The World's Most Threatening Terrorist Networks and Criminal Gangs

by Schneider, Barry R.; Post, Jerrold M.; Kindt, Michael T.

• ISBN13: 9780230618091
• ISBN10: 023061809X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-07-15
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

Terrorist organizations and international criminal networks pose an increasingly severe danger to US security. Who are these rivals who threaten us? What do they want to achieve? This book looks at diverse groups such as Al Qaeda, its jihadist fellow travelers as well as Hezbollah and its terrorist sponsor, Iran. Other chapters examine Hamas, Jemaah Islamiyah, the FARC, the Mexican drug cartels, and the criminal gang, Mara Salvatrucha 13. Pakistan, where jihadists pose an extreme security threat, is another focus as is a chapter on terrorist WMD threats. This look at sub-state rivals is recommended to all serious students of international security.

Author Biography

Lieutenant Colonel Dr. Michael T. Kindt is the Director of Counterterrorism Studies at the USAF CPC.  He is currently serving temporarily in Afghanistan.  Lt. Col. Kindt has a M.A. and Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Bowling Green State University and is licensed to practice clinical psychology in the state of Alabama.  In 2006 he published a monograph entitled Building Population Resilience to Terror Attacks: Unlearned Lessons from Military and Civilian Experience (2006).

Dr. Jerrold M. Post is Professor of Psychiatry, Political Psychology and International Affairs and Director of the Political Psychology Program at The George Washington University. During his 21 year CIA career, he founded and directed the Center for the Analysis of Personality and Political Behavior. Among his extensive publications are Leaders and Their Followers in a Dangerous World: The Psychology of Political Behavior (2004), and The Mind of the Terrorist: The Psychology of Terrorism from the IRA to al-Qaeda (2007).

Dr. Barry R. Schneider is the Director of the USAF Counterproliferation Center (CPC) at Maxwell AFB, and is also a Professor of International Relations at the Air War College.  Dr. Schneider specializes in WMD counterproliferation and nonproliferation issues as well as the profiles of adversary leaders and their strategic cultures.  His numerous publications include (author) Future War and Counterproliferation: U.S. Military Responses to NBC Proliferation Threats (1999), and (contributor, co-editor) Avoiding the Abyss: Progress, Shortfalls and the Way Ahead in Combating WMD (2005).

Table of Contents

List of Figures	p. vii
Acknowledgments	p. ix
List of Abbreviations	p. xi
Broader Non-state Actor Issues
Suicide Terrorism: Are There Important Counterterrorist Lessons to Be Learned?	p. 3
Al Qaeda's Modus Operandi: Anticipating Their Target Selection	p. 29
Political Islam and Radical Islam: The Cases of Pakistan and Bangladesh	p. 49
"Like Glitter of the Sun": Iran and Terrorism	p. 71
Terrorist Use of WMD	p. 93
Specific Non-state Actor Groups
Hezbollah: A State within a State	p. 123
Hamas: The Islamic Resistance Movement	p. 145
Al Qaeda 2.0 and the Global Salafi Jihad	p. 165
Jemaah Islamiyah Remains Active and Deadly	p. 179
The Mexican Drug Cartels: At War for Control of the U.S.-Mexico Border	p. 209
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)	p. 235
Mara Salvatrucha: A Threat to U.S. and Central American Security	p. 247
Contributors	p. 275
Index	p. 277
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