Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism
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Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism www.middlebury.edu/institute/academics/centers-initiatives/ctec The Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism (CTEC) conducts in- depth research on terrorism and other forms of extremism. Formerly known as the Monterey Terrorism Research and Education Program, CTEC collaborates with world-renowned faculty and their graduate students in the Middlebury Institute’s Nonproliferation and Terrorism Studies degree program. CTEC’s research informs private, government, and multilateral institutional understanding of and responses to terrorism threats. Middlebury Institute for International Studies at Monterey www.miis.edu The Middlebury Institute for International Studies at Monterey provides international professional education in areas of critical importance to a rapidly changing global community, including international policy and management, translation and interpretation, language teaching, sustainable development, and nonproliferation. We prepare students from all over the world to make a meaningful impact in their chosen fields through degree programs characterized by immersive and collaborative learning, and opportunities to acquire and apply practical professional skills. Our students are emerging leaders capable of bridging cultural, organizational, and language divides to produce sustainable, equitable solutions to a variety of global challenges. Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism Middlebury Institute of International Studies 460 Pierce Street Monterey, CA 93940, USA Tel: +1 (831) 647-4634 The views, judgments, and conclusions in this report are the sole representations of the authors and do not necessarily represent either the official position or policy or bear the endorsement of CTEC or the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. © The President and Trustees of Middlebury College, 2019 ASSESSING THE RISK OF ISLAMIST TERRORISTS USING HUMAN VECTORS TO DEPLOY CONTAGIOUS PATHOGENS Jeffrey M. Bale Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey Noreen A. Hynes Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Thomas J. Reidy Independent Forensic Psychologist 3 DEDICATION The authors would like to respectfully dedicate this study to Dr. Raymond A. Zilinskas, our friend and colleague at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies who both initiated the project and obtained the funding. Sadly, he died suddenly and preMaturely shortly after the project received funding. Rest in peace, Ray. TABLE OF CONTENTS I. Introduction: Motivational Factors in CheMical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear (CBRN) TerrorisM Threat AssessMent Jeffrey M. Bale Pages 6-57 II. Jihadist Ideological Motivations for Martyrdom, Mass Destruction, and BioterrorisM Jeffrey M. Bale Pages 58-186 III. Psychological and Social-Psychological Factors Relevant to Threat AssessMents of IslaMist Human Vector BioterrorisM Attacks Thomas J. Reidy Pages 187-250 IV. Technical Factors in Assessing the Threat of IslaMist Bioterrorist Attacks Using Human Vectors of Contagious Pathogens Noreen A. Hynes Pages 251-273 V. SumMary and Conclusions Pages 274-283 5 INTRODUCTION: MOTIVATIONAL FACTORS IN CHEMICAL, BIOLOGICAL, RADIOLOGICAL, AND NUCLEAR (CBRN) TERRORISM THREAT ASSESSMENT Jeffrey M. Bale . There is a now large and ever-growing scholarly and popular literature on the subject of “WMD terrorisM.” However, one of the peculiarities of the existing literature on that subject is the disparity between the relatively sMall aMount of attention paid to terrorist Motivations, on the one hand, and, on the other, the relatively large aMount of attention paid both to a) preventing nefarious actors from getting their hands on CBRN Materials, and b) the technical capabilities of terrorists.1 A good deal of valuable research has been conducted on certain aspects of the CBRN terrorist threat, e.g., on the vulnerability of weapons-usable Materials, on the technical capabilities required to construct CBRN weapons, and on the preparations necessary for dealing with the consequences of such attacks. However, far less attention has thus far been paid to the characteristics, Motivations, decision-Making processes, and behavior of the potential perpetrators theMselves. Although this relatively narrow focus on proliferation issues and terrorist capabilities has recently been subjected to pointed criticisM and is being increasingly challenged and compensated for by a long overdue eMphasis on the vital iMportance of terrorist Motivations and intentions, the iMbalances in the literature have only begun to be redressed.2 Indeed, the long-standing focus on the availability of dangerous Materials and terrorist capabilities rather than on terrorist intentions has arguably been seriously Misplaced given that the threat of CBRN terrorisM, including bioterrorisM, is first and foreMost a “deMand-side” probleM 1 Emblematic of this ongoing neglect of terrorist motivations is the book by Barry Kellman, Bioviolence: Preventing Biological Terror and Crime (New York: Cambridge University, 2007), which devotes only two pages to general terrorist motivations for using bioweapons (pp. 71-2), five to al-Qa‘ida’s interest in and justifications for using CBRN weapons (pp. 72-7), and four to the group’s reported attempts to acquire and produce bioweapons (pp. 77- 80); and Daniel M. Gerstein, Bioterror in the 21st Century (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2009), who devotes a mere four pages to terrorist motivations for using biological agents (pp. 173-6). Cf., in connection with nuclear weapons, Michael Levi, On Nuclear Terrorism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007), which devotes a mere two pages (pp. 11-12) to this crucial matter; and Matthew Bunn, Securing the Bomb 2008, the latest annual report sponsored by the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) and the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University, pp. 4-6, which devotes only three pages to the subject of whether terrorists actually want to acquire and/or use nuclear weapons. 2 See, e.g., Brian Michael Jenkins, Will Terrorists Go Nuclear? (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2008), esp. chapters 3-5, 10, 14-15; Jeffrey M. Bale and Gary Ackerman, “How Serious is the ‘WMD Terrorism’ Threat?: Terrorist Motivations and Capabilities for Using Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear (CBRN) Weapons,” report prepared by the WMD Terrorism Research Program, Center for Nonproliferation Studies, 2005, Part II on motivations; Brad Roberts, ed., Hype or Reality?: The “New Terrorism” and Mass Casualty AttacKs (Alexandria, VA: Chemical and Biological Arms Control Institute, 2000); Nadine Gurr and Benjamin Cole, The New Face of Terrorism: Threats from Weapons of Mass Destruction (London: I. B. Tauris, 2002), chapters 4-7; and Gavin Cameron, Nuclear Terrorism: A Threat Assessment for the 21st Century (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1999), chapters 2-4. rather than a “supply-side” probleM.3 After all, if violence-prone extreMist groups had no interest in acquiring or eMploying such Materials, it would not Matter, insofar as the threat of terrorisM is concerned, whether those Materials were accessible or whether the groups in question had sufficient technical capabilities to be able to deploy theM. As political psychologist Jerrold Post has rightly observed, “absent a clear understanding of the adversary’s intentions, the strategies and tactics developed [to counter theM] are based priMarily on knowledge of terrorists [sic] technological capabilities and give insufficient weight to…motivations.” 4 He was referring specifically to psychological Motivations, but it is even More iMportant, when one is atteMpting to assess the threat posed by violent ideological extreMists, to recognize the centrality of, and to pay close attention to, their ideological beliefs and agendas. Hence a priority in assessing the present and future non-state threat of biological weapons use Must be on the issue of the actor’s Motivations for carrying out acts of violence using such Materials. More generally, Bruce Hoffman has rightly noted that “the need for a better understanding of the Motivations, thought processes, Mindsets and historical consciousness of terrorists…is essential if the [terrorisM] field is to grow in new and beneficial directions, retain its relevance, and provide insightful and thoughtful analysis…”5 This saMe observation is likewise true with respect to the ideological motivations and operational objectives of different types and groups of violent non-state actors. The goal of this section is to highlight the range of opinions about how acute the threat of CBRN terrorisM currently is, and then undertake an analysis of the historical record and specific extreMist ideologies in order to help identify which types of extreMist groups are most likely to be interested in carrying out acts of violence using biological agents. Distinguishing Terrorism from Other Forms of Non-State Violence Before turning to the central topic, however, a few words need to be said about the nature of terrorisM, the iMportance of ideological extreMisM in evaluating terrorist Motivations, and the principal ideological categories of non-state terrorist groups. Perhaps the first desideratum should be to draw a clear analytical distinction between “terrorisM” in the strict sense of the term and other types of non-state violence, a distinction that unfortunately needs to be Made at the outset precisely because Most definitions of terrorisM – including those