Why terrorist groups form

It humanizes the perpetrators of violence by insisting on their ordinariness and contextualizing their actions. It obliges people to reflect on their own possible shortcomings and vulnerabilities, and how, in different circumstances, they too could do monstrous deeds. And it compels people to recognize that they do not act in a social vacuum, and that what they think, feel, and do is powerfully shaped by the broader historical circumstances in which they are compelled to live and act.

Moreover, Westernized jihadists, as a recent report cogently suggested, assuredly are alienated and feel that they do not belong in a secular world that often mocks and challenges their religion and identity as Muslims. No doubt this is a more illuminating and edifying narrative than that sketched out in earlier psychological accounts. One of the most sensitive and profound explorations of terrorism in recent years comes not from a scholar, but from a novelist.

All Seymour can think about is why Merry did it. She was an adored only child who grew up in a privileged and decent family in the idyllic hamlet of Old Rimrock, New Jersey. Was it her stutter? Was it that anomalous kiss on the mouth he gave her one summer when she was 11 and he 36? Or was it the mysterious firebrand Rita Cohen who radicalized her? But it is a negative clarity.

Do terrorists have their reasons for committing atrocities? Sometimes not, because what they do is motivated by reasons that are too dark, shameful, or bizarre to be openly acknowledged. Sometimes people do things that are so morally contentious that when called to account they are liable to excuse or justify , rather than to explain, their actions. Terrorists unquestionably fall into this category. Bacon examines partnerships formed by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Al-Qaida, and Egyptian jihadist groups, among others, in a series of case studies spanning the dawn of international terrorism in the s to the present.

Why Terrorist Groups Form International Alliances advances our understanding of the motivations of terrorist alliances and offers insights useful to counterterrorism efforts to disrupt these dangerous relationships. Previously she served as a senior foreign affairs officer in the U.

Please note, orders are currently taking days to be delivered. Consequently, groups must have organizational processes amenable to alliances in order to consider them as solutions to organizational weakness. In addition, rather than being the primary cause for hubs to seek allies or why hubs are preferable partners, I argue that shared ideology and common enemies create affinity and guide partner selection, that is, make some partners acceptable.

When organizational needs precipitate alliance seeking, groups seek partners that can address those needs and share identity characteristics, particularly ideology or frames that identify the enemies.

Hubs fulfill both conditions. They possess identity characteristics, particularly ideology and enemies, which are shared with numerous other groups, making them both acceptable to others and accepting of others. They tend to adhere to the prevalent ideologies of their time and have an expansive view of their enemies. Thus, shared ideologies and common enemies do influence alliances but not in the manner commonly assigned to them.

This introductory chapter explores what we know about terrorist group alliances. It begins by explaining what constitutes an alliance between terrorist groups and how rivalry—or, more specifically, the lack of it—shapes alliance behavior. Next, the chapter examines both the obstacles to alliances and the benefits groups derive from them. It then discusses alliance patterns, namely, the way in which alliances cluster around certain groups, or alliance hubs.

Understanding why groups become alliance hubs and their attractiveness as partners are the central inquiries of this book. The chapter concludes with an examination of conventional wisdom and the shortfalls of these explanations in understanding why groups become alliance hubs and why hubs are such desirable partners.

Beyond agreement on its political dimension, which differentiates terrorism from other forms of nonstate violence and crime, terrorism is a notoriously contested concept. By most definitions, terrorism generally consists of three components: political aims and motives; violence or threats of violence against noncombatants or other victims proscribed by laws of war; and intended psychological repercussions beyond the immediate victim or target.

As Victor Asal and colleagues argue, terrorism "is in sharp contrast to most other forms of violence, which are largely focused on the immediate target, designed to accomplish a military objective such as gaining or holding territory , and often at least claim to abide by the codes of conduct eschewing civilian involvement.

A consensus has not yet emerged about what constitutes an alliance. Some have shied away from using the term alliance. He defined terrorist coalitions as "ideological, material, and operational cooperation between two or more terrorist organizations directed against a common enemy, which may be a state targeted by one of the member organizations or a rival ideological bloc.

Asal and colleagues drew from Karmon to refer to alliances as "joint or complementary action for the same intermediate purpose. This action can constitute activity at the rhetorical, material or operational level. It is important to note that terrorist groups can engage in a range of cooperative arrangements, not all of which reach the threshold of an alliance. Assaf Moghadam differentiates "low-end cooperation" from "high-end cooperation" based on the time horizon of cooperation, the level of interdependence, the type of cooperative activity, and the level of affinity among partners.

Definitions of alliances that include dyads that engage in low-end transactional or tactical cooperation—groups that maintain full independence and cooperate with a limited time horizon along with those that involve longer time horizons and greater interdependence—risk conflating different types of relationships and thereby obscuring their causes. Consistent with Moghadam's typology, for the purposes of this book, alliances require cooperation involving mutual expectations of some degree of coordination or consultation in the future.

This approach encompasses what Bond refers to as cooperative arrangements and departs from other definitions in several ways. First, it requires cooperation, not just complementary action. Second, it does not specify the type of cooperation necessary, whether ideological, material, operational, or other. Instead, it includes cooperation in whatever form it occurs. Third, it does not specify the target or reason for cooperation. This helps to avoid a tautology in which cooperation against a common enemy may be the cause of the alliance and define what constitutes such a relationship.

Last, and perhaps most important, unlike the existing definitions, it includes the requirement that alliances involve both cooperation and expectations of future collaboration or consultation.

In so doing, it offers a rigorous standard and thereby avoids overestimating terrorist alliance frequency by equating it with cooperation alone.

Cooperation is a fundamental part of alliances. Cooperation involves adjustment and a conscious effort to work together, not simply shared interests or mutually beneficial but uncoordinated behavior. In contrast, harmony refers to a situation in which a group's policies and actions facilitate the attainment of another's goals without coordination. For terrorist organizations, harmony can be easily mistaken for cooperation or vice versa because cooperation can be covert. Groups sometimes engage in acts of harmony, either inadvertently or intentionally.

For example, in , the Pakistani terrorist group Lashkar-e-Tayyiba deployed gunmen to Mumbai, terrorizing and paralyzing the Indian megacity for days.

The gunmen targeted a train station, hotels, a restaurant, and a Jewish community center, killing over people. Some posited that this attack, particularly striking hotels and a Jewish target, reflected an alliance between Lashkar and al-Qaida. Indeed, al-Qaida embraced the attack as a "heroic" operation. Although Lashkar struck targets that were consistent with al-Qaida's agenda, it did not adjust its plans to accommodate al-Qaida or collaborate with al-Qaida on the attack.

Therefore, this was an instance of harmony as opposed to cooperation and thus did not indicate an alliance between the two groups. In addition, an alliance requires expectations of future consultation or coordination.

This criteria reflects Moghadam's argument that high-end cooperation involves interdependence and shared expectations that the relationship will last for an extended period. Some groups that engage in cooperation do not form alliances because they do not develop expectations about future coordination and consultation.

In contrast, allies provide assistance to one another that does not require immediate reciprocation because of mutual expectations that their partner will reciprocate when need arises in the future. Like states, terrorist group partners need not specify the degree of commitment or explicitly agree upon specific conditions under which coordination will occur in order to ally. Alliances shape partners' future expectations, even without specific agreements. Notably, alliances do not require—and rarely involve—control.

Like other alliances, terrorist partners rarely relinquish all autonomy, exercise control over one another, consult on all matters, or adhere to all of one another's requests. As noted, alliances do not encompass all forms of terrorist interactions or organizational linkages.

Collaboration occurs between members of terrorist groups who are not acting on behalf of their respective organizations. Groups engage in temporary cooperation without expectations of future consultation. They express rhetorical support without actual cooperation or coordination.

In practice, it can be difficult to distinguish these types of interactions from alliances. It is not always clear when and if an individual represents his organization. Likewise, given terrorist groups' covert nature, their expectations of future consultation may not be evident to outsiders. Consequently, harmony and individual acts of cooperation risk being conflated with alliances, and the frequency of alliances overestimated, unless the relationships are carefully examined.

This book examines a subset of alliances that receive considerable attention from the media and counterterrorism efforts: relationships between terrorist organizations that are not rivals. Well-known examples of rivals include Hamas and Fatah or the various factions within the Afghan mujahidin. Rival groups can and do forge alliances, usually cautiously and temporarily. Groups can use gains acquired today against their rivals tomorrow, either directly in armed conflict or indirectly by siphoning off support.

Rivals operate in a zero-sum environment: gains endanger one's rivals. Therefore, relative power concerns drive their alliance calculus. In contrast, resources among nonrivals can have a positive-sum quality.

When partnering groups are not rivals, they can collaborate without concerns that their partners' gains today will harm them in the future. What distinguishes rivals from nonrivals? Brian Phillips identified two types of rivals for terrorist organizations: intrafield rivals and interfield rivals. Intrafield rivals are competitors that seek the same primary political goal, such as a Sunni jihadist revolution in the same state or a state for the same ethnic community. In contrast, interfield rivals support conflicting primary goals, such as a left-wing group and a right-wing group, or groups representing different ethnic communities seeking control of the same territory.

In some respects, Phillips's work dovetails with William R. Thompson's work on interstate rivalries, specifically arguing that rivals regard each other as competitors, adversaries, and the source of actual or latent threats that pose some possibility of becoming militarized.

Building on Phillips's concept of intrafield rivals, the first type of rival, competitors, are groups that rely on and seek support from the same sources; in other words, they compete in the same political market. Terrorist groups not only attack their enemies; they also seek to crowd out competitors to maintain or increase their political market share. They function in accordance with "competitive exclusion," which holds that groups compete with other organizations that draw upon the same resources.

Competitor rivals treat resources as mutually exclusive because they vie for the same finite recruits, funds, or territory. As Gordon McCormick explained, they "jockey for media time and the attention of a more or less fixed base of potential constituents. Of note, outbidding reflects terrorist groups' tendency to engage in activities driven by organizational considerations rather than strategic objectives, an idea central to the theory proposed in Chapter 1.

In contrast, groups that are not competitor rivals rely on different primary political markets, though there may be some overlap. They tend to focus on different primary foes, conflicts, territories, or political causes. Most important, they do not depend on the same sources for support, recruits, and resources. Therefore, the assets they acquire do not come at the expense of one another. As allies, they can share resources, even personnel.

When allies are not competitors, they can have dual members, whereas competitors will be reluctant to share membership. Without common political markets and relative power concerns, less tangible gains, such as prestige or legitimacy, benefit both partnering groups. Noncompetitor allies can simultaneously be the representative of their respective causes without threatening one another's position; improved stature may even enhance a partner's position.

To the extent that noncompetitive allies share a cause, it is an overarching one, which helps to unify them without creating rivalry. However, it is important to note three caveats and refinements to the above discussion of competition. First, a group's competitor rivals are not fixed. Such rivals are determined by a group's political market, which can change. Groups can—and some do—decide to focus on a different adversary or cause.

They may decide to relocate or redefine their constituency. The result is a shift in their political market and, by extension, their competitor rivals. Groups that were not initially competitor rivals can become so, and vice versa. Second, the number of competitor rivals a group faces can fluctuate. Some organizations do not survive, which eliminates competitor rivals. Conversely, new groups form, which adds new competitor rivals.

In particular, terrorist groups have a propensity to splinter, thereby producing such rivals. For example, Harakat ul-Jihad Islami, a Pakistani Deobandi militant group, formed during the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan in the s.

A few years after its founding, a faction broke away to become Harakat ul-Mujahidin. The two groups later allied, only to subsequently split again. Then, in , Jaish-e-Mohamed splintered from Harakat ul-Mujahidin. One original group eventually resulted in three competitor rivals. All operated in the same political market, vied for recruits from among the same population, sought funds from the same sources, and jockeyed for the attention of the same constituency.

Therefore, they competed with one another, and their alliance behavior reflected their preoccupation with their relative position. Third, groups operating within the same country are not necessarily competitor rivals because national boundaries do not determine competition. This position departs from much of the outbidding literature, which often treats competition as occurring among groups at the domestic level.

Instead, I treat competition as a dynamic that can and does occur at various levels, including at the substate or regional level, and thus is not necessarily defined by national boundaries. For example, states can experience multiple conflicts that give rise to multiple terrorist groups that do not share political markets.

In addition, states can also serve as safe havens for foreign terrorist groups in places where indigenous groups also operate; these groups may not share political markets, though they reside in the same state.

Pakistan illustrates these dynamics. It faces an internal jihadist insurrection primarily in the Pashtun areas of the country and a separatist conflict in Balochistan. The jihadist groups do not share a political market with the Baloch separatists; therefore, they do not behave as competitors. Numerous foreign jihadist groups find haven in Pakistan.

Most of the foreign jihadist groups do not share political markets with local jihadist organizations or the Baloch groups. Furthermore, groups may compete with organizations that operate in another state. As noted earlier, al-Qaida Core—with its leadership likely based in Pakistan and Afghanistan— competes with the Islamic State, which primarily operates in Syria and Iraq. Therefore, rather than using national boundaries to determine competitors, this book defines competitors and noncompetitors based on whether groups share a political market, irrespective of national boundaries.

However, competitors and noncompetitors are not always neat, mutually exclusive categories because groups can share political markets to varying degrees. Competition operates along a spectrum. On the left side of the spectrum, groups function as competitors: they have substantial overlap in their political markets. On the right side of the spectrum, groups do not behave as competitor rivals, even though there may be some overlap in their political markets.

On the ends of the spectrum, the distinction between competitors and noncompetitors is clear. On the far right of the spectrum, that is, in noncompetitive situations, groups have fully distinct political markets. On the far left side of the spectrum, groups have entirely the same political markets. However, the distinction becomes more complex toward the middle when there is some overlap in political markets, requiring closer examination of the dyad. Until , al-Qaida benefited from being the only Sunni militant group operating in a political market that spanned the Middle East.

This regional-level political market limited al-Qaida's competition with fellow Arab Sunni jihadist groups with narrower, national-level political markets. For example, al-Qaida's political market had some overlap with its closest ally, the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, but their interactions fell on the noncompetition side of the spectrum because al-Qaida had a broader political market that included, but did not rely primarily on, Egyptian Islamic Jihad's political market in Egypt.

In contrast, the Egyptian Islamic Group and Egyptian Islamic Jihad—both Egyptian Sunni jihadist groups—relied on political markets with substantial overlap. Consequently, the two Egyptian groups competed fiercely with one another but did not behave as competitor rivals toward al-Qaida, as Chapter 6 will discuss. Sunni jihadist groups with political markets outside of the Middle East experienced even less competition with al-Qaida. For example, al-Qaida's alliance with Jemaah Islamiyah—a jihadist group with a regional-level political market in Southeast Asia—fell further on the right of the spectrum than the Egyptian groups and al-Qaida.

Al-Qaida and Jemaah Islamiyah had regional-level political markets in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, respectively, as will be discussed in Chapter 5, and thus fell on the far right of the spectrum. In , a full competitor rival to al-Qaida emerged. In addition to competing over resources, recruits, and allies, the two groups jockey to lead the Sunni jihadist movement. In the event that al-Qaida and the Islamic State decide to ally again, competitor rival considerations, such as relative position, will guide their calculus.

This book focuses on dyads on the right side of the spectrum. These dyads may have some overlap in their political markets, but they do not rely on the same ones. In so doing, it factors in when competition is relevant to why noncompetitors ally; however, the focus is on alliance seeking, alliance initiation, and alliance formation among nonrivals.

Returning to the criteria for rivals, the second type of rival are adversary rivals, similar to Phillips's interfield rivals. Unlike competitor rivals, terrorist groups that behave as adversary rivals do not share a political market. However, they are also attentive to relative power considerations because an increase in an adversary rival's power poses a potential threat. Adversary rivals typically represent opposing sides of a conflict. This may be a left-wing group's posture toward a right-wing group.