Download or read book Targeting Top Terrorists written by Bryan C. Price and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2019-01-15 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When President Barack Obama announced the assassination of Osama bin Laden, many Americans hoped the killing of al-Qaida’s leader would sound the death knell for the organization. Since 9/11, killing and capturing terrorist leaders has been a central element in U.S. counterterrorism strategy. This practice, known as leadership decapitation, is based on the logic that removing key figures will disrupt the organization and contribute to its ultimate failure. Yet many scholars have argued that targeted killings are ineffective or counterproductive, questioning whether taking out a terror network’s leaders causes more problems than it solves. In Targeting Top Terrorists, Bryan C. Price offers a rich, data-driven examination of leadership decapitation tactics, providing theoretical and empirical explanations of the conditions under which they can be successful. Analyzing hundreds of cases of leadership turnover from over two hundred terrorist groups, Price demonstrates that although the tactic may result in short-term negative side effects, the loss of top leaders significantly reduces terror groups’ life spans. He explains vital questions such as: What factors make some terrorist groups more vulnerable than others? Is it better to kill or capture terrorist leaders? How does leadership decapitation compare to other counterterrorism options? With compelling evidence based on an original dataset along with an in-depth case study of Hamas, Targeting Top Terrorists contributes to scholarship on terrorism and organizational theory and provides insights for policy makers and practitioners on some of the most pressing debates in the field.
Download or read book Leadership Decapitation written by Jenna Jordan and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2019-11-12 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the central pillars of US counterterrorism policy is that capturing or killing a terrorist group's leader is effective. Yet this pillar rests more on a foundation of faith than facts. In Leadership Decapitation, Jenna Jordan examines over a thousand instances of leadership targeting—involving groups such as Hamas, al Qaeda, Shining Path, and ISIS—to identify the successes, failures, and unintended consequences of this strategy. As Jordan demonstrates, group infrastructure, ideology, and popular support all play a role in determining how and why leadership decapitation succeeds or fails. Taking heed of these conditions is essential to an effective counterterrorism policy going forward.
Download or read book Targeting Terrorists written by Avery Plaw and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-01 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Targeting Terrorists: A License to Kill? examines the political history and ethics of targeted killing. Avery Plaw's analysis addresses the questions of moral, political and legal justification in the context of the current 'war on terror' and of legitimate/illegitimate forms of counter-terrorism more generally. Given the increasing number of terrorist targetings conducted around the world today and the virtual absence of a sustained public and scholarly debate over the practice, this study makes a crucial contribution to the examination of an increasingly important and troubling subject. Incorporating insights and arguments from a range of disciplines and approaches, and offering an excellent balance between theory and case studies, this book is highly relevant for courses on ethics, politics, international relations and international law.
Download or read book Terrorists Target Selection written by C. Drake and published by Springer. This book was released on 1998-08-26 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author examines the factors which influence terrorists' target selection. In particular he looks at the influence of the ideologies, strategies and tactics of terrorist groups, and describes how these are restricted by the terrorists' resources, by protective and anti-terrorist measures, by the society within which the terrorists operate, and by the nature of the terrorists and their supporters. He concludes that terrorists' target selection is often both explicable and logical.
Download or read book Exploring Terrorist Targeting Preferences written by Martin C. Libicki and published by Rand Corporation. This book was released on 2007 with total page 131 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Al Qaeda seeks a restored caliphate free of Western influence, using terror as its means. But how does terrorism serve the ends of Al Qaeda? Based on the analysis of 14 major terrorist attacks, this book seeks to understand its strategic logic and suggest what types of U.S. targets it might seek and why. It examines four different hypotheses : coercion, damage, rally and franchise, to link means and ends.
Download or read book Targeted Killings Law and Counter Terrorism Effectiveness written by Ophir Falk and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-06-01 with total page 99 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the permissibility and effectiveness of targeted killing in campaigns against terror. Targeted killing has become a primary counterterrorism measure used by several countries in their confrontation with lethal threats. The practice has been extensively used by the US in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, and by Israel in the West Bank and Gaza. Several studies have already explored the difficult balance between achieving security while maintaining the liberties and rights of a country’s civilians. This book goes a step further by seeking to examine whether maintaining those liberties by complying with legal standards and minimizing unintended deaths can be more effective for national security. Using targeted killing applied by Israel, in particular, as well as the United States during the first decade of the twenty-first century as case studies, this book explores that question and ultimately assesses whether compliance with legal standards can strengthen a state in its campaign against terrorism and thus provide stronger security. The book focuses on civilian-related criteria, hypothesizing that minimizing civilian casualties will maximize effectiveness in an asymmetric war setting. The conclusions are not limited to a specific tactic or theater, and if adopted might have far-reaching implications for how asymmetric warfare is strategized. This book will be of much interest to students of counter-terrorism, law, Middle Eastern studies, and security studies.
Download or read book Crimes Committed by Terrorist Groups written by Mark S. Hamm and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 2011 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a print on demand edition of a hard to find publication. Examines terrorists¿ involvement in a variety of crimes ranging from motor vehicle violations, immigration fraud, and mfg. illegal firearms to counterfeiting, armed bank robbery, and smuggling weapons of mass destruction. There are 3 parts: (1) Compares the criminality of internat. jihad groups with domestic right-wing groups. (2) Six case studies of crimes includes trial transcripts, official reports, previous scholarship, and interviews with law enforce. officials and former terrorists are used to explore skills that made crimes possible; or events and lack of skill that the prevented crimes. Includes brief bio. of the terrorists along with descriptions of their org., strategies, and plots. (3) Analysis of the themes in closing arguments of the transcripts in Part 2. Illus.
Download or read book Targeted Killing written by Thomas B. Hunter and published by Thomas Hunter. This book was released on 2009 with total page 55 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is an objective, strategic assessment of the role, usefulness, and logistical concerns posed by state-sponsored targeted killing and its overall efficiency in the current war on global terrorism.
Download or read book A High Price written by Daniel Byman and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-06-15 with total page 492 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The product of painstaking research and countless interviews, A High Price offers a nuanced, definitive historical account of Israel's bold but often failed efforts to fight terrorist groups. Beginning with the violent border disputes that emerged after Israel's founding in 1948, Daniel Byman charts the rise of Yasir Arafat's Fatah and leftist groups such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine--organizations that ushered in the era of international terrorism epitomized by the 1972 hostage-taking at the Munich Olympics. Byman reveals how Israel fought these groups and others, such as Hamas, in the decades that follow, with particular attention to the grinding and painful struggle during the second intifada. Israel's debacles in Lebanon against groups like the Lebanese Hizballah are examined in-depth, as is the country's problematic response to Jewish terrorist groups that have struck at Arabs and Israelis seeking peace. In surveying Israel's response to terror, the author points to the coups of shadowy Israeli intelligence services, the much-emulated use of defensive measures such as sky marshals on airplanes, and the role of controversial techniques such as targeted killings and the security barrier that separates Israel from Palestinian areas. Equally instructive are the shortcomings that have undermined Israel's counterterrorism goals, including a disregard for long-term planning and a failure to recognize the long-term political repercussions of counterterrorism tactics.
Download or read book Targeting the Leadership of Terrorist Organizations written by Michael J. Taliento and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As America champions a resurgence in patriotism following the attacks of 11 September 2001 and rallies behind a determined President to defeat an ominous and determined adversary, a complementing grand strategy for prosecuting the global war on terrorism remains conspicuously absent amidst a landscape of newly appointed cabinet officials and fledging Homeland Security organizations. In his speech to the nation following the attacks, President Bush declared that America would bring every resource to bear in the fight to defeat terrorism. In the ensuing days, news that President Bush had authorized the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to target and kill Osama bin Laden and specific individuals of Al Qaeda, further shaped the scope and campaign tactics behind America's emerging strategy to combat global terrorism. Public polls reflect overwhelming support for the collective engagement of all elements of national power in the fight against terrorism. But can America prosecute a strategy that specifically targets terrorist leaders and can it be an effective instrument of U.S. national security policy in combating the global threat? Simply put, despite what the strategists achieve in their final design and assessment of a national counterterrorism strategy, can such an approach be militarily feasible, suitable and acceptable, and ultimately, can it be morally and ethically prosecuted? The purpose of this paper is to provide a general answer to that exact question. Through the dual framework of Carl von Clausewitz's center of gravity concept and Dudley Knox's strategic assessment model, this study will provide a heuristic framework for analyzing and assessing the utility of targeting terrorist leaders as a credible strategy and instrument of U.S. national policy in combating global terrorism.
Download or read book Target America the West written by Yossef Bodansky and published by SP Books. This book was released on 1993 with total page 508 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The full story of who declared a holy war against America and Canada . . . and why
Download or read book Psychology of Terrorism written by and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In compiling this annotated bibliography on the psychology of terrorism, the author has defined terrorism as "acts of violence intentionally perpetrated on civilian noncombatants with the goal of furthering some ideological, religious or political objective." The principal focus is on nonstate actors. The task was to identify and analyze the scientific and professional social science literature pertaining to the psychological and/or behavioral dimensions of terrorist behavior (not on victimization or effects). The objectives were to explore what questions pertaining to terrorist groups and behavior had been asked by social science researchers; to identify the main findings from that research; and attempt to distill and summarize them within a framework of operationally relevant questions. To identify the relevant social science literature, the author began by searching a series of major academic databases using a systematic, iterative keyword strategy, mapping, where possible, onto existing subject headings. The focus was on locating professional social science literature published in major books or in peer-reviewed journals. Searches were conducted of the following databases October 2003: Sociofile/Sociological Abstracts, Criminal Justice Abstracts (CJ Abstracts), Criminal Justice Periodical Index (CJPI), National Criminal Justice Reference Service Abstracts (NCJRS), PsycInfo, Medline, and Public Affairs Information Service (PAIS). Three types of annotations were provided for works in this bibliography: Author's Abstract -- this is the abstract of the work as provided (and often published) by the author; Editor's Annotation -- this is an annotation written by the editor of this bibliography; and Key Quote Summary -- this is an annotation composed of "key quotes" from the original work, edited to provide a cogent overview of its main points.
Download or read book Nexus of Global Jihad written by Assaf Moghadam and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2017-05-30 with total page 413 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Leading jihadist groups such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State dominate through cooperation in the form of knowledge sharing, resource sharing, joint training exercises, and operational collaboration. They build alliances and lesser partnerships with other formal and informal terrorist actors to recruit foreign fighters and spread their message worldwide, raising the aggregate threat level for their declared enemies. Whether they consist of friends or foes, whether they are connected locally or online, these networks create a wellspring of support for jihadist organizations that may fluctuate in strength or change in character but never runs dry. Nexus of Global Jihad identifies types of terrorist actors, the nature of their partnerships, and the environments in which they prosper to explain global jihadist terrorism's ongoing success and resilience. Nexus of Global Jihad brings to light an emerging style of "networked cooperation" that works alongside interorganizational terrorist cooperation to establish bonds of varying depth and endurance. Case studies use recently declassified materials to illuminate al-Qaeda's dealings from Iran to the Arabian Peninsula and the informal actors that power the Sharia4 movement. The book proposes policies that increase intelligence gathering on informal terrorist actors, constrain enabling environments, and disrupt terrorist networks according to different types of cooperation. It is a vital text for strategists and scholars struggling to understand a growing spectrum of terrorist groups working together more effectively than ever before.
Download or read book Target U S A written by Louis R. Mizell and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 1998-04-23 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Describes terrorist incidents in the United States since 1980 from groups on the left and the right, both domestic and foreign.
Download or read book Military Strategy A Very Short Introduction written by Antulio J. Echevarria II and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2024 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Military Strategy: A Very Short Introduction adapts Clausewitz's framework to highlight the dynamic relationship between the main elements of strategy: purpose, method, and means. Drawing on historical examples, Antulio J. Echevarria discusses the major types of military strategy and how emerging technologies are affecting them. This second edition has been updated to include an expanded chapter on manipulation through cyberwarfare and new further reading.
Download or read book Seize the Window written by Jillian Kutner and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 110 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the beginning of the War on Terror in 2001, the United States has employed a plethora of methods to destroy terrorist organizations, ranging from conventional war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, to espionage and, more recently, cyber warfare. However, with the advent of drones, the United States has increasingly relied on one particular strategic tool for fighting global terror: targeted killing. Namely the assassination of a leader or key member of a terrorist group to disrupt or destroy the organization. Though the effectiveness of targeting has improved in recent years, strategic options regarding how to capitalize on instances of success have not. My research attempts to fill this policy void by asking two central research questions. First, does targeted killing reduce the rate of terrorist attacks post targeted killing? Second, what can be done to further reduce terrorist attacks post targeted killing? To evaluate these questions, I use a multi-method analysis combining a quantitative analysis of the frequency of terrorist attacks, as well as a qualitative, comparative analysis of a variety of case studies on targeted killings from numerous terrorist groups and geographic areas. Using the examples of Osama Bin Laden, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and Saleh Shehadeh, I argue that, while targeted killing is ineffective in terms of destroying or permanently debilitating terrorist organizations, this strategy does manage to create a six-month reduction in attacks. Even so, targeted killing will not reach its greatest potential until policy makers stop simply moving to the next target, and instead find a way to better capitalize on the benefits it can provide.
Download or read book Women and Terrorism written by Jamille Bigio and published by Council on Foreign Relations Press. This book was released on 2019-05-23 with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Extremist groups rely upon women to gain strategic advantage, recruiting them as facilitators and martyrs while also benefiting from their subjugation. Yet U.S. policymakers overlook the roles that women play in violent extremism--including as perpetrators, mitigators, and victims--and rarely enlist their participation in efforts to combat radicalization. This omission puts the United States at a disadvantage in its efforts to prevent terrorism globally and within its borders. Women fuel extremists' continued influence by advancing their ideology online and by indoctrinating their families. New technology allows for more sophisticated outreach, directly targeting messages to radicalize and recruit women. It also provides a platform on which female extremists thrive by expanding their recruitment reach and taking on greater operational roles in the virtual sphere. The failure of counterterrorist efforts to understand the ways in which women radicalize, support, and perpetrate violence cedes the benefit of their involvement to extremist groups. Omitting women from terrorism prevention efforts also forfeits their potential contributions as mitigators of extremism. Women are well positioned to detect early signs of radicalization, because fundamentalists often target women's rights first. As security officials, women provide insights and information that can be mission critical in keeping the peace. And because of their distinctive access and influence, women are crucial antiterrorism messengers in schools, religious institutions, social environments, and local government. Overlooking the contributions women can make to prevent extremism renders the United States less secure. Many extremist groups promote an ideology that classifies women as second-class citizens and offers strategic and financial benefits through women's subjugation. Boko Haram, the Islamic State, al-Qaeda, al-Shabab, and other groups use sexual violence to terrorize populations into compliance, displace civilians from strategic areas, enforce unit cohesion among fighters, and even generate revenue through trafficking. Suppressing women's rights also allows extremists to control reproduction and harness female labor. U.S. government policy and programs continue to underestimate the important roles women can play as perpetrators, mitigators, or targets of violent extremism. The Donald J. Trump administration should take steps to help the United States and its allies respond effectively to the security threat posed by violent extremism and advance U.S. peace and stability.
