Terrorist Innovations in Weapons of Mass Effect, Phase 2.

摘要

On October 6-7, 2011, experts gathered for a workshop at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland to discuss the factors that both facilitate and hinder terrorist innovations. This workshop is part of a two-year Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) sponsored research project that aims to shed light on the preconditions, causes, and predictive indicators associated with terrorist innovation in weapons of mass effect (WMEs). Organized jointly by the Center on Contemporary Conflict at the Naval Postgraduate School, and the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of St. Andrews, the workshop brought together specialists from academia and government who presented their research findings on twelve historical and contemporary cases of terrorist innovation, ranging from the 1972 Munich Olympics hostage crisis to the current use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in Iraq and Afghanistan. They also discussed major terrorist campaigns that exhibited multiple innovations in WME terrorism, including the cases of the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka and anti-Russian rebels in Chechnya. Participants also took on the challenge of explaining failed and foiled WME terrorist innovations, discussing a diverse set of cases that included Ramzi Yousef s 1995 Bojinka plot; the True Knights of the Ku Klux Klan s 1997 conspiracy to blow up a natural gas facility in Texas; and Al-Qaeda s short-lived campaign to use chlorine bombs against Iraqis in 2006-2007. Lastly, specialists sought to explain the puzzle of absence of innovation in the cases of maritime terrorism, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), and Loyalist paramilitaries in Northern Ireland.