The Confluence of International and Domestic Trends in Terrorism _*

Introduction

Terrorism is changing. New adversaries, new motivations and new rationales have surfaced in recent years to challenge much of the conventional wisdom on both terrorists and terrorism. More critically, perhaps, many of our conceptions--as well as government policies--date from terrorism's emergence as a global security problem more than a quarter century ago. They originated, and took hold, during the Cold War: when radical left-wing terrorist groups then active throughout the world were widely regarded as posing the most serious threat to Western security. ₁ What modifications or "fine-tuning" undertaken since are arguably no less dated, having been implemented a decade ago in response to the series of suicide bombings against American diplomatic and military targets in the Middle East that underscored the rising threat of state-sponsored terrorism.

The irrelevance of at least some of this thinking to various aspects of the terrorist problem at it exists today is perhaps most clearly evidenced by the changes in our notions of the "stereotypical"-type terrorist organisation. In the past, terrorist groups were recognisable mostly as a collection of individuals belonging to an organisation with a well-defined command and control apparatus, who had been previously trained (however rudimentary) in the techniques and tactics of terrorism, were engaged in conspiracy as a full-time avocation, living underground whilst constantly planning and plotting terrorist attacks and who at times were under the direct control, or operating at the express behest of, a foreign government. ₂ These groups, moreover, had a defined set of political, social or economic objectives and often issued communiqués taking credit for and explaining (often in excruciatingly turgid and obtuse prose) their actions. Accordingly, however disagreeable or repugnant the terrorists and their tactics may have been, we at least knew who they were and what they wanted.

Today these more "traditional" and familiar types of ethnic/nationalist and separatist as well as ideological organisations ₃ have been joined by a variety of "entities" with arguably less comprehensible nationalist or ideological motivations. This "new generation" of terrorist groups frequently embrace not only far more amorphous religious and millenarian aims but are themselves less cohesive organisational entities, with a more diffuse structure and membership. In this respect, the emergence of either obscure, idiosyncratic millenarian movements ₄ or zealously nationalist religious groups possibly represent a very different and potentially far more lethal threat than the above-mentioned more "traditional" terrorist adversaries.

Terrorism's Increasingly lethality

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 groups ₁₀ 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 imperatives ₁₆ 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 terrorism ₁₈ 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 terrorists ₁₉ 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 destructive ₂₁ --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 States ₂₈ 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 there ₃₁ --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 underground ₃₄ 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 communiqués 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.

*: Paper presented at the International Conference on Aviation Safety and Security in the 21st Century," The White House Commission on Aviation Safety and Security and The George Washington University, Washington, D.C., 13-15 January 1997. Back.

**: Dr. Bruce Hoffman is Director of the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Chairman of the Department of International Relations, St Andrews University, Scotland. Back.

Note 1: Some observers argued that these groups were in fact part of a world-wide communist plot orchestrated by Moscow and implemented by its client states. See especially Claire Sterling,The Terror Network: The Secret War of International Terrorism (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1981). Back.

Note 2: To cite the most obvious, and perhaps best known, example: In the late 1980s, Colonel Qaddafi reputedly commissioned the Japanese Red Army (JRA) to carry out attacks against American and British targets (in retaliation for the 1986 U.S. air strike against Libya). The JRA used the name "Anti-Imperialist International Brigades" in claiming responsibility for these operations. Back.

Note 3: That is, the variety of aforementioned radical leftist (e.g., Marxist-Leninist/Maoist/Stalinist movements) organisations active in years past such as (Germany's Red Army Faction and Italy's Red Brigades) as well as the such stereotypical ethnic/nationalist and separatist terrorist groups like the PLO, PIRA, Basque ETA, etc. Back.

Note 4: Including the militantly anti-government, far right paramilitary organisations that have surfaced in the United States and have been connected to the April 1995 bombing of a federal government office building in Oklahoma City as well as the Japanese Aum Shinri Kyu religious sect who committed the March 1995 nerve gas attack on the Tokyo underground. Back.

Note 5: The RAND-St Andrews University Chronology of International Terrorism includes a computerised database of international terrorist incidents that have occurred world-wide from 1968 to the present. The Chronology has been continuously maintained since 1972 (when it was created by Brian Jenkins), first by the renowned American think-tank, The RAND Corporation, in Santa Monica, California, and since 1994 by the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at St Andrews University, Scotland. The majority of the incidents in the chronology are concerned with international terrorism, defined here as incidents in which terrorists go abroad to strike their targets, select victims or targets that have connections with a foreign state (e.g., diplomats, foreign businessmen, offices of foreign corporations), or create international incidents by attacking airline passengers, personnel, and equipment. It excludes violence carried out by terrorists within their own country against their own nationals, and terrorism perpetrated by governments against their own citizens. It should also be emphasised that the data contained in the Chronology is intended to be illustrative only and does not purport nor claim to be a definitive listing of every international terrorist incident that has occurred everywhere since 1968. Its value, accordingly, is as means of identifying terrorist trends and projecting likely future terrorist patterns. Back.

Note 6: For the purposes of The RAND-St Andrews Chronology of Terrorism, terrorism is defined by the nature of the act, not by the identity of the perpetrators or the nature of the cause. Terrorism is thus taken to mean violence, or the threat of violence, calculated to create an atmosphere of fear and alarm in the pursuit of political aims. Back.

Note 7: Terrorist trends for 1994 provide a particularly good illustration of this development. For example, while 1994 was an unexceptional year in terms of the total number of terrorist incidents, the 423 fatalities recorded that year was nonetheless the fifth highest annual figure recorded in the Chronology since 1968: viz., a record 800 fatalities were recorded in 1987; followed by 663 in 1988; 661 in 1983; and 467 in 1993. Source: The RAND-St Andrews Chronology of International Terrorism. Back.

Note 8: Other incidents include: (1) the arson attack at a Abadan movie theatre in 1979 that killed more than 400; (2) the 1985 inflight bombing of an Air India passenger jet that killed all 328 persons on board; (3) the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 in 1988 that killed 278 persons; (4) the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon that killed 241; (5) the 1989 inflight bombing of a French UTA flight that killed 171; (6) The Edward P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City; (7) a 1925 bombing of a crowded cathedral in Sofia, Bulgaria where 128 persons were killed; (8) the inflight bombing, as in 1989, of a Colombian Avianca aircraft on which 107 persons perished; (9) the 1980 bombing at the Bologna, Italy railway station killed 84 persons; and, (10) the bomb placed inside a Teheran, Iran telecommunications centre, in 1974 that killed 82 persons; As terrorism expert Brian Jenkins noted in 1985 of the list upon which the preceding is an expanded version: "Lowering the criterion to 50 deaths produces a dozen or more additional incidents. To get even a meaningful sample, the criterion has to be lowered to 25. This in itself suggests that it is either very hard to kill large numbers of persons or very rarely tried." Brian M. Jenkins, The Likelihood of Nuclear Terrorism (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, P-7119, July 1985), p. 7. Back.

Note 9: As David C. Rapoport points out in his seminal study of what he terms "holy terror," until the nineteenth century, "religion provided the only acceptable justifications for terror" (see David C. Rapoport, "Fear and Trembling: Terrorism in Three Religious Traditions," American Political Science Review, Vol. 78, No. 3, September 1984, p. 659). Back.

Note 10: Numbers of active, identifiable terrorist groups from 1968 to the present are derived from The RAND-St Andrews University Chronology of International Terrorist Incidents. Back.

Note 11: Admittedly, many contemporary terrorist groups--such as the overwhelmingly Catholic Provisional Irish Republic Army; their Protestant counterparts arrayed in various Loyalist paramilitary groups like the Ulster Freedom Fighters, the Ulster Volunteer Force, and the Red Hand Commandos; and the predominantly Muslim Palestine Liberation Organization--all have a strong religious component by dint of their membership. However, it is the political and not the religious aspect that is the dominant characteristic of these groups, as evidenced by the pre-eminence of their nationalist and/or irredentist aims. Back.

Note 12: The Iranian-bakced Shi'a groupsal-Dawa and the Committee for Safeguarding the Islamic Revolution. Back.

Note 13: According to The RAND-St Andrews University Chronology of International Terrorist Incidents, between 1982 and 1989 Shi'a terrorist groups committed 247 terrorist incidents but were responsible for 1057 deaths. Back.

Note 14: These include: the March 1995 nerve-gas attack on the Tokyo underground perpetrated by a Japanese cult, the Aum Shinri Kyu; the bombing the following month of an American government office building in Oklahoma City; the series of indiscriminate bombings that rocked France between July and October 1995 and again in December 1996; the assassination in November 1995 of Prime Minister Itzhak Rabin in Israel (and its attendant significance as the purported first step in a campaign of mass murder designed to disrupt the peace process); the bombings of a joint Saudi-American military training centre in Riyadh in November 1995 and of a U.S. Air Force barracks in Dhahran the following June; alongside the bloody string of bloody suicide bombings carried out by Hamas in Israel during February and March 1996. Back.

Note 15: For example, the creation of Islamic republics modelled on Iran in predominantly Muslim countries like Algeria, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Back.

Note 16: The Aum Shinri Kyu's nerve-gas attacks on the Tokyo underground in March 1995 as part to overthrow the Japanese government and establish a new Japanese state based on the worship of the group's founder and Shokho Ashara. Back.

Note 17: The American white supremacists' alleged long-term aim in the Oklahoma City bombing to facilitate a "white revolution" in the United States and thereby spark a major "race war" that would facilitate the establishment of a "whites-only homeland" in the Pacific Northwest states in accordance with theological decree) Back.

Note 18: For a more complete and detailed discussion of this particular category of terrorist organisation, see Bruce Hoffman, "Holy Terror": The Implications of Terrorism Motivated By A Religious Imperative," Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, vol. 18, no. 4 (Winter 1995), which was also published in the RAND Paper series, under the same title, as P-7834 in July 1993. Back.

Note 19: For example, the fatwa (Islamic religious edict) issued by Iranian Shi'a clerics calling for Salman Rushdie's death; the "blessing" given to the bombing of New York City's World Trade Centre by the Egyptian Sunni cleric, Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman; and the dispensation given by Jewish rabbis to right-wing Jewish extremist violence against Arabs in Israel and the West Bank and Gaza; the approval given by Islamic clerics in Lebanon for Hezbollah operations and by their counterparts in the Gaza Strip for Hamas attacks; and, the pivotal role played by Shoko Ashara, the religious leader of Japan's Aum sect, over his followers. Back.

Note 20: For example, the estimated dozen or so terrorist training camps long operated under Syria's aegis in Lebanon's Bekka Valley; the various training bases that have been identified over the years in the Yemen, Tunisia, the Sudan, Iran and elsewhere and of course the facilities maintained during the cold war by the East Bloc. Back.

Note 21: Examples where this recently has been demonstrated include the Tokyo nerve-gas attacks perpetrated by "amateur," self-trained "terrorists" belonging to the Aum sect; the two white supremacists who are accused of mixing fertiliser and diesel-fuel together to bomb the federal government building in Oklahoma City; the Algerian youths deliberately recruited into the terrorist campaign that was waged in Paris between July and October 1995 which had initiated by their more professional counterparts in the Armed Islamic Group; and Israeli Prime Minister Rabin's assassin. Back.

Note 22: Indeed, of all the preceding, the situation that unfolded in France during this time period provides perhaps the most compelling evidence of the increasing salience of "amateurs" recruited or suborned by professional terrorists for operational purposes. French authorities, for example, believe that, while "professional" terrorists belonging to the Algerian Armed Islamic Group (GIA) may have perpetrated the initial wave of bombings, like-minded "amateurs"--drawn from within France's large and increasingly restive Algerian expatriate community--were responsible for at least some of the subsequent attacks. Back.

Note 23: Quoted in Joel Greenberg, "Israel Arrests 4 In Police Death," New York Times, 7 June 1993; and Eric Silver, "The Shin Bet's ÔWinning' Battle," The Jewish Journal (Los Angeles), 11-17 June 1993. Back.

Note 24: Matthew L. Wald, "Figuring What It Would Take to Take Down a Tower," New York Times, 21 March 1993. Back.

Note 25: In the case of the World Trade Center, the four bombers appear to have joined forces based on their attendance at the same place of worship (a Jersey City, New Jersey mosque). In one case as well, family ties (Ibrahim A. Elgabrowny, who although not charged with the Trade Center bombing specifically, was nonetheless implicated in the crime and was convicted in the subsequent plot to free the bombers, is the cousin of El Sayyid A. Nosair, who was also implicated in the Trade Center bombing, was among the 13 persons convicted in the follow-on plans to obtain the bombers' release, and is already serving a prison sentence in connection with the November 1990 assassination of Rabbi Meir Kahane). See Jim Mcgee and Rachel Stassen-Berger, "5th Suspect Arrested in Bombing," Washington Post, 26 March 1993; and, Alison Mitchell, "Fingerprint Evidence Grows In World Trade Center Blast, New York Times, 20 May 1993. Back.

Note 26: Interview with RAND Corporation research staff in New York City, November 1992. Back.

Note 27: Federal authorities reported that they had traced nearly $100,000 in funds that had been wired to some of the suspects from abroad, including transfers made from Iran. An additional $8,000 had been transferred into a joint bank account maintained by two of the bombers from Germany. Ralph Blumenthal, "$100,000 From Abroad Is Linked to Suspects in the Trade Center Explosion," New York Times, 15 February 1993. According to one of the other convicted bombers, Mahmud Abouhalima, funds had also been routed through the militant Egyptian Islamic group, Gamat al-Islamiya, whose spiritual leader is Shiekh Omar Abdel Rahman, who was convicted in connection with the June 1993 plot, and by the radical transnational Muslim Brotherhood organization. Additional financing reputedly was provided by and via Iranian businesses and Islamic institutions in Saudi Arabia and Europe. Mary B.W. Tabor, "Lingering Questions on Bombing," New York Times, 14 September 1994 Back.

Note 28: Ralph Blumenthal, "Missing Bombing Case Figure Reported to Be Staying in Iraq," New York Times, 10 June 1993. Back.

Note 29: Richard Bernstein, "Lawyer in Trade Center Blast Case Contends that Client Was a Dupe," New York Times, 16 February 1994. See also, Tom Morganthau, "A Terrorist Plot Without a Story," Newsweek, 28 February 1994. Back.

Note 30: The Trade Center bomb was composed of some 1,200 lbs. of "common sulphuric and nitric acids used in dozens of household products and urea used to fertilise lawns." The detonating device was a more complex, and extremely volatile mixture of nitro-glycerine enhanced by tanks of compressed hydrogen gases that were designed to increase the force of the blast. Richard Bernstein, "Lingering Questions on Bombing: Powerful Device, Simple Design," New York Times, 14 September 1994. See also, Richard Bernstein, "Expert Can't Be Certain of Bomb Contents at Trial," New York Times, 21 January 1994. Richard Bernstein, "Nitro-glycerine and Shoe at Center of Blast Trial Testimony," New York Times, 27 January 1994; Richard Bernstein, "Witness Sums Up Bombing Evidence," New York Times, 7 February 1994; Edward Barnes, et al., "The $400 Bomb," Time, 22 March 1993; and, Tom Morganthau, "A Terrorist Plot Without a Story," Newsweek, 28 February 1994.

Similarly, in April 1988 a Japanese Red Army terrorist, Yu Kikumura, was arrested on the New Jersey Turnpike while en route to New York City on a bombing mission. Kikumura's mission was to carry out a bombing attack against a U.S. Navy recruiting station in lower Manhattan on 15 April to commemorate the second anniversary of the 1986 U.S. airstrike against Libya. He is believed to have undertaken this operation at the behest of Libya's Colonel Qaadafi. Between his arrival in the U.S on 14 March and his arrest a month later, Kikumura travelled some 7,000 by car from New York to Chicago, through Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania purchasing materials for his bomb along the way. Found in his possession were gunpowder, hollowed-out fire extinguishers in which to place the explosive materials and roofing nails as crude anti-personnel weapons. Kikumura was sentenced to 30 years in prison. See Robert Hanley, "Suspected Japanese Terrorist Convicted in Bomb Case in New Jersey," New York Times, 29 November 1988; and, Business Risks International, Risk Assessment Weekly, vol. 5, no. 29, 22 July 1988. Back.

Note 31: N.R. Kleinfeld, "Legacy of Tower Explosion: Security Improved, and Lost," New York Times, 20 February 1993; and, Richard Bernstein, "Lingering Questions on Bombing: Powerful Device, Simple Design," New York Times, 14 September 1994. Back.

Note 32: This is in fact remarkably similar to the pattern of terrorist activity and operations that unfolded in France nearly two years late. See the discussion below. Back.

Note 33: See, for example, Susan Bell, "16 hurt in Paris nail-bomb blast," Times (London), 18 August 1995; Adam Sage, "Paris faces autumn of terror as fifth bomb is discovered," Times (London), 5 September 1995; Adam Sage, "French hold 40 in hunt for bomb terrorists," Times (London), 12 September 1995 for accounts of the bombing campaign; Alex Duval Smith, "Police fight Ôwar' in French suburbs," Guardian (London), 1 November 1995; and, Craig R. Whitney, "French Police Arrest Suspected Leader of Islamic Militant Group," New York Times, 3 November 1995. See also, "Terrorism: Political Backdrop to Paris Attacks," Intelligence Newsletter (Paris), no. 274, 26 October 1995, pp. 6-7. Back.

Note 34: The Aum sect's goal in staging the nerve gas attack, as previously noted, was (among other aims) to lay the foundations for a revolt against the Japanese government that would result in the creation of a new regime dedicated to the service of the sect's founder and leader, Shoko Asahara. For the most complete account of the Aum sect's aims, motivations, and capabilities see David E. Kaplan and Andrew Marshall, The Cult at the End of the World: The Incredible Story of Aum (London: Hutchinson, 1996). Back.

Note 35: Previously, most "professional" terrorists had shied away from employing WMD. Radical in their politics, it could be said that the vast majority of these terrorists were equally conservative in their operations. Thus, whereas technological progress has produced successively more complex, lethally effective and destructively accurate weapons systems that are deployed from a variety of air, land, and sea platforms, contemporary terrorism has mostly functioned largely in a technological vacuum, aloof or averse to the continual refinement and growing sophistication of modern warfare. Indeed, for more than a century terrorists have continued to rely almost exclusively on the same two weapons: the gun and the bomb. Admittedly, various terrorist groups--Germany's Red Army Faction, Italy's Red Brigades, and some Palestinian organisations--had occasionally toyed with the idea of using such lethally indiscriminate weapons, none had crossed the critical psychological threshold of actually implementing any of their half-baked plots (one notable exception was the attempt in 1979 by Palestinian terrorists had attempted to poison Jaffa oranges exported to Europe) Instead, most terrorists seemed almost content with the limited killing potential of their handguns and machine-guns and the slightly higher rates that their bombs achieved: adhering to an established modus operandi that, to their minds at least, minimised failure and maximised success. What innovation occurred was mostly in the methods used to conceal and detonate explosive devices, not in the terrorists' choice of tactics or in their use of chemical, biological, or even crude nuclear weapons. Like most people, terrorists appeared to fear powerful contaminants and toxins they knew little about and, moreover, were uncertain how to fabricate and safely handle, much less effectively deploy and disperse. Back.

Note 36: They include the 1985 inflight bombing of an Air India aircraft in which 328 persons perished; a series of car bombings that convulsed Bombay in 1993, killing 317 persons; the huge truck bomb that destroyed a Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires in 1994, killing 96; the bomb last year that demolished the aforementioned Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, leaving 168 dead; and the recent suspected inflight bombing of TWA flight 800. Pan Am 103, in which 278 persons perished, is an especially notorious example. Although we know that two Libyan government airline employees were identified and accused of placing the suitcase containing the bomb that eventually found its way onto the flight, no believable claim of responsibility has ever been issued. Back.

Note 37: For a more complete discussion of the no claim/increasing lethality issue, see Bruce Hoffman, "Why Terrorists Don't Claim Credit--An Editorial Comment," forthcoming in Terrorism and Political Violence, vol. 9, no. 1, (Spring 1997) and the more concise version published "A New Kind of Terrorism: Silence is Deadlier," Los Angeles Times Sunday Opinion Section, 18 August 1996. Back.

Note 38: For a more complete discussion of this issue, see Bruce Hoffman, "Responding to Terrorism Across the Technological Spectrum," Terrorism and Political Violence," vol. 6, no. 3 (Autumn 1994), which was also published in the RAND Paper series, under the same title, as P-7874, June 1996. Back.

Note 39: Although, after adulteration, fertiliser is far less powerful than plastic explosive (i.e., Semtex explodes at about 8,000 yards a second and has a high explosive rating of 1.3; improvised explosives explode at only about 3,000 yards a second and range between 0.25 and 0.8 in rating), it also tends to cause more damage than plastic explosives because the energy of the blast is sustained and less controlled. Back.

Note 40: See, for example, Graham T. Allison, et al., Avoiding Nuclear Anarchy: Containing the Threat of Loose Russian Nuclear Weapons and Fissile Material (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1996); Frank Barnaby, "Nuclear Accidents Waiting To Happen," The World Today (London), vol. 52, no. 4 (April 1996); Thomas B. Cochran, Robert S. Norris, and Oleg A. Bukharin, Making the Russian Bomb: From Stalin to Yeltsin (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995); William C. Potter, "Before the Deluge? Assessing the Threat of Nuclear Leakage from the Post-Soviet States," Arms Control Today, October 1995; Phil Williams and Paul N. Woessner, "Nuclear Material Trafficking: An Interim Assessment," Transnational Organized Crime vol., 1, no. 2 (Summer 1995); and, Paul N. Woessner, "Recent Developments: Chronology of Nuclear Smuggling Incidents, July 1991-May 1995," Transnational Organized Crime vol., 1, no. 2 (Summer 1995). Back.

Note 41: For example, a combination fertiliser truck bomb with radioactive agents would not only have destroyed the office bloc at Canary Wharf, but rendered a considerable chunk of prime real estate indefinitely unusable because of radioactive contamination. The disruption to commerce that would be caused, the attendant publicity and enhanced coercive power of terrorists armed with such "dirty" bombs (which are arguably more credible threats than terrorist acquisition of fissile nuclear weapons) hence is fundamentally disquieting. Back.

Note 42: Source: The RAND-St Andrews University Chronology of International Terrorism. Back.

Note 43: Among the most recent incidents, for example, are: the 1985 inflight bombing of an Air India passenger jet killed all 328 persons on board; the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 in 1988 killed 278 persons; the 1989 inflight bombing of a French UTA flight killed 171; and the inflight bombing in 1989, of a Colombian Avianca aircraft on which 107 persons perished. Back.