Volume II, Issue 2 Perspectives on Terrorism - 13 Years since Tokyo:
Re-Visiting the 'Superterrorism' Debate
By Adam Dolnik
Introduction [1]
On 20 March 1995, members of the Aum Shirikyo cult used sharpened
umbrella tips to pierce plastic bags filled with sarin nerve agent
onboard five trains converging at Tokyo's Kasumigaseki station.
Twelve people died and 1,039 were injured in what remains the largest
nonconventional terrorist attack in history. Then, only a month later,
an explosives laden truck detonated in front of the Alfred P. Murrah
Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people and injuring over
800 others in what at the time was the most lethal terrorist attack on
United States soil. These two events, while unrelated, served as the
catalyst for the overwhelming perception that it is no longer a question
of "if" a mass casualty terrorist attack using chemical,
biological, radiological, or nuclear (CBRN) weapons will occur, but
rather the question of "when" it will happen. In 2008, 13 years
since these two tragic events, we are still waiting for these gory
predictions of CBRN "superterrorism" to materialize. This
article will revisit some of the core questions in the
"superterrorism" debate, particularly in relation to recent
trends, such as the apparent decentralization and de-territorialisation
of the phenomenon.
The debate
Even in 1995, the concerns about the threat of "superterrorism"
were not new. As far back as 1975, Brian Michael Jenkins had already
asked the most important questions.[2] Many other contributions into
this largely theoretical debate followed, especially in light of the
heightened sense of uncertainty and vulnerability to non-state actors as
the end of the Cold War neared. Originally, the discussion concentrated
primarily on capabilities, where the alleged ease of acquisition of CBRN
materials following the breakup of the Soviet Union, as well as the
arguably more widespread availability of expertise needed for the
production and weaponization of such agents. Through the acknowledgment
of technical hurdles associated with the successful delivery of CBRN
agents, as well as the possible motivational constraints involved in the
decision of terrorist groups to use such weapons; the debate became less
theoretical. Another shift in the debate was represented by the claim
that the rise of a phenomenon known as the "new terrorism" had
eroded these constraints. In other words, the experts now believe the
"new terrorists" typically defined primarily by the
religious nature of their ideology -- were not constrained by the
political considerations that had traditionally led secular terrorist
organizations to place limits on their violent activities. [3] The
events of 1995 seemed to confirm this dire prediction. Even more
importantly, 9-11 seemed to have once and for all resolved the perpetual
question of whether terrorist groups would or would not be interested in
causing mass casualties. Nevertheless, one question remains: why have we
not witnessed another Tokyo?
Lessons from the past and their implications for the future
To answer the above question, it is useful to draw lessons from the
history of CBRN terrorism. One of the first incidents of chemical
terrorism in the post World War II environment was the 1946 poisoning of
bread designated for a U.S. POW camp near Nuremburg by a group of Jewish
terrorists known as Avenging Israel's Blood (DIN). The attacks, in
which arsenic mixed with glue was smeared onto the bottom of 2,500-3,000
loafs of bread, succeeded in hospitalizing 207 former SS officers, but
failed to kill a single person. Another noteworthy attempt was the
unsuccessful 1986 plot by the apocalyptic white Christian supremacist
-Covenant, Sword, and Arm of the Lord (CSA)- to poison the water supply
of several large U.S. cities using a mere 30 gallons of cyanide. In June
1990, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) became the first group
to use chemical agents in a guerilla campaign, when they attacked a Sri
Lankan Army encampment in eastern Kiran with canisters filled with
chlorine. [4] Then on 27 June 1994, the first modern act of chemical
terrorism took place in Japan, when six members of Aum Shinrikyo
released sarin out of a van parked in a residential neighborhood of
Matsumoto, killing seven people and seriously injuring 144 others. [5]
The first notable biological incident was an unsuccessful 1972 plot by a
tiny environmentalist cult calling itself R.I.S.E.. This group attempted
to culture large quantities of salmonella typhi and then contaminate the
water supply of several large cities.[6] The first successful
bioterrorist attack occurred in 1984 when the Rajneeshee cult used a
causative agent, salmonella, to contaminate salad bars in a small Oregon
town in an effort to influence a local election. The cult, which chose
an incapacitating rather than lethal agent, succeeded in making 751
people ill, but no one died. Then in 1994 and 1995, four Minnesota men,
all members of an extremist antigovernment group called the Minnesota
Patriots Council (MPC), became the first people ever convicted of
possession of a biological agent for use as a weapon under the 1989 US
Biological Weapons Antiterrorism Act. The men acquired the protein toxin
ricin, which is derived from castor beans, possibly to use against local
law enforcement and federal officials. Although the MPC's never
carried out its plan, the group was heavily influenced by rightwing
extremist Christian Identity ideology, similar to the ideology that
motivated the Oklahoma City bomber, Timothy McVeigh. During the early
1990s, the Aum Shinrikyo carried out over a dozen large scale attacks
with biological agents in Japan. Between 1990 and 1995 the group had
spread botulinum toxin, the world's most toxic substance, and
bacillus anthracis, the causative agent for anthrax, out of street
cleaning trucks, automatic suitcases, and from the roof of its own
compound near Mt. Fuji. However, the attacks went completely unnoticed,
failing to produce a single casualty because the cult used a nonvirulent
strain of botulinum toxin and only a harmless veterinary vaccine strain
of bacillus anthracis. The 1990s also witnessed two cases of loners with
ties to American militia and Christian identity movements. Larry Wayne
Harris, who in 1995 ordered plague bacteria from a Maryland culture
collection was arrested three years later in possession of bacillus
anthracis, while Thomas Lewis Lavy was detained in December 1995 for
possession of 130 grams of ricin. Finally, the 2001 attacks that
utilized letters filled with Bacillus anthracis spores which resulted in
5 deaths were also probably carried out by an individual that fit a
similar profile.
Nuclear and radiological terrorism have a less extensive record. We have
yet to see a single incident of nuclear terrorism, and the only example
of a radiological dispersal devices (RDD) has been the November 1995
discovery of a 32 kg parcel containing 10-50 mCi of cesium-137 at the
Ismailovsky Park in Moscow. [7] An NTV television crew found the package
after following instructions provided by Chechen terrorist Shamil
Basayev, who simultaneously threatened that many such containers were
placed around Moscow and could be detonated at any time to cause several
"mini-Chernobyls." The package did not actually contain an
explosive device. [8]
All of these past plots carry several important lessons. First, it is
interesting to note that historically chemical and biological terrorism
cases have all been geographically confined to developed countries --
specifically the U.S. and Japan. This possibly suggests that the
perpetrators' frequent exposure to modern technologies could be
associated with a greater likelihood of their incorporation into
terrorist operations. This, of course, has significant implications for
the future given the increasing transnationalization of terrorist
organizations and the rise of rise of jihadi networks in Western
countries. Due to their exposure to advanced technologies and the
increasingly prevalent involvement of well-educated individuals, the
home-grown cells may theoretically be in an increasingly suitable
position to exploit CBRN for attack purposes. In addition, the rapid
evolution of fields such as microbiology and their proliferation to
developing countries may gradually spread this effect on a global scale.
The second lesson states that the vast majority of the historical
incidents are crudely delivered, low-level attacks that have utilized
primitive agents such as potassium cyanide, arsenic, salmonella, cesium
137, various pesticides, rat poisons and other dual use items. Such
attacks have been comparatively ineffective in creating a large number
of casualties, although they have succeeded in achieving a
disproportional psychological impact. Nevertheless, more potent
unconventional agents have been used by terrorists only scarcely, and
only two groups -- Aum Shinrikyo and the unknown anthrax letter
mailer(s) -- have ever killed anyone by using an actual warfare agent.
Given the fact the perpetrators that in both of these instances had at
their disposal a large and comparatively expensive weapons program
--which in today's security environment would arguably be such
chemical are much more difficult to access. Therefore, it seems
reasonable to expect that future CBRN plots are likely to uphold the
general trend of rudimentary delivery of low-end agents.
The third important lesson lies in the fact that despite our common
tendency to use the term CBRN as synonymous with "weapons of mass
destruction," in most cases it was not the desire to produce mass
casualties that had led the respective perpetrators to adopting CBR
agents as their weapon of choice. In most cases, the respective groups
utilize unconventional agents because of their covert and
difficult-to-detect nature (i.e. MPC, Rajneeshees), due to their
capacity to trigger disproportionate fear (i.e. Chechens, anthrax letter
mailer, Lavy) or simply as an inferior substitute for a temporarily
degraded conventional capability (i.e. LTTE). [9] In some cases, of
course, the perpetrators did seek to maximize their killing potential
(i.e. Aum, RISE, CSA, DIN), but the lesson to emphasize here is that the
commonly assumed link between CBRN and mass casualties remains an
exception rather than a rule.
Finally, the historical record suggests that past perpetrators of CBRN
terrorism seemed to share certain distinct characteristics that set them
aside from other more "conventional" terrorist organizations.
This suggests that while any discussion about the uncertainty of
terrorist organizations' interest (or lack thereof) in CBRN in the
post 9-11 world is likely to be dismissed as obsolete, there is still
some value in going through this exercise in order to narrow down the
"profile" of most likely perpetrators for the future.
Beyond "motivation"
Many of today's threat assessments of CBRN terrorism tend to focus
simply on the general nature of the respective group's ideology
(specifically along the "religious" vs. "secular"
divide), in combination with specific statements of interest in
mass-casualties or "weapons of mass destruction." For instance,
most analyses of al-Qaeda's potential to use CBRN quickly establish
intent by simply citing the following statements made by important
al-Qaeda figures:
* "Acquiring weapons for the defense of Muslims is a
religious duty. If I have indeed acquired these weapons [of mass
destruction], then I thank God for enabling me to do so."
- Usama bin Laden interviewed in Time Magazine
(December 1998)
* "We have the right to kill 4 million Americans, two
million of them children."
-Abu Ghaith in "Why We Fight America"
(June 2002)
* "If a bomb was dropped on them that would annihilate 10
million and burn their lands
this is permissible."
-Sheikh Nasir bin Hamid al-Fahd in "A Treatise on the Legal Status
of Using Weapons of Mass Destruction Against Infidels"
(May 2003)
While these statements are a serious cause for concern and should
certainly not be taken lightly, it is important to emphasize that a
comprehensive threat assessment of "intent" in the CBRN
terrorism context needs to go further than the common focus on a
group's declaration of "interest." A meaningful analysis
needs to focus on the question of how far is the given group willing to
go in order to actually achieve a significant capability? While it may
be reasonable to assume that groups like al Qaida would use a chemical
weapon if they stumbled across one, the question we must ask is:
"how far is the respective group really willing to go to obtain
it?" What level of material and human resources is the leadership
willing to sacrifice, and how much is it willing to risk in terms of
operational security in order to achieve a CBRN capability? If the
organization is attracted to this option simply because of its desire to
kill as many people as possible, why not just attack more often, at more
locations, and on a greater scale with weapons that are already
available and have already proven to be effective? Why invest a massive
amount of precious resources into a new technology that only few if any
know how to use and that could potentially end up killing the
perpetrators themselvesall without any guarantee of success? Why
risk a negative public reaction and a possibly devastating retaliation
likely to be associated with the use of CBRN weapons?
As we can see from the complexity of these questions, there is clearly
an additional element besides the desire to kill on a large scale that
plays a decisive role in a terrorist group's decision to launch a
biological or nuclear weapons program, one so strong that it is able to
offsets the currently unfavorable cost-benefit calculation [10] in favor
of chemical or biological weapons over other conventional options.
Empirically speaking, organizations that have in the past gone beyond
merely expressing interest in chemical and biological agents have been
groups for whom these weapons have had a strong expressive or emotional
value, such as the desire to kill without shedding blood or the
interpretation of poisons and plagues as God's tools. An example of
this is the frequent reference to biblical plagues commonly used by
various radical Christian groups, or the strange fascination of Aum
Shinrikyo's leader Shoko Asahara who wrote poems about sarin.
Alternatively, environmentalist cults have interpreted diseases as
"natural" tools used by Mother Nature to eliminate the human
race that has through technological advances and an inconsiderate use of
natural resources caused a natural imbalance, which according to the
group could only be restored by an elimination of the world's most
destructive species. [11] Alternatively, more ideologically
"conventional" groups that place great emphasis on the principle
of unconditional reciprocity may under some conditions resort to CBRN
violence, especially in the case of repeated claims of having been
subjected to the same treatment by the enemy - in this case the use of
poisons against the population the group claims to represent. An example
of this is the attraction to poisons by the aforementioned Avengers
(DIN), who argued that because six million Jews were poisoned in
concentration camps, six million German civilians also had to be killed
in the same manner for justice to be served. [12] On a similar note, an
attraction to chemical weapons can be expected from Chechen and Kurdish
groups based on their claims that their constituencies have also been
targeted with such weapons. We can also expect an attraction to
radiological terrorism on behalf of groups in countries such as Iraq,
Bosnia or Kosovo, where much resentment has been raised by the American
use of depleted uranium (DU) munitions.
It is this specific expressive component that will play a key role in
the matrix of useful intelligence indicators that can be used to
identify potential perpetrators beforehand. Other such indicators
include high level of paranoia, an apocalyptic vision, presence of an
undisputed charismatic leader displaying signs of psychological
idiosyncrasies and an attraction to truly extreme violence, high level
of operational and physical risk taking, membership base including
members with scientific backgrounds, the group's expressive emphasis
to innovation and extremely high ambitions in the operational realm.
[13] At the same time, while these predictive indicators can provide us
with a useful tool, we must be aware of the fact that the vast majority
of previous CBW plots have not involved prominent terrorist
organizations, but rather previously unknown individuals and groups that
emerged seemingly out of nowhere. This means that a meaningful threat
assessment needs to expand past existing terrorist organizations to
include unknown actors, and that new assessment tools need to be
designed to provide timely and accurate intelligence on the activities
of such actors.
This is especially the case given the increasing transformation of
terrorist organizational structures from the hierarchical, political
party-like formations into more loosely knit networks of cells operating
without any real central command. [14] The characteristics of the
worldwide network we know as al Qaida, or the concept of "leaderless
resistance" embraced by the North American Christian Identity and
animal rights movements, provide good examples of this phenomenon, which
in many ways represents one of the downsides of globalization.
Today's terrorists can easily communicate via e-mail, using
commercial encryption programs and coded messages posted on various Web
sites and chat rooms, a fact that has resulted in an unprecedented
international reach of terrorist networks and the proliferation of
operational know-how among groups through knowledge sharing. More
importantly, the proliferation of the Internet has also contributed to
the rise of the so-called "home-grown terrorism", or the
emergence of active jihadi terrorist networks in the West. Members of
these small networks identify themselves with al Qaida's global
ideology, but essentially operate autonomously and frequently without
any direct link to the central command. This dynamic significantly
influences our capability to accurately assess the threat, given the
fact that the potential intent of these homegrown-cells to acquire and
use CBRN will rarely be identifiable beforehand. Today, one can
theoretically become a "member" of a terrorist group simply by
embracing its ideology, gaining operational knowledge through manuals
accessed from the Internet, and carrying out attacks in the group's
name via its signature modus operandi and general targeting guidelines.
The unpredictability of such independent actors is especially worrying
because terrorist organizations may recruit volunteers that have never
gone through structured training or formal organizational acceptance,
has contributed to the erosion of motivational constraints to engage in
acts of catastrophic terrorism. Because members of such ad hoc groups
operate without any moderating influences from the more politically and
strategically conscious central leadership, this decentralization of
decision making has also contributed to the deterioration of restraint
that traditionally played a role in the initiation and planning of
spectacular attacks.
This might especially be the case with respect to CBRN. For instance, al
Qaida's pre 9-11 doctrine called for the acquisition of CBRN mainly
as a deterrent and counterbalance against Israeli and American
non-conventional arsenals (as opposed to a first strike option) creating
a setting in which any use of such technology would be carefully
weighted by the leadership. [15] In this light, the continuing
fragmentation of the group and the emergence of a global movement of
independent and self-radicalized cells subscribing to al Qaida's
global ideology has arguably created a situation, in which the decision
to use CBRN would theoretically be in the hands of only several
individuals acting in a one-time capacity with no real concern for the
consequences. In such a setting, the motivational, strategic, and
political obstacles to using CBRN have become even less relevant today.
This is especially true given the increased aggressiveness of the new
"al Qaida" doctrine with regards to CBRN, which now incorporates
not only religious sanction, but even strategic preference for using
such means. [16] For an independent cell seeking guidance on jihadi
websites and forums about the permissibility of employing CBRN
technology to attack the enemy, the answer would be an overwhelming
"yes". That being said, in order for a CBRN attack to actually
take place, this intent would also need to be matched by the capability
to acquire and effectively weaponization of a CBRN agent.
http://www.terrorismanalysts.com/pt/index.php?option=com_rokzine&view=ar\
ticle&id=26
<http://www.terrorismanalysts.com/pt/index.php?option=com_rokzine&view=a\
rticle&id=26>
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