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Success, Lethality, and Cell Structure Across the Dimensions of Al Qaeda

2011; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 34; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/1057610x.2011.561469

1521-0731

Scott Helfstein, Dominick Wright,

Political Conflict and Governance

Abstract While experts understand that Al Qaeda's attack patterns and operational qualities are changing, they struggle to identify and generate consensus on Al Qaeda's strategic center of gravity. By defining different levels of Al Qaeda, core, periphery, and movement, this article engages current debates about the threat by focusing on the operational differences across these three levels. Contrary to conventional wisdom about operational efficiency, the social movement has a higher success rate but the core imposes greater costs as measured by casualties. The cells or networks actually executing the attacks also display substantive differences. The social movement networks organize in smaller cells than either affiliated groups or the core; however, they display greater levels of connectedness. The affiliated and organization cells display fewer connections, suggestive of more disciplined operational procedure despite lower success rates. These patterns reflect fundamental differences across characterizations of Al Qaeda, and have significant implications for counterterrorism efforts. Acknowledgments This article not subject to US copyright law. The perspectives in this article are solely those of the authors and do not represent the United States Military Academy, the Department of the Army, or the Department of Defense. The authors would like to thank Bill Braniff, Reid Sawyer, and anonymous reviewers for helpful comments. All errors are the authors' own. Notes 1. Bruce Hoffman, "The Myth of Grass-Roots Terrorism," Foreign Affairs (May/June 2008); Marc Sageman and Bruce Hoffman, "Does Osama Still Call the Shots? Debating the Containment of al Qaeda's Leadership," Foreign Affairs (July/August 2008). 2. Martha Crenshaw, "Assessing the Al-Qa'ida Threat to the United States," CTC Sentinel (January 2010). 3. Ibid. 4. For a discussion see Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006). 5. Mark Granovetter, "The Strength of Weak Ties," American Journal of Sociology 78(6) (1973), pp. 1360–1380. 6. Crenshaw, "Assessing the Al-Qa'ida Threat to the United States." 7. Most accounts of Al Qaeda leadership after the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan note the support offered to groups operating in other parts of the world such as the GIA. For a review of these attacks, see U.S. Department of State, Patterns of Global Terrorism: 1995 (April 1995). 8. Available at www.artisresearch.com. 9. Scott Helfstein, Nasir Abdullah, and Omar al-Obadie, Deadly Vanguards: A Report on al-Qa'ida's Violence Against Muslims (West Point, NY: Combating Terrorism Center, 2009). 10. The network data was gathered by another researcher, effectively making this a double blind study. 11. Wright, The Looming Tower. 12. Daniel Benjamin and Stephen Simon, The Age of Sacred Terror (New York: Random House, 2002). 13. Note that Al Qaeda did break its ties with the GIA in Algeria as their violence grew indiscriminate. For an account of the break in Europe see Omar Nasiri, Inside the Jihad: My Life with Al Qaeda (New York: Basic Books, 2008). 14. For a discussion of Bojinka, see Zachary Abuza, Militant Islam in Southeast Asia: Crucible of Terror (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2003); on the Ethiopia attack see U.S. Department of State, Patterns of Global Terrorism: 1995 and Wright, The Looming Tower; see Wright, The Looming Tower for the Kenya embassy bombing; for the Amman cell, the LAX plot, and the U.S.S. Cole see Benjamin and Simon, The Age of Sacred Terror; on the Massoud assassination see Wright, The Looming Tower; for the Paris plot see CNN, "Sources: Bin Laden link to Paris Plot" (3 October 2001). Available at http://archives.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/10/03/inv.paris.begal/index.html; for the Tunisia plot, see BBC News, "Two Jailed Over Tunisia Bombing" (February 2009). Available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7873543.stm 15. One of the conspirators in the Mombasa attacks, Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, may also have played a role in the 1998 embassy bombing, but there is no evidence of a connection with Al Qaeda in 2002. For the Morocco attack see U.S. Department of State, Patterns of Global Terrorism: 1994; for the Daniel pearl killing see Daren Fonda, "On the Trail of Daniel Pearl," Time (27 September 2003). Available at http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,490640,00.html; for the Mombasa attack see U.S. Department of State, Patterns of Global Terrorism: 2002; on the Tel Aviv attack see Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, "Details of April 30, 2003 Tel Aviv Suicide Bombing" (3 June 2003). Available at mfa.gov.il 16. In the 2001 shoe bombing, Richard Reid had crossed paths with Moussaui at Finsbury Mosque, been involved in prayer meetings with Abu Qatada, and trained in a camp, but there is little evidence that Al Qaeda leadership had direct links to the plot. See BBC, "Who is Richard Reid?" (28 December, 2001). Available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/1731568.stm. 17. Benjamin and Simon, The Age of Sacred Terror 18. U.S. Department of State, Patterns of Global Terrorism: 1995. 19. The trends identified in what follows are robust to the movement of any marginal case. Categorizing incidents or individuals also suffers from some grey areas. The authors have tried to uphold the criteria identified earlier in as rigorous a way possible. 20. Marc Sageman, Understanding Terror Networks (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004). 21. Ibid. 22. Stuart Koschade, "A Social Network Analysis of Jemaah Islamiyah: The Applications to Counterterrorism and Intelligence," Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 29(6) (September 2006), pp. 559–575. 23. A qualification to this finding is that the data used portrays relationships and not behavior between members. Ideally, evaluation of operational security for a group assesses behavior among members and not the preexisting relationships that enabled the group to mobilize. 24. Valdis Krebs, "Uncloaking Terrorist Networks," First Monday 7(4) (2002). From this perspective, a highly dense network does not compromise operational security as long as members do not frequently use the connections among them. 25. Justin Magouirk, Scott Atran, and Marc Sageman, "Connecting Terrorist Networks," Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 31(1) (January 2008), pp. 1–16. 26. Walter Enders and Xuejuan Su, "Rational Terrorists and Optimal Network Structure," Journal of Conflict Resolution 51(1) (2007), pp. 33–57; Walter Enders and Paan Jindapon, "Network Externalities and the Structure of Terror Networks," Journal of Conflict Resolution 53(1) (2009), pp. 1–19. 27. Scott Helfstein, "Governance of Terror: New Institutionalism and the Evolution of Terrorist Organizations," Public Administration Review 69(4) (2009), pp. 727–739. 28. This could be because of a single coordinator organizing the attack or a set of protocols that members follow individually. 29. For a discussion of terrorist institutional dynamics tied to footprints and secrecy see Scott Helfstein, "Governance of Terror: New Institutionalism and the Evolution of Terrorist Organizations," Public Administration Review 69(3) (2009), pp. 727–739. 30. Jean-Luc Marret, "Al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb: A 'Glocal' Organization," Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 31(6) (2008), pp. 541–552. 31. For an analysis on "homegrown" terrorism see Mitchell D. Silber and Arvin Bhatt, Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat (New York: New York Police Department, 2007), but the variety of attacks and arrangements makes the concept difficult to apply in cases such as Najibullah Zazi. 32. Marc Sageman, Leaderless Jihad: Terror Networks in the Twenty-First Century (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008). 33. Hoffman, "Does Osama Still Call the Shots? Debating the Containment of al Qaeda's Leadership"; Enders and Su, "Rational Terrorists and Optimal Network Structure"; Enders and Jindapon, "Network Externalities and the Structure of Terror Networks." 34. Ken Kollman, John H. Miller, and Scott E. Page, "Decentralization and Search for Policy Solutions," Journal of Law Economics and Organization 16(1) (2000), pp. 102–228. 35. Additionally, it is likely that small attacks have too little impact for their taste. 36. Note that this result is true even if the Daniel Pearl result is coded as a movement attack. It is equally important to note that the success rate of movement attacks has fallen since the end of this sample, best exemplified by the large number of domestic terrorist arrests in 2009. 37. In reality, hard and soft is not a dichotomous classification. There is a continuum whereby some hard targets are harder than others, and some soft targets are softer than others. Civilian airliners may be viewed as soft targets, but penetrating airport security at multiple airports to hijack multiple planes hardens that civilian target. On the other side, a police station might be a softer target than a military outpost. Without a detailed assessment of target security before the bombing, the authors relied on the coding method used in the Global Terrorism Database. 38. This is true in the sample, but the 2009 domestic plots might offer an important turning point. Individuals part of the "homegrown" threat aiming to attack the United States often targeted military posts and federal buildings. People trained abroad and activated to attack the homeland, such as the Denver, Christmas, and Times Square plots continued to target civilian or civil infrastructure. 39. Omar Nisiri, Inside the Jihad: My Life with Al Qaeda. 40. Renato Cruz De Castro, "The Influence of Transnational Jihadist Ideology on Islamic Extremist Groups in the Philippines: The Cases of the Abu Sayyaf Group and the Rajah Solaiman Movement" in Scott Helfstein ed., Radical Islamic Ideology in Southeast Asia (West Point, NY: Combating Terrorism Center, 2009), pp. 54–73; Greg Barton, "The Historical Development of Jihadi Islamist Thought in Indonesia," in Scott Helfstein ed., Radical Islamic Ideology in Southeast Asia (West Point, NY: Combating Terrorism Center, 2009), pp. 30–53.