Saturday, May 12, 2007

Terrorism : State Department 2006 Country Report

The State Department released the Country Reports on Terrorism 2006. The 326 page document is divided into seven chapters: Strategic Assessment; Country Reports; State Sponsors of Terrorism Overview; The Global Challenge of WMD Terrorism; Terrorist Safe Havens; Terrorist Organizations; and, Legislative Requirements and Key Terms.

Over 30 specific terrorist groups and their activities are reviewed in the report; as well as information on the activities of significant countries around the globe. The complete report is available for download here:

http://www.terrorisminfo.mipt.org/pdf/Country-Reports-Terrorism-2006.pdf

Here are some interesting excerpts:

Types of Attacks:

As was the case in 2005, in 2006 most attacks were perpetrated by terrorists applying conventional fighting methods that included using bombs and weapons, such as small arms. However,
technology continues to empower terrorist and effective methods of attack continue to be developed by them to offset countermeasures. Terrorists continued their practice of coordinated attacks that included secondary attacks on first responders at attack sites, and they uniquely configured weapons and other materials to create improvised explosive devices.

Terrorist safe havens:
Terrorist safe havens are defined in this report as ungoverned, under-governed, or ill-governed areas of a country and non-physical areas where terrorists that constitute a threat to U.S. national security interests are able to organize, plan, raise funds, communicate, recruit, train, and operate in relative security because of inadequate governance capacity, political will, or both. Physical safe havens provide security for terrorist leaders, allowing them to plan acts of terrorism around the world. Global communications and financial systems, especially those created by electronic infrastructure such as the internet, global media, and unregulated economic activity, further allow terrorists to carry out activities, particularly the dissemination of propaganda and misinformation, without the need for a physical safe haven. These “virtual” havens are highly mobile, difficult to track, and difficult to control, and are not based in any particular state. This part of the report, however, will not address virtual safe havens, focusing instead on physical safe havens.

The Material Threats:
Some
terrorist organizations, such as AQ, have openly stated their desire to acquire and use nuclear weapons. The diffusion of scientific and technical information regarding the assembly of nuclear weapons, some of which is now available on the Internet, has increased the risk that a terrorist organization in possession of sufficient fissile material could develop its own nuclear weapon. The complete production of a nuclear weapon strongly depends on the terrorist group’s access to fissile material and scientific expertise.

State Sponsors of Terrorism:
State sponsors of
terrorism provide critical support to non-state terrorist groups. Without state sponsors, terrorist groups would have much more difficulty obtaining the funds, weapons, materials, and secure areas they require to plan and conduct operations. Most worrisome is that some of these countries also have the capability to manufacture weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and other destabilizing technologies that could get into the hands of terrorists. The United States will continue to insist that these countries end the support they give to terrorist groups.

The Terrorist Conveyor Belt:
Radicalization of immigrant populations, youth and alienated minorities in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa continued. It became increasingly clear, however, that such radicalization does not occur by accident, or because such populations are innately prone to extremism. Rather, there was increasing evidence of
terrorists and extremists manipulating the grievances of alienated youth or immigrant populations and then cynically exploiting those grievances to subvert legitimate authority and create unrest.

Article sponsored by
police officers who have written books on law enforcement jobs; as well as those involved in writing on leadership.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Miroslav Provod centrum11@volny.cz

Will biochemistry stop terrorism?

Our research has shown that every matter is irradiating its specific bar code according to which it’s identifiable at greater distances. I have displayed some such examples at http://www.miroslavprovod.com, especially in the part “diagrams”. Similar examples could also be found in nature when a drop of blood attracts some species of sharks from up to 1.5 kilometres distance. It’s not possible to speculate about any mixing ratios within kilometres cubed of water, the sharks are immediately directed towards the blood by its bar code. There are more similar examples to be found in nature, I describe some in relation to tsunamis.

The horrible tragedy at the university in Virginia has inspired me to the use of the bar code in the war against terrorism. It would be possible to eliminate terrorism, crazy shooters, bank robbers and similar unwanted elements with the help of the bar codes. In reality it will be in use in a way that there will be well placed detectors that will recognize places, where some forbidden substances like bullets, explosives, drugs and alcohol are located. With the experience of calculating and analyzing bar codes of water streams, high voltage power lines and some metals it seems real to me to calculate the barcodes of other substances in this way. However, all this is out of my possibilities, I don’t have the necessary equipment nor can I realize the creation of complicated software. Moreover, further research has to be done only by teams of specialists.

I have no doubt that results of further research will be used not only in the war against terrorism but also towards other purposes. Should some institution be interested in further research, I’m available.

2007-04-27

Miroslav Provod

http://www.miroslavprovod.com