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START re-launches Global Terrorism Database

The National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) has released a new version of its Global Terrorism Database (GTD), with an accompanying new website. 

The GTD is an open-source database including information on terrorist events around the world.  Unlike many other event databases, the GTD includes systematic data on domestic as well as transnational and international terrorist incidents that have occurred during this time period.  For each GTD incident, information is available on the date and location of the incident, the weapons used and nature of the target, the number of casualties, and—when identifiable—the perpetrator.  Over 80,000 of these incidents have been included in the updated database, and this information can be extracted from the database to provide reference data as it was after the attacks in Mumbai.

The previous versions of the database (GTD 1 and GTD 2) covered events that occurred from 1970 through 2004.  The update to the GTD (http://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/) synthesized previous versions and expanded the data to include events from 1970 through 2007.  Annual updates will continue to be added in the future. 

'Terrorist Financing': New report from FATF

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has issued a new report, "Terrorist Financing." From the executive summary:

"The study highlights the links between financial tools and wider counter-terrorist activity: the effectiveness of authorities at both detecting and investigating terrorist activity is significantly enhanced when counter-terrorist intelligence and financial information are used together.

"Looking ahead the study identifies four areas which could be the focus of efforts to further strengthen counter-terrorist financing efforts: (1) action to address jurisdictional issues including safe havens and failed states, (2) outreach to the private sector to ensure the availability of information to detect terrorist financing, (3) building a better understanding across public and private sectors and (4) enhanced financial intelligence to exploit the value of financial investigation as a tool in fighting terrorism."

• Download the report as a 37-page PDF.

U.S. State Department releases annual terrorism report for 2008

U.S. law requires the Secretary of State to provide Congress, by April 30 of each year, a full and complete report on terrorism with regard to those countries and groups meeting criteria set forth in the legislation. This annual report is entitled Country Reports on Terrorism. Beginning with the report for 2004, it replaced the previously published Patterns of Global Terrorism.

• Download "Country Reports on Terrorism 2008" as a 351-page PDF.

New from National Counterterrorism Center: 2008 Report on Terrorism

From the forward:

Consistent with its statutory mission to serve as the United States (US) government's knowledge bank on international terrorism, the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) is providing the Department of State with required statistical information to assist in the satisfaction of its reporting requirements under Section 2656f of title 22 of the US Code (USC). The statistical information included in this Annex to the 2008 Country Reports on Terrorism is drawn from the data that NCTC maintains on the www.nctc.gov website.

Download the report as a 78-page PDF.

Washington Institute for Near East Policy publishes 'counterradicalization' report

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy has released "Rewriting the Narrative: An Integrated Strategy for Counterradicalization," the final report of the Task Force on Confronting the Ideology of Radical Extremism, a bipartisan, blue-ribbon commission of diplomats, legislators, strategists, scholars, and experts.

From the report's web page:

"(The task force's) report provides analysis and recommendations on a spectrum of discrete policy issues -- democracy promotion, political reform, public diplomacy, strategic communications, and counterradicalization -- offering an integrated approach to stanching the spread of Islamist extremism. The extensive recommendations suggest an array of policy instruments, from creating a counterradicalization forum that draws on "best practices" of friends and partners in Europe and the Middle East, to infusing with renewed mission, urgency, and creativity U.S. international broadcasting toward Arab and Muslim societies."

• Download the report.

'Terrorists' New Domain: Virtual Worlds in Cyberspace,' a new report from Corporate Risk International

From the introduction:

"With the widespread use of technology, unprecedented numbers of people are gaining access to the internet, increasing global connectivity.  Although people use numerous formats to connect to each other, the use of virtual worlds for communication is becoming exceedingly popular.  What began as text-only chat rooms, virtual worlds have developed into three-dimensional environments, with users socializing, communicating, learning, and in some cases, conducting commercial activities.  This multi-functional environment has sparked fears among intelligence and security experts that virtual worlds are also becoming a new meeting point for criminal and terrorist organizations.  Criminals and terrorists can meet anonymously to recruit, organize, plan, and even potentially train for attacks and criminal operations.  In addition, users' actions inside a virtual world can sometimes have dire consequences in the real world."

Download the report as a pdf.

Combatting Terrorism Center issues new paper comparing Sunni and Shi'a approaches to terrorism

The Combatting Terrorism Center at West Point has released a new paper in a series, "Sunni and Shi ’a Terrorism Differences that Matter," by COL Thomas F. Lynch III

From the executive summary:

"Importantly, this study does not argue or imply that violence perpetrated by Sunni or Shi’a extremist groups is carried out for reasons that are inherent to one or the other tradition of Islam. There is no evidence sought or identified in this work contending that historical patterns of terrorist attacks by organizations identifying themselves as Shi’a, for example, are pre‐determined by Shi’a theology or philosophy. What this study does suggest, however, is that those Shi’a organizations that have conducted terrorism in non-combat zones display several preferred operational patterns that contrast markedly from their Sunni counterparts."

Click here to download the paper.

New report from the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point analyzes Iran's strategy in Iraq

The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point has released a new report: "Iranian Strategy in Iraq: Politics and 'Other Means.'"

This report addresses Iran's dual-strategy of providing military aid to Iraqi militia groups and giving political support to Iraqi political parties. Although the report details the scope and nature of Iranian support to Iraqi militias, it concludes that Iran's political efforts are the core of its effort to project influence within Iraq.

The report also concludes that Iran has recently worked to reduce the level of violence in Iraq while concentrating on a political campaign to shape the SFA and SOFA agreements to its strategic ends.  The report does not address Iran's economic and social influence in Iraq.

Download the report.

Counterterrorism efforts are lacking in North Africa, new GAO report says

A new GAO report on the Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Partnership finds that the effectiveness of the program has been significantly hampered by the lack of a comprehensive, integrated strategy to guide the program's implementation, a lack of means to measure the program's effectiveness, disagreements between DOD and DOS and fluctuating funding.

Read the full report here.

ASCO Report: 'Why Have We Not Been Attacked Again?'

A new report from the Advanced Systems and Concepts Office (ASCO) at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency examines a number of competing and complementary hypotheses that seek to explain the non-occurrence of a large-scale terrorist attack on the U.S. homeland since 9/11:

While the study’s title seems implicitly to ask why al-Qaeda has not succeeded in a second homeland attack, the analysis also considers groups within the broader radical Islamist movement as well as non-religious groups and lone individuals. Before examining the competing hypotheses, several terms and assumptions must be clarified, each of which is linked to the way that the report, as well as the individual theories, has posed the basic question: Why has the United States not been attacked since 9/11?

• Attack versus Successful Attack. Clearly a number of terrorist plots against the U.S. homeland have been identified since 9/11, a fact that confirms that the United States has been attacked again. However, the hypotheses put forward in this report should be read as seeking to explain the lack of a successful attack on the homeland. At the same time, the existence of attempted or thwarted attacks constitutes important evidence that bears upon the credibility of many of the hypotheses.
• Large-scale versus Small-scale Attacks. In seeking to explain the non-occurrence of another attack, the report focuses predominantly on “large-scale” operations rather than “small-scale” attacks, especially in the analysis of terrorist capabilities. However, no rigorous attempt is made to define these terms precisely given that any boundaries are likely to be somewhat arbitrary as well as of uncertain utility. Moreover, because the U.S. homeland has suffered neither a large-scale attack since 9/11 nor a visibly successful terrorist attack since the 2001 anthrax mailings, many of the hypotheses implicitly address both scales of operations.
• Why “Homeland Attack Frequency”? The term “attack frequency” is used to underscore the notion that even if a terrorist attack on the homeland were to occur in the near term, it would nevertheless be important to explore the competing explanations for why no attack occurred between 9/11 and that next attack. Correctly ascertaining the reasons for this lull might help policymakers and the general public respond in the aftermath of any subsequent event.
• 9/11: Anomaly or Sea Change? This report proceeds from the premise that 9/11 should not be viewed as anomalous. That is, the attacks were conducted by a terrorist network that had struck American interests repeatedly in the past, whose leaders have vowed to attack the U.S. homeland again, and whose operatives by all accounts have plotted to do so on several occasions since 9/11. Together with radical Islamists’ enduring grievances over U.S. Middle East policies, their commissioning of religious edicts that sanction attacks against American civilians, and an assortment of other evidence, the authors consider the default assumption of a continued terrorist threat to the homeland to be well-grounded. This judgment also comports with one of the key conclusions of the July 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), which states that the U.S. homeland faces “a persistent and evolving terrorist threat” from a host of violent entities and that al-Qaeda in particular maintains an “undiminished intent to attack the Homeland.”

Read the full report