Rohan Gunaratna

The Post-Madrid Face of Al Qaeda

The terrorist threat has shifted beyond Al Qaeda as a group to an ideology. In many ways, Al Qaeda has completed its mission of being the vanguard of Islamic movements, having inspired a generation of two dozen existing groups as well as an emerging generation of them.

Al Qaeda's Organizational Structure and its Evolution

The inner organizational structure of Al Qaeda within the expanded framework of the “Global Jihad movement” has been a subject of much debate between scholars. As will be elaborated later, the “Global Jihad movement” is composed of several elements that possess radical Islamic ideology and conduct operational activity in different regions in the world under the banner of Jihad. The dominant factor within the “Global Jihad movement” is by no doubt Al Qaeda. The purpose of this article is to focus solely on Al Qaeda and present the formal internal structure of the organization. The article argues that Al Qaeda is first and foremost, an infrastructural organization with a formal echelon, hierarchy, sub-departmental division, and duties distribution reflecting characteristics of a guerilla and terrorist organization. The article portrays the formal layout of Al Qaeda, composed of the main command apparatus, and names the different personalities who fill the more important positions within Al Qaedas hierarchy from its days of inception until today.

Event-Driven document selection for terrorism information extraction

In this paper, we examine the task of extracting information about terrorism related events hidden in a large document collection. The task assumes that a terrorism related event can be described by a set of entity and relation instances. To reduce the amount of time and efforts in extracting these event related instances, one should ideally perform the task on the relevant documents only. We have therefore proposed some document selection strategies based on information extraction (IE) patterns. Each strategy attempts to select one document at a time such that the gain of event related instance information is maximized. Our IE-based document selection strategies assume that some IE patterns are given to extract event instances. We conducted some experiments for one terrorism related event. Experiments have shown that our proposed IE based document selection strategies work well in the extraction task for news collections of various size.

Ethnic identity and national conflict in China

Explaining the Minority Conflict in China: A Theoretical Perspective Islam and Conflict in China Chinas Policies toward Muslim Minorities Terrorist Threat to China: Organized Groups Hui Muslims: The Milieu of Radicalization and Extremism Terrorist Threat to China: Transnational Chinas Perception of the Threat and Response Conclusion: Need for Moderation and a Humane Approach

Al Qaeda in the Tribal Areas of Pakistan and Beyond

After the U.S. led coalition forces attacked Al Qaeda and Taliban infrastructure in Afghanistan beginning in October 2001, the epicenter of global terrorism moved from Afghanistan to tribal Pakistan. Known as the Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA) in Pakistan, this region has emerged as the premier hunting ground for the Al Qaeda leadership. With the co-option of new groups in FATA and its adjacent North Western Frontier Province (NWFP), the Al Qaeda threat has proliferated. The threat posed by the Afghan Taliban has been compounded with the addition of a new range of actors notably the Pakistani Taliban. Working together with multiple threat groups, both foreign and Pakistani, Al Qaeda directs its global jihad campaign from FATA. Unless the terrorist enclave is cleared on the Afghan-Pakistan border, the threat to Afghanistan and mainland Pakistan will continue. This article seeks to map the evolution of Al Qaeda and its associated groups since their relocation to FATA.

De-Radicalization Initiatives in Egypt: A Preliminary Insight

This article provides a preliminary insight to the ideological revision of the two principle Islamist militant groups in Egypt, the Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiyya and Al-Jihad Al-Islami. Several leaders of these groups have taken steps to renounce violence and promote peace co-existence with the government and society. They have also repented and apologized for the past terror attacks in Egypt that led to the killing of many innocent civilians, government officials and tourists. In addition, they have gone to great lengths to counter and argue against Al Qaedas violent ideology and to restrict its influence on the Muslim population. The ideological revision of these two groups reflects a significant shift in the efforts of the Egyptian authorities and community to address the problem of ideological extremism and terrorism in the country.

The Road to Extremism: Field and Experimental Evidence That Significance Loss-Induced Need for Closure Fosters Radicalization.

The present studies examined the hypothesis that loss of personal significance fuels extremism via the need for cognitive closure. Situations of significance loss—those that make one feel ashamed, humiliated, or demeaned—are inconsistent with the desire for a positive self-image, and instill a sense of uncertainty about the self. Consequently, individuals become motivated to seek certainty and closure that affords the restoration of personal significance. Extremist ideologies should thus increase in appeal, because they promise clear-cut strategies for such restoration. These notions were supported in a series of studies ranging from field surveys of political extremists imprisoned in the Philippines (Study 1) and Sri Lanka (Study 2) to experiments conducted with American samples (Studies 3–4). Implications of these findings are considered for the psychology of extremism, and for approaches to counterradicalization, and deradicalization.

Terrorist rehabilitation: a global imperative

Rehabilitation is to help someone return to normal life by providing education, training, and therapy. Those exposed to and convinced by terrorist ideology do not lead normal lives. They adopt the writings and speeches of ideologues that espouse hatred and transform themselves. Whether they are operational terrorists or extremist supporters, they believe that violence and other extreme measures are acceptable means to bring about political change. Terrorists and their supporters are not mainstream but are extreme. To facilitate their return to the mainstream from the extreme, they must be rehabilitated. Unless a terrorist is rehabilitated before his release from custody, he is likely to pose a security threat to the government and a societal threat to the community upon his return. As his belief system did not undergo change, he is likely to contaminate others with his ideals and recruit them to advance his cause. Unlike economically-motivated criminals, brief or prolonged incarceration is unlikely to change the belief system of ideologically-driven terrorists. Terrorist rehabilitation is different from criminal rehabilitation. Those terrorists or supporters released from custody have repeatedly offended after their release. This includes those detained and released from the US detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The Muslim world perceived Guantanamo Bay as revenge by the US and not as justice by them and, as such, many returnees received a hero’s welcome in their own countries. Upon release, the terrorists who were not transformed or experienced radicalisation during detention, advocated, supported, or committed acts of violence. As those detained in Guantanamo Bay were not rehabilitated, they often remained committed to the philosophy of Al Qaeda and its associated groups. Rehabilitation is the answer to two grave challenges the world is faced with today. First, Al Qaeda and its family of groups that specifically target Muslim populations. The contemporary wave of violence and counter violence produces terrorist recruits and extremist supporters. Those exposed to the vicious ideology believe in the philosophy and methodology of Al Qaeda. They need to be ideologically and theologically rehabilitated. Second, contemporary detention and prison conditions contribute to radicalisation. Unless detainees and inmates are kept in isolation, they become susceptible to indoctrination and training by fellow detainees and inmates. In most penitentiary and detention facilities, detainees and inmates are housed

The Islamabad Marriott in Flames: The Attack on the World's Most Protected Hotel

ABSTRACT Until recently, the Islamabad Marriott Hotel was arguably the most protected hotel in the world. Targeted twice previously by terrorists – in October 2004 and January 2007 – it had in place multiple physical target hardening measures as well as a well‐trained security staff. But on 20 September 2008, these measures were no match for a massive truck bomb that, while stopped from entering the hotel premises, somehow still triggered a fire that engulfed the hotel and burnt for two days. No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack although explosives experts believe the modus operandi bears resemblance to the attacks on the Danish Embassy in Islamabad, the FIA building in Lahore, Hamza camp and the Pakistan Air Force base in Saragodha. The June 2008 suicide attack on the Danish Embassy has been claimed by al‐Qaeda, which recently released the martyrdom video of the Saudi suicide bomber “Abu Ghareeb al‐Makki” (a.k.a. Kamaal al‐Hadhli). This case study raises two important questions for hotel security that are just as applicable outside Pakistan: a. How was it possible for a truck containing 600 kg of explosives to enter a sensitive 1 km city zone that includes the Prime Ministers residence, the Presidential office and the Supreme Court? Once the truck bomb was on the road to the Marriott Hotel, the only thing stopping it from reaching its target were the physical barriers at the hotel gate. Fortunately the multiple layers of protection worked, but at the cost of the lives of the security guards manning them. b. What more can a hotel do to enhance security without compromising its basic function – to encourage the public to enter its premises? If it is a question of when, and not if, hotels succumb to terrorist attacks, how prepared are they to mitigate the consequences of an attack? A paradigm shift in response strategy, moving beyond perimeter security to include consequence management, is clearly required.

What a difference two years make: patterns of radicalization in a Philippine jail

Abstract Recent high-profile terrorist attacks have led to attempts by social scientists to investigate the processes behind radicalization. Prisons have been identified as possible breeding grounds for radical extremism. However, the evidence so far is based almost solely on case studies. The research provides one of the first quantitative assessments of prison radicalization with directly measured extremist attitudes among detained terrorism suspects. The findings suggest that the prisoners indeed radicalized over time. This trend was predicted partially by demographic variables such as marital status, and psychological factors such as the need for cognitive closure (NFCC) and social dominance orientation (SDO).