Counter Terrorism Week 3

Counter Terrorism:
https://www.nber.org/papers/w9074
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/
10.1080/09546550802544698#.UlrLHNImU68
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1745-9133.12008
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/
354117739_Poverty_and_Terrorism_in_Africa_Understanding_the_nexus_b
ased_on_existing_levels_of_Terrorism
https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/N/bo10579884.html
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1088767917736797
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1088767917736797
https://foreignpolicy.com/2009/11/20/rational-fanatics/
https://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/
Transcript:
Hi there, welcome back. Last week we discussed the state of the art of
terrorism and counterterrorism studies and looked into the difficulties, the
challenges when doing research into these phenomena. We also discussed
the research output. This week we're going to look at five of these products.
Five interesting assumptions, either because they're challenged or the
opposite. They're very much believed to be valid and they are also the basis
of many counterterrorism measures. It's good to test them, to compare
them with empirical evidence and compare them with academic literature.
It's also important to do so because terrorism is an ever-changing
phenomenon, that requires us to update our theories and assumptions
every now and then, especially if they constitute the basis of policy-making.
The five assumptions that we're going to explore and analyze are the
following. Terrorism is caused by poverty. Terrorists are crazy or insane.
Terrorism is becoming increasingly lethal, it's getting more deadly. Then we
will look at the assumption that terrorism is predominantly anti-western.
Finally, we're going to look at whether or not terrorism is successful, as
stated by some. In this video, we will discuss the first assumption about root
causes of terrorism. It states that poverty causes terrorism. It is an idea that
is almost as old as the first attempts to understand terrorism. Where does
this idea come from, and is it true?
Play video starting at :1:50 and follow transcript1:50
It should be stressed that this assumption is mostly put forward by
politicians and public figures. Here are two examples. The first one is from
the former US Secretary of State General, Colin Powell, who in 2002 said the
following. He said, "I fully believe that the root cause of terrorism does
come from situations where there is poverty, where there is ignorance,
where people see no hope in their life." The second example of somebody
who stated that poverty causes terrorism is the South African Archbishop
Desmond Tutu. In 2007, he said, "You can never win a war against terror as
long as there are conditions in the world that make people desperate;
poverty, diseases, ignorance." A third example is that of France justice
minister Christiane Taubira, who stressed the importance of targeting
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poverty and injustice as major factors in feeding terrorism. She did so at a
meeting of the UN's counterterrorism committee in February 2015.
Three examples of public figures who have stated that poverty causes
terrorism. Are these eminent persons right or wrong? Is poverty a root
cause of terrorism? First, we are going to look why this actually assumed, by
some politicians and experts that, there is a link between poverty and
terrorism. The basic idea is that poverty leads to a lack of opportunities to
improve the quality of somebody's life. I think Colin Powell referred to that.
That could result in anger towards people who are better off or in blaming
the government for the lack of these opportunities. While in combination
with the idea that terrorists are rational actors, it is argued by some that
violence might be the last resort to deal with these grievances. They also
point at the fact that there's terrorism in a lot of poor countries, that
terrorists are from the lower parts of society and that some terrorist
organizations, mainly extreme left-wing organizations, indeed claim to fight
for the poor. They subsequently assume a causal relationship between
poverty and terrorism.
Why do we have to test this assumption? Well, obviously it has
consequences for counterterrorism measures. For instance, if you think that
poverty is a root cause of terrorism, you want to do a lot more about
poverty eradication. But you want to know if it's really helpful to make the
chance of a terrorist attack any smaller. Just like with many other public
policy issues, counterterrorism policy-makers are confronted with the
problem of allocating scarce resources, money, time, people. If you spend it
on poverty eradication, you cannot spend it on something else. Let us
compare the assumption with empirical data and academic research. Let us
first have a look at some examples.
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When studying the characteristics of individual terrorists, it seems strange
to assume a direct link between poverty and terrorism. Most terrorists are
not very poor or much poorer than others. In fact, some terrorists are
extremely rich. Think of Osama Bin Laden, perhaps the most well-known
terrorist of our age, who came from a very wealthy Saudi family. There are
many other examples of terrorists from upper or upper- middle classes.
Take for instance, Anders Breivik, who killed almost 80 people in Norway, or
take an example from the 1960s and '70s from left-wing terrorism, Ulrike
Meinhof, one of the key persons of the Rotte Armee Fraktion. She also came
from a well-to-do family, was highly educated, and had lots of opportunities
in life. A more recent example is that of the so-called Jihadi John, the British-
Kuwaiti man, who was seen on several IS videos beheading captives in 2014
and 2015. Before joining IS, he went to study business management and
information systems in Britain and work for an IT company in Kuwait.
Studying the characteristics of jihadi terrorists in Europe, I found out that
they were mainly children of migrants or migrants themselves, and they
were of lower parts of society, but they were not poorer than other
migrants or children of migrants, and the same holds for many terrorists in
the less developed parts of this world. Many of them are perhaps not rich or
not even middle-class, but they are not poorer than their fellow citizens.
This has been confirmed by quite a number of studies into the backgrounds
of terrorists, which we will discuss in a bit.
First, I would like to go back to the map I presented in the first week, The
map showing terrorist attacks in 2019, based on the global terrorism
database of 2020, by the Institute for Economics and Peace. What do we
see? If we look at the map, we see that Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Syria, and
Somalia are most often confronted with terrorism. The rest of the 10 most
impacted countries are Yemen, Pakistan, India, DRC, and the Philippines. Are
these the poorest countries in the world? Well, let's take the statistics of the
International Monetary Fund, the IMF, on the gross domestic product per
capita of 212 states and territories in 2020. We see that apart from Iraq,
number 101 on the list, the other countries are indeed among the poor half
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of the world's countries. But the Philippines, Nigeria, Syria, India, and
Pakistan are not among the poorest. Only Afghanistan, Yemen, and DRC,
Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Somalia are the bottom of that list.
However, if we look at the other countries that are very low on that list, we
see many countries that do not experience high or even moderate levels of
terrorism, such as Burundi, Malawi, Madagascar, Sierra Leone, or Togo.
Some, but not all poor countries suffer from terrorism. Nonetheless, we can
say that today, the poorest countries are overrepresented on the list of
countries most impacted by terrorism. It should be stressed that this was
different in the past. Let us take the example of left-wing terrorism in the
1960s and 1970s. It were countries like Germany, Italy, and Japan that were
the most often hit by this type of terrorism. These countries, both then and
today, are among the richest in the world. Looking both at individuals and
countries, there seems to be no clear evidence of the assumption that
poverty causes terrorism, but the assumption deserves a more in-depth
look.
I would like to present to you a number of academic studies starting with
the detailed study by James Piazza from 2006. He looked at the link between
poverty and terrorism on a macro-level. He included many variables that
could directly or indirectly be related to poverty or associated with poverty,
such as low levels per capita income, high levels of illiteracy, low life
expectancy, and lack of employment opportunities. He concluded that these
poverty-related factors could not be linked to higher levels of terrorism. Two
scholars that looked at individual cases, individual lives, were Alan Krueger
and Jitka Maleckova. In their often quoted study from 2003, they
investigated the link between poverty, education, and terrorism. Their study
focused on members of the militant wing of Hezbollah, the Shiite Islamic
group and political party in Lebanon. They looked at the lives of these
persons and found out that, and I quote here, "Any connection between
poverty, education, and terrorism is indirect, complicated, and probably
quite weak." They also concluded that terrorism is rather caused by a
response to political conditions and long-standing feelings of indignity and
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frustration, that have very little to do with economics. A third study that I
would like to mention is a study by Chimere Iheonu and Hyacinth Ichoku
from 2021. In their quantitative study, they argue that poverty is not a
determining factor for terrorism in Africa. They do point at other economic
indicators, such as economic growth, income inequality, and unemployment
that affect terrorism in Africa.
So what have we learned? The idea of a link between poverty and terrorism
is mainly put forward by politicians and public figures. But statistical data on
individual terrorists and countries do not show a causal relationship
between poverty and terrorism. Scholarly literature is quite clear about the
lack of such a direct link, though some point at the possibility that income
inequality and unemployment can affect terrorism. Is the assumption that
terrorism is caused by poverty true, false, or should it be regarded a myth?
We do see a lot of politicians frequently mention poverty as a root cause,
but there is no evidence for such a causal link. Therefore, we label this
assumption 'a myth'. In the next video, we're going to explore the second
assumption, the assumption that terrorists are crazy.
Transcript:
Hi there. In the previous video, we debunked the myth that poverty is a root
cause of terrorism. In this video, we will explore the assumption that
terrorists are crazy or insane.
Play video starting at ::20 and follow transcript0:20
How is it possible that someone would kill innocent victims, sometimes even
themselves, in brutal and horrific acts? In many societies, this is regarded as
a kind of behavior that is morally reprehensible, or at least very difficult to
understand. In particular, when it relates to suicide attacks. How can
somebody do this? The answer is very often to say, well, these people must
be insane. And there are examples of persons whose behavior, both in their
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acts or in court, feed the idea of a crazy terrorist. But are they? Do they
suffer from any mental health disorders? Well, more importantly, we need
to be aware of many inherent biases or problematic use of language when
we speak about such questions. Mental health issues are in fact quite
normal and many people need to deal with those at some point in their
lives. Most of them seem to have no link at all to violence, so we need to be
very careful when we discuss this and we need to move away from the
simplistic, 'are they crazy or not?'. We need to better understand what
issues they might deal with and which ones are related to terrorism and
which ones are not.
But let's first see where it is popular and not very precise expression of
terrorists are crazy came from. Well, here you see the faces of a number of
alleged and convicted terrorists. Many people have said that these persons
were crazy. From left to right, first you see Ted Kaczynski, the so-called
'Unabomber', who sent bomb letters to universities, and then Anders
Breivik, the man who killed so many people in Norway in 2011. Then Khalid
Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the attacks on 9/11. Well, he didn't
perpetrate the attack himself, but he planned it. Can he be considered crazy
or not? Finally, Jihadi John, the British foreign fighter we discussed, who
decided to travel to Syria and who killed many people. Were these people
crazy or not? Are they really that much different from us? Well, I guess and
hope that many of you find it very difficult to understand how someone can
send a bomb letter, knowing that people will be injured or killed, or that
they plan to kill thousands by using planes. Often such violent acts evoke
strong moral outrage and that impedes us from an objective and proper
analysis of the rationale behind it and the state of the mind of the terrorists.
Because these acts are generally strongly condemned for good reasons,
there's a tendency to regard these people as fundamentally different from
us. We do say, however, that terrorists are politically motivated and they
use a text as an instrument to achieve political goals. In other words, there
seems to be a fundamental difference in terms of rationality. If there's
rationality in the acts and if it's regarded as part of the mechanism that is
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linked to some political idea, can you still call this act crazy or the behavior
of an insane person? Well, I would like to stress that understanding the
rationale behind these acts doesn't mean you cannot condemn it at the
same time, So understanding doesn't mean condoning. It is a difficult
question, difficult to define, and difficult to answer. Well, why is it
nonetheless important to answer this question?
If many terrorists indeed suffer from mental illnesses, this has consequences
for counterterrorism. It might require more cooperation with actors in
mental health care. At the same time, it might lead to the conclusion that
there is little we can do. As in every society, there are people with all kinds
of illnesses, mental illnesses, and disorders. There will be a high risk that
such numbers are misinterpreted. Even if, let's say 100 percent of all
terrorists would have mental health issues, the opposite question would
then be extremely relevant. How many of all those with a mental health
disorder, are terrorists? Well, clearly, without even trying to calculate this,
you feel that this number is extremely small and is around zero percent. It
could lead to a very unhealthy situation, in which we might stigmatize
mental health disorders. Another unwanted consequence of this assumption
being true, is that there will be no use in investigating the motivations, the
rationale of terrorists. If they are crazy, there is no political motivation or
rationale.
How have scholars and experts dealt with these questions. On the second
week, we've discussed the approaches in the study of terrorism, among
them being the rational or instrumental approach. Well, this approach
strongly rejects the idea that terrorists are crazy. Terrorism is rational
behavior, making terrorists rational actors, who kill to achieve certain
political goals. Also, within the second approach in terrorism studies, the
social-psychological approach, there's consensus that terrorists are not
crazy. Jerrold Post, for instance, one of the leading scholars and author of
the book 'The Mind of the Terrorist', is very clear on the question whether
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or not terrorists are very different from us. He stated that it's not going too
far to assert that terrorists are psychologically normal, that is not clinically
psychotic. He also said that they are not depressed. They're not severely
emotionally disturbed, nor are they crazed fanatics. In fact, terrorist groups
and organizations regularly weed out emotionally unstable individuals,
because they represent a security risk to them. Louise Richardson note that
at the individual level that there's no particular terrorist personality and that
the notion of terrorists as crazed fanatics is not consistent with the plentiful
empirical evidence available.
Such studies had an enormous impact. Up to a few years ago, it was out of
the question that there was a link between terrorism and mental health
issues. But this changed, in particular after the attacks by Breivik, and then
more research emerged into the issue of lone-actors. Some scholars thought
that these people might be different from those who act in groups. Well,
what do the data show us? Well, the evidence is mixed. Gruenewald,
Chermak and Freilich found that lone-actors indeed suffered from elevated
ranges of mental health issues. Gill and others, found that 32 percent of the
lone actors they studied had a history of mental illness. We also conducted a
study into lone-actor terrorism based on a project with Rusi, ISD and
Chatham House, and we found that in 35 percent of the cases, there might
have been some link with mental health issues.
But what did these figures mean? We can only make sense of this data if we
have a useful benchmark. Or in other words, how many of the non-terrorists
actually suffer from such issues? There are various different figures. If you
look at the prevalence today, estimates are that about 15-26 percent of the
population might currently suffer from mental health disorders. If you take a
longer approach, so you look at someone's whole lifetime, the World Health
Organization estimates that it could be up to 40 percent of the population
that needs to deal with a mental health issue in his or her life. Varying
figures, but it does raise an important question. Is a rate of about 30 percent
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for lone-acted terrorists much higher? Is this figure very helpful? Well, I'm
not sure. We should perhaps approach the issue of mental health issues
more carefully. Yes, they could and they sometimes do suffer from mental
health issues, but perhaps not any more or less than you or me. Moving
beyond just the figures, a more relevant question might be, where to draw
the line between political motives and mental health issues. If someone is
illusional, has hallucinations and cannot distinguish real from imagined.
Then perhaps we could say someone cannot be called a terrorist, because
he or she can perhaps not understand the consequences of these actions.
We need to know more about what type of mental health issues someone is
suffering from in order to see if this could be a relevant factor.
In sum, we have explored the popular idea that terrorists are crazy.
Although many people find it difficult to understand the behavior of
terrorists. Research has shown that they are, clinically speaking, rather
normal, when compared to the broader population. But more research is
needed because the data is often not conclusive and it's hard to find reliable
benchmarks for different types of mental illnesses. Overall, however, we
would label the assumption that terrorists are crazy as 'false'. In the next
video, we will explore the idea that terrorism is becoming increasingly
lethal.
Transcript:
Welcome back. In the previous video, we looked into the idea that terrorism
is becoming increasingly lethal. In this video, we are going to explore the
assumption that terrorism is predominantly anti-Western. This assumption
can be broken down into two parts. First, we will focus on the targets. Are
the targets of terrorism maybe located in the West, or do they constitute
Western targets in other parts of the world? Then we look at the rhetoric. Is
the language or discourse of terrorists mainly anti-Western. But before we
dive in, a quick note on the terminology. Like many other terms, the idea of
the West is contested. It is commonly used to refer to Europe, the Americas,
Australia, and New Zealand. It has strong cultural and often also ideological
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connotations, which is precisely why some people use it in this context as
well. But let's first see where this assumption comes from. What is the origin
of the claim?
Well, President of the United States, George W Bush hinted at it in a speech
which he delivered about 10 days after the attacks on the US in 2001. He
said that 'Americans are asking, why do they hate us?' He also knew the
answer. He says 'they hate what they see right here in this chamber: a
democratically elected government. They hate our freedoms, our freedom
of religion, our freedom of speech, and our freedom to vote and assemble
and disagree with each other'. He just hinted at an anti-Western idea or an
anti-Western agenda. There are also many statements by Osama Bin Laden,
when he was the leader of Al-Qaeda. In his statements, he clearly shows an
anti-Western agenda as well. In 2002, he stated that the priority in the
ongoing war was to target so-called infidels. In other words, the Americans
and the Jews, who have not stopped their injustice. In addition to these
statements, also, scholars and experts have pointed at anti-Western talk and
anti-Western terrorist attacks. Well, one of them is Walid Phares, who wrote
several books on jihadism. He describes and analyzes multiple examples of
how terrorist groups and individuals have waged a war against the West via
the idea of jihad. He sees this as part of an ideological war against Western
civilization and democracy. Some have argued that this anti-Western,
jihadist terrorism is a so-called new type of terrorism. Well, Martha
Crenshaw discussed the rise of this idea of a new terrorism, which she was
rather critical of. In 2000, she noted that the new terrorism is motivated by
religious belief and is more fanatical, deadly, and pervasive than the older
and more instrumental forms of terrorism that the world has grown
accustomed to. Now she shows that a large part of this new terrorism is
described as anti-Western terrorism, originating in the Middle East and
being linked to radical or fundamentalism Islam, and showing an anti-
American, and anti-Western targeting patterns.
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Well, if terrorism is indeed predominantly anti-Western, of course we, as
Western scholars might need to warn about this threat and try to
understand why this is the case and what can be done about it. But what if
it's not true? What if terrorism is not mainly aimed against the West? Well
then spreading the idea of anti-Western terrorism is not very helpful. In fact,
in that case, we will actually help those who would like to threaten the West
and we give room to those who benefit from the false claim that terrorism is
anti-Western. Moreover, we might contribute to the notion of a clash of
civilization, as put forward by Samuel Huntington. Or we might strengthen
the idea of a clash or struggle between Christianity and Islam. Again, this is
not a good idea, and especially if the facts do not support such a clash or
struggle. Those kind of frames might for instance, influence the way we look
at certain communities and individuals from different cultural backgrounds.
It can lead to generalization and stereotyping. For instance, in the West, it
could lead to a situation in which some people might see their Muslim
neighbor as a potential anti-Western person or a potential enemy.
Is terrorism predominantly aimed against Westerners or not? Or is it only
rhetoric, only empty threats? Well, let's first look at the threats, and then a
picture is clear. It is a fact that there have been many calls for terrorist
action against the West. I already mentioned Al-Qaeda, which is, of course,
the most well-known organization that has threatened the West. Or think of
Boko Haram, the name is often translated as 'Western education is sinful'.
More recently it is especially the so-called Islamic State that has threatened
to attack Westerners, and that has made headlines with various videos in
which western countries and citizens were threatened. But what about the
facts on the ground? Well, there are different ways to answer that question.
Let us first take a geographical approach. Here is a map of terrorist attacks
and fatalities, based on the data of the Global Terrorism Database. It shows
the concentration and intensity of attacks in 2019. We clearly see that the
regions that suffered the most from terrorism are not in the West. The West
in fact is confronted with very low levels of terrorism, as we also discussed
in Week 1 of this course. Look at North America, South America, Western
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Europe, Australia, and compare that with the figures and colors in the
Middle East. Compared with Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, or countries
in Africa. Also there it's mainly countries with many Muslims that are faced
with terrorism. North Africa, Nigeria, mainly the northern parts, the Muslim
populated part of that country, where Boko Haram is active. It's not the
West, but the Muslim world that is often confronted with terrorism if we
look at the facts.
Then the next question is, who are being killed in these attacks, Westerners
or Western forces? In all of the countries mentioned, the overwhelming
majority of the victims are Muslim and the data are striking. As we
mentioned in one of the first videos, of the 10 countries most hit by
terrorism, seven, in fact the entire top seven, are Muslim majority countries.
Actually some 90 percent of terrorist attacks worldwide take place in Muslim
majority countries. Of all terrorist attacks worldwide, Muslims are also the
main victims, also a number of about 90 percent. This even holds for attacks
by jihadist groups, such as al-Qaeda, its affiliates, and the so-called Islamic
State. Even when such groups had the chance to focus on Westerners in the
Middle East, they mainly target fellow Muslims. For instance, in Iraq in the
years after 2003, meaning the years after the US-led invasion, when there
was an enormous presence of Western troops, the main victims were still
Muslim. The rhetoric of these groups may be predominantly anti-Western,
but their victims are not Westerners.
What about the situation in the West? The relatively limited number of
attacks in the West, are they perhaps predominantly anti-Western?
According to the Global Terrorism Index 2020, the deadliest form of
terrorism in the West over the past two decades has been jihadist terrorism.
Jihadist terrorists were responsible for about 800 fatalities in the West since
2002. The most notable surge occurred between 2015 and 2017, with
almost 100 attacks and almost 500 deadly victims. Although jihadist
terrorism has been the deadliest form of terrorism in the West over the past
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two decades, it has not been the most common form, as you can see in this
figure. Most attacks have been what they call political, left-wing, right-wing,
and ethno-nationalist. But they resulted in smaller numbers of fatalities.
Recently, you can see that the number of politically motivated attacks has
increased steadily. Between 2015 and 2019 there were about 350 political
terrorist incidents, resulting in almost 200 people killed. Zooming in on the
US, the picture is somehow different. Of 409 people killed in terrorist attacks
post-9/11, 124 were killed by jihadist. Around a similar figure, however, was
killed by individuals and groups that could be categorized as right-wing
extremists. In the US jihadists have not been responsible for most fatalities
after 9/11 in contrast to Europe. Another important observation is that
looking at attacks in the West, some were perpetrated by individuals who
actually claimed to defend Western culture. Think of Breivik in 2011 or the
Christchurch shooter in New Zealand in 2019. Rather the opposite of anti-
Western terrorism.
The assumption that terrorism is predominantly anti-Western, is it true,
partly true, false, or should we maybe call it a myth? I guess we see a mixed
picture. The rhetoric of al-Qaeda, the so-called Islamic State and other
jihadist groups is definitely anti-Western. These religiously inspired groups
dominate the current wave of terrorism. They are responsible for a high
number of attacks and many victims. However, when we look at these
victims or the location of these attacks, it is not mainly anti-Western. The
overwhelming majority of the attacks take place in the Muslim world and
targeted the local Muslim population. In the West the majority of the
attacks is linked to ethno-nationalist, right-wing and left-wing groups. Next
to relatively few, but much more deadly attacks by jihadi terrorists.
Therefore, we labelled this assumption as 'partly true or even false',
depending on whether you regard rhetoric as equally important as people
killed in attacks. Having said that, I think it's more appropriate to label this
assumption as false. In the next video, we will investigate the idea that
terrorism is successful.
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Transcript:
In the last video, we explored the assumption that terrorists are crazy. In
this video, we will look into the assumption that terrorism has become more
lethal, more deadly in the past decades. This assumption can be interpreted
in two ways. First, you can look at the number of fatalities, the total number
of people being killed in terrorist attacks.
You can also see it from a different angle by looking at individual terrorist
attacks. So you look at the number of people killed per attack.
Well, it should be noted that these two sides are independent of each other.
The origin of this claim or assumption that terrorism has become more
lethal, can be linked to the idea that terrorism has been the defining feature
of our era. That, according to some, we live in a post 9/11 world after the
attacks killing 3000 people in New York.
And it is also rooted in the idea that terrorism has become a very big threat
more so than in the past. Here are some examples of quotes by politicians
and scholars that hint at a new type of terrorism, one that is deadlier than in
the past.
The first quote is by Dick Cheney, who was the vice president of the United
States from 2001 to 2009, and in 2004, he said the following: He said the
biggest threat we face now as a nation is the possibility of terrorists ending
up in the middle of one of our cities with deadlier weapons than have ever
been used before against us. So biological agents or nuclear weapons or a
chemical weapon of some kind to be able to threaten the life of hundreds of
thousands of Americans.
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Also, scholars have hinted at increased lethality of terrorism. In 2009 Peter
Neumann, a German scholar working in London at King's College, said: 'in
the era of the new terrorism, the two considerations: violence and symbolic
value, seem to have merged with mass casualty attacks against civilian
populations being routine and intentional'.
And more recently in 2021, according to the website of the French Ministry
for Europe and Foreign Affairs, it said the following: 'International terrorism
is one of the most serious threats to international peace and security and
this threat has never been so strong'.
In the previous video, I quoted Brian Jenkins, who in 1975 stated that
terrorists want a lot of people watching, but not a lot of people dead. And
who in 2006, after the 9/11 attacks, rephrased his statement. In 2006, he
said that the most striking development is that terrorism has become
bloodier in terms of the acts committed and how many victims are involved.
In his publication in 1975, he described a number of constraints that
terrorists were facing at that time. These constraints included a sense of
morality, a self-image, operational codes and all kinds of practical concerns.
In 2006, he noted that these constraints had given way to large scale,
indiscriminate violence. And he rephrased his famous quote from 1975. His
new code is as follows: He said 'many of today's terrorists want a lot of
people watching and a lot of people dead'.
Are these ideas and statements about the growing threat and lethality of
terrorism based on facts and proper analysis of data?
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Well, unfortunately, the attacks on 9/11 and many other individual attacks
in Russia, Indonesia, France and many parts in the Middle East, South Asia
and Africa did cost the lives of dozens or even a few 100 people. So yes,
terrorist attacks can be very lethal.
We also see that certain terrorist groups are interested in the use of
unconventional weapons and weapons of mass destruction, and some even
tried to use them in suicide attacks. In other words, there is ample reason to
be very worried about the deadliness of terrorism and the possibility that
terrorism is becoming even more lethal. That is why it's very important to
test this assumption.
Play video starting at :5: and follow transcript5:00
Have terrorists managed to achieve that? Has terrorism indeed become
more deadly than in the past decades? And why should we investigate this
assumption? Well, if terrorism is becoming more lethal, maybe we should
devote more means to fight this very serious physical threat.
But what if it's not? Maybe we have spent too much money on countering it
money, scarce resources, we could have used for other important issues,
such as the environment or health care or poverty reduction, making the
world a better and a safer place. Myth or fact? Let us compare the
assumption with empirical evidence. What are the numbers of people killed
in terrorist attacks and how did that figure develop over time?
To answer that question, we use the data of the global terrorism database.
Here is a graph with the number of fatalities because of terrorism in the 30
year period between 1990 and 2020.
You see the numbers are pretty high in the early 1990s, with 8-10,000
people killed per year. Then it goes down, 1995, goes up again to a pretty
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high number in 1997, and it reaches a relatively low number just before the
attacks on 9/11 in 2001.
Well, these particular attacks cost the lives of 3000 people, leading to an
increase in that year.
After that year, it went back to pre 9/11 levels, and then from 2003 on, you
see a gradual increase, which leads to a peak in 2007, with more than
12,000 fatalities worldwide.
But since then, the line again is going slightly downward, until 2012, when
there were about 15,000 people killed in terrorist attacks.
And from then on, it's bad news with a number quickly going up, to an all
time high in 2014, with over 40,000 people killed because of terrorism.
This is to a large extent related to the civil wars in Syria and Iraq and the rise
of Islamic state.
But with the decline of that particular group and developments elsewhere,
we see that fortunately the numbers go down to about 14,000 in 2019. So
what do we make out of this? What do you think yourself? How would you
describe this trend? Is there a trend? And how does it relate to the
discussion on the definition of terrorism?
I think it can best be described as a line with ups and downs and an
enormous peak in 2014 because of the civil wars in Syria and Iraq.
Play video starting at :8: and follow transcript8:00
18
It also very much depends whether or not you consider the casualties of the
violence in Syria and Iraq as casualties of terrorism? If you take those two
countries out of the statistics, the picture looks very different. Against this
backdrop. It is safe to say that it is difficult to speak of a general trend and I
think there are no indications for the future. It could go up again. It could go
down, even further.
I think what you can say is that there is no general trend and it's definitely
not one that is always going upwards and that civil wars very much influence
the statistics.
But what about the lethality in terms of the number of people killed or
injured per attack? Is there a clear picture regarding this part of the
assumption? Again, I would like to use the work of James Piazza, who also
was helpful in exploring whether or not poverty leads to terrorism.
In a study from 2009, he explores data on victims per international terrorist
attack. He used the data of the terrorism knowledge base, that was later
incorporated in the global terrorism database. Piazza shows that the
number of victims per terrorist attack has increased in the period up to the
beginning of this century.
The data showed that in the period of 1968-1979, there were on average
about two victims per attack, and that included both injured and killed.
This number has gone up in the 1980s, it was almost four, and in the 1990s,
it increased to over 10 victims per attack. And in the first five years of the
new millennium, so between 2000 and 2005, it increased even further, to
almost 11 victims. If you look at the data of the global terrorism database
for the period after 2005, we see that the trend has not continued. Actually,
19
the number of victims per attack went down. In the year 2014, so the year of
the peak of both the number of attacks and the number of victims, there
were on average 2.6 fatalities and 2.4 injured per attack, which is
comparable to the situation in the early 1990s.
And now the conclusion, myth or fact? True or false? is terrorism becoming
more deadly? We falsified a part of the assumption that says that terrorism
kills more and more people each year. And the part of the assumption that
says that the number of victims per attack is increasing also provides a
mixed picture, one with ups and downs. Combining the two. I think we can
conclude that the assumption that terrorism is increasingly lethal as false,
although it is important to stress that the overall number of fatalities has
significantly increased. If we compare the current situation with that of the
1990s or earlier periods. In the next video, we will explore the assumption
that terrorism is predominantly anti-Western.
Transcript:
Welcome back. In the previous video, we looked into the idea that terrorism
is becoming increasingly lethal. In this video, we are going to explore the
assumption that terrorism is predominantly anti-Western. This assumption
can be broken down into two parts. First, we will focus on the targets. Are
the targets of terrorism maybe located in the West, or do they constitute
Western targets in other parts of the world? Then we look at the rhetoric. Is
the language or discourse of terrorists mainly anti-Western. But before we
dive in, a quick note on the terminology. Like many other terms, the idea of
the West is contested. It is commonly used to refer to Europe, the Americas,
Australia, and New Zealand. It has strong cultural and often also ideological
connotations, which is precisely why some people use it in this context as
well. But let's first see where this assumption comes from. What is the origin
of the claim?
20
Well, President of the United States, George W Bush hinted at it in a speech
which he delivered about 10 days after the attacks on the US in 2001. He
said that 'Americans are asking, why do they hate us?' He also knew the
answer. He says 'they hate what they see right here in this chamber: a
democratically elected government. They hate our freedoms, our freedom
of religion, our freedom of speech, and our freedom to vote and assemble
and disagree with each other'. He just hinted at an anti-Western idea or an
anti-Western agenda. There are also many statements by Osama Bin Laden,
when he was the leader of Al-Qaeda. In his statements, he clearly shows an
anti-Western agenda as well. In 2002, he stated that the priority in the
ongoing war was to target so-called infidels. In other words, the Americans
and the Jews, who have not stopped their injustice. In addition to these
statements, also, scholars and experts have pointed at anti-Western talk and
anti-Western terrorist attacks. Well, one of them is Walid Phares, who wrote
several books on jihadism. He describes and analyzes multiple examples of
how terrorist groups and individuals have waged a war against the West via
the idea of jihad. He sees this as part of an ideological war against Western
civilization and democracy. Some have argued that this anti-Western,
jihadist terrorism is a so-called new type of terrorism. Well, Martha
Crenshaw discussed the rise of this idea of a new terrorism, which she was
rather critical of. In 2000, she noted that the new terrorism is motivated by
religious belief and is more fanatical, deadly, and pervasive than the older
and more instrumental forms of terrorism that the world has grown
accustomed to. Now she shows that a large part of this new terrorism is
described as anti-Western terrorism, originating in the Middle East and
being linked to radical or fundamentalism Islam, and showing an anti-
American, and anti-Western targeting patterns.
Well, if terrorism is indeed predominantly anti-Western, of course we, as
Western scholars might need to warn about this threat and try to
understand why this is the case and what can be done about it. But what if
21
it's not true? What if terrorism is not mainly aimed against the West? Well
then spreading the idea of anti-Western terrorism is not very helpful. In fact,
in that case, we will actually help those who would like to threaten the West
and we give room to those who benefit from the false claim that terrorism is
anti-Western. Moreover, we might contribute to the notion of a clash of
civilization, as put forward by Samuel Huntington. Or we might strengthen
the idea of a clash or struggle between Christianity and Islam. Again, this is
not a good idea, and especially if the facts do not support such a clash or
struggle. Those kind of frames might for instance, influence the way we look
at certain communities and individuals from different cultural backgrounds.
It can lead to generalization and stereotyping. For instance, in the West, it
could lead to a situation in which some people might see their Muslim
neighbor as a potential anti-Western person or a potential enemy.
Is terrorism predominantly aimed against Westerners or not? Or is it only
rhetoric, only empty threats? Well, let's first look at the threats, and then a
picture is clear. It is a fact that there have been many calls for terrorist
action against the West. I already mentioned Al-Qaeda, which is, of course,
the most well-known organization that has threatened the West. Or think of
Boko Haram, the name is often translated as 'Western education is sinful'.
More recently it is especially the so-called Islamic State that has threatened
to attack Westerners, and that has made headlines with various videos in
which western countries and citizens were threatened. But what about the
facts on the ground? Well, there are different ways to answer that question.
Let us first take a geographical approach. Here is a map of terrorist attacks
and fatalities, based on the data of the Global Terrorism Database. It shows
the concentration and intensity of attacks in 2019. We clearly see that the
regions that suffered the most from terrorism are not in the West. The West
in fact is confronted with very low levels of terrorism, as we also discussed
in Week 1 of this course. Look at North America, South America, Western
Europe, Australia, and compare that with the figures and colors in the
Middle East. Compared with Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, or countries
in Africa. Also there it's mainly countries with many Muslims that are faced
22
with terrorism. North Africa, Nigeria, mainly the northern parts, the Muslim
populated part of that country, where Boko Haram is active. It's not the
West, but the Muslim world that is often confronted with terrorism if we
look at the facts.
Then the next question is, who are being killed in these attacks, Westerners
or Western forces? In all of the countries mentioned, the overwhelming
majority of the victims are Muslim and the data are striking. As we
mentioned in one of the first videos, of the 10 countries most hit by
terrorism, seven, in fact the entire top seven, are Muslim majority countries.
Actually some 90 percent of terrorist attacks worldwide take place in Muslim
majority countries. Of all terrorist attacks worldwide, Muslims are also the
main victims, also a number of about 90 percent. This even holds for attacks
by jihadist groups, such as al-Qaeda, its affiliates, and the so-called Islamic
State. Even when such groups had the chance to focus on Westerners in the
Middle East, they mainly target fellow Muslims. For instance, in Iraq in the
years after 2003, meaning the years after the US-led invasion, when there
was an enormous presence of Western troops, the main victims were still
Muslim. The rhetoric of these groups may be predominantly anti-Western,
but their victims are not Westerners.
What about the situation in the West? The relatively limited number of
attacks in the West, are they perhaps predominantly anti-Western?
According to the Global Terrorism Index 2020, the deadliest form of
terrorism in the West over the past two decades has been jihadist terrorism.
Jihadist terrorists were responsible for about 800 fatalities in the West since
2002. The most notable surge occurred between 2015 and 2017, with
almost 100 attacks and almost 500 deadly victims. Although jihadist
terrorism has been the deadliest form of terrorism in the West over the past
two decades, it has not been the most common form, as you can see in this
figure. Most attacks have been what they call political, left-wing, right-wing,
and ethno-nationalist. But they resulted in smaller numbers of fatalities.
23
Recently, you can see that the number of politically motivated attacks has
increased steadily. Between 2015 and 2019 there were about 350 political
terrorist incidents, resulting in almost 200 people killed. Zooming in on the
US, the picture is somehow different. Of 409 people killed in terrorist attacks
post-9/11, 124 were killed by jihadist. Around a similar figure, however, was
killed by individuals and groups that could be categorized as right-wing
extremists. In the US jihadists have not been responsible for most fatalities
after 9/11 in contrast to Europe. Another important observation is that
looking at attacks in the West, some were perpetrated by individuals who
actually claimed to defend Western culture. Think of Breivik in 2011 or the
Christchurch shooter in New Zealand in 2019. Rather the opposite of anti-
Western terrorism.
The assumption that terrorism is predominantly anti-Western, is it true,
partly true, false, or should we maybe call it a myth? I guess we see a mixed
picture. The rhetoric of al-Qaeda, the so-called Islamic State and other
jihadist groups is definitely anti-Western. These religiously inspired groups
dominate the current wave of terrorism. They are responsible for a high
number of attacks and many victims. However, when we look at these
victims or the location of these attacks, it is not mainly anti-Western. The
overwhelming majority of the attacks take place in the Muslim world and
targeted the local Muslim population. In the West the majority of the
attacks is linked to ethno-nationalist, right-wing and left-wing groups. Next
to relatively few, but much more deadly attacks by jihadi terrorists.
Therefore, we labelled this assumption as 'partly true or even false',
depending on whether you regard rhetoric as equally important as people
killed in attacks. Having said that, I think it's more appropriate to label this
assumption as false. In the next video, we will investigate the idea that
terrorism is successful.
Transcript:
24
Discussion: Well after listening all the lectures, I think there is mix category
of terrorism. The terrorist who are jihadist they are anti-western also anti
Christians. The peoples who are targeted by these Islamist terrorists in the
west, they are the peoples become terrorist as anti-Islamism. The jihadist
they want them to eradicate the western culture as they want their
domination in the world.
I think the Muslim world is liberal then before, and peoples they want to
listen to those peoples who are mainly controlling them before and applying
religious rules on their peoples, as we can see in the Afghanistan the Taliban
has takeover the country and apply their religious rules and regulation.
Well in my assumption that every terrorism has its own purpose and
narrative.
Is terrorism predominantly anti-western? Well Yes, I some cases.
Different types of terrorism based on ideology (according to Europol):
a. Religiously inspired group's target is any defined group that is not

them. For example Sunni may target Shia or Ibadi Muslims as well as
Christians, Jews, Hindi, etc.
b. Ethno-nationalist and separatists target those that are preventing their

separation into a homogeneous group
c. Left-wing and anarchists those that are preventing their coalescing

into a homogeneous group
25
d. Right-wing those that are preventing their coalescing into a
homogeneous group
e. Single issue those that are preventing their coalescing into a

homogeneous group
conflicts
Transcript:
Hi there. In a previous video we discussed the assumption that terrorism is
predominantly anti-Western. Arriving at the conclusion that this is partly
true or even false. In this video we will investigate the idea that terrorism is
successful.
Who is saying the terrorists are successful? I guess we also contributed to
that, by repeatedly stating that terrorism is making headlines. That it is high
on political agendas. That's true. Isn't that what terrorists want? Is that a
success? Is it enough to be talked about in political fora? I guess that is not
enough. If you take the definitions of terrorism, it very often contains the
words 'political goals'. That is helpful when determining levels of success for
terrorism. If you agree that terrorism is an instrument to achieve certain
political goals, by means of violence and intimidation, the way to approach
success should be twofold. First, the question is, whether or not terrorists
indeed manage to cause attention for their message and cause fear?
Second, the question is, if terrorists achieve their political goals? These are
relatively simple criteria to measure the success and to compare it with
empirical evidence. Think of public opinion polls or discourse analysis and
with academic literature. Of course there are many other ways to measure
the direct or indirect success of terrorism. Here are few examples. Terrorism
might be labelled or called a success, if they reach a high number of
casualties, or when they are perceived as powerful actors, with whom a
government or any other actor, has to deal or negotiate with. Or simply
26
when the terrorist avoid capture or death and when the organization itself is
able to survive. If they last for decades, that might also be an example of
success.
Why should we test this assumption? If you believe and continue to say that
terrorism is successful and it is not, that might lead to unnecessary fatalism
about the efforts to counter this threat. Moreover, it may give terrorists the
feeling that their threats and attacks actually work and stimulate them to
continue their violent activities and attract new recruits. If it is true that
terrorists succeed, authorities need to alter counterterrorism strategies. Let
us now look at how we can approach this question of success starting with
the political goals.
Most academics have looked at the stated political aims of these
organizations. This is closely linked to the rational or instrumental approach
that sees terrorism as an instrument, that believes that terrorists make a
cost-benefit analysis to see if it is a useful tool for them. If terrorists use
violence, apparently they think this might work. An important author who
tried to measure this is Max Abrahms. In his publication 'Why terrorism does
not work', he analyzed 28 terrorist organizations that are on the US list of
designated terrorist groups. He came to two conclusions. First, the groups
accomplished their policy objectives only 7 percent of the time, only 7
percent. Second, the level of success depends on tactical choices. In
particular, target selection. Groups whose attacks on civilian targets
outnumber the attacks on military targets, systematically fail to achieve
their political and policy objectives. These findings suggest that terrorist
groups rarely achieve their political objectives and that the poor success rate
is inherent to the tactic of terrorism itself. You fail if you attack civilians.
That's really the bottom line here. According to Abramhs, the outcome of
this study challenges the dominant scholarly opinion that terrorism is
strategically rational behavior. How can it be if terrorism obviously provides
very limited political return for the efforts of the terrorists. Other authors
27
have reached similar conclusions about a lack of success for terrorists. Why
do terrorists still use this form of violence if it does not help them to achieve
their goals?
Paul Wilkinson, for instance, noted that some terrorists appear to believe
that terrorism will always work for them in the end, by intimidating their
opponents into submitting to their demands. But he also observes that
terrorists only rarely succeeded in achieving some of their strategic goals.
These are just a few exceptions in recent history, which occurred in the
period of anti-colonial struggles against the British and the French.
Wilkinson gave the example of the Front de Liberation Nationale in Algeria,
which he considers a success. After this period, there's not a single case of a
success of a terrorist group in terms of seizing control in any country.
Another important author who has looked into the success of terrorism is
Brian Jenkins. In an article in 2006, he expressed worries over increased
professionalism of terrorists and the increase in casualties. But he's sceptical
about their success. Terrorists have yet to achieve their own stated long-
range objectives. He calls that the paradox of terrorism. Terrorists often
succeed tactically and thereby gain attention, cause alarm, and attract
recruits, but their struggle has brought them no success measured against
their own stated goals. In that sense terrorism has failed, but the
phenomenon of terrorism continues according to Jenkins.
How did these findings relate to the case of Al-Qaeda, the organization that
caused the most casualties in one attack in history? Has Al-Qaeda been
successful? Let us have a look at this organization and its closest affiliates.
What were or are there political goals? Well, the problem is that they are
rather vague and seem to change all the time. They have included the
establishment of a Pan-Islamic caliphate or to overthrow non-Islamic
regimes and the expulsion of all foreigners from Muslim countries, and
according to some Al-Qaeda affiliates, the killing of Jews, Americans, and
other so-called infidels, among them, many Muslims. Well, how successful
28
has that group been? What do you think? I think they have not managed to
achieve those goals at all: a failure at a cost of many lives of innocents from
Washington to New York and from Baghdad to Mogadishu. Nonetheless, Al-
Qaeda has managed to drag the United States and its allies into a costly war
in Afghanistan and military operations in other parts of the world. The
terrorist threat does not seem to have decreased there, despite the fact that
many of its leaders have been captured or killed, such as Bin Laden but Al-
Qaeda is still there.
This raises the question, whether or not one should measure the success of
terrorist groups, like Al-Qaeda, by only looking at the extent to which they
have reached their stated political goals. What about high levels of fear or
the enormous investments in terms of counterterrorism, or the fact that the
threat posed by terrorism is still high on political agendas, Should that not
also be considered a sign of success? If so, how successful have terrorists
and terrorist organizations, been in recent years? If we look at the success of
terrorism in terms of making headlines, it is clear that terrorists are very
good at that. Or maybe I should phrase or rephrase that and say that
terrorists and the media are very good at that. After all, it's not the terrorists
who write the headlines, it is journalists who do so because, well, there's a
demand for it. You and I want to read about it. Many scholars have studied
media reporting. For instance, Iyengar and Kinder showed that between
1981 and 1986 more new stories were broadcast by the three main TV
networks at that time in the United States, ABC, CBS, and NBC on terrorism,
than on poverty, unemployment, racial inequality, and crime. This is a study
from quite some time before 9/11. There are also many studies that have
looked into media coverage after 9/11. The general conclusion of these
studies is that the reporting of 9/11 and terrorism was unprecedented. It
went on for days and really all parts of the world were confronted with the
horrible images of that attack. Well, you have probably seen them. But also
other large terrorist attacks have attracted a lot of media attention
worldwide. Think of the attacks in Bali in 2002 or the ones in Paris in 2015.
29
One way to see how terrorists managed to spread dread and fear is by using
public opinion polls. Take for instance, the famous Gallup polls, which asks
Americans how worried they are that they, or a family member, could
become a victim of terrorism. While about a quarter of the Americans were
worried in 2000, so just before 9/11, and of course it registers heights or 58
percent in the immediate aftermath of these attacks. But since then, it has
varied between 28 and 48 percent. Well, the same holds for Europe. The
Eurobarometer, which is the public opinion poll by the European Union,
shows that concern over terrorism also had its ups and downs in the past
decade in Europe. Here you see a graph of how the worries evolved after a
number of major attacks in Western Europe. It shows how terrorism was
seen as a more important issue in the years after 2014, when Europe was
confronted with several attacks. The numbers have gone down, a lot since
that year. In 2021, only about 8 percent of EU citizens considered it to be
among the most important issues for the EU. Unfortunately, there are few
public opinion polls outside the Western world, that specifically focus on
terrorism, and that ask questions about terrorism on a regular basis. So
what to make of all these ideas and facts about the level of success of
terrorism?
What can we say about the success of terrorism? Well, this depends strongly
on your definition of success. Very few terrorist organizations achieved their
stated political goals, but they do manage to attract a lot of media attention
and attacks lead to high levels of fear. This fear, however, does not last
forever. In the short run, the terrorists might get the attention they seek,
but otherwise they are not very successful. I think therefore, that we should
label this assumption as 'partly true'. Next week we will investigate five
assumptions on counterterrorism, and compare them with empirical
evidence and academic literature. We hope to see you back next week.
Discussion:
30
Well, I think that terrorism is successful and not successful sometimes,
based on the scenario. Well, it all depends on the way how it will execute,
and it is for which purpose.
Well on the other hand if I see the purpose of doing terrorism is fulfil or not,
then yes.
Terrorists are successful to achieve in what they want to do after
successfully execute the terrorism.
In what did Iheonu and Ichoku conclude in regards to the relationship between poverty and terrorism
in Africa?
1 point
Poverty is not a determining factor, nor do other economic factors seem to play a role
Poverty might lead to a decrease in terrorism
Poverty is a determining factor
Poverty is not a determining factor, but other economic factors might play a role
2.
Question 2
In their article “Poverty And Terrorism: Is There A Causal Connection?", Krueger and Malečková
come to the following conclusions (check all that apply)?
1 point
Terrorism is rather caused by a response to political conditions and long-standing feelings of

indignity and frustration that have little to do with economics
Any connection between education, poverty and terrorism is indirect, complicated and probably quite
weak
31
Most suicide terrorists are highly educated but poor, which leads to feelings of frustration
Terrorism is caused by a response to socio-political conditions, including poverty
3.
Question 3
Which of the main approaches in studying terrorism and counterterrorism rejects the notion that
terrorists are crazy a priori, i.e. independently of or in advance of experience of the subject matter.
1 point
Instrumental/rational approach
(Socio-)psychological approach
Ethical approach
Multicausal approach
Neorealist approach
Legal approach
4.
Question 4
Jerrold Post, one of the most important scholars into the psychology of terrorists, is very clear on the
question whether or not terrorists are crazy. He said:
1 point
“They are not depressed, nor severely emotionally disturbed, nor are they crazed fanatics”
“Terrorist groups and organizations like to use emotionally unstable individuals to commit suicide
attacks”
32
“It is not going too far to assert that terrorists are clinically psychotic”
“Terrorists are rational actors and crazed fanatics at the same time”
5.
Question 5
Which of the following factors have contributed to an increase in lethality per terrorist attack? (check
all that apply)
1 point
Successful counterterrorism measures
A combination of techniques and tactics
Less surveillance of possible targets of terrorism
Changed ethics or operational codes
The use of unconventional weapons
The increase of cyber terrorism
6.
Question 6
The Global Terrorism Database contains data consisting of the number of terrorist attacks and the
number of fatal attacks. The general trend of deadly victims between 1991 and 2010 could best be
described as:
1 point
A steady decline in the number of deadly victims since 1991
High numbers of deadly victims in the 1980s and low numbers of victims in the period after 9/11
33
One with ups and downs since 1991
No change until 9/11, after which the numbers increased dramatically
A gradual increase in the number of deadly victims since 1991
7.
Question 7
Does the geography of terrorist attacks that have taken place in the last decade support the idea that
terrorism is mainly anti-western?
1 point
No, most terrorist attacks do not take place in either the Americas, Europe or Australia
Yes, most terrorist attacks take place in the Americas, Europe and Australia
Yes, most terrorist attacks take place in North America, although the Islamic world is also often
targeted
No, most terrorist attacks do not take place in Europe or Australia although North-America is
frequently targeted by terrorists
8.
Question 8
In his publication “Why terrorism does not work”, Max Abrahms comes up with several interesting
conclusions about the success of terrorism. What conclusions did he draw? (check all that apply)
1 point
The level of success depends on tactical choices, especially target selection
Groups, whose attacks on military targets outnumber civilian targets, systematically succeeded in
achieving their policy objectives
34
Groups, who mainly tried to attack political leaders, systematically failed to achieve their policy
objectives
Groups, whose attacks on civilian targets outnumber military targets, systematically failed to achieve
their policy objectives
9.
Question 9
Brian Jenkins, in The New Age of Terrorism, speaks of the paradox of terrorism. How does he
describe this paradox?
1 point
“Terrorist often fail tactically … but … (this) has still brought them considerable success measured
against their own stated goals”
"Terrorists often succeed tactically … but … (this) has brought them no success measured against
their own stated goals”
“Terrorists often succeed strategically … and … (this) has brought them considerable success
measured against their own stated goals”
“Terrorists often fail tactically … and … (this) has brought them no success measured against their
own stated goals”
10.
Question 10
The Eurobarometer has measured the levels of concern over terrorism in Europe in the last
decades. What can be said about the results of these polls?
1 point
There has been hardly any change in the levels of fear since 9/11
There has been a steady decline in the levels of fear since 9/11 and they are now at an all-time low
There has been a gradual increase in the levels of fear after 9/11
35
There has been a gradual increase in the levels of fear since the 1980s and they are now at an all-
time high
The levels of fear have gone up and down and are now more or less back at pre-9/11 levels
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Counter Terrorism Week 3

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Counter Terrorism Week 3

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Counter Terrorism:

Is terrorism predominantly anti-western? Well Yes, I some cases.

Different types of terrorism based on ideology (according to Europol):

a. Religiously inspired group's target is any defined group that is not

b. Ethno-nationalist and separatists target those that are preventing their

c. Left-wing and anarchists those that are preventing their coalescing

e. Single issue those that are preventing their coalescing into a

Poverty might lead to a decrease in terrorism

Poverty is a determining factor

Terrorism is rather caused by a response to political conditions and long-standing feelings of

Terrorism is caused by a response to socio-political conditions, including poverty

Successful counterterrorism measures

A combination of techniques and tactics

Less surveillance of possible targets of terrorism

Changed ethics or operational codes

The use of unconventional weapons

The increase of cyber terrorism

A steady decline in the number of deadly victims since 1991

No change until 9/11, after which the numbers increased dramatically

A gradual increase in the number of deadly victims since 1991

The level of success depends on tactical choices, especially target selection

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