The War on Terrorism and the Decline of Terrorist Group Formation: A Research Note

Terrorism and Political Violence

Volumn 14, Issue 3, 2002, Pages 141-147

  Pedahzur, Ami ^a   Eubank, William ^a   Weinberg, Leonard ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 0036444657     PISSN: 09546553     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/714005625     Document Type: Article

References (17)

1. The method of attack and the number of dead give rise to the perception of a heightened threat from terrorism, as opposed to a threat from just one international terrorist group. Both characteristics seem to indicate that some threshold was crossed by the terrorists. See the New York Times, 5 January 2002 A5 for the count as of that date.
2. The contemporary terrorist organizations seem to be distinguished from their predecessors by decentralization and the avoidance of a hierarchical command structure, easily penetrated by authorities. See, for example, John Arguilla, et al., 'Network, Netwar and Information Age Terrorism', in Ian Lesser, et al., Countering the New Terrorism, Santa Monica, CA, The Rand Corporation, 1999, pp 39-84.
3. Schmid, Alex, P & Jongman et al. Political Terrorism, Amsterdam, North-Holland Publishing, 1988.
4. Office of the Coordinator of Counter Terrorism; http://www.usis.usemb.se/terror. The data in this source was cross checked with others. The apparent conclusion is that this is the most reliable and comprehensive contemporary source.
5. It is important for the reader to understand that the inclusion of groups is largely a matter of the definitions employed by the compliers of the data sets. For example, some may well recall terror groups in the Balkans in the 1930s, but these do not appear in the Schmid and Jongman data set. Similarly, other groups found in another data set may well not appear in this set. Since this analysis is based on establishment groups, and not acts, some violence widely known may not be included. The dates a particular organization is formed differ slightly from set to set. Such discrepancies confront all data sets; none are perfect and all have disagreements with other sets.
6. Ideology is coded as Heft wing; 2 nationalist-separatist; 3 religious; 4 right wing.
7. This is coded in a binary fashion, yes, no.
8. This, too, is a binary code.
9. Again, binary, yes, no.
10. The data for the 1980s and 1990s is drawn from a source different than that for the prior years, introducing a possible source bias. A cross-checking of each data set against organizations in the 1990s lead us to conclude if a bias exists, which we doubt, the consequence is marginal.
11. See for example, Walter Laqueur, The New Terrorism (New York, Oxford University Press, 1999) pp.127-55; and Michel W. Zanini, The Making of Terrorism (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1988) pp.147-216.
12. See for example, Walter Laqueur, The New Terrorism (New York, Oxford University Press, 1999) pp.127-55; and Michel W. Zanini, The Making of Terrorism (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1988) pp.147-216.
13. The vaguely structured right-wing groups, arising from the violent subculture of the 1980s fall outside our definition of terrorist organizations, and are not included in this data base.
14. This observation excludes three organizations founded in the 1930s, the Stern Gang and Irgun in Palestine, and the KHL in Lebanon.
15. Here we might cite Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism (New York; Columbia University Press, 1999) pp.86-129.
16. http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/pgtrpt/2000/2450.htm. For the British government's list for the year 2000, see Paul Wilkinson, 'Active Terrorist Groups' Aviation Security 7:3 (June 2001) pp.18-24.
17. See, for example, Daniel Pipes, 'Who is the Enemy?' Commentary 113:1 (January 2002) pp.21-27.