A crime-terror Nexus? thinking on some of the links between terrorism and criminality

Studies in Conflict and Terrorism

Volumn 30, Issue 12, 2007, Pages 1095-1107

  Hutchinson, Steven ^a   O'Malley, Pat ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF OTTAWA   (Canada)

^b UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY   (Australia)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 47249095459     PISSN: 1057610X     EISSN: 15210731     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/10576100701670870     Document Type: Article

References (35)

1. This article originally appeared as a report prepared for Canada's Integrated Threat Assessment Centre (ITAC) under the auspices of the Canadian Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies (CCISS), Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University.
2. The issue of continued state sponsorship of terrorism is a contentious one. For example, although one report warns of the continuing danger of Saudi and other states' financing of terror, another in the same year suggests that "contrary to widespread assumptions, the willingness of states to sponsor terrorist groups seems to have declined." Despite these types of disagreements, international pressure on the financing, harboring, and facilitating of terrorist groups has led to a financial crackdown on terrorist supporters, stated clearly in UN Security Council Resolution 1373 (28 September 2001), which calls on all states to "prevent and suppress in their territories through all lawful means the preparation and financing of any acts of terrorism." International terrorist groups, of which Al Qaeda is the prime example, have distanced themselves from any "state" as such, preferring to raise their own funds to finance their activities.
3. As one reviewer pointed out, the extent to which constrictions on terrorist financing have impinged on their operations is unclear. Although there is no doubt that money moves less through the formal system, non-conventional methods have been little affected by restrictions.
4. R. Ehrenfeld, Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed and How to Stop It (Chicago and Los Angeles: Bonus Books, 2003).
5. See, for example, C. Dishman, "The Leaderless Nexus:When Crime and Terror Converge," Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 28 (2005), pp. 237-252.
6. A. Schmid, "The Links Between Transnational Organized Crime and Terrorist Crimes," Transnational Organized Crime 2 (1996), pp. 40-82.
7. L. Shelley and J. Picarelli, "Methods Not Motives: Implications of the Convergence of International Organized Crime and Terrorism," Police Practice and Research 3(4) (2002), pp. 305-318.
8. UN International Drug Control Program 1998, p. 124;
9. IMF Survey-29, 1996.
10. A. Labrousse, "The FARC and the Taliban's Connection to Drugs," Journal of Drug Issues 35(1) (2005), pp. 169-184.
11. In the year 2000, however, the Taliban imposed a ban on cultivation of the opium poppy, which is seen as having been highly effective. Likewise, the invasion of Afghanistan found no stockpiles and so the relationship of the Taliban to the drug trade has not yet been fully explored. This point was brought to the authors' attention by an anonymous reviewer.
12. E. Mylonaki, "The Manipulation of Organised Crime by Terrorists: Legal and Factual Perspectives," International Criminal Law Review 2 (2002), p. 231.
13. Shelley and Picarelli, "Methods Not Motives."
14. E. Mylonaki, "The Manipulation of Organised Crime by Terrorists," p. 231;
15. see also T. Sanderson, "Transnational Terror and Organized Crime: Blurring the Lines," SAIS Review XXIV (1) (2004), pp. 49-61.
16. Sanderson, "Transnational Terror and Organized Crime: Blurring the Lines." This couples with what Terry Anderson sees as the replacement of profit with politics as the driving motive for kidnapping more generally;
17. T. Anderson, "Painful Lessons: Hostage-Taking and US Foreign Policy," Harvard International Review 20(4) (1998), pp. 62-66.
18. Sanderson, "Transnational Terror and Organized Crime: Blurring the Lines."
19. M. Rudner, "Using Financial Intelligence Against the Funding of Terrorism," International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence 19 (2005), pp. 35-58.
20. M. Ventura, "It is the PKK that Brings Heroin to Italy," Il Giornale (Milan), 15 December 1998.
21. J. C. Brisard, "Terrorism Financing: Roots and Trends of Saudi Terrorism Financing," Report Prepared for the President of the Security Council, United Nations, 19 December 2002.
22. Of course this is not meant as a binary where the two poles are mutually exclusive. Rather, there are numerous levels between sporadic and organized types. It may then be better to think of the level of engagement with crime as placed along a continuum with sporadic at one pole, and organized at the other.
23. It should be noted here that the authors' term "ephemeral-sporadic" refers to the organizational reality of such groups rather than to any ideological or political framework that may be more long lasting.
24. Brisard, "Terrorism Financing."
25. Edward Barnes et al., "The $400 Bomb," Time, 22 March 1993.
26. B. Hoffman, "Terrorism Trends and Prospects," in Countering the New Terrorism (RAND, 1999).
27. P. Williams, "Transnational Criminal Enterprises, Conflict, and Instability," in C. Crocker, F. O. Hampson, and P. Aall, eds., Turbulent Peace: Challenges of Managing International Conflict (Washington: US Institute of Peace Press, 2001), pp. 97-112.
28. The use of money laundering by organized terrorist groups is perhaps deserving of special attention, as it may be another area where criminal and terrorist groups might overlap. Larger terrorist operations would likely require funds channeled from wider, non-local sources, which might need to be laundered. Specific analysis of this possibility is beyond the scope of this article, and has been examined elsewhere.
29. Williams, "Transnational Criminal Enterprises, Conflict, and Instability."
30. L. Shelley, "The Unholy Trinity: Transnational Crime, Corruption, and Terrorism," Brown Journal of World Affairs XI(2) (2005), p. 104.
31. C. Dishman, "Terrorism, Crime, and Transformation," Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 24 (2001), pp. 43-58.
32. Schmid, "The Links Between Transnational Organized Crime and Terrorist Crimes."
33. The authors are grateful to an anonymous reviewer for this point.
34. R. Godson and W. Olson, "International Organized Crime," Society 32 (1995), pp. 18-29.
35. See. for example. M. Levitt, "Untangling the Terror Web: Identifying and Counteracting the Phenomenon of Crossover Between Terrorist Groups," SAIS Review XXIV(1) (Winter-Spring 2004), pp. 33-48.