New Trends in Suicide Terrorism

1
New Trends in Suicide Terrorism

• Scott Atran
• Directeur de Recherche (anthropology)
• Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
• Paris, France
• and
• Adjunct Professor (psychology)
• University of Michigan
• Ann Arbor

2
Worldwide use of Suicide Terror has grown
exponentially over the last two decades gaining
in strategic importance with disruptive effects
that cascade upon the political, economic and
social routines of national life and
international relations. Suicide attacks
account for lt 5 percent of terrorist events, but
? 50 percent of casualties due to suicide
attacks.
3
(No Transcript)
4
(No Transcript)
5
Since 9/11 more than 80 of suicide attacks and
casualties come from Jihadi groups

• According to Robert Pape, neary all suicide
  actions stem not from religious ideology, but
  from organized campaigns to compel democracies
  (particularly the U.S.) to withdraw from
  attackers homelands.
• Yet after 9/11, secular nationalists like Sri
  Lankas Tamil Tigers and Turkeys PKK mounted few
  attacks.
• In 2004 U.S. military provided aid to over 100
  countries, operating over 900 installations in 46
  countries but this has exacerbated the problem
  only in Muslim lands.
• In Iraq, Jihadi martyrs from 14 Arab countries
  claim to fight against international evil, 5
  not for Iraq per se.

6
Suicide Bombing Strategic Logic or Moral Logic?

• Current analyses stress the strategic logic,
  organization, and risk assessments involved
• I will argue that these are important but not
  sufficient to explain exponential growth in
  suicide attacks.
• At the level of the organization, strategic
  calculations of utility are often critical.
• But for the individual and community, moral
  imperatives often trump utility and rational
  choice.

7
(No Transcript)
8
Abu Bakr Baasyir Emir of Jemaah
Islamiyah(interview August 2005)

• There is no nobler life than to die as a martyr
  for Jihad. None. The highest deed in Islam is
  Jihad. If we commit to Jihad, we can neglect
  other deeds, even fasting and prayer. (Note this
  is a radically new view of Islam)
• A martyrdom action cannot be postponed to care
  for family or because the community may suffer in
  retaliation. There is duty to family but duty to
  God always comes first. (Note this suggests
  moral imperatives that prohibit trade-offs and
  preclude negotiation across moral frames)
• Of course, a roadside bomb is preferable if the
  martyr can be used for bigger purposes (note
  this suggests rational calculations of utility
  within a moral frame)

9
Sheikh Hamed al-BetawiSpiritual guide of
Hamas(interview September 2004)

• Our people do not own airplanes and tanks, only
  human bombs.
• Those who carry out martyrdom operations are not
  retarded, not hopeless, not poor, but are the
  best of our people.
• They do not flee from life. They are educated,
  not illiterate, successful in their lives.

10

• Recruitment into most Jihadi groups is not like
  recruitment into a national police or army or
  university.
• Almost entirely a grass-roots operation that is
  bottom up rather than top down in the sense that
  individuals in the organizations bring in other
  family members, friends, co-workers or
  co-worshippers
• Organizations seek operatives who are usually
  better educated and well off relative to
  surrounding population, often with families and
  good careers or prospects
• Because such people show willingness to invest in
  the future and delay immediate gratification,
  unlike most regular army and police, and thus can
  sustain resource-deficient insurgencies

11

• Decentralized kinship, ethnic and religious
  networks also offer good prospects for sustaining
  resource-deficient insurgencies because they
  provide a social structure that underpins the
  maintenance of reputations and the efficient
  gathering of information about candidate members
  to ward against defection.
• In Arab society, family reputation based on
  purity of lineage and honor is the still a main
  determinant of economic, social and political
  status. This thick web of social ties also makes
  difficult for counterintelligence to penetrate.

12
Suicide Terrorism as Costly Signaling

• Sacrificing its best and the brightest signals
  the organizations costly commitment to the
  community
• This underpins trust in the organization, thus
  increasing the organizations political market
  share in the community

13
Israeli CountermeasuresNumber of suicide
attempts versus abort/thwart rate
14

• - There is a good correlation between the
  percentage of activists neutralized and the drop
  in terrorist activity once the rate of
  neutralization reached the level of 20-25, the
  number of suicide attempts started to drop down
  significantly.
• - 20-25 threshold is known in military history
  to be the desired rate of the destruction of a
  division in order to stop it functioning as an
  organic unit.
• This may be a general characteristic of
  Systems.
• A system is more than a set of components.
  Components should interact coherently which each
  other to function as a system.
• Built in redundancy to overcome failures of
  components.
• But redundancy not unlimited because it is a
  burden on the effectiveness of the system.
• Therefore, a universal characteristic of any
  system involves determining the ratio of
  redundancy to its size.

15
But what works for fighting local terrorism may
backfire in fighting global terrorism

• Even with top Qaeda leaders dead or in custody,
  the transnational terror fraternity is
  transforming into a hydra-headed network more
  difficult to fight
• Like pounding mercury with a hammer, military
  responses alone seems to breed more decentralized
  - and less containable - forms of terrorism
• gt 80 of members of organizations that condone
  suicide terrorism and attacks on the far enemy
  (U.S.) live in Diaspora communities
• Members of the terrorist Diaspora are
  significantly more like to advocate apocalyptic
  terrorism using WMDs

16
Joining Global Network Jihad(data from Marc
Sageman, currently being updated at University of
Michigan)

• Friendship 70
• Band of mostly normal even nice guys
• Idealistic, compassionate toward their fictive
  kin
• Kinship 20
• Sons, brothers, first cousins
• Importance of in-laws marriage to cement bonds
  between Mujahedin
• Discipleship 10
• Southeast Asia Jemaah Islamiyah
• Pesantren Al Mukmin Abu Bakar Baasyir
  Abdullah Sungkar
• Pesantren Luqmanul Hakiem Mukhlas

17
Family of Origin (SES)
CS Central Staff ME Middle East EU
Euro-Maghreb SA South Asia
18
RecruitmentAge Distribution

19
Type of Education

• .

CS Central Staff ME Middle East EU
Euro-Maghreb SA South Asia
20
Levels of Education
CS Central Staff ME Middle East EU
Euro-Maghreb SA South Asia
21
Occupation

CS Central Staff ME Middle East EU
Euro-Maghreb SA South Asia
22
Al Qaeda is dead, Long live Al Qaeda

• Remnants of Bin Ladens (mostly Egyptian) core
  organization havent managed an attack in nearly
  three years, dont know many of the new
  terrorists, and cant reliably communicate with
  those they know.
• In last five years, jihadi websites increased
  from lt 20 to gt 4000.
• Seeking a sense of community, small groups of
  buddies and kin who are often from the same area
  back home, and mostly secularly-educated but
  born-again, bond into action as they surf
  jihadi websites for Qaeda-inspired direction

23

• Most terrorist operational cells have few
  members (8 is the mode)
• Remarkable in-group homogeneity but little
  homogeneity across the Diaspora Renders attempts
  at profiling global Terrorism worthless
• Cells often spontaneously formed and
  self-mobilizing, with few direct physical
  contacts to other cells
• Radicalization usually requires outside input
  from, and interaction with, the larger terrorist
  community
• Radicalization proceeds in tandem with
  exponential growth in internet connections
• Future path-dependent growth of Global Network
  Terrorism friendship, kinship and the internet

24
Perhaps greatest terrorist threat with uprooted
and egalitarian Muslim young adults in European
cities, who provided the manpower for the 9/11,
Madrid and London attacks. Immigrant
integration into European societies has always
been more difficult than in America, being more
state-driven and top down than community-based
and bottom up. The EUs open society
currently more favorable to far-flung networking
among Jihadists than to efficient coordination
among different government services that remain
hidebound to national territories and politics,
and to professional hierarchies and traditional
languages. Steep decline in native European
birth rate and rising need for immigrant labor
will only exacerbate the problem. Neither
Europe nor the U.S. can deal with this alone.
25

• New and vibrant terrorist market is emerging -
  decentralized, self-organizing and
  self-adjusting.
• How do we deal with the virtual hand that
  regulates this growing world exchange?
• Police / military responses alone may only
  result in more varied and insidious forms.
• Hierarchical approaches (including more unified
  command and control of intelligence) may not be
  the best way to go