Constant threat of terrorism

Constant threat of terrorism
The terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 on the World Trade Center (WTC) in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, showed the power of a terrorist network.
International Network of Global Salafi Jihad and its department al-Qaeda unit al-Sulbah (Al-Qa'idah al-Sulbah) - the main organizers of large-scale terror attacks of the last fifteen years - are the most powerful terrorist and public organizations whose purpose is to establish a true Islamic government and the revival of Islam.
The emergence of organizations such as the Global Salafi Jihad (Salafist movement) and the international terrorist network al - Qaeda - the International Islamic Front for Jihad against Jews and Christians – is a consequence of a single trend prevailing in the contemporary Muslim world - namely, rise of radical and militant Islamism.
International terrorist organizations seek to acquire weapons of mass destruction and sabotage plans in the areas of oil and gas. In addition, according to some researchers, operating in Russia's North Caucasus militants are closely linked to the international terrorist network “Al Qaeda”.
“Al-Qaeda” has transformed into a movement that brings together independent terrorist cells in the world on an ideological basis. It has established strong contacts with regional extremist organizations in the Islamic Maghreb, in south-east Asia - with a "JI", in Russia - the “Caucasus Emirate” (Bergen, 2006).
In addition, the terrorist organization through contacts with pirate syndicates are planning to sabotage the sea lanes, coastal infrastructure in areas of hydrocarbon production. The priority areas they consider Gibraltar, Hormuz, Bab-el-Mandeb Straits and the Suez Canal.
Terrorists eager to facilities and technology of chemical and biological and bacteriological weapons, to the radioactive, toxic substances.
Terrorists are used by a variety of forces in their interests. Business and political establishment of the Islamic countries financially stimulate anti-Western and anti-American terrorist groups, trying to get a fundamentalist power from their countries to the outside. Islamic fundamentalist terrorist groups are seeking to impose their ideology (the struggle for a world Caliphate or Salafi state), direct terror against the enemies of radical Islam.
Changing political environment in recent years has led to the phenomenon of “Superterrorism” or “overterrorizm”, which “has a large financial, ideological and human resources”, which allows it, as acknowledged on the official level, to create a threat of “the use of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons” (Levi & Kelly, 2002).
The U.S. administration is considering distribution in the world of weapons of mass destruction among the major threats to national security. In this case, according to the White House, is a particularly dangerous desire to possess weapons of mass destruction or their components namely from the side of international terrorist organizations. This position is reflected in the doctrinal documents of American leadership as the “National Security Strategy”, “National Military Strategy”, “National Strategy for Combating Terrorism”, “A comprehensive review of the status and prospects of the development of the armed forces”.
The probability that at some point the U.S. will be under attack with weapons of mass destruction, is 100 percent - said Dr. Waheed Majeed, associate director of the Office for weapons of mass destruction of FBI.
Such an attack can take foreign terrorists, single terrorists, or even criminal groups, said Majeed. Most likely they will use chemical, biological, or radiological weapons rather than a nuclear device.
According to Majeed, American intelligence each year receives hundreds of reports that foreign terrorists are gaining access to weapons of mass destruction. When U.S. troops entered Afghanistan, they found that al-Qaeda was working on weapons of mass destruction, linking chemical and biological weapons.
In any case, so far, all reports of foreign terrorists obtaining weapons of mass destruction were not confirmed. However, the Department of the FBI, in which Majeed works, each year investigates in the United States more than a dozen cases of intent to use a weapon of mass destruction.
For example, in 2008 the FBI arrested Roger Bergendorff – in his house they found the ricin and anarchist literature. Ricin kills cells by inhibiting protein synthesis. Within days, the liver, spleen and kidneys of a man who swallowed or inhaled ricin stop working, resulting in death (Gaibulloev, Sandler & Santifort, 2011).
Islamic radicals are trying to create their own nuclear weapons at least since the early 1990s. In 1993 their prominent leader Salem issued a special memorandum to find materials to make a nuclear bomb. Terrorist underground has even developed an ideological concept that motivates the use of these weapons against the “infidels”. However, from conception to implementation there is big enough and complicated way.
In the world there are 22.4 thousand nuclear warheads, 95% of which are in Russia and the U.S..In the whole 9 states own nuclear weapons, 4 of them (Russia, Israel, India, Pakistan) are in their territory the most powerful and active terrorist network, the object of interest of which may be national nuclear arsenals. Other nuclear weapon states also not free from manifestations of political extremism (Gunarathna, 2002).
The failure to create or steal nuclear weapons designs forced the terrorists to find other ways - in particular, to try to use as a weapon radiation, invisible and because of it even more frightening for the mass consciousness.
It is a radiological or “dirty bombs” - explosive devices, where radioactive objects are used as the striking element. There are cases, when al-Qaeda militants were preparing terrorist acts with the use of such weapons in a number of Western countries (Gunarathna, 2002).
Creation of radioactive weapons is much easier, and access to sources of radiation is wider, as they are part of the mass devices, from X-ray equipment to various fire detectors.
The object of the terrorist threat is also a nuclear power, as any nuclear reactor can be used as a large “dirty bomb”. The experience of the Chernobyl accident shows that the undermining of the reactor is the release of significant mass of radioactive elements that are spread over long distances by wind and fall to the ground along with the sediment.
The process of the production of chemical and biological weapons is also technologically simpler than nuclear, and it does not require difficult access raw materials, like uranium or plutonium. This allows even affluent states or terrorist groups to get these types of weapons.
However, experience shows that it is not so simple. Attempts to use chemical and biological weapons in the attacks were made in the last century, but their effectiveness was limited. Montreal Institute of International Studies (Canada) recorded from 1900 to 1999, 126 such attacks. In 96% of the average number of victims was 3 people, 60% of all treated without human death (Sokolski, 2000).
The problem in many “traditional” for terrorism involving weapons of mass destruction: the production of biological weapons is associated with an even greater number of technical problems, from bacteria to ensure their dissemination. Experiment of the U.S. military on planning of homemade production of biological weapons of mass destruction, conducted in 1990, also failed, as all the projects proposed by the Army Research Institute graduate infectious diseases contain, in terms of their experts tested them, errors critical for implementation.
Unsuccessful is also the experience of well-trained terrorist groups. At the disposal of the sect Aum Shinrikyo was biological laboratory with the cost more than $ 1 million and a team of qualified specialists. However, a few years they were not able to create biological weapons of mass destruction. Testing biological weapons on the basis of anthrax spores (Bacillus anthracis) and botulinum toxin were conducted several times, but ended in failure (Sokolski, 2000).
Based on the above, we can conclude that the creation of biological and chemical weapons by terrorists is possible, but due to many problems and in most cases does not justify the cost. It is possible that in the future, with the development of military biochemistry, the role of these weapons of mass destruction in the world will change (Norris. & Kristensen, 2010), but now it is rather risky to offer to that process forecasts.
Threats of “Superterrorism” related to the use of WMD by extremists, can be divided into two groups: 1) of low probability or impracticable; 2) theoretically feasible, but difficult to quantify and having limited risk.
Among the unlikely we include terrorist use of nuclear weapons (stolen or home-made), and the undermining of the reactors of nuclear power plants. The difficulty of implementing these threats due to the fact that modern terrorist organizations cannot manipulate sufficient material, human and intellectual resources to overcome the security measures taken by the modern society.
It is not reasonable to completely exclude the possibility of such situations in the future, in case of a weakening of social control and increasing the resources of terrorist organizations. However, this process will inevitably be accompanied by a large-scale commission of terrorist actions using conventional weapons, the taking of governmental institutions and attacks using a significant amount of explosives.
Among the “theoretically feasible” “superattacks” are the use of “dirty bombs”, biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction. In all these cases, the main threat is not the actual number of victims, which is comparable to the attacks using “conventional” weapons, but panic that would be caused by the character of attacks. In the case of use of such weapons in a major city many people will be feared that they are victims of radiation exposure, infection or gas, which will cause panic and medical facilities overload, an example of which can serve the consequences of a gas attack in the Tokyo subway.
In such cases, the consequences of terrorist attacks using this type of WMD will largely be determined by the media, government information policy and the level of awareness of the real level of threat from the above types of WMD.
We emphasize that low threat assessment of“Superterrorism” threat, to which we are inclined to the basis of these facts, does not mean the absence of non-standard risk of terrorist attacks. Experience of the September 11 attacks showed that international terrorism does not have to use sophisticated and expensive technological solutions for making large-scale terrorist attacks with a significant number of victims. However, too much attention to the threats, the real level of which is low, to the detriment of other, simpler and feasible scenarios, would be a mistake.
According to the majority of foreign experts, in the short term, in the next two to three years most likely are conducting of terrorist attacks with the use of conventional explosives. However, in the coming ten-year period on the same forecast tit is expected the transition of terrorist to the use in their actions of WMD components. The most likely targets of attacks using weapons of mass destruction are the infrastructure of attacked countries, instead of towns and cities.
Officially, the U.S. has in total 77,069 potential targets of terrorist attacks.
For actions systematically and increasingly suicide bombers can be used, trained in specialized centers. To prevent and to reflect the majority of the suicide actions foreign experts recommended a sharp increase in the intelligence, especially towards the establishment of a reliable agents inside of dangerous movements and groups, as well as the expansion of the humanities on the political and psychological treatment of all members of the groups that are most likely to resort to the method of the use of suicide bombers. It is necessary to intensify the exploration and identification of training suicide bombers, support networks, and operational support of their actions in order to eliminate these systems (Zimmerman & Lewis, 2006).
As to the implementation of the terrorist attacks, they can generally be summarized in three main directions, different in identifying the priority of any possible object of attacks.
In accordance with the first method, the most likely target of attacks of terrorists will be choose in the first place a large commercial and corporate business objects, and instead or in addition to military and diplomatic facilities. Such an assessment is argued that business objects are more open and accessible to attack, less protected and guarded than military and diplomatic facilities.
The second method involves a priority for terrorists important civilian facilities with large populations. Such a choice is argued the importance and value of objects populated for terrorists now goes up as attacks on them leads to mass casualty of population, cause huge and desirable for international terrorist leaders social and political repercussions.
The third method is that the terrorists focus their attention on objects, symbols of the state, and not on those sites, attacks of which could lead to mass casualties. This choice is argued that terrorists will come from a desire to avoid a sharp reaction against their groups and leaders of military force by states.
All three methods are mainly deal with facilities in the U.S., Russia, Israel, the West in general.

However, it should be emphasized that the specificity of globalization is a general openness and interaction, so international terrorist sooner or later may own modern technology. Traditional terrorism does not threaten society as such, did not affect its foundations. Modern high-tech terrorism can provoke a systemic crisis in the advanced information structure, and even the crisis of the world community. Unfortunately, if the situation in the world will not change drastically, the terrorist use of weapons of mass destruction is only a matter of time. This demonstrates once again: the fight against terrorism by force and technological methods can only restrict it, or change the time and place of attack. Deferred terrorist attack could be by an order more powerful of magnitude than prevented one. Eradication of terrorism is only possible in the ideological, social, spiritual measure.

References

Bergen, Peter (2006). The Osama bin Laden I Know. Free Press, P.283.
Gunarathna, Rohan (2002). Inside Al Qaeda, Global Network of Terror. Berkley Books, pp. 61-62.
Norris, R.S.& Kristensen, H.M. (2010). Global nuclear weapons inventories, 1945−2010. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, № 66, P. 77.
Zimmerman, P.D. & Lewis J.G. T(2006). The Bomb in the Backyard. Foreign Policy, October 10.
Levi, M.A. & Kelly, H.C. (2002). Weapons of Mass Disruption. Scientific American, November.
Sokolski, H. (2000). Rethinking Biochemical Dangers. Orbis, Volume 44, Issue 2, Spring. P. 186.
Gaibulloev Khusrav, Sandler Todd & Santifort Charlinda (2011). Assessing the Evolving Threat of Terrorism. Retrieved from <http://research.create.usc.edu/published_papers?utm_source=research.create.usc.edu%2Fpublished_papers%2F146&utm_medium=PDF&utm_campaign=PDFCoverPages>