The “six-element” analysis method for the research on the characteristics of terrorist activities

Abstract

The rapid development of social network theory provides a new perspective for the research on counter-terrorism, however, current research mostly relates to terrorists and terrorist organizations. Firstly, the “six-element” analysis method for terrorist activities based on social network is proposed in this paper, namely, a variety of sub-networks are constructed according to the correlation among the six elements—people, organization, time, location, manner and event. These sub-networks are assessed through using centrality analysis, cohesive subgroup analysis, spatial correlation analysis, invulnerability analysis and descriptive statistic analysis; the characteristics and laws of terrorist activities are revealed from several different perspectives. Then, the “six-element” analysis method is applied to conduct empirical research on “East Turkistan” terrorist activities since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, so as to effectively identify core people and key organizations of the “East Turkistan” terrorist activity network, to assess the invulnerability of the “East Turkistan” terrorist network and to reveal the temporal and spatial distribution rules as well as the characteristics of the means and manners adopted in all previous terrorist activities. Lastly, the analysis results are interpreted qualitatively. This research can provide a basis for decision making and an analysis method for the identification of core terrorists and key terrorist organizations, determination of the key alert period, location of counter-terrorism and the early warning of the means of major terrorist activities.