Summary
Foreign Terrorist Fighters and Terrorist Structural Leadership on the Internet.
Individuals that become terrorists are based on trauma, poverty, lack of education, mental illness, ideological commitments, social networks or social bonds like friendships, family, or community connections. Terrorism in our times is a trend towards a level of resources, training, and ingenuity.(1)
In 2014, in response to concerns about ‘foreign terrorist fighters’ returning home, the UN passed the resolution 2178, defining the term and condemning violent extremism, expressing concern about the use of the Internet to incite others to commit terrorist acts and requiring countries to prevent the entry or transit of individuals believed to be traveling for terrorist related purposes. It also requires countries to prevent and suppress the recruiting and financing of foreign fighters.
The Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said, “we must also tackle the underlying conditions that provide violent extremist groups the opportunity to take root.” Not all these individuals are ignorant. Some are educated and well connected, but for some their ideology drives them to extreme actions.
By using the Internet, the structure of international terrorist groups, is a flat organizational structure made up of many semi-independent cells capable of ascending attacks with little or no direction from or approval by a central leadership. Today Al Qaeda cells are operating in dozens of countries without always having direction from the central leadership. (ii) They do operational control by video messages with little or no direct contact by the organizations’ leader command. This decentralized organizational structure encourages the rise of local leaders and the general rise of the radical Islamic jihadist movement in various parts of the world. Since there is not one pole, the world gets complicated and decentralization makes things to go slower for the fighters of terrorism.
(i)(ii) Banks_Nevers_Wallerstein_2008_Chapter1, “Combating Terrorism.”
One reply on “Foreign Terrorist Fighters and Terrorist Structural Leadership on the Internet”
Yota,
There were some interesting points in this blog post. Since the United States and other countries “got serious” about combating international terrorism after 9/11, terrorist organizations realized that they needed to become much more sophisticated in their communication techniques if they wished to avoid detection and likely destruction–and they have done so. They now use sophisticated “high tech” approaches and encrypted apps that make it extremely difficult for signals intelligence to track and monitor them. Fortunately, we’ve avoided another 9/11 mass casualty event, but the potential is very much still there. –Professor Wallerstein