transitioning from purely

cell-based terrorist operations to larger-scale guerrilla operations.

Terrorist organizations have gradually become less hierarchical and more lateral over the last six

decades. This has been part of the unbroken chain of strategic and tactical learning and

adaptation. The present trend is toward more "hub" and "chain" conspiratorial structures, and

even toward "virtual organizations" maintained largely through the Internet, with little or no

actual physical contact between a column and supreme leadership. Actual terrorist attacks are

more inspired than directed. This organizational pattern, rather than a centrally-directed

conspiracy pattern, underlay the attacks against both the Madrid and London mass transit

systems. International terrorist movements such as Al Qaeda are loosely-structured networks of

networks.

Click to Enlarge

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/264741/Hezbollah

The solitary individual is the ultimate small group. Leaderless resistance, in which single

individuals are "inspired" to act rather than specifically "directed" to act, is a strategy embraced

by movements on both ends of the ideological spectrum. Groups as diverse as the Ku Klux

Klan, Aryan Nations, and the Earth and Animal Liberation Front exhort their "members" to

take the initiative. Members take direct action either alone or in league with others who are

personally known to them or whom they are certain they can trust. Such organizations

communicate, publicize, and inspire via the Internet. At the same time, they maintain a thin

patina of deniability and innocence in regard to actions carried out in the name of the movement.

Leaderless resistance also encompasses actions carried out by so-called lone wolf avengers.

Examples include such personages as Eric Robert Rudolph, the infamous Unabomber,

Theodore Kaczynski, and Timothy McVeigh. There are some tendencies toward narcissistic

paranoia in this group. The personages range from the clearly delusional Ted Kaczynski, to the

lucid, engaging, and even likeable Timothy McVeigh.

2. Terrorist Financing

A very important aspect of terrorist financing – "money is ammunition."

stock-photo-money-background-of-american-hundred-dollars-banknotes-137691623.jpg

To begin the study of terrorist financing, let us compare Al Qaeda's likely outlay in advance of

the World Trade Center attack, including logistics, travel, and lodging for its 19 operatives, with

the financial magnitude of the outcome. With hindsight, we now know quite a lot about the pre-

attack movements and activities of the members of the four attack teams in advance of their

mission. From this, it has been possible to estimate the total cost to Al Qaeda of planning and

fielding the attack. Estimates range from $350,000 to $500,000 spent over about 18 months'

time. In contrast, RAND Corporation estimates that insured losses arising from the attacks

totaled $38.1 billion. The Insurance Services Office, an industry-wide statistical reporting

service, recently downgraded its estimate to $31 billion. An independent think tank, The

Partnership for New York, estimated that the total impact on economic output exceeded $83

billion. No matter how one looks at it, that is a massive return on investment for Al Qaeda.

Review this article from the Council on Foreign Relations:

Tracking down terrorist financing

http://www.cfr.org/terrorist-financing/tracking-down-terrorist-financing/p10356

The point is that it does take a significant amount of money to operate a modern international

terrorist network. How much depends on the nature of the organization and the level and

sophistication of its operations. In general, the cash requirements have been steadily increasing,

but paradoxically, with the advent of netwar, independent localized cells and leaderless

resistance, the amounts required may now be falling. It has been estimated that in the mid-1970s,

it cost the Provisional IRA somewhere between $2–6 million annually to operate. It managed to

raise most of its revenues through contributions to its many front organizations, especially in the

U.S., from "shake-down" or extortion rackets aimed at Ulster business establishments, and from

bank robberies. Its heavy reliance on shake-down rackets is what London Times writer James

Adams termed his "Capone discovery" (White, 2013, p.69). It is believed that during the 1990s,

elements of the PIRA began dabbling in the international drug trade as its financial requirements

continued to increase.

In keeping with their nature as criminal conspiracies, terrorist networks have little ethical

compunction about how they make their money. International terrorist networks engage in just

about any form of legal, gray market, or criminal, black-market activity that seems to them to be

both expedient and profitable. These may include legitimate business fronts, gray market

activities such as the street retailing of counterfeit designer items, and black market production,

sales, and smuggling of everything from expired pharmaceuticals and baby formula and untaxed

cigarettes, to narcotics, arms, and contraband African war zone diamonds. Terrorist networks

may also employ traditional crimes, such as protection rackets, blackmail, bank robberies,

kidnapping for ransom, and murder for hire.

The U.S. Department of the Treasury has a Terrorist Finance Tracking Program (TFTP)

http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/terrorist-illicit-finance/Terrorist-Finance-

Tracking/Pages/tftp.aspx

This program helps them map out terrorist networks and target and trace where their funding is

coming from.

TFTP Q&A website

http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/terrorist-illicit-finance/Terrorist-Finance-

Tracking/Documents/Final%20Updated%20TFTP%20Brochure%20(8-5-11).pdf

While there is nothing new about terrorist organizations dabbling in criminal activities to fund

their operations, the latter half of the 20th and the early 21st century have witnessed an intense

trend toward alliances and marriages of convenience between international terrorist networks and

international criminal enterprises. The evidence for this convergence is overwhelming, and it has

been visible on every continent.

A number of international organizations are also instrumental in detecting, disrupting,

interdicting, and seizing cash as well as foreign assets. The International Financial Action

Taskforce (FATF) includes 30 nation-state members and a half-a-dozen regional cooperative

ventures. Through the Egmont Group, the financial intelligence units of more than 100 nations

share information on money movements that are believed to be related to international organized

crime and terrorism. Data from foreign consortia such as the Brussels-based Society for

Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) has allowed officials from the

CIA, the FBI, and other agencies to examine tens of thousands of suspicious international

financial transactions.

Because of their financial muscle, the U.S. and its western allies are in a unique position to force

compliance from noncompliant nations and financial institutions that would have their own

ability to transact business in the West cut off if they decline.

3. Media Coverage of Terrorist Acts

http://www.texemarrs.com

/011998/unabomber_a_genius.htm

Now we will discuss the issues involved with media coverage of terrorist acts.They say that a

picture is worth a thousand words, and we all have seen gruesome images of how terrorists

intimidate the world using hostages. Ross stated that “terrorism involves symbolic

communication, usually aimed at an audience far beyond the immediate victims of violence” (as

cited in White, 2013, p. 87). The meanings of these acts are socially constructed and the media

supplies the channel of interpretation for the world to see.

Media coverage of terrorism centers on fear and sensationalism, which aids in strengthening the

terrorist’s agenda. The media allow these images to validate terrorists’ acts of violence.

Terrorists are dependent on the media to expand their sphere of influence to a global audience.

Both terrorists and governments see the media as a weapon that can be used to promote their

cause. Both camps are trained in media manipulation to be used for their benefit.

http://www.enumclaw.com/news/national-news/

florida-imam-convicted-on-terrorist-charges-media-ignores-trial/

4. Gender Roles, Group Ideology and Female Terrorists

Tidal Occupy Theory Facebook page – Photo by Ahmad Mesleh 2012

(https://www.facebook.com/TidalOccupyTheory

Now we will examine the relationship of gender roles, group ideology, and the historical

importance of female terrorists. It must be noted that the use of women in acts of terrorism does

not mean there has been a change in tactics. Women have been used in the past in every kind of

terrorist attack. Sjoberg indicates that women have always had an important and increasing role

in terrorist’s acts. She considers that most traditional groups have designated women to

supporting roles, but this is changing. Terrorists’ organizations are now seeing the tactical

benefits of using women and have been able to develop their own gender-specific roles for

criminal activities (White, pp.115-116).