An Examination of Terrorist Network Characteristics over Space and Time
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Garcin, Bryant
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Abstract
The continuous rise of terrorist organizations around the world has created the need for understanding the networks of these terrorist organizations. Over time, the structure of terrorist networks change due to the addition or elimination of individuals and/or connections between individuals in the terrorist network which impacts the terrorist network’s ability to operate. An improved understanding of how terrorist networks change over time can assist in the dismantling and elimination of the terrorist organizations. Towards this goal, the characteristics of seven terrorist networks that executed a terrorist attack and two terrorist network time series that participated in multiple terrorist attacks are analyzed over time using quantitative measures. Specifically, the following quantitative measures will be used to analyze the characteristics of the terrorist networks, efficiency, connectivity, resiliency, and operational security. The thesis will then seek to determine if there is an increase in three of the quantitative measures leading up to a terrorist attack and a decrease afterwards and if the terrorist networks are resilient as indicated by a scale-free network structure. Also, the quantitative measure results will be compared geographically to determine if the characteristics of terrorist networks that are geospatially close are more similar than the terrorist networks that are located in another country or continent. The results from this thesis will enhance our understanding of the capabilities of terrorist networks and how they evolve over time. More specifically, the analysis of the characteristics of terrorist networks leading up to and after a terrorist attack can assist in determining if a particular terrorist network is about to execute a terrorist attack and whether or not the terrorist network will still be operational after a terrorist attack. Since the terrorist networks analyzed operated in various geographic locations around the world, the results from this thesis can assist in the analysis of terrorist networks globally and help limit the operational capabilities of terrorist networks in the future.
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Keywords
Terrorist networks, Connectivity, Operational security, Efficiency, Resiliency, Geographic comparison