Potential Terrorist Research Articles

Adversarial Patrolling in a Uniform

Many of us will have seen uniformed guards patrolling in museums, airports, and other places where thefts or attacks are possible. In other similar places, we may have been unaware of undercover agents carrying out similar patrols. The latter type of patrollers has been modeled in recent literature. However, when the patroller is visible (wears a uniform), the potential thief or terrorist may be able to spot him when he is nearby and to time his theft appropriately. For example, the thief may wait a specified time after the uniformed patroller leaves his area. In “The Uniformed Patroller Game,” Steve Alpern, Paul Chleboun, Stamatios Katsikas, and Kyle Y. Lin study the effect on the patrolling game of having a visible (uniformed) patroller. It turns out that putting a uniform on the patroller greatly reduces his effectiveness in intercepting thefts or attacks. Of course, the visibility of a uniform may act as a deterrent to having the theft take place at all.

What Makes a Terrorist? Muslims’ and non-Muslims’ Lay Perceptions of Risk Factors and Their Consequences for Counterterrorism Policy Support

ABSTRACT The question of why people become terrorists has preoccupied scholars and policy makers for decades. Yet, very little is known about how lay people perceive individuals at risk of becoming terrorists. In two studies conducted in the U.K., we aimed to fill this gap. Study 1 showed that Muslims and non-Muslims perceived a potential minority-group terrorist in terms of both structural (e.g., life-history, social) and individual risk factors (e.g., personality, psychopathology, ideology). In Study 2, Muslims and non-Muslims perceived a potential right-wing majority-group terrorist as having more individual predispositions to terrorism than a potential left-wing majority-group terrorist. Importantly, in both studies, individualist perceptions such as psychopathology were positively associated with support for stricter law enforcement, whereas structuralist perceptions such as adverse childhood experiences were positively associated with support for social interventions. Lay people seem to have multifactorial understandings of individuals at risk of becoming terrorists, which influence their counterterrorism policy support.

Armed and Explosive? An Explorative Statistical Analysis of Extremist Radicalization Cases with Military Background

ABSTRACT Extremist infiltration of armed forces, and the spread of violent radicalization among service members and former soldiers, are a growing international concern. With an increased number of active duty and former soldiers involved in extremist and terrorist milieus, the public fears that national security might be compromised by potential terrorists using their training, equipment, and networks against the countries they swore to protect. This is a serious impediment to the trust in authorities for many nations. However, little empirical research exists on either the scope of the problem, or the specific risk factors that might be involved in turning military personnel toward extremism. In this paper, we utilize the “Profiles of Individual Radicalization in the United States” (PIRUS) dataset to shed light on the vulnerability and risk factors into the extremist radicalization of military personnel. Our findings indicate that far-right radicalized individuals with military backgrounds are more likely to suffer from trauma, a diminution of social standing, having difficulties in romantic relationships, and exclusion from participation in social groups or organizations, compared to far-right radicalized individuals without military backgrounds. Mental illness, grievance, and anger toward society are also more present in the far-right military group compared to the non-military group.

Więzienie w Guantanamo jako przykład biopolitycznego paradygmatu globalnej wojny z terroryzmem

Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp as an Example of Biopolitical Framework of Global War on Terror The aim of this article is to introduce the problem of indefinite detainees of Guantanamo Bay into the framework of biopolitical interpretation of Global War on Terror (GWOT). From the very first days of GWOT, the George W. Bush administration mobilized all available resources to fight with everyone suspected as a potential terrorist in all areas, including legal area. The intentional consequence of this fight was the elimination of political rights for indefinite detainees. Potentially risky individuals were suspected in the context of normal law – what can be perceived as a visible result of sovereign’s decisions and actions – and were transformed into bare lives, figure of homini sacri. Homo sacer means an individual being excluded from the society and social order; it means the situation of being deprived of personal political rights, where the essence of human existence is diminished to physical aspects exclusively. According to Giorgio Agamben and his concept of biopolitics, the camp per se, is the paradigm of modernity. It is the place of permanent production of bare lives, the materialized place of state of exception, the place of law suspension. In the context of post-9/11, Guantanamo detention camp became the pure exemplification of Agamben’s biopolitical camp.

Change Point Detection in Terrorism-Related Online Content Using Deep Learning Derived Indicators

Given the increasing occurrence of deviant activities in online platforms, it is of paramount importance to develop methods and tools that allow in-depth analysis and understanding to then develop effective countermeasures. This work proposes a framework towards detecting statistically significant change points in terrorism-related time series, which may indicate the occurrence of events to be paid attention to. These change points may reflect changes in the attitude towards and/or engagement with terrorism-related activities and events, possibly signifying, for instance, an escalation in the radicalization process. In particular, the proposed framework involves: (i) classification of online textual data as terrorism- and hate speech-related, which can be considered as indicators of a potential criminal or terrorist activity; and (ii) change point analysis in the time series generated by these data. The use of change point detection (CPD) algorithms in the produced time series of the aforementioned indicators—either in a univariate or two-dimensional case—can lead to the estimation of statistically significant changes in their structural behavior at certain time locations. To evaluate the proposed framework, we apply it on a publicly available dataset related to jihadist forums. Finally, topic detection on the estimated change points is implemented to further assess its effectiveness.

KHAIR’IN CİHADIN GELİNLERİ ROMANINDA SÖMÜRGECİLİK SONRASI DÖNEM İSLAMOFOBİ VE GÖÇMEN KRİZİ

Islamophobia is frequently encountered as an inevitable reality in today's political and social life. Especially, Islamophobia-based hate crimes witnessed in the media deeply affect Muslim immigrants living in Western society and even lead them to be seen as potential terrorists. In particular, it can be easily said that the relationship between the West and Islam bears the traces of colonialism. The clear similarities between Western imperialism and radical Islam testify to this common legacy. This post-colonial Islamophobia affects immigrants as mentioned above, but the real blow strikes Muslim women immigrants. In Western society, the dress of Islam for women attracts enough attention and Muslim women are mostly targeted by hate crimes because they cannot integrate into society in this way. This situation accelerates the process of exclusion and marginalization of Muslim women immigrants and strengthens the hand of radical Islamic terrorist organizations in recruiting militants. This is one of the biggest obstacles to the creation of a multicultural environment, a source of problems stemming from Western imperialism and radical Islam. At this point, the works and discourses of Muslim-origin authors are of great importance in terms of digging into the depths of this problem and finding solutions. The works of these authors, who address immigration issues as an insider and identify the root sources of the problem, have the potential to play a key role in overcoming today's political and social impasse.
 In this context, the aim of this study is to put the reality of Islamophobia in Western society on a theoretical ground, to clarify the colonial connection of this fear and to discuss the problem with quotations and examples from Tabish Khair's novel Jihadi Jane.

Post-9/11-Disaster Katrina: Reenacting American Innocence in Dave Eggers’s Zeitoun

Dave Eggers’s nonfiction book Zeitoun (2009) presents a Syrian American man who changes from citizen to potential terrorist and is detained after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The book was a huge success, but the public and the media have denounced Eggers’s representation of Zeitoun since Zeitoun’s charge of domestic violence in 2012. Focusing on how Eggers represents Zeitoun as a “good” Arab American, I examine how responses to Eggers’s Zeitoun reenact the myth of American innocence through their ignorance of society’s violence against those with an Arab or Muslim identity.

DarkNetExplorer (DNE): Exploring dark multi-layer networks beyond the resolution limit

Timely identification of terrorist networks within civilian populations could assist security and intelligence personnel to disrupt and dismantle potential terrorist activities. Finding “small” and “good” communities in multi-layer terrorist networks, where each layer represents a particular type of relationship between network actors, is a vital step in such disruption efforts. We propose a community detection algorithm that draws on the principles of discrete-time random walks to find such “small” and “good” communities in a multi-layer terrorist network. Our algorithm uses several parallel walkers that take short independent random walks towards hubs on a multi-layer network to capture its structure. We first evaluate the correlation between nodes using the extracted walks. Then, we apply an agglomerative clustering procedure to maximize the asymptotical Surprise, which allows us to go beyond the resolution limit and find small and less sparse communities in multi-layer networks. This process affords us a focused investigation on the more important seeds over random actors within the network. We tested our algorithm on three real-world multi-layer dark networks and compared the results against those found by applying two existing approaches – Louvain and InfoMap – to the same networks. The comparative analysis shows that our algorithm outperforms the existing approaches in differentiating “small” and “good” communities.

The Implication of Terrorism’s Extremely Low Base Rate

ABSTRACT A robust empirical finding is that global neojihadi terrorism is extremely rare in Western countries compared to other kinds of violence. Its base rate in the West is about 3 new global neojihadis per 100 million people per year. Bayesian conditional probability shows that this extremely low base rate ensures that any attempt to detect a potential global neojihadi on the basis of imperfectly specific indicators (conditions) will generate a large number of false positives. This finding has practical implications for a preventive counterterrorism strategy based on detection of potential global neojihadi terrorists using these indicators derived from counterterrorism research. Detection instruments based on them produce many false positives, namely overt sympathizers, who, absent state agents’ entrapment, never cross the line to political crime and violence. The state pursuit of false positives not only diverts scarce resources from targeting true threats but also results in unfair harassment, persecution, and even prosecution of these false positives. This paper suggests that, as scholars whose work helps craft these indicators, we have the moral duty to teach state practitioners about this relatively neglected implication of the extremely low base rate of global neojihadi terrorism.

Imagining (in)security: NATO's collective self-defence and post-9/11 military policing in the Mediterranean Sea

AbstractHow do scenarios of dangerous futures imagined in the framework of the post-9/11 counterterrorism shape security institutions? Critical Security Studies (CSS)'s dominant answer is that state apparatus are significantly transformed by the use of new technologies of prediction that are very prolific in imagining potential risks. The present article questions this technologically determinist thesis. Introducing the notion of weak field in the study of pre-emption, it argues that the political sociology of transnational fields of power can help us in historicise and assess more precisely the impact of imagination over power and control in the pre-emptive era. The article analyses NATO's reaction to 9/11 as a case study. It shows how the fabrication of potential terrorist threats by NATO's practitioners, that served to justify the pre-emptive use of the collective self-defence clause of the Washington Treaty (Article 5), evolved into an ambiguous support for NATO's military policing of the Mediterranean basin and into its involvement in migration control.

Finite element modelling of a truck crashing into a new form of mobile vehicle blocker

In the last years, a new form of terrorist attack has sowed panic in western countries: vehicles have been run into crowded places injuring and killing many people. The first solution to preventing the vehicle ramming attack has been the placement of concrete barriers around areas that are potential terrorist targets. The performance of these systems is questionable and the design of new, effective and good-looking protection devices is a hot topic. The authors have already presented a new certified mobile barrier, which is able to stop a 3500 kg vehicle run at 64 km/h in a few meters thank to its high deformability and the adoption of water as a filler. The water flows out and removes an appreciable amount of the impact energy. In this paper, the crashes of a 7500 kg truck running at 64 km/h against a concrete block and a single barrier designed by the authors are analysed with the help of finite element (FE) calculations in Abaqus Explicit. The water in the barrier is modelled using Smooth Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH). Due to the complexity of the truck modelling, a very simplified geometry is adopted, which is a consequence of the different versions tested. According to the results, compared to the concrete blocks, the designed barrier is overall more effective, even in a single configuration.

Designing a relational model to identify relationships between suspicious customers in anti-money laundering (AML) using social network analysis (SNA)

The stability of the economy and political system of any country highly depends on the policy of anti-money laundering (AML). If government policies are incapable of handling money laundering activities in an appropriate way, the control of the economy can be transferred to criminals. The current literature provides various technical solutions, such as clustering-based anomaly detection techniques, rule-based systems, and a decision tree algorithm, to control such activities that can aid in identifying suspicious customers or transactions. However, the literature provides no effective and appropriate solutions that could aid in identifying relationships between suspicious customers or transactions. The current challenge in the field is to identify associated links between suspicious customers who are involved in money laundering. To consider this challenge, this paper discusses the challenges associated with identifying relationships such as business and family relationships and proposes a model to identify links between suspicious customers using social network analysis (SNA). The proposed model aims to identify various mafias and groups involved in money laundering activities, thereby aiding in preventing money laundering activities and potential terrorist financing. The proposed model is based on relational data of customer profiles and social networking functions metrics to identify suspicious customers and transactions. A series of experiments are conducted with financial data, and the results of these experiments show promising results for financial institutions who can gain real benefits from the proposed model.

The Role of Islam in Indonesian Foreign Policy: A Case of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono Introduction

As Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono won the 2004 presidential election, it marked the end of Indonesia’s democratic transition era and experienced a dynamic change in foreign policy. The new international identity that viewed Islam as an asset was introduced by SBY, emphasizing the importance of moderate Islam as opposing extremism. The phenomenon of Islamic influence was not only the result of democratic consolidation domestically but also external factors such as the aftermath of 9/11 that portrayed Muslims as potential terrorists. For this reason, Indonesian foreign policy attempted to diminish such misconceptions and tried to be a peacemaker or a mediator in Muslim-related issues globally. To contextualize the analysis, the study focuses on the influence of Islam in Indonesian foreign policy towards the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and Pakistan. The mutual aspirations on the Palestinian statehood shared by both the government and the Muslim elements in society could be found, while religious sentiments were noticeable, as shown by the Muslim groups. In contrast, the influence of Islam in Indonesia-Pakistan relations, especially regarding the Kashmir dispute, was absent due to the difference in views of the government and the Muslim groups and constraining factors, including Indonesia’s national interest priority.

The effects of COVID-19 in the tourist society: an anthropological insight of the trivialisation of death and life

In the present essay review, we bring some sociological reflections about the durable effects of the lockdown not only in tourism behaviour but also in society. In so doing, we pose some central questions oriented to understand the sense of new normality, where the social distancing marks human relations. We coin the term trivialisation of death to discuss the ideological dispositions revolving around the domestication of death. In parallel, a new debate around the idea of the tourist-gaze is amounted in the section to follow. In the pre-pandemic world, tourists were valorised as ambassadors of the civilised order, but now they appear to be demonised as potential carriers of a lethal decease, if not potential terrorists who lurk to attack anytime. To some extent, COVID19 -far from being a foundational event- reaffirms a logic that starts with 9/11 and the so-called War on Terror.

Integrated approach to information support of navigation in the Arctic zone of the RF based on modern radar and navigation technologies

The existing radar and radio navigation facilities sometimes do not satisfy the increased requirements for the accuracy, efficiency and reliability of information support for navigation in the organization of movement in the rough waters of the Arctic region in difficult climatic and meteorological conditions. This article offers a comprehensive approach to the information support of navigation based on technical solutions that significantly increase the capabilities of navigation tools in the rough waters of the Arctic zone. The proposed approach to the creation of fundamentally new high-precision information tools for solving a wide range of new tasks in the Arctic zone based on radar provides a higher class of accuracy and functionality compared to those currently used. The technical requirements for radar facilities are defined and the use of a new generation of highly informative multifunctional coastal radars in combination with new mobile pilotage terminals is proposed. The application of the proposed technical solutions and the principles of building navigation systems will significantly increase the safety and efficiency of navigation in waters with increased complexity of navigation organization. The proposed approaches will ensure the solution of the such tasks as: monitoring of air, surface and ground space, local navigation system for safe navigation of ships, helicopter flight, landing of helicopters on offshore drilling platforms and ground airfields, mooring of vessels to drilling platforms and terminal berths. It also support monitoring and dispatching of ship traffic in ports and the area of responsibility of terminals, including monitoring the position of ships at anchorage. Will be sufficient simplify high-precision operational assessment of the ice situation and the weather in the radar area of responsibility, protection of offshore drilling platforms and territories of onshore terminals, information support of means of protection against potential terrorist threats.

Mogućnosti naše države u zaštiti svojih interesa u postojećoj migrantskoj krizi sa osvrtom na probleme sa migrantima koji su u sukobu sa zakonom

In the modern world, there are many challenges that rightly create anxiety for the future of humanity. There are security challenges in our country, as well as in the Balkans, Europe and beyond. The problem that has been current for several years is the migrant crisis and how to deal with it. No matter how much we try to bring order to this issue, to reduce security risks for our country, given that these are people of other customs, cultures, habits, lifestyles, etc., there is a threat in this regard, especially from potential terrorist attacks. In the paper, we have pointed out only a few, while paying special attention to the problems with migrants who have come into conflict with the law. It also pointed out the dilemmas and problems that our judicial authorities encounter in criminal proceedings and the possibilities of how to overcome them, bearing in mind that for these migrants we are only a transit route to the countries of Western Europe.

Explaining Public Attitudes toward Facial Recognition Technology

This study examines what factors explain Americans’ attitudes toward the development of facial recognition technology (FRT) as well as uses of it by law enforcement to identify criminal suspects, identify potential terrorists, and monitor public protests. The theoretical framework posits that members of the public draw on their value predispositions along with media messages to form attitudes toward the technology. The analyses drew on original data from two nationally representative surveys of the U.S. public conducted in 2020, amid a series of controversies about racial equity in policing. The results demonstrate that political ideology, trust in government, trust in scientists, deference to scientific authority, and beliefs about police predicted attitudes toward FRT. In addition, the analyses yielded evidence that overall television viewing and crime television viewing cultivate attitudes toward FRT. The findings carry implications for understanding the future trajectory of public opinion toward the technology.

Борьба с терроризмом и права человека в Европе

The article analyzes contemporary problems of the fight against terrorism in Europe in the context of human rights protection. The human rights issues acquired a new dimension after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 in the United States, which fundamentally changed the attitude towards terrorism and the fight against it around the world. Today, the European perspective on the protection of human rights in the context of the fight against terrorism remains within the framework of the UN approaches and is mainly developed in such international regional organizations as the Council of Europe (CoE), the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and the European Union (EU) system. The European states have undertaken to implement all necessary measures to protect human rights and freedoms, including – and especially – against terrorist acts. All measures taken in the fight against terrorism in Europe should be based on the observance of human rights, as well as the rule of law, including elimination of all forms of arbitrariness and discrimination, and be subject to supervisory procedures. The latest counter-terrorism strategies in Europe are based on the principles of inclusiveness and assume that a welcoming society in which the rights of everyone are fully respected is a society where terrorism cannot find a place and take root, and it will be more difficult for potential terrorists to be radicalized and recruited. However, in tactical terms, the emphasis in the fight against terrorism is often made on strengthening control over individuals, which causes concerns of the society and human rights activists. In contemporary conditions, the fight against terrorism requires additional state guarantees, investments in social cohesion, education, and the development of relationships, so that everyone can feel that their personality is respected and that the society fully accepts them.

Reclaiming Pashtun Identity

This essay focuses on the “regime of truth” that has historically been constructed in public education institutions that support the state assimilationist nation-building project which marginalizes Pashtun ethnic identity, culture, history, and political existence. In popular media, Pashtun are also presented as a “suspect community” and “potential terrorists.” In response, some Pashtun have created informal spaces such as study circles, gatherings where they develop alternatives to the official state narrative found in textbooks used in formal education. By focusing on Pashtun history, culture and politics, they consciously and academically resist the image of the Pashtun as “suspect community.” Drawing on what James C. Scott calls “weapons of the weak,” this essay examines the selection and use of these informal spaces as a mode of resistance. The research on which it is based uses anthropological methods, such as participant observation, informal discussions, and unstructured interviews, to examine the construction of narratives that challenge official accounts of Pashtun identity. The essay concludes by comparing these Pashtun informal spaces with different forms of resistance found among other ethnic groups in Pakistan.

Assessment of Terrorism Risk to Critical Infrastructures: The Case of a Power-Supply Substation

This paper presents a novel approach for estimating the vulnerability level of critical infrastructure confronting potential terrorist threats and assessing the usefulness of various protection strategies for critical infrastructure (CI). A methodology, utilizing a combination of topological network analysis and game theory, is presented to evaluate the effectiveness of protection strategies for certain components in the infrastructure under various attack scenarios. This paper focuses on protective strategies that are based on different attack scenarios as well as on the connectivity of the critical infrastructure components. The methodology proposed allows optimization of protection strategies in terms of investment in critical infrastructure protection in order to reduce expenditures on local infrastructure protection or on a single critical infrastructure for small projects. A case study of a power-supply substation is included to validate the analytical framework. The results indicate that the framework is highly applicable to other types of critical infrastructures facing similar threats. The results suggest that when only terrorist attacks are considered, improving the robustness of CI has a much higher effectiveness and efficiency than improving CI redundancy. The research methodology in this paper can be applied to a wide range of critical infrastructures and systems that may be at risk from manmade extreme events.