Introduction to Terrorism: Recruitment, Strategies, Psychology and Assessments

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Introduction to Terrorism:

Recruitment, Strategies,

Psychology and Assessments

The McManus GroupDr. Barry L. McManus

Presented to Capitol Technology

University’s class: IA 684

Complementary Security

Dr. Craig T. Johnson

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The Hunters and The Hunted

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The Hunters and The Hunted

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The challenge is to manage the

unknown…

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Sometimes it can be clear…The War on Terror

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The Arab Culture and The Interrogational

Process

Presented by

Barry L. McManus, MA

Doctoral candidate, James Madison

University

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“To Defeat Them,

First We Must

Understand Them…”

Elie Wiesel

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THE OBJECTIVES

• Share practical insights and experiences into the terrorist target.

• Learn interpersonal, cultural and linguistic aspects of eliciting information from Middle Eastern/Arab Suspects/Subjects.

– Note: Observations made here today are based on the instructor’s experiences and travels throughout the Middle East and Persian Gulf; and, academic studies in the field of terrorism and behavior.

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THE ASSUMPTIONS

• You will have an interview or have the responsibility of

overseeing an interview in the Arab Muslim World.

• To be successful in the field of security, law enforcement or

intelligence one must learn and understand the mindset.

• Know or learn the ground rules that are played in the

Islamic world.

• Religion is the first rule to understand.

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NON-JUDGMENTAL

• My second ground rule is simple…

• Nothing said here, inferred or even implied,

is intended to be derogatory towards

Americans, Arabs, Islam or anyone else or

their cultures.

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INTRODUCTION

• Defining terrorism

• Approaches to terrorism analysis

• The psychology of the terrorist

• Terrorist profiling

• Religious Fundamentalist Groups

• Suicide Bombing Strategy

• What’s Next?

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THE ISLAMIC RELIGION

Statement of Facts:

• The Islamic religion is one of the strongest elements

in the fiber of the Middle East.

• Despite its great importance in the life of the Arab or

Muslim, most of it will falls outside of the scope of

this briefing.

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THE PURPOSE

• To focus our attention on the

types of individuals and groups

that are prone to terrorism.

• To help us improve our counter-

terrorist methods and policies.

• To help us understand and learn

vulnerabilities that would aid in

combating terrorist groups and

individuals.

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THINGS TO QUESTION

• Terrorist mindset

• Decision-making process

• Can a terrorist profile be developed that could be reliable and help security personnel identify potential terrorist?

• Are there any common sociological attributes?

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DEFINING TERRORISM AND

TERRORISTS

• Unable to achieve their unrealistic goals (destroying America, Israel, the Jews, et al) by conventional means.

• International terrorists will attempt to send ideological or religious messages by terrorizing the general public.

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DEFINING TERRORISM AND

TERRORISTS

(cont)• They accomplish this

through the:

– choice of targets

– Knowledge that the targeted government(s) cannot protect their own citizens.

• This tactic is not new, and dates back as far as 48 A.D.

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DEFINING TERRORISTS“Contractors” Vs Freelancers?

• Old generation of terrorist leaders are those whose services

were hired by rogue states or a particular government

agency, such as an intelligence service.

• Example would be Abu Nidal, George Habash of the

Popular Front for the Liberation Palestine, and Abu Abbas

of the Palestine Liberation front (PLF).

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DEFINING TERRORISTSContractors Vs “Freelancers?”

• Freelancers are terrorist leaders who are completely

independent of a state, but may collude with one on a

short-term basis.

• Examples would be Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman, Ahmed

Ramzi Yousef, and Osama bin Laden.

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THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE

TERRORIST

There would seem to be a profound difference between

terrorists bent on destroying their own society, the “world of

their fathers,” and those whose terrorist activities carry on

the mission of their fathers.

To put it in other words, for some terrorists it is an act of

retaliation for real and imagined hurts against the society of

their parents; for others, it is an act of retaliation against

society for the hurt done to their parents…. This would

suggest more conflict, more psychopathology, among those

committed to anarchy and destruction of society….

(Julian Becke, 1984:243)

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THE ISLAMIC RELIGION

• Arab’s see Islam as an integral part of his identity and not just a part of CULTURE.

• Without Islam, an Arab would see himself as a non-person.

• He feels no parallel to the Western statement, “I am a Christian, but I’m not practicing.”

• Because the religion represents identity and resistance to change, values and behaviors that rise from Islam will be found relatively consistent throughout the Muslim population.

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THE ISLAMIC RELIGION(cont)

• Islam means the surrendering of the self to the will of Allah.

• No feeling of guilt or personal responsibility for anything

• No evidence of inner conscience as a barometer to judge their past or present behavior.

• The Muslim God is supremely impersonal and is above and beyond a person

• Distinctly different from what and how Christians views God.

• The cause/effect relationship and feelings of internal remorse and guilt is very difficult for the Arab mind to grasp.

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TERRORIST’S MOTIVATION

(part 1)

• There is little reliable evidence to support the

notion that terrorists in general are psychologically

disturbed.

• The careful, detailed planning and well-timed

execution that have characterized many terrorist

operations are hardly typical of mentally disturbed

individuals.

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TERRORIST’S MOTIVATION

(part 2)

• Terrorist groups are involved in discreet activities and try not to draw attention to themselves so they can merge back into the crowd after executing an operation (Maxwell Taylor, 1984)

• Terrorists are recruited from a population that describes most of us. (Taylor, 1984)

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TERRORIST’S MOTIVATION(part 3)

• “In psychological terms, there are no special

qualities that characterize the terrorist.”

(Taylor, 1984)

• No empirical evidence exist to prove that

terrorist have anything in common

psychologically.

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RECRUITMENT

What type of candidate would a terrorist group

want to recruit?

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RECRUITMENT(part 2)

Why not someone who is UNASSUMING and

PREDICTABLE?

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TERRORIST PROFILING

• Is terrorist profiling a positive or negative thing?

• Can terrorist profiling be done effectively?

• Are there hazards in terrorist profiling?

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TERRORIST PROFILING(part 2)

• There are as many variations among terrorists as there may

be similarities

• Behavioral scientists and scholars have had mixed success

to create a profile of a “typical” terrorist

• The Afghanistan experience has recently shown us that

people who have joined terrorist organizations (groups)

have come from a wide range of cultures, nationalities

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TERRORIST PROFILING(part 3)

• The U.S. Secret Service former

profile of dangerous persons - the

lunatic, the loner, the hater.

• Their profiles, however, were

shattered after conducting

thorough interviews of assassins

in prisons

• Presently, USSS look for

patterns, motivations and

behaviors when trying to detect

potential presidential assassins

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TERRORIST PROFILING(Provocative questions)

(part 4)

• How do you detected terrorist if they cannot be

identified by personality or physical traits?

• Are there any warning indicators that could alert

security personnel?

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TERRORIST PROFILING(part 5)

• In the new generation of

Islamic terrorists, be they

key operatives such as the

imprisoned Ramzi Yousef,

or leaders such as Osama

bin Laden, are well

educated and motivated by

their religious ideologies.

• The religiously motivated

terrorist is more likely to

develop and use weapons

of mass destruction

(WMD) in pursuit of their

messianic or apocalyptic

visions.

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RELIGIOUS

FUNDAMENTALIST GROUPS

• Terrorist do not perceive the world as members of

governments or civil society.

• Terrorists view the world within the narrow lens of their

own ideology, whether it be Marxism-Leninism,

anarchism, nationalism, Islamic fundamentalism, or some

other ideology.

• “Fundamentalists see themselves as symbols of Islam.”

(Monroe and Kreidie, 1997)

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RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALIST

GROUPS(part 2)

• Fundamentalists argue that it is a mistake for Western

policymakers to treat Islamic fundamentalists as rational actors and dismiss them as irrational when they do not act as predicted by traditional models.

• “Islamic fundamentalism should not be dealt with simply as another set of political values that can be compromised or negotiated, or even as a system of beliefs or ideology -such as socialism or communism.” (Monroe and Kreidie, 1997)

• It should be pointed out that “Islamic fundamentalism” taps into a quite different political consciousness.

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RELIGIOUS FUDAMENTALIST

GROUP(part 3)

• In the end, each terrorist group must:

– Be examined within its own cultural

– Assessed economic, political, and in a social context

• In order to better understand the motivations of its individual members and leaders and their particular ideologies.

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SUICIDE TERRORISTS

• Suicide or deliberate self-destruction, when the terrorist’s

death is necessary in order to detonate a bomb or avoid

capture, is not a common feature of terrorism in most

countries, although it happens with Islamic fundamentalist

terrorists in the Middle East and Tamil terrorists in Sri

Lanka and Southern India. It is also a feature of North

Korean terrorism.

• To most Western observers, the acts of suicide terrorism is

attributable to fanaticism or mental illness or both.

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SUICIDE TERRORIST(part 2)

• Looking closer, the Islamic movement and Hinduism, see

such acts of self-destruction as having a cultural and

religious context.

• The historical origins can be seen in the behavior of

religious sects associated with the Shi’ite movement,

notably the Assassins.

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SUICIDE TERRORIST(part 3)

• From the eleventh through the thirteenth century, a sect of

Shiite Muslims called Assassins used assassination as a

tool for purifying the Muslim religion.

• According to certain scholars of Muslim culture, suicide

bombings, are seen by Islamists as instances of martyrdom,

and should be understood as such.

• The Arabic term used is istishad, a religious term meaning

to give one’s life in the name of Allah.

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SUICIDE TERRORIST(part 3)

In the end, we have an Islamic culture that

provides moral values and spiritual satisfaction

and a modernizing Western culture.

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THE ISLAMIC RELIGION

• When one tries to point out to an Arab that he is the blame for something, one never really succeeds in making ones point to an Arab.

• Allah does all; the individual cannot be held responsible.

• The Arab does not develop what (Westerners) consider a conscience or a sense of personal responsibility for his acts.

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THE ISLAMIC RELIGION(part 2)

• However, because his self or identity is measured

by interrelating with others, he reacts strongly to

outside shaming.

• He realizes he must answer for his actions to his

family, social group, and others whom he is

expected to interrelate.

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THE ISLAMIC RELIGION(part 3)

• Arab proverb: “A sin unrevealed is two-thirds forgiven.”

• With the above thinking, any interrogation theme built

around the assumption that a Muslim suspect probably

feels remorse over an act that we want him to confess to is

likely to fail.

• Many religious Muslim fundamentalists feel that deceit

and deception for the purpose of advancing an Islamic

cause is moral; the end justifies the means.

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DEPENDENT PERSONALITY

• It can therefore be deducted that an individual could be persuaded by a group, family, or whatever to carry out a suicidal act to destroy himself.

• An Arab is expected to conform and to accede to the wishes of his elders in his family and his group on all major issues.

• His society provides him with little influence on the environment, his mobility or social advancement. Thus, he is molded into a dependent personality and is not expected to develop individualism, self-reliance, or decision-making capability.

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THE ARAB’S WORD

• Arabs are in love with their language. They are orators.

• During the Gulf War, President Saddam Hussein gave

boastful speeches about the great battles his country would

win, which were, in fact, complete defeats. The speeches

were ludicrous, or he was really out of touch with reality.

• Similar cases in Pakistan, have a number of Muslim

Pakistani nuclear scientists who debated the pros of all

Muslim countries having the right to bear nuclear arms,

and it being the will of Allah.

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ARAB CULTURAL TRAITSThe Group

• Islam is probably the single most important cultural

guiding force for Arabs. There are, however, other

characteristics common to all Arab societies which would

have a bearing on Arabs performance during subsequent

interrogation.

• Arab society is a group-structured society.

• The Arab’s behavior is continually pulled in various

directions by multiple groups competing for his loyalty

(i.e. friends, religion, tribe, political party, and ethnicity).

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QUESTIONS?

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