Tie strength still matters: Investigating interaction patterns of Al-Qaeda network in terror operations

Abstract

Terror operations are carried out by a team of terrorists with their interaction and cooperation. Different tie strengths, such as acquaintances, friends, and family members, influence the construction and reconstruction of the operation team. Understanding the interaction patterns of tie strength might be useful not only for advancing our understanding of terror operations, but ultimately for providing more effective methods of countering terrorist violence. To this end, in this paper, we designed an operation-related social network, and analyzed the tie strength selection and cooperative reconnection in the terror operation networks. We proposed three hypotheses about the tie strengths and had the Al-Qaeda dataset investigated to test the hypotheses. Results demonstrate that the terrorist organization has some different interaction patterns against the ordinary social organizations and the terror operations share similar features with crime events in rational choice. Our analysis reveals that tie strength matters in terror operations and is essentially helpful in making counterterrorism strategies.