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INTRODUCTION

Understanding how terrorist groups take decisions is fundamental to examine their behaviours and motivations. Strategies and goals are important concepts to understand the decision-making behaviour of terrorist groups, as well as to define terrorism. There are different approaches towards the definition of terrorism in the literature. A study of Schmid et al. (1988) yields 109 different definitions. Violence is central to most of them, since almost 84% include the term “violence”. Terrorism could also be defined as being deliberate, political, and symbolic (Crenshaw, 2000). There are more operational definitions that combine these by approaching terrorism as a form of psychological warfare that incites fear and influences the attitudes of a population (Friedland & Merari 1985). These selected components are consistent with the Global Terrorism Database (GTD)’s definition of terrorism, which is “threatened or actual use of illegal force and violence by a non‐state actor to attain a political, economic, religious, or social goal through fear, coercion, or intimidation” (GTD Codebook, 2015: p.8). This paper uses this database as a starting point for its research, therefore it considers this definition to be acceptable.

Similar to defining terrorism, approaches to a terrorist strategy is also portrayed differently in the literature. Freedman (2007) indicates a puzzle about whether to treat terrorism as a strategy or an act. Pape (2003) defends that terrorism is strategic rather than a random act, but he narrows his scope to suicide terrorism. Neumann and Smith (2005) provide the dynamics of a terrorist strategy without arguing how these dynamics vary through selection of strategies. Merari (1993) also takes terrorism as a strategic act to reach a predetermined goal, however doesn’t identify distinct types of terrorist strategies. In this regard, Kydd & Walter’s frequently cited article (2006), ‘The Strategies of Terrorism’, is a valuable source that identify specific strategies of terrorist organizations. In their article, five terrorist strategies are explored: attrition, intimidation, provocation, outbidding and spoiling. However, many other strategies, which are explored in the literature and also observed in the recent terrorist attacks, are not addressed by their article. 2 | P a g e

A potential reason for this is that Kydd & Walter focus on linking these strategies with long-term goals rather than short-term. They explain the difference between a strategy and a goal, which is essential in the analysis of terrorism. However, their analysis does not focus on the relationship between such goals and terrorist strategies. They do not elaborate upon the connection between which specific goals create certain types of terrorist group strategies. Moreover, the strategies they identify, even if they are viable, are limited in covering many recent cases of terrorism.

This study offers an improvement to Kydd & Walter’s approach by proposing that the short-term goals determine the choice of strategy. It extends their analysis through linking specific goals with specific strategies by asking ‘What is the relationship between the short-term goals a terrorist group pursues and the strategies it chooses?’ In order to observe this linkage, a case research is provided that treats short-term goals of the terrorist groups as an independent variable that presumably effect the choice of strategies, which is the dependent variable.

This study offers three contributions to the literature:

(1) Defining the specific short-term goals of terrorist groups with their links to specific strategies,

(2) Exploring strategies that are not analysed in Kydd & Walter’s article but exist in the literature and observed in the case research,

(3) Providing up-to-date cases in which these strategies and short-term goals are observed.

In order to test the research question, the study empirically analysed 150 cases of recent terrorist attacks that caused highest number of deaths between 2010 and 2016. The findings yield presence of 19 different strategies, including the five strategies explained by Kydd & Walter. These findings also administer a linkage of these strategies to four short-term goals, which are:

• Harming the enemy

• Increasing recruitment and sympathizers

• Increasing area of control 3 | P a g e

• Getting attention

The terrorist decision making process, as with all decision making processes, follows a framework. The first part of this study deals with the concept of this decision making framework by defining goals and strategies as being its components. Assuming that short- term goals determine the choice of strategies to be applied through attacks, the unit of analysis is the attacks employed by terrorist groups. This section stresses the existence of ambiguity and misconceptions concerning these terms in the literature, and suggests relevant definitions. It also analyses why Kydd & Walter’s argument is not fully consistent with the decision making framework offered by this paper.

The second part evaluates the findings of the case study in order to provide evidence to test this hypothesis: The short-term goals that a terrorist group pursues determine the strategies it chooses. Evidence also indicated that Kydd & Walter’s strategies are viable, and other strategies that are not examined in their article do exist in the recent terrorist attacks.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Definitions and typology of terrorist decision making

Defining strategic behaviour is fundamental for analysing terrorist strategies. In the dictionary of economics, strategic behaviour is defined as “making a choice of action with an awareness of how the pay-off depends on the choices of other agents, and taking into account how the choice of action will influence the choices of others” (Black, Hashimzade & Myles, 2013: p.308).

The definition of a terrorist strategy should be consistent with the definition of the strategic behaviour. However, in the literature it is usually misinterpreted as a tactic. Tactics are different than strategies. They are the actions and the actual behaviours, whereas a strategy “seeks to identify how best to attain military objectives through the course of a campaign” (Krieger, 2001: p.73). The literature also exemplifies the tactics but it doesn’t identify the strategies behind the choice of one tactic over another (Carter, 2015). Regarding security politics, definition of a strategy could be as simple as ‘the plan 4 | P a g e

of attack’ (Mearsheimer, 1983: p.640). This study, therefore, approaches terrorist strategy by defining it as a plan and choice of tactics to reach a goal.

Relationship between strategies and goals

Goals and strategies of terrorist groups are usually analysed by the literature in order to understand whether terrorism is successful or not. Scholars are divided on this point that some have found evidence that it is successful as a strategy (Kydd & Walter, 2006), and others state that it is not (Abrahms, 2011). Some empirical findings show that only 7% of terrorist groups achieve their aims (Abrahms, 2006), while some scholars insist that terrorism is sometimes successful in achieving short-term goals (Hoffman, 2006). The main difference between these approaches is that one defines terrorist goals as long-term and the other as short-term. In this sense, terrorism could be successful in achieving short- term goals but rarely achieves its long-term goals. Therefore, discerning the difference between the two is not only useful but needed for terrorism research.

In the literature, long-term goals are also defined in many ways. Tilly (2004) argues that calling for autonomy, independence, toppling existing governments, or correcting some wrongdoings of an organisation are the long-term goals of terrorist groups. Wilkinson states that ultimate goals of terrorist groups are “nationalism, separatism, racism, vigilantism, ultra-left, religious fundamentalism, millennialism and single issue campaigns” (2001: p.106). San Akca’s (2015: p.8) definition of main objectives as “toppling an existing leadership, changing of regime type, demanding autonomy, secession/territorial demands, demands for policy of terrorist groups” constitutes a good summary.

Short-term goals are not extensively examined in the literature, but an approach that defines the need to differentiate long and short term goals exists. Some scholars define terrorism as an instrument “to achieve or help achieve a specified set of long-run and short-run objectives” (McCormick, 2003: p.481). Abrahms (2006) categorises the objectives of terrorists as being ‘maximalist’ and ‘minimalist’ that the latter could be interpreted as short-term goals. Terrorist groups rarely change policies of the targeted population that are rooted in ethnic or religious identities (Gambill, 1998). Therefore, groups have shorter-term goals, which tend to be easier to achieve than the ultimate goals. 5 | P a g e

The argument of this study also follows a similar line that short-term goals are proxy steps to achieve longer-term goals. However, it directly links short-term goals to strategies rather than long-term goals within a hierarchical decision making framework.

Conceptualizing the Terrorist Decision Making Framework

The relationship between long-term goals, short-term goals and strategies could be perceived as components of a terrorist decision making framework. This framework signifies a hierarchical process that starts from setting long-term goals, defining short- term goals as steps towards longer ones, choosing strategies for those specific short-term goals, and choosing tactics, which are usually a type of terrorist attacks like explosion.

In the literature, not many studies utilise the hierarchical approach. However, some studies follow a logic of rationalist-strategic decision making, which is relevant. The rationalist approach treats terrorist groups as those taking actions that maximise the utility of their outcomes, and make calculations in ways that can be analysed by the scholars (Crenshaw, 1981). They are not such organisations that have no logic behind their actions. They maximise their utility based on the expected actions of their counterparts (Powell, 2007). In this regard, terrorism is strategic. Since terrorist groups are rational actors that apply strategic thinking, their attacks are also rational, and the patterns of these attacks give clues about the strategies these terrorist groups employ (LaFree et al., 2011).

Importance of examining the terrorist decision making framework has been mentioned by some scholars like McCormick, who stresses the need for a discussion on how, why, and in what forms terrorists make their choices (McCormick, 2003). Marsden (2012: p.137) hierarchically categorizes goals from top to bottom as “ultimate goals, strategic goals, organisational goals, and tactical goals”. Her hierarchical framework defines goals separately. Even if the author sees the strategy as another type of a goal, still approaches it as a step within a broader framework, which is consistent with the framework this study offers. Kydd & Walter (2006: p. 52) also approach to terrorist decision making being hierarchical, however their analysis lacks of a specific relationship between a strategy and a short-term goal 6 | P a g e

Kydd & Walter’s Study

In their article, Kydd & Walter identify goals as part of a hierarchical decision making in which broader goals lead to proxy goals and these turn into more specific goals in a tactical manner (Kydd & Walter, 2006). They make this relationship apprehensible by providing a concrete list of long-term goals, which are “regime change, territorial change, policy change, social control, and status quo maintenance” (Kydd &Walter, 2006: p.53). Even if they file many specific long-term goals with their links to terrorist groups, don’t indicate how these goals are operationalised with the proxy goals. In other words, don’t clearly set out which goals constitute relationship with which strategies that they examined.

Kydd & Walter provide examples of how terrorist strategies could be successful. In their examples, however, it is not clear how an attack is successful in reaching its goal, even if it is clear which strategy was applied. One of their examples of a successful terrorist campaign is the 1983 suicide attack on a US Marine Barracks, which prompted the US withdrawal from . US troops were believed to have been withdrawn due to this terrorist attack, which the perpetrator is not named in the article. According to authors this attack incurred costs for the US that led to a withdrawal. This is a clear example of the attrition strategy, which aims to cause unbearable losses for the enemy in order to force concessions, in this case the withdrawal of US troops.

However, the terrorist organisation’s long-term goal, which was not stated in the article, was not necessarily only to cause US troops to leave the country, but could also have been to change the government or state system. US withdrawal might also have been linked to another factor, which increased the marginal cost of remaining in Lebanon. For example, at that time, and its ally started aiding Shia terrorist organisations such as Amal in order to stop the American project in Lebanon (Shanahan, 2005). The US might also have withdrawn because it realised that the campaign it was leading would fail among such a counter-coalition of neighbouring countries. Therefore, it is not possible to comment on the success of this attack in reaching the long-term goal. What could be inferred that the terrorist attack could be seen as a smaller and shorter-term step to 7 | P a g e

stabilize the country against foreign troops, making the presumed longer term goal easier to realise. Authors, however did not acknowledge this aforesaid steps.

The reason for the absence of such a link between short and long term goals and their relationship with strategies could be related to their selection of unit of analysis. They take terrorist groups as the unit of analysis that they assign long-term goals, but with regard to assigning short-term goals and strategies to these groups, they take terrorist attacks as the unit of analysis. Using similar levels of analysis provides a clearer understanding of the decision making steps, which is not present in their article. When dealing with both short-term goals and strategies, their analysis would have yielded a more trackable causal relationship if the unit of analysis was terrorist attack.

By appointing groups as the unit of analysis, fact that the groups may have many short- term goals that determine the selection of their strategies is not considered. However, assigning the attacks as the unit of analysis allows the short-term goals and strategies to reveal variety among different attacks of a group. The analysis should be based on the “the actual behaviour displayed by terrorist organizations” (Sánchez-Cuenca & de la Calle, 2009: p.46). The case research of this paper offers a revision to Kydd & Walter’s approach by taking terrorist attacks as the unit of analysis.

ANALYSIS

Methodology and case selection

In order to provide evidence for the argument, 150 cases of terrorist attacks have been analysed in this research. Case study is chosen for methodology because it allows investigation of such a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context, and it is also an exploratory methodology that allows sampling a logic (Yin, 1994). Moreover, this study aims to explore the variations of strategies and goals among terrorist attacks, and this methodology allows to observe such a variation. 8 | P a g e

The attacks included in the case research are occurred between January 2010 and July 2015, and chosen from the Global Terrorism Database (GTD, 2015). 2016 attacks have not been covered in the GTD, therefore a small representative number of some of the deadliest claimed attacks (16 attacks) are also included in the analysis to keep the research as up-to-date as possible. The deadliest attacks are selected due to their remarkable nature; and only claimed attacks are chosen because they are assumed to yield the clearest traces of goals and strategies.

In order to provide the best possible representation, the second principle of selection is made according to share of attacked country among all claimed attacks regarding the number of killed. 2016 attacks, however, are selected only based on the number of deaths because this data is not yet covered in the GTD and not appropriate for sampling yet.

Selected terrorist attacks are analysed according to two questions:

(1) What is the short-term goal(s) of this attack?

(2) What type(s) of strategy has the group applied?

Strategies and goals that are observed in the case study are attributed according to the outcomes of the terrorist attacks. This research, therefore follows the approach that “observers tend to interpret an actor’s objective in terms of the consequence of the actions… the objectives of the actor are encoded in the outcome of the behaviour” (Jones et al., 1972: p.87).

The observer approached to an attack by collecting information primarily from Global Terrorism Database. Since the unit of analysis of this research is terrorist attacks, the operational definition of a terrorist attack given in the GTD is used. According to GTD’s definition, an attack is considered terrorism if it is intentional, involves some level of violence, or threat of violence, and perpetrated by sub‐national actors (GTD Codebook, 2015: p.8). Moreover, the materials about the details of the attacks have been gathered from news and media via the ProQuest database of newspapers (Proquest.com, 2016).

The material collected from these sources are analysed to find traces regarding the goals and strategies. An example of how cases were analysed is as follows. On 4th of October 2011, Al-Shabaab held an explosion attack to a compound that houses several Somali government ministries. This is an information, taken from GTD, indicating that the short- 9 | P a g e

term objective of this attack is to harm the enemy and the applied strategy is attrition, because the target is the government not public, and the group aimed to hurt the government presumably to get concessions in the long-run. In addition to that, the material collected from ProQuest database confirmed that the group claimed the attack with a statement, which is “one of our mujahedeen made the sacrifice to kill Transitional Federal Government officials, the African Union troops and other informers who were in the compound” (McClatchy - Tribune Business News, 2011). This statement provides information about another type of a strategy, which is the recruit elimination of the enemy. The group explicitly stated that it targeted troops, which is an indication that the group sounds to eliminate further recruitment.

These findings about the attacks are then inscribed according to their strategies and short- term goals. This delivers a contingency table showing the cross frequencies of specific strategies, which used in the attacks matched with short-term goals. Finally, the link between the short-term goals and specific strategies is demonstrated with a correspondence analysis that is created out of aforesaid contingency table. The correspondence analysis method is chosen to “determine scores which describe how similar or different responses from two or more variables are” (Beh & Lombardo, 2014: p: 121). The analysis bases its interpretations on a factor map of the correspondence analysis results, which is designed “for the graphical depiction of association between the variables of a two-way contingency table” (Beh & Lombardo, 2014: p: 120). The contingency table of strategies and short-term goals can be seen in the following pages.

This case study is inductive and collectively exhaustive that the material is analysed without consideration of constraints or previously set concepts. However, the variables are not mutually exclusive (Marvin, 2012: MECE principle). The terrorist attacks could aim to achieve more than one short-term goal and more than one strategy could be applied in the same attack as provided in the Al-Shabaab example above. This approach allows the analysis to yield more concrete results, which would not be realistic in case of assigning one strategy and goal to the same attack. Correspondence map in the following pages demonstrates significant links between the dependent (strategies) and independent (short-term goals) variables.

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term goals vs. strategies vs. goals term -

STRATEGIE

Table 1: Contingency table of short of table Contingency 1: Table

TERM SHORT

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value value = -

= 162.72, = df 54, p =

2

X

strategies(red) vs. vs.

)

Simple correlation analysis map map analysis correlation Simple : :

1

Map Map

13

-

term goals (blue -

short 7.833e

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Summary of findings

Empirical analysis primarily provides evidence that the number of strategies terrorist groups apply is greater than the number that Kydd & Walter identified. Moreover, the strategies they proposed have specific links to short-term goals. These links can be seen in the factor map in the form of groupings of strategies around the short-term goals they link with. The factor map should be read according to the distance between red triangles, which are strategies, and blue dots, which are goals. Shorter the distance between the variables, the more they are related to each other (Greenacre, 2007: p.105).

The explanations of strategies and goals in the following pages are based on their locations in the factor map, which is using chi-square distances for measurement. In chi- square calculations “overall measure of the difference between the observed frequencies in a contingency table and the expected frequencies calculated under a hypothesis of homogeneity of the row profiles” (Greenacre, 2007: p.32). Therefore, even if a strategy looks close to more than one goal for a human observer, the map locates it by considering the results gathered from the chi-square measurement.

In the next section, four short-term goals observed in the cases are briefly explained in relation with the links to specific strategies according to the factor map provided on the previous page. Factor map displays that attrition and spoiling strategies are linked to the goal of harming the enemy, while provocation is linked to the objective of increasing recruitment and creating sympathisers. Outbidding and intimidation, on the other hand, appear to be linked more to the short-term goal of increasing the group’s area of control. Cases yield 14 more strategies than five explored by Kydd & Walter. How these strategies are linked to short-term goals can be seen in the next page.

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Figure 1: Short-term goal and strategy links

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Short-term goal: Harming the enemy

Terrorist groups can hardly defeat their rivals but they can hurt their enemies (Schelling 1966). The logic behind harming the enemy is to cause damage in all possible ways. This may include indirect harm, because terrorist groups can harm their enemy by attacking its symbols and also by eliminating its capabilities. In the factor map, the short-term goal of harming the enemy appears to be related to attrition, damaging the image of the enemy, spoiling, damaging the resources of the enemy, spoiling the existent or upcoming alliances, elimination of recruitment potential, and alliance building.

Attrition

In order for an attack to employ the strategy of attrition, it needs to target the enemy itself rather than the population. It aims to make loss of human life unbearable for the enemy and thereby force concessions from them (Kydd & Walter, 2006). These concessions could be seen as a success factor, like a withdrawal. In order to win these concessions, the groups apply attrition because they want to harm the enemy up to a point.

The link between attrition and the goal of harming the enemy is evident as terrorist groups frequently prefer to harm the enemy by directly attacking them. For example, Taliban attacks usually targeted Afghan security forces. On 14th August 2011, the Taliban attacked a government’s compound during a security meeting and killed at least 16 government employees and six police officers (Irish Times, 2011). This was a direct attack on the enemy, which is the Afghan government. Taliban’s strategy therefore is attrition, and by applying this strategy they reached their short-term goal by killing soldiers, in other words harming the enemy. This attack was a step towards reaching their ultimate goal, which is toppling the Afghan government (Laub, 2014). 15 | P a g e

Interdiction

Another strategy that is related to direct harm is interdiction like damaging enemy resources. This could be manifested in the form of damaging roads or military equipment. In these cases, terrorist groups usually do not explicitly announce that they aim to eliminate the resources of the enemy, however the target of their attack shows their intention. An example of elimination of enemy resources could be the Houti Extremists’ attack in Yemen on 4th September 2015. The group attacked with a ‘ballistic missile at a military base used by the coalition in Marib Province, striking an arms depot and destroying equipment, including Apache helicopters’ (Kareem, 2015). In this case, the group aimed to harm the enemy’s capabilities by destroying its resources.

Image damage

This strategy manifests in the form of attacking government buildings, government service providers, or enemy assets that are important for showing power. By proving that the government can’t provide security, groups can move closer to forcing concessions (Hultman, 2009). These attacks intend to show that government or enemy is not even capable of securing its own employees, let alone its own people.

The Islamic State of Iraq (Now ISIL), conducted an attack on 5th July 2011 in which a suicide bomber destroyed a municipal government building, where national identification cards were issued (Reuters, 2011). In this attack, the target was the civilians that were queuing in front of the government building, however the enemy remained as the government and the strategy was showing that the government was not strong enough to even guarantee the security of its own buildings.

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Recruit elimination

The cases of recruit elimination develop when the group attacks the army’s recruitment points to intimidate people who want to join the army. Terrorist groups aim to harm the enemy’s manpower by reinforcing that joining the enemy army is risky and dangerous. It is predicted that joining an army is risky in any case. However, in weak states like Afghanistan, Yemen and Iraq, the state already has little to offer to its recruits. When an extra risk factor is added, motivation to fight for the government rather than remaining as a civilian is easily damaged. This strategy is also portrayed when groups aim to “pre-empt or weaken civilian participation in the armed forces of a state or rebel movement” (Goodwin, 2012: p.198).

In 3rd April 2012, Taliban conducted an attack on an army recruitment point. This could be considered a strategy of attrition, but at the same time it also succeeds in increasing risks around joining the government’s troops. The group wants to harm enemy by eliminating the opportunity for recruitment. This goal is met, because many sources indicated that the Afghan national army is struggling to maintain troop numbers due to increasing threat from the Taliban (Hamann, 2013).

Spoiling

Kydd & Walter describe the strategy of spoiling as aiming “to persuade the enemy that moderates on the terrorists' side are weak and un-trustworthy, thus undermining attempts to reach a peace settlement” (Kydd & Walter,2006: p.59). Spoilers “exist only when there is a peace process to undermine” (Stedman, 1997: p.7). However, these attributes alone don’t accurately describe peace spoiling in many cases. A critique of this strategy could be that its explanatory ability is limited to a few cases as Kydd & Walter’s example of -Palestine peace process. Phases of peace processes are not always discernible that weather the group is explicitly attacking this process is not easy to identify. The reason for this could be that the major spoiler factor in peace is the terrorism itself regardless of 17 | P a g e

whether the action’s target is the peace process or not. Therefore, in addition to the cases that are explicitly related to spoiling, the scope of spoiling has been expanded to include any attempt to upset peace environment like peacekeeping.

Among the cases that are directly related to spoiling, some of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan’s attacks appear to have been related to upset the peace between Afghanistan and Pakistan. For example, on 5th November 2010, the group attacked a tribal leader who led a peace committee resisting the Taliban (Hussain, 2010). Some of the Sudan People's liberation Movement – North’s attacks are also related to spoiling the peace between North and South Sudan.

Spoiling the peaceful environment and peace-keeping operations are also observed among the cases. For example, Donetsk People's Republic’s Ukraine attack in 10th August 2015 was described by the group as a protest against the government, who did not follow the terms of the ceasefire outlined in the Minsk agreement (Interfax: & CIS General Newswire, 2015). However, their attack upset peace in the first place and increased questions about the group’s willingness to sustain peace. Moreover, Al- Shabaab’s Somali attack on 27th May 2014 on UN-mandated African Union peace Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) is an example of the spoiling of peace-keeping operations (AllAfrica.com, 2014).

Spoiling alliances

The cases also reveal another type of spoiling strategy, which is spoiling alliances. This strategy is related to harming the enemy pre-emptively. The strategy of spoiling alliances forms when the attack targets current or foreseen alliances to get aid or support used against the group. This could be damaging the aid coming from allies like international organisations, such as NATO or the UN. After the 13th May 2011 attack of Tehrik-i- Taliban Pakistan, ABC commented that the US, who “provides millions of dollars to aid Islamabad” (ABC Premium News, 2011), has started to question Pakistan’s reliability as a partner in fighting with terrorism. In this case, the group sought to harm the enemy indirectly by spoiling aid coming from the US to Pakistan. 18 | P a g e

Attacks may also target an enemy’s alliance with another enemy. For example, Boko Haram, who pledged to bring the caliphate to Nigeria, attacked a busy bus station on 4th April 2014, claiming that they did this to deter the Nigerian government from working with the US to fight against Islamist militants in Syria (START, 2016). The group targets two of its enemies, which are US and Nigerian government, by a single attack. This strategy is also observed in many other attacks related to the alliance in Syria against ISIL. In its coordinated attack in France on 13th November 2015, the group targeted France by calling it a retaliation against France's military attacks in Syria as a part of an anti-ISIL alliance (Parfitt, 2015).

Alliance building

Among the strategies linked to harming enemy, the strategy of alliance building might seem linked to increasing control over population or territory, but it appears to be more related to the goal of harming enemy in the factor map. An explanation for this could be that fragmentation of terrorist groups in a region could motivate inter-group alliances in order to increase their capability to harm. Aforesaid attacks predictably more likely to develop in those regions that contain more than one terrorist group fighting against the same enemy. This could trigger outbidding or rivalry that it is not common for such alliances to become permanent. Therefore, the goal is to harm the enemy by attacking together, rather than increasing control of the area, probably due to concerns for sharing this area in the long-run.

On 23rd April 2015, Ansar al-Din Front, Al-Nusrah Front and Ahrar al-Sham groups coordinated a “multi-pronged campaign in Idlib province of Syria and claimed 273 lives” (BBC Monitoring Middle East, 2015). This concerted attack had a boosting effect of the action and they succeeded in causing greater harm to enemy.

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Short-term goal: Increasing number of recruits and sympathizers

Terrorist groups are constrained by time, resources, and manpower. Human resources are influential on terrorist strategy because they limit the “number and scale” of attacks (Feinstein & Kaplan, 2010: p.284). Higher numbers of recruits also increase the quality of manpower (De Mesquita, 2005). Therefore, recruiting higher numbers of people is very important for terrorist organisations. In order to increase recruitment, terrorist groups tend to project an air of superiority, through which they can attract people who share similar beliefs, or they try to eliminate the factors that discourage potential recruits. If group wants to appeal to potential recruits by attacking the enemy, then that case is assumed to be related to increasing sympathisers and recruitment. The claim messages of the terrorist groups exhibit the efforts to promote either the group or its attack as appealing and legitimate.

Gaining recruits and sympathisers, since they increase capabilities and resources, is a short-term goal to aid terrorist groups in reaching their long term goal, which could be toppling a government. Kydd & Walter explain enhancing sympathizers with the example of Al-Qaeda, who “may wish to topple the House of Saud, but if a majority of citizens do not support this goal, Al-Qaida is unlikely to achieve it” (Kydd & Walter, 2006: p.69).

Provocation

The provocation strategy has been detailed in Kydd & Walter’s article as an attempt to “induce the enemy to respond to terrorism with indiscriminate violence, which radicalizes the population and moves them to support the terrorist” (Kydd & Walter, 2006: p.51). To see whether this strategy is observed in the cases, the attacks should indicate traces of a state crackdown on the population in order to regain the control that it was losing.

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There are only two cases observed in this study. According to Kydd & Walter, the main aim of the provocation strategy is to show that “the government is so evil that the radical goals of the terrorists are justified and support for their organization is warranted” (Kydd & Walter, 2006: p.69). Therefore, the reason for its low frequency among the analysed cases could either be that terrorist organisations are seen as more evil than their enemies, or that support they gathered has not been strong enough to trigger the enemy crackdown. Moreover, many provocation attacks might have not been claimed and this study includes only claimed attacks.

In the two cases that provocation appeared, one was a Taliban attack on 29th July 2014, when Afghan forces attacked a province under the direction of a security chief, General Abdul Raziq, whose “brutal style of fighting the Taliban has raised criticism” (Gall & Shah, 2014). The Taliban must have been aware of this factor and strategically selected the target to provoke a government response. In the other attack that was held by Jaysh al- on 22nd March 2015 in Syria, terrorists attacked civilians in a government controlled area. Human Rights Watch warned that this had been a “race to the bottom in Syria, with rebel groups mimicking the ruthlessness of government forces” (AAP General News Wire, 2015).

Retaliation

Kydd & Walter describe their list of strategies as “not exhaustive; in particular, it omits two strategies that have received attention in the literature, which are advertising and retaliation” (Kydd & Walter, 2006: p.58). The authors identify retaliation as a strategy, but they state that terrorism cannot only be retaliation for counterterrorist attacks. However, the retaliation attacks observed in the analysed cases are not only to seek gains against counterterrorism.

For example, Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan attacked and took hostages in a Pakistani school on 16th December 2014, and claimed more than 130 lives. The group announced that the attack was a “retaliation for a months-long army offensive against its hideouts in the nation's restive northern tribal areas”. However, it is believed to be an attempt to kill a 21 | P a g e

student activist in the school, “Malala Yousafzai, who accepted the Nobel Peace Prize a week ago” (Bengali & Ali, 2014), due to her project that shows the world how it is like to live under Taliban threat (BBC, 2014). This attack doesn’t only demonstrate a response to a counterterrorism campaign, but also underlines an action of retaliation for an award that the group disapproves.

Pape (2003) places a retaliation attack of Hamas among the campaigns that did not lead to noticeable concessions, because the aim could be to depict an image of capability and prestige to impress sympathisers, or dissuade them, rather than harming. An action that harms the group could decrease its reputation and in order to restore this, the group can hold a retaliatory attack. An example of such an attack could be Jamaat-ul Ahrar’s attack on a military parade on 2nd November 2014 in Pakistan. The group stated that “the attack was revenge for those killed in the ongoing military operation in North Waziristan tribal area, on the Afghan border” (Right Vision News, 2014). In this case, the group strives to protect its reputation by taking revenge for the recruits that have been killed, which they deem important to get more sympathisers. Considering that the enemy would not counterattack because the group could seek revenge, it is a strategy to implicitly demonstrate that confronting them is costly, and joining the group is not that risky.

Misrepresentation

It is important for a terrorist organisation to enhance recruitment, because joining a group carries a risk of being killed. In this sense, underestimation of the causalities from the terrorists’ side eliminates this discouragement. A parallel approach to this is overestimation of the causalities caused by the group on the enemy’s side. In competitive environments, organizations tend to exaggerate their ability to do harm and to distinguish themselves from their rivals (Braithwaite, 2013). Therefore, the misrepresentation strategy aims to maintain prestige by making untrue estimations of people killed in the attacks.

Among the analysed cases, the majority of the attacks that are related to misrepresentation are attacks by the Taliban. The group is one of the longest lasting groups, whose birth 22 | P a g e

goes back to late 70’s that it started to fight against Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which could be seen as a prestigious cause. The group is also thought to be receiving support from Pakistan (Byman, 2005). Therefore, in order to sustain this support and retain its prestige, the group had to prompt their attacks as successful. The dilemma of how to frame the causalities is a concern for the Taliban, when it attacked military units in Afghanistan on 12th October 2015. After the attack, the Taliban spokesman “claimed that militants have destroyed two battle tanks and killed six soldiers in clash for control of Ghazni city, a claim rebuffed by Ahmadi (government spokesperson) as unfounded” (Xinhua News Agency - CEIS, 2015).

There is another interesting Taliban case about misrepresentation. After its attack in Afghanistan on 2nd December 2013, government authorities stated that around 50 Taliban fighters had been killed and 7-8 security forces had lost their lives. However, the Taliban announced similar figures of around 50 security forces killed and 7-8 Taliban dead (Mazar-i, 2013). Such contradictory announcements show that the Taliban is trying to convince its sympathisers and potential recruitments that the attack was successful and government is misleading the figures.

Follower support

Recruitment has two determinants called supply and demand, the former deals with the reasons that drive individuals to join groups, and the latter with the group’s need for more recruits (Hegghammer, 2013). From the recruit’s perspective, joining a terrorist group carries the risk of being executed or arrested by the government, not having a legitimate career, and living under secrecy that limits social life (Lee, 2011). On the demand side, groups could have been trying to decrease these risks to gain more recruits or not to lose the existing ones. In order to deal with this, groups offer “side payments in the form of public goods for the followers” (Sánchez-Cuenca & De la Calle, 2009: p.33). Therefore, terrorist groups tend to provide protection to their recruits to increase the incentives for joining the group, and also bring benefits for followers to create sympathisers, which is believed to supply recruits. These constitute a direct link between providing protection, benefits, and support for followers and the goal of increasing recruitment. 23 | P a g e

Examples of these attacks could be related to release of prisoners, who keep arrested recruits of the group. One example is Taliban’s attack on Kandahar's prison on 13th March 2010, which was not successful but resembles a successful attempt of the Taliban in 2008 (Trofimov, 2010). Moreover, ISIL (Al-Qaeda in Iraq at that time) attacked Taji and Abu Gharip prisons on 21st July 2013 and “hundreds of prisoners, including more than 500 mujahedeen, were set free” (Businessline, 2016). Prison attacks decrease the aforesaid risk of being executed. Even if groups cannot guarantee a detainment-free environment, with prison attacks they at least signal that a recruit’s security is important to them.

Another case related to this strategy is Al-Shabaab’s attack on AMISOM troops in Somalia on 1st September 2015. After its attack, the group “allowed villagers to loot African Union soldiers' food supplies after the base was taken over” (BBC Monitoring Newsfile, 2015). In this attack, the group provided benefits to gain sympathisers.

Short-Term Goal: Increasing area of control

Many terrorist groups aim to increase their control over populations, territories, resources, or ideologies. By gaining control, terrorist groups have greater ability to reach their long- term goals. This could also be actions in the opposite direction by limiting the control of the enemy over these assets. Hultman, for example, suggests that “by destroying the government’s ability to maintain control, and by proving that the state is unable to provide security, a rebel group can force the government to back down and offer them concessions” (Hultman, 2009: p.823). In the map, strategies that are linked to the goal of enhancing control are outbidding, intimidation, gaining territory and resource, civilian killing, and sectarian killing.

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Intimidation

According to Kydd &Walter’s article, the intimidation strategy is applied when “terrorists try to convince the population that the terrorists are strong enough to punish disobedience and that the government is too weak to stop them, so that people behave as the terrorists wish” (Kydd & Walter, 2006: p.51). The authors make it clear that intimidation happens when a group targets its own population, which is used as one of the differentiating attributes from other strategies. The strategy of intimidation is observed in a case if there is a form of deterrence, “preventing some undesired behaviour by means of threats and costly signals” (Kydd & Walter, 2006: p.66), and punishing disobedience.

Intimidation demonstrates one of the highest frequencies in this research. Among the observations, attacks linked to intimidation tend to be smaller-scale. The reason for this could be that terrorist groups would have to consider the risk of taking too many lives and creating the reverse effect of losing public support altogether. An example of an intimidation attack was Taliban’s attack in Afghanistan on 21st February 2011 in front of the census office. After the attack, Taliban claimed it by stating that “all those killed were the ones wanting to be enlisted and become a formal member of militia puppets” (Shukoor, 2011). In this attack, the Taliban wanted to eliminate public support for government through intimidation. By doing so, the group clearly wants the public to behave how it demands.

Claiming territory and resources

A terrorist group seeks to “maximize its expected payoffs from terrorism” by “allocating its total resources” (Blomberg et al., 2011: p.448). Terrorist groups need resources for survival, and they need to continue their attacks to get resources. Claiming territory and resources is therefore fundamental for terrorist group survival. Territorial gain is also considered an indicator of group success (Thomas, 2014). Groups get closer to their larger 25 | P a g e

goals if they occupy territory and will reach that goal quicker if they have larger amount of resources. Freedman provides an apparent link between control and the strategy of capturing territory, but he sees control as a strategy rather than a goal (Freedman, 2007).

Territorial gain is also linked to long-term goals like self-determination (Abrahms, 2006). ISIL, for example, is less likely to get concessions because it seeks to topple the government altogether and establish a new state (Cassman, 2016), therefore, to capture all the benefits. This is viable, because in the analysed cases there are many groups that have claims over territory and the ultimate objective of state building. ISIL, for example owns 22 among 52 attacks linked to territorial gain.

ISIL attacks are striking examples of territorial and resource claims. ISIL’s attack in 16th January 2016 on oil-rich Deir-ez Zor in Iraq constitutes an example of the strategy of claiming resources, because it aimed to get oil resources under its control (Shaheen, 2016). As an example of territorial gain, the Al-Nusrah Front captured “one remaining Syrian army air base in Idlib province” on 7th September 2015 (TCA Regional News, 2015). By doing so, the group could take control of the north-western province of Syria, which it has been besieging for years. It clearly aims to control the area and to do this it chose to apply a strategy of territorial gain.

Sectarian killing

There are other strategies related to getting control that don’t need to require physically taking over the land. Sectarian killing, for example, is a form of control without capturing territory. Terrorist groups that have ideological long-term goals are more prone to sectarian killings, because they deem their ideology superior to others. The sectarian killing strategy is likely to have the aim of controlling the population as well its beliefs to sustain this superiority. Rather than territorial control, the logic is to send a message to the population that they either do what the terrorists want them to do or face consequences, which may be death, as the other sects faced when they don’t abide.

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Thornton treats ‘elimination of opposing forces’ as one of the terrorist strategies (Thornton, 1964), which could be realised by damaging the rival ideologies in the form of sectarian killing. People are killed in these attacks not necessarily because they pose a threat to group’s physical survival, but because they are threats to group ideology, which it uses to control sympathisers and potential recruits. Ultimate control over the ideology is one of the logics behind sectarian killings, since this is a way of enhancing mobilization via emphasizing the superiority of the group ideology. This superiority forms “ideological benefits associated with being a terrorist” (De Mesquita, 2005), which could be portraying sectarian killings legitimate and also needed to be better servants of the ideology.

As an example, ISIL has had a “decentralized attack strategy based on encouraging followers to attack while not mounting many leadership-directed plots” (Hegghammer & Nesser, 2015: p.14). By doing this, ISIL needs to order sectarian killing for its followers to delimit the borders of its ideology, since killing non-believers is legitimate. Extreme Sunni groups attack non-Muslims, as well as the rival Muslim sects like Shias and Alevites. For example, in 2nd November 2010, ISIL attacked a church in Baghdat and killed several Christians. After the attack, the group released a statement that threatens non-Muslims by declaring them “legitimate targets” (Parker & Jaber, 2010). is also another group that targets rival sects. In its attack on 15th December 2010 in Iran, the group killed at least 40 Shias (Bozorgmehr, 2010). Lashkar e-Jhangvi attacked Shias too in India on 17th April 2010 (Xinhua News Agency - CEIS, 2010). Therefore, sectarian killing is a widely applied strategy to control of an ideology as well as controlling territory.

Outbidding

In Kydd & Walter’s article, the strategy of outbidding is present under two conditions: “When two or more domestic parties are competing for leadership of their side, and the general population is uncertain about which of the groups best represents their interests” (Kydd & Walter, 2006: p.76). According to the authors, terrorists signal that “an attack motivated by outbidding may not even be designed to achieve any goal related to the enemy…. The process is almost entirely concerned with the signal” (Kydd & Walter, 27 | P a g e

2006: p.77). Their assumptions state that outbidding targets the population as being the audience, which has insufficient information about the political situation of the country. However, it is not easy to observe this strategy, because information level of the public and its elasticity to outbidding activities are difficult to measure. Therefore, in the cases included in this study, the most discernible attribute of outbidding is the presence of a rival that is actually targeted by the attack.

The groups target other sects, because they possibly or actually form a rival organisation against them. They target rivals because it wants to increase its bargaining power with the government as Kydd & Walter state, by increasing control of its area. ISIL’s attack on a rally of a Shia para-military group called Asaib Ahl Haq (League of the Righteous) on 25th April 2014 (Times of Oman, 2014) is an example of this logic. The group targeted Shias not only to apply sectarian killing, but also because they seem to form a rival organisation against it. Another example of an attack on a rival is the Communist Party of India - Maoist’s assassination attempt on 25th May 2013 “to punish Mahendra Karma, the founder of Salwa Judum, for initiating an anti-Maoist movement” (Vij, 2013).

Election spoiling

The strategy of election spoiling is defined as the attempt of terrorist groups to either eliminate free elections or change the voting behaviour of the public by violence in election spoiling, terrorist groups aim to take control of the population or enhance control of the area they occupy by eliminating the potential threat from establishment of a new government. Empirical studies, however, cater evidence that voter behaviour doesn’t change under the threat of terrorism (Berrebi & Klor, 2008), (Getmansky & Zeitzoff, 2014). Therefore, it is unlikely that spoiling an election process would have an effect on voter behaviour. Why then the groups aim to harm election processes?

Terrorist organisations, assuming that they are aware of the fact that voters continue with their voting behaviour, must have been aiming not to change voter behaviour but to gain control over their claimed territory and the population by eliminating elections all together. Moreover, as in the cases like ISIL, groups spoil elections because their 28 | P a g e

democratic values are inconsistent to their ideologies, a strict interpretation of Sharia rule for the case of ISIL. For example, the group announced that it executed 300 Iraqi election electoral officers in 2015 by accusing them for promoting democracy and “ideas that distorted Islam” (Withnall, 2015).

The group previously conducted many attacks throughout 2014, because it has “vowed to disrupt elections by scaring Iraqi voters away from the polls” (Bhatti & Ammar, 2014). On the other hand, groups could also select election rallies as soft targets like the attack mentioned in the sectarian killing part, which ISIL targeted a rally of Shia para-military Asaib Ahl Haq. Therefore, election spoiling is probably not for changing voter behaviour but has a more practical function like increasing the area of control by spoiling elections altogether.

Short-Term Goal: Getting attention

Getting attention of an audience is an important component of terrorist attacks. This paper doesn’t treat getting attention as an action, nevertheless this was already achieved by the attacks, but defines it as a goal to achieve. This goal usually links with the strategies related to delivering a message, because they expand attention when shocking violence of the attack is followed by a message to be delivered to an audience. Terrorist groups target a small group to send a message to a larger group. Therefore, the goal of attention has an exchange with the concept of audience when treated with the strategies of delivering messages. These messages might target different audiences such as recruits, their own population or the enemy, depending on the choice of whose attention they want. According to the factor map, groups tend to do this by advertising their attacks, showing off capability or voicing their threats.

In this research, even if all terrorist attacks carry a message, the attacks related to the goal of getting attention concern more concrete messages such as messages that threaten, or advertise the attack or the cause of the terrorist group. The only exception to this is the strategy of showing off power and capability, because in these attacks the claim texts of the groups don’t explicitly demonstrate show-off, but the aim of the attack could still be 29 | P a g e

getting attention. This strategy appears to link with the short-term goal of attention taking in the correspondence analysis, because some attacks get higher attention due to the timing and scale.

Show off capability

Showing capability as a strategy, is observed when the group either holds a large-scale attack or its first attack to an area, in order to verify their existence or superior capability to harm. It could also be an attack after a period of calm to show that the enemy has misjudged the group’s silence as withdrawal. The goal of this strategy is to get attention by exhibiting group strength. Terrorists can still harm the enemy even if they can’t or don’t hold high-scale attacks. Holding a major attack, on the other hand, must serve for a strategy, which is showing off capability for getting higher attention. It would not be wrong to state that “the higher the number of casualties, the greater amount of media attention the attack is likely to receive” (Deloughery, 2012: p.81). These attacks aim to demonstrate high capability, which is signalling that the group is mighty and able to pose a threat to the enemy.

Examples of large-scale attacks are ISIL’s attack in Baghdad on 10th June 2014 that took 670 lives and another attack two days later that took 1,500 lives. These attacks are far too large to serve for only one short term goal and strategy. However, they are clear examples of a strategy of show-off. After these attacks, news about ISIL recruitment started to highlight unprecedented levels of new recruits (Ross, 2014) until 2016, when numbers started to drop to their lowest levels due to loss of territory (Dearden, 2016).

As stated above, timing of the attack is also important if it is realised after a period of silence or if it is the first attack of a group. Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a group that seeks to establish a Sunni state in Pakistan, held its first attack in Afghanistan on 6th December 2011. The attack targeted the Shia population in Afghanistan and found coverage in the media as signalling a sectarian clash, which was not the case before 2011. Moreover, the reason for choosing Afghanistan for the attack could be its larger Shia population than Pakistan (Doherty, 2011) that the group signals its aim of killing more Shias. 30 | P a g e

Advertising

The strategy of advertisement is to give clear and direct messages to their audience, mostly in a promotional and exaggerated tone. The audience could be public, the sympathisers, or the enemy. These messages could develop in the form of explanations of the reasons for attacks via statements of the perpetuator group. The group could deliver a message, which degraded the enemy or is designed to convince the followers that they are the ultimate owners of their ideology. In theory, it would be naïve to expect a government to give concessions if an attack has not been heard by a large portion of the public, because governments and leaders are usually accountable to their people.

The groups need to advertise their attacks to take attention so that they can deliver their message and fulfil their short-term aim. By exercising violence, groups open up a route for attention, and then they use this environment of violence to deliver their messages. Among the steps of a terrorist campaign that McCormick acknowledges, step of accomplishing is followed by packaging the attack via media, and the interpretation of the “mediated” message by the group’s target audience (McCormick, 2003: p.483).

After its attack to a courthouse complex in Somalia on 13th April 2013, spokesperson of Al-Shabaab stated that “the judicial system was sponsored by people whose policies were not compatible with their religion” (Pflanz, 2013). In this case, the group treats the population as the receivers of the main message in the manner of protecting their religion from incompatible intervention, while choosing a target to reinforce their advertisement of the message. Another clear example is a hostage taking attack by the Azawad National Liberation Movement (MNLA) in Mali on 17th May 2014. The group conducted a phone interview with journalists and stated that they performed the attack as a response to the “government’s lack of commitment to the peace talks” (BBC Monitoring Africa, 2014). In this case, the attack’s aim seems to deliver a message and in order to do this the group had to advertise with an interview.

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Threatening

Terrorist groups, by definition, pose a threat to the security of their enemies or the public solely by holding attacks. However, this paper treats threatening as a proactive and explicit form of expression, which is simply a message that includes a description of a threat rather than posing a threat. Threatening messages aim to indicate a transgression that requires punishment. This strategy doesn’t aim to punish but signal the intention of punishment, and it is done by getting the attention of the enemy or the audience that it intimidates. It is always possible for terrorist groups to send private messages to the enemy. However, considering that threat messages are delivered to reach the largest number of audience possible, its relation with the goal of sending messages is verified in the observed cases.

On the other hand, issuing threats before the attack would allow the enemy to take precautions (Schelling, 1991). Therefore, threatening after the attack both eliminates any setbacks to the attack, and also provides the opportunity to reach a larger number of people when combined with the shock the attack creates. Threat messages don’t necessarily threaten the visible target of the attack, but tend to reach a wider population or vice versa. For example, Boko Haram, after it attacked a mosque in Nigeria on 11th August 2013, left a video message in which its leader threatened the West by saying “his forces are preparing for global jihad and he also challenged a variety of heads of state, including Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu” (Voice of America News, 2013). Here Boko Haram attacked its own people in a Mosque, but threatened who had little relation with the targets.

Another example of a threatening message, which includes a threat of punishment, is Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan’s attack on a Federal Investigating Agency building in Pakistan on 12th March 2010. The group stated that “our men carried out these attacks and more strikes will continue all over the country because the entire Pakistan has become a colony of the ” (Bacha, 2010). In this case, the group threatened the whole Pakistani population by warning of further attacks. 32 | P a g e

Conclusion

This research provided cases of terrorist attacks as evidence for the existence of a relationship between the short-term goals and strategies of terrorist organisations. Findings and analysis verified the hypothesis, which is short-term goals that a terrorist group pursue determine the strategies that the group chooses. The study makes three contributions to the literature:

1) Kydd & Walter’s strategies, which have been widely covered in the literature, haven’t been accompanied by empirical evidence in order to test whether they are consistent with the recent cases. This study shows that the authors’ strategies are observed in many cases and are therefore viable. On the other hand, it also shows that their strategies are not the only ones and there are 14 more, which are both mentioned by scholars in the literature and observed within the cases analysed in this research.

2) Kydd & Walter, even though linking strategies with the long-term goals of terrorist groups, they do not provide an operational relationship between the short-term goals and strategies. In order to approach terrorist decision making structures, this paper provided a decision making framework that could be applied as an algorithm to operationalise aforesaid link. This framework builds the relationship by treating short-term goals as the independent variable to determine the selection of strategies, which is the dependent variable. 150 cases were exhaustively analysed according to the strategies and short-term goals they yielded. As a result of the correspondence analysis, strategies of terrorist groups are grouped around the short-term goals they aim to achieve, therefore verified existence of the relationship. Therefore, contribution of this paper to the literature is an empirical evidence for abovementioned argument.

3) The analysis also provided information on more recent terrorist attacks on top of Kydd & Walter’s argument, which was developed in 2006. Therefore, it contributed to the literature as an updated source of information on some of the deadliest attacks of 2010- 2016. Group focused studies consider groups as static, not changing their strategies. However, the attack based analysis this study provides, showed that there is actually 33 | P a g e

variation among the strategies that terrorist groups choose according to their short-term goals. Further analysis is recommended, however, on the distribution of strategies among terrorist groups to see which groups own particular strategies, which strategies are more successful within the variation of groups, as well as time series research with larger-n studies to discover more about the change in the patterns of terrorist strategies over time.