WHAT ARE THEY REALLY

AIMING AT?

HOW AN UNDERSTANDING OF
TERRORIST INTENT COULD BENEFIT
THE INSURANCE INDUST RY’S RISK
MODELS

A dissertation submitted by Clark Hogan-Taylor (SID #0525064) to fulfil the requirements of

the M.A. in International Conflict Studies at King’s College London, 27th August 2010.
Word count = 14,793.
 ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

HYPOTHESES & M ETHODOLOGY III

I: INTRODUCTION: THE INSURGENT’S TOOLBOX 1

II: POTENCY OF THE IMAGE 4

Drama the role of ‘Spectaculars’ 5
Narrative & the Semiotics of Insurgency 8
Conclusion

III: INSURING THE UNINSURABLE 12

Competing Philosophies 16
Conclusion 17

IV: THE COMPLEX R EALITY OF POTD 18

A Broader Method of Classification 20
Compiling the Data Set 23
Results 28
Analysis of the Results and Data Limitations 30
Conclusion: Specifics and Skyscrapers 31

FINAL CONCLUSION 34

BIBLIOGRAPHY 35

APPENDIX A 39

APPENDIX B 41
 iii

HYPOTHESES & METHODOLOGY

HYPOTHESES
This dissertation is premised on two hypotheses and the first is made up of two parts.
H1a states that:

 ‘Terrorism’ is best understood as one of several options available to an insurgent, rather

than an independent and isolated act of violence.

Therefore, behind the insurgents’ choice to use that particular tool lies intent to achieve another
aim beyond the act of killing or maiming individuals. Therefore, H1b states that:

 One of the aims of terrorism is to incite greater support for the insurgents’ cause.

It follows that the larger and more spectacular the act of terrorism is the wider the audience will
be and a larger percentage (albeit still a small minority) of it will be willing to actively support
the cause. Thus, it is in the insurgents’ interest to make their act of terrorism as spectacular as
possible, which yields the second hypothesis (H2):

 That there is an inherent element of predictability in such acts of terrorism that could be
of some use to the world of insurance risk and mitigation.

METHODOLOGY
The first hypothesis is split into two sections because they are inextricably linked; H1b cannot
be established without H1a. Both of these will be explored largely by referring to the ever-
expanding body of academic literature on the subject of terrorism and insurgency. It should be
noted that H1a is widely accepted in the world of academia and it is predominantly the media
who portray terrorism as, inter alia, irrational, ‘evil’, psycho- and/or sociopathic behaviour.
However, elements of this view still linger in academia. Trager et al claim that, because
terrorists can appear fanatical, some analysts believe they are not influenced by cost-benefit
analyses. The authors call this, ‘the problem of irrationality’, i.e., that some still think they are
irrational.1 Similarly, the publication of an article entitled Terrorists Can Think Strategically2 by
the RAND Corporation in 2009 is another example of why this fact should not be taken for
granted.

1 Trager, R. F., and Zagorcheva, D. P., Deterring Terrorism, 2006, p. 91

2 Jenkins, B. M., RAND, Terrorists Can Think Strategically, 2009
 iv

H1b is not as widely accepted as H1a but it receives support from various seminal works on the
subject of terrorism that also address the impact of the media revolution, most notably
Hoffman’s Inside Terrorism (2006) and Mackinlay’s The Insurgent Archipelago (2009). It also
receives support from studies on the symbiotic and complex relationship between the media
and terrorism, such as Bolt, Betz and Azari’s Propaganda of the Deed 2008 (2008) and Carpini
and Williams’ Television and Terrorism: Patterns of Presentation and Occurrence, 1969 to 1980
(1987), an updated version of which would have been invaluable to this investigation.

The extent to which H2 holds true will be explored by combining two otherwise quite separate
areas of academic study. The world of insurance risk, deterrence and mitigation is complex,
secretive and at times impenetrable, at least in terms of the models used to evaluate risks. In
spite of this, and in order to examine whether there is any truth to H2, it will be explored in the
light of the area already covered – terrorism, insurgency and the media – to see if H1a and H1b
can be of any use. In other words, if there is an element of predictability to terrorists’ target
selection, this section will ask whether it could be of any use to insurers and underwriters.

It should be noted that, while there is no shortage of insurgent groups to choose from, al Qaeda
are the group most frequently referred to throughout. This is largely because they are the most
relevant in terms of their tactics, particularly in terms of the extent to which they have publicly
acknowledged the importance, power and potential influence of the media. They also arguably
present the greatest terrorist threat currently faced by the west.
 Page |1

I: INTRODUCTION: THE INSURGENT’S TOOLBOX

It is with good reason that Bruce Hoffman devotes the first chapter of his book, Inside Terrorism,
to the job of defining the word ‘terrorism’. There can be few modern terms so often used,
misused and misunderstood. While there is clearly neither need nor space to repeat Hoffman’s
analysis here, some exploration of what is meant by the term is necessary, given its central
importance to this thesis.

Given the enormity of the subject it is surprising that the literature, when taken as a whole,
presents a confusing and somewhat circumlocutory approach to dealing with the term in
question. While there is little disagreement that terrorism is almost always a politically strategic
weapon rather than an isolated act of lunacy, this fairly solid conviction is undermined by a lack
of agreement on what constitutes ‘terrorism’ or ‘a terrorist’, particularly when used alongside
the terms, ‘guerrilla’ and ‘insurgent’. For the purposes of the following review of the literature
and given their importance for the wider investigation, al Qaeda are used as the main unit of
comparison in this chapter.

Hoffman perceives ‘fundamental differences’ between terrorists, guerrillas and insurgents.3 He

states that guerrilla characteristics comprise armed individuals who form a group that uses
irregular military tactics; insurgents use these same tactics coupled with, ‘coordinated,
informational (e.g., propaganda) and psychological warfare efforts designed to mobilise popular
support’.4 Terrorists, by way of contrast, do not function as armed units that exercise population
control, nor do they undertake political mobilisation efforts, target territory or the military.5 He
goes on to admit that there is considerable overlap between these categories and that, in fact,
the contemporary threat is from leaderless terror networks that share a philosophy but not a
headquarters, such as al Qaeda.6

Different explanations abound. The FBI and British Government define terrorism as potentially
having political or social motives and say it can be directed at governments, the population or
segments thereof7, but Pool Reinsurance, the company established after a spate of IRA bomb

3 Hoffman, B., Inside Terrorism, 2006, p. 35

4 Ibid.
5 Ibid.
6 Hoffman, p. 38
7 U.S. Department of Justice & FBI, Terrorism 2001/2001,

<http://www.fbi.gov/publications/terror/terror2000_2001.htm>, and UK Government Report, The

Definition of Terrorism, 2007, <http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/cm70/7052/7052.pdf>
 Page |2

attacks on the square mile in London in 1993, only covers politically motivated acts against a
government.8 Counterterrorism expert Boaz Ganor differentiates between the three by saying
that only terrorists deliberately target civilians, whereas insurgents and guerrillas target
military and security personnel.9 Marta Sparago describes al Qaeda as jihadi terrorists but uses
the word ‘insurgent’ when referring to the American enemy in Iraq.10 Feinstein and Kaplan also
describe al Qaeda as terrorists11, while the RAND article, Al-Qaida: Terrorist Selection and
Recruitment, labels them both insurgents and terrorists in its opening paragraph but drops the
insurgent label thereafter.12 Interestingly, as the titles suggest, the latter two articles focus on Al
Qaeda’s various methods of recruitment – in other words, their attempted subversion of the
wider community – which would, by Hoffman’s definition, make them insurgents.

Despite his invaluable opening chapter, Hoffman himself comes close to creating yet more
confusion. Having said that an absence of both population control and attempts at political
mobilisation differentiated a terrorist group from an insurgency, he later asserts that,

Terrorism is specifically designed to have far-reaching psychological effects beyond the

immediate victim(s) or object of the terrorist attack…. Through the publicity generated
by their violence, terrorists seek to obtain the leverage, influence, and power they
otherwise lack to effect political change on either a local or an international scale. 13

In the above quote, terrorism is a tool of strategy, designed to generate publicity and effect
political change. Are these the same terrorists who, in his earlier definition, do not exercise
population control nor seek to mobilise them? There is a fine line between generating publicity
and attempting to mobilise your audience politically. If the leverage on state actors sought by
terrorists comes from the public’s outrage at the violence, and if that outrage is actively
expressed, one could argue that they are mobilised. Furthermore, in order for there to be no
population control as a result of terrorist acts, the ‘far-reaching psychological effects’ cannot
pertain to those sections of the audience that are sympathetic to the terrorists or incited to join
their cause as a result of their violence. However, many have argued that the violence of
terrorism is in fact designed to incite mobilisation amongst minority sections of the audience,
and it is this view that forms the basis of the first hypothesis.

8 Pool Re, Definition of an Act of Terrorism, 2010, <http://www.poolre.co.uk/Definition.html>

9 Ganor, B., Defining Terrorism, 2002, p. 288
10 Sparago, M., Terrorist Recruitment, 2007, p. 1 and 26
11 Feinstein, J. S., and Kaplan, E. H., Analysis of a Strategic Terror Organization, 2010, p. 283
12 Gerwehr, S., and Daly, S., RAND, Terrorist Selection and Recruitment, 2006, p. 73
13 Hoffman, 2006, p. 41
 Page |3

The Insurgent’s Toolbox Fig. 1

Conventional Information
weapons campaign

Subversion Irregular Infiltration Criminal

Terrorism
tactics behaviour

The British Army Field Manual’s volume on countering insurgency, published in 2009, presents a
more precise picture. In essence it views terrorism as nothing more than one of several tools
available to the insurgent (see Fig. 1), deployed to achieve specific political goals by wearing
down the public’s tolerance and thus applying pressure on the state in question.14 At the same
time, the Manual’s authors appear to accept Paul Wilkinson’s view that a terrorist group
becomes an insurgency once it has the capacity to ‘win wider popular support among a
substantial segment of the population… [and attract] a repressive campaign by the government
leading to an increase in popular support’.15 Both these statements are endorsed one after the
other in John Mackinlay’s book, The Insurgent Archipelago.16 In order for this not to be a
contradiction it must be the case that the terrorism deployed by a group hoping to become an
insurgency is designed to elicit a positive, as well as a negative, reaction from its audience. This
method of communication through violence has been dated to 17th Century Britain but is more
widely credited to the ‘Anarchist Prince’, Peter Kropotkin, who famously declared that a single
deed was better than a thousand words.17 The next chapter explores this concept of propaganda
of the deed and its symbiotic and incendiary relationship with our 24-hour, globally dispersed
and liberalised media.

14 British Army Field Manual, Volume 1 Part 10, Countering Insurgency, 1-1, 2-1, 2-A-1 to 2-A-4, as
displayed in Fig. 1, which shows the various tactics the Field Manual assigns to an insurgent operation.
The ‘toolbox’ analogy is the author’s own.
15 They appear to accept this because at no point do they consider terrorism to be anything other than a

tool of the insurgent. Wilkinson, P., in Mackinlay, J., The Insurgent Archipelago, 2009, p. 25
16 Mackinlay, 2009, p. 24-5
17 Ibid. p. 125-6
 Page |4

II: THE POTENCY OF THE IMAGE

Propaganda of the deed (POTD) is a tactical theory of violence which is designed to attract
attention through its shock value so that it might elicit sympathy and attract recruits.18 It is
recognised in the aforementioned Field Manual as a vehicle for stimulating recruitment and
ground level support.19 This view is also accepted in the wider literature. A RAND article on al
Qaeda’s selection and recruitment methods states that, ‘Any attempt at recruitment makes use
of persuasive instruments.... These instruments include every form of mass media in use
today’.20 Al Qaeda’s first English language online magazine, Inspire, refers to this as the,
‘agitation for jihad’.21 Feinstein and Kaplan’s formulaic analysis of a strategic terror
organisation reveals that terror groups with small memberships are more likely to engage in
large-scale or spectacular attacks, ‘because it has no other way to grow and thus takes the risk
of failure for the chance of success’.22 Sparago states that 9/11 helped Osama Bin Laden ‘win a
major battle in the propaganda war for hearts and minds’, 23 and Cronin compares
contemporary propaganda of the deed attacks with revolutionary pamphleteering during the
French Revolution, arguing that both methods make use of powerful emotive imagery in order
to incite and mobilise.24

A full definition of POTD is provided by Mackinlay:

[It] refers to the incitement of an animated or potentially violent audience through

dramatic actions, rather than words25…. POTD [is] a series of dramatic and visible events
staged so that their impact – expressed in images and news stories – would be
propagated by the media towards audiences far away from the site of the event that
were already predisposed to activism and violence.26

Bolt et al explain its role in promoting the cause of the would-be insurgent group:

[It] performs 1) operationally in order to shock for attention; 2) tactically to engage the
state-enemy and provoke retaliation; 3) communicatively to attach itself to underlying
grievances; 4) strategically to expand its constituency and polarise it from a government
that has met violence with violence and thus delegitimized its authority.27

18 Bolt, N., Betz, D., Azari, J., Propaganda of the Deed 2008, 2008, p. 19
19 British Army Field Manual, 2-A-14
20 Gerwehr et al, 2006, p. 80
21 Al-Malahem Media, Inspire, 2010, <http://www.ansar1.info/showthread.php?t=24133>
22 Feinstein and Kaplan, 2010, pp. 298-99
23 Sparago, 2007, p. 29
24 Cronin, A. K., Cyber-mobilization, 2006, pp. 82-3
25 Mackinlay, 2009, p. 124
26 Ibid. p. 140
27 Bolt et al, 2008, p. 19
 Page |5

Clearly there are several important elements that make up the concept of POTD, some of which
are more relevant to this thesis than others. From the definitions above we can construct an
idea of what a successful POTD attack looks like: it is an event shocking enough to receive the
attention of the world’s media, who will, due to their global and instantaneous nature, transmit
the deed to a global audience. While the majority of the viewing public will be appalled, a very
small minority will be incited to activism and violence because of the sheer potency of the image
they are witnessing.28 The origin of this potency, which is of central importance to this thesis,
will be investigated in the next section.

DRAMA AND THE ROLE OF ‘SPECTACULARS’

It has been established that, for the image to resonate in such a way as to incite, it first has to
catch people’s attention and then speak to an underlying grievance they already hold. Evidently
it needs to be sufficiently dramatic in order to achieve the first of these objectives. Both Hoffman
and Bolt et al trace the evolution of the symbiotic relationship between the media and the
perpetrators of terrorist attacks, and both agree that the liberalisation and globalisation of the
media has resulted in news editors and perpetrators having a shared agenda. 29 Bolt explains,

Insurgent planners and TV news editors recognise that violence sells: ‘if it bleeds, it
leads’. Both depend on viewer loyalty to further their aims: television to command
viewers’ subscriptions or licence fees… insurgents to win control of states or states-of-
mind.30

Hoffman agrees31, and adds that the advent of live broadcasting turned television into a vacuum
waiting to be filled (by the most dramatic content) rather than something that benefitted from
editorial guidance.32 Along with increased competition, subsequent cost pressures and the need
to keep a story alive, this resulted in the trivialisation of coverage with an over-emphasis on the
aspects of a story that the widest possible audience can relate to – that famous building, those
particular hostages – rather than the more substantive issues.33 This is corroborated by Carpini
and Williams’ analysis of the presentation of terrorism on television between 1969 and 1980. 34
They claim that network news constraints led to a preoccupation with, ‘the dramatic, the
conflictual, and the violent’.35 They found that between 1969 and 1980 not a single month

28 Bolt et al, 2008, pp. 2-5

29 See 26 through to 32
30 Bolt et al, 2008, p. 5
31 Hoffman states that, ‘the vicarious dimension of a terrorist incident… is effectively and efficiently mined

by terrorist and journalist alike’, 2006, p. 180

32 Hoffman, 2006, p. 179 and 181
33 Ibid. p. 181
34 Carpini, M. X. D., and Williams, B. D., Television and Terrorism, 1987
35 Ibid. p. 49
 Page |6

passed without televised news mentioning the topic of terrorism.36 Further, coverage of
incidents involving greater suspense or drama, particularly hostages and hijackings, was
exaggerated when compared with the ‘underplayed’ events of bombings and political threats,
not only because of their inherent suspense but also their relative scarcity. 37

Insurgent planners have long been acutely aware of the situation. In 1975, Carlos ‘the Jackal’
famously waited for the media to arrive at the OPEC headquarters in Vienna before fleeing with
his captive oil ministers.38 Osama Bin Laden has written, ‘It is obvious the media war in this
century is one of the strongest methods, in fact its ratio may reach 90 per cent of the total
preparation for the battles.’39 Evidence in support of this is widespread, but one video obtained
by NBC News in 2008 remains a particularly salient example. It was of Ziad Jarrah, the hijacker
of United Airlines Flight 93, rehearsing his martyrdom video more than a year before September
11th 2001.40 He stumbles in the speech, at times laughing and smiling, while people off-camera
tell him to start again and be more dramatic, claiming, ‘This speech requires passion. Why don’t
you try a different approach?’41

The relationship between terrorists, spectacular attacks and state response has been explored
using a variant of the Nash equilibrium by Rosendorff and Sandler. They define ‘spectacular’
attacks as, ‘Major newsworthy terrorist events with either a high death toll or watershed
character’42. Using backward induction to identify subgame perfect equilibria they are able to
identify the optimal outcome of the final mover in the game, thus identifying the steps they must
take to maximise their utility. When applied to the steps taken by a terrorist group considering
whether to launch a spectacular or ‘normal’ attack this yielded some interesting results. They
found that, inter alia, proactive government counterterrorism might backfire, create sympathy
for the terrorist network and lead to an increase in their membership. 43 Furthermore, when
those terrorists attack, recruitment depends not only on their success but also on the nature of
the event:

…that is, a normal event with a modest impact or a spectacular event with a high death
toll or a symbolic nature. Spectaculars grab headlines and remain in the public’s

36 Ibid.
37 Carpini et al, 1987, pp. 54-56
38 Hoffman, 2006, p. 183
39 Corman, S. R., Schiefelbein, J. S., Communication and Media Strategy in the Jihadi War of Ideas, 2006, p. 3
40 YouTube, NBC “obtains” video of Ziad Jarrah, nov 22, 2008,

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQziDmMk88c>
41 Ibid.
42 Rosendorff and Sandler, Too Much of a Good Thing, 2004, p. 659
43 Ibid., p. 658
 Page |7

consciousness long after the event…. Such events further recruitment to the terrorist
group.44

Two of their conclusions are particularly relevant here: first, spectaculars do not require a high
death toll (the implication being that this might not be the terrorists’ main purpose). They cite
the example of the 1993 World Trade Centre bomb in which six people were killed but a major
landmark was struck, 1,000 people were injured and $500m of damages caused. 45 Clearly in that
example the perpetrators could not have determined the death toll and it could have easily been
substantially higher, so we cannot conclude that they aimed for a major landmark at the expense
of a high death toll. As Mackinlay explains, POTD is not the traditional, crafted propaganda of
Stalinist Russia, but a weapon of desperation that strikes indiscriminately and attracts every
kind of response.46

Nonetheless, Rosendorff and Sandler present compelling evidence that the symbolic nature of
the target is at least of equivalent importance to the death toll. The second major conclusion
they draw is that a ‘failed’ spectacular attack is, in terms of attention and thus recruitment, more
successful than a successful normal attack. They cite the example of the 1972 Munich Olympics
at which Black September took eleven Israeli athletes hostage (front cover). Deemed a failure at
the time because they did not achieve their stated objectives, the authors refer to Hoffman’s
assertion that afterwards, ‘thousands of Palestinians’ rushed to join the cause.47 Hoffman
himself quotes Abu Iyad, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation’s (PLO) intelligence chief at the
time, as having said that, although Black September,

didn’t bring about the liberation of any of their comrades imprisoned in Israel as they
had hoped, [they] did attain the operation’s other two objectives: World opinion was
forced to take note of the Palestinian drama, and the Palestinian people imposed their
presence on an international gathering that had sought to exclude them. 48 [Emphasis
added.]

It is indisputable that the event was a success for the PLO; their actions were watched by one
quarter of the world’s population, attracted thousands of recruits and led to them being granted
special observer status at the UN eighteen months later.49 However, the most important element
for this investigation is that the PLO recognised the difference between short term operational
failure and the long term success that came from the propaganda of their deed. Not only had the
PLO, a non-state actor, formed diplomatic relations with more states than Israel by the end of

44 Ibid.
45 Rosendorff et al, 2004, p. 660
46 Mackinlay, 2009, p. 131
47 Hoffman, 2006, p. 70
48 Ibid., p. 69
49 Ibid., p. 70
 Page |8

the 1970s, but they had tapped into a grievance shared by many other ethno-nationalist groups
the world over.50 The number of organisations engaged in international terrorism grew from
only eleven in 1968 to fifty-five in 1978.51 Out of the eleven, three were ethno-nationalist or
separatist in nature. Of the fifty-five, more than half were in this category, all seeking to copy or
capitalise on the PLO’s success.52

Arguably, therefore, this was not a failed spectacular attack, as Rosendorff and Sandler suggest.
Rather, the criteria for success need to be recalibrated to adjust for the fact that Black
September’s actions were designed to have multiple consequences, and that the failure of one
with the achievement of two does not constitute overall failure. Moreover, had the first
objective been achieved and the Palestinians imprisoned in Israel been released, followed then
by the Israeli athletes, such a diffusion of the event would surely have diminished and diluted its
extraordinary global impact and far-reaching consequences.

NARRATIVE AND THE SEMIOTICS OF INSURGENCY

As many of the authors cited thus far have alluded to, part of the reason events like the Munich
Olympics were successful in inciting some of their viewers was because of pre-existing
grievances shared between perpetrator and audience. The Palestinian cause resonated not only
with the Palestinian diaspora but with Arab states, the Muslim community and with many – if
not all – other ethno-nationalist separatist groups.53 Along with the Irish Republican Army they
pioneered a move away from the traditional territorial aspects of insurgency and opened up a
more political, virtual dimension that aimed to mobilise popular opinion in their favour. 54

Both cases [the IRA and PLO] involved populations of dislocated or outraged activists
who were in effect “prepared audiences”, who already had a cultivated hatred for the
adversary state (the United Kingdom and Israel) and impossibly high expectations for
the outcome of the insurgent campaign.55

Fully aware of this, the two groups placed POTD at the centre of their insurgent campaigns and
to great effect.56 The potency of those acts comes partly from their spectacular nature, as
discussed, but there is another vital concept that gives them the power to incite: narrative. It is
what binds virtual communities together (as in the quote above), gives them legitimacy, cause

50 Ibid.
51 Ibid., p. 70
52 Hoffman, 2006, p. 70
53 Ibid., pp. 63-80
54 Mackinlay, 2009, p. 55
55 Ibid., p. 55
56 Ibid.
 Page |9

and purpose. 57 The symbolism of the spectacular POTD attack gives it a rhetorical resonance
with, and serves to reinforce, certain beliefs in the minds of its target audience.58 Those beliefs
come from a compelling narrative to which they are already subscribed.

In war, narrative is much more than just a story. ‘Narrative’ may sound like a fancy
literary word, but it is actually the foundation of all strategy, upon which all else – policy,
rhetoric and action – is built.59

Like nationalism, narratives often involve selective readings of history, myths, suspect
metaphors and the re-shaping of old stories into new ones with contemporary poignancy.60
David Betz cites a paper by Ann Swidler in the American Sociological Review in which she claims
narratives contain a continuum from ideology, through tradition, down to common sense.61
Thus, the abstract is legitimised by the actual and belief becomes reality.62 Consequently they do
not have to be rational or true to be effective, but simply internally coherent.63 By way of
example and according to David Betz, the Islamist strategic narrative claims that:

•Islam is under general unjust attack by Western crusaders led by the United
States
Global/
•Jihadis, whom the West refers to as ‘terrorists’ are defending against this attack
Ideological

•The actions they take in defence of Islam are proportionally just and religiously
sanctified; and, therefore,
Local/ •It is the duty of good Muslims to support these actions
Common
sense The strategic Al Qaeda narrative (Fig. 2)

There are two threads that run from top to bottom: global down to local; ideology down to
common sense.64 It therefore speaks to Muslims engaged at every level, from the villages of
Afghanistan to the chat rooms of the internet, where ‘Emphasizing the religious obligation of
Muslims to confront their enemies and the challenge to their faith is the common denominator
that binds the audience into their new virtual community.’65 The concept of the virtual
community is vital for an understanding of the power of POTD, because it is to that community
that the narrative speaks.

57 Bolt et al, 2008, p. 3

58 Ibid. p. 7
59 Vlahos, M., The Long War: A Self-defeating Prophecy, 2006,

<http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/HI09Aa01.html>
60 Mackinlay, 2009, p. 132 and Bolt et al, 2008 p. 7
61 Betz, D., The Virtual Dimension of Contemporary Insurgency, 2008, p. 519
62 Ibid.
63 Ibid., p. 520
64 Ibid.
65 Ganor, B., Sinai, J., Defeating Internet Terrorists, 2006,

<http://www.ict.org.il/NewsCommentaries/ICTintheMedia/tabid/70/Articlsid/341/Default.aspx>
 P a g e | 10

Benedict Anderson famously defined the nation as, ‘an imagined political community – and
imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign.’66 Imagination was relevant because most of
its members would never meet or know of most of their countrymen, but would nonetheless
imagine themselves as a fraternity.67 More importantly,

It is this fraternity that makes it possible, over the past two centuries, for so many
millions of people, not so much to kill, as willingly to die for such limited imaginings.68

Anderson claimed it was the rise of print capitalism that bound nations together. However, in
his critique of Anderson, Anthony Smith points out that even before print, nations had song,
dance, costume, art, landscapes, monuments and buildings as genuinely popular media
purveyed by everyone as part of their daily lives; they were, ‘durable elements of collective
cultures, which provided their historical environment’.69

In an age of deterritorialised political movements, the bounded sovereignty of Anderson’s

theory is less relevant. Now, although not every Muslim will meet every other, they certainly
know about each other and can communicate directly more so than ever before. Thus his
theory’s fundamental abstraction is only increasingly relevant.

The imagined community becomes increasingly abstract, linked through symbolic points
of mutual identity in the individual’s imagination. And this imagined community
increasingly finds a virtual home through the proliferation of global television and in the
case of Islam, of Muslim majorities and minorities linked by technology and faith.70

It is to the narratives held by the people in these imagined, global communities that the
propaganda of the deed attempts to speak with enough resonance and power to persuade and
incite. Moreover, and as with nationalism, the narrative itself can be bound up into a symbol,
flag, set of initials or simply an image of a moment in history; this might be a swastika, a
communist flag, the student in front of the tank in Tiananmen Square or the collapse of the
World Trade Centre towers.71 With each repetition of the footage the image comes to symbolise
not only a single entity or incident, but all of its repercussions, ‘the whole narrative that lies
before, below and after it’72. These iconic images become the semiotics of insurgency and, when
deployed, re-bind together a globally imagined, deterritorialised, virtual community, some of
whom, incited by what they have seen, have proved and will continue to prove themselves
willing to die for the cause.

66 Smith, A. D., Nationalism and Modernism, 2006, p. 132

67 Ibid.
68 Anderson, B. Imagined Communities, 1993, p. 7, in Smith, 2006, p. 132
69 Smith, 2006, p. 139
70 Bolt et al, 2008, p. 8
71 Mackinlay, 2009, p. 133
72 Ibid.
 P a g e | 11

II: CONCLUSION
Such was 9/11’s impact that between 2000 and 2005, 150 jihadi websites became 4,000.73
POTD attacks both reinforce and, in time, come to represent the narrative. The link between the
first and second hypotheses of this dissertation is the notion that targets for POTD attacks are
chosen for that specific purpose. In an interview with Hamid Mir in 2001, Osama Bin Laden said,
‘The Sept 11 attacks were not targeted at women and children. The real targets were America’s
icons of military and economic power’.74 Videos of Osama Bin Laden and other well known al
Qaeda members often have footage of 9/11 looping in the background for the duration of often
lengthy lectures.75 In the voiceover for a video about London bomber Shehzad Tanweer, Ayman
al-Zawahiri states that,

The Knights of London continued to train and plan for the operation and the targets
were identified with precision, so much so that even the names or the targeted stations
held symbolic meaning and spiritual significance for the Crusader west.76

An article by global intelligence company Strategic Forecasting Inc. (STRATFOR), entitled

Vulnerabilities in the Terrorist Attack Cycle: Selecting the Target, takes the view that,

All of the Sept. 11 targets selected by al Qaeda were highly symbolic, including the
Pentagon. Had al Qaeda really wanted to impact the U.S. ability to conduct military
operations, it would have attacked a communications or command and control node.
Instead, the attack against the Pentagon did very little to disrupt the U.S. military
capabilities on the day of the attack or in the days that followed. In fact, U.S. Secretary of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld was able to give a press conference from one part of the
building while the affected part still burned.77

This quote succinctly summarises and supports much of the evidence presented thus far in
favour of the first hypothesis. Moreover, the very title of the article goes the heart of this
investigation; that there is a vulnerability in the target selection element of the terrorist attack
cycle. Unfortunately STRATFOR’s article goes no further than suggesting symbols of Western
influence such as hotels should be made to look less attractive.78 The next section of this
dissertation looks at the world of insurance, reinsurance and underwriting and how its
members deal with the difficulties of modelling terrorism risk.

73 Bolt et al, 2008, p. 6

74 Mir, H., Osama claims he has nukes, 2001, <http://www.dawn.com/2001/11/10/top1.htm>
75 YouTube, 9/11 Osama Bin Laden 2007 – Part ONE,

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCWCo5phRBM>
76 Hotair.com, Video: London bomber Shehzad Tanweer, 2006,

<http://hotair.com/archives/2006/07/07/video-london-bomber-shehzad-tanweer>
77 STRATFOR, The Terrorist Attack Cycle: Selecting the Target, 2008,

<http://www.stratfor.com/terrorist_attack_cycle_selecting_target> (This link leads to a paywall. The

article is reprinted in full at <http://thesurvivalpodcast.com/forum/index.php?topic=1354.0>)
78 Ibid.
 P a g e | 12

III: INSURING THE UNINSURABLE

9/11 was a watershed moment for the insurance industry as well as for the world at large. An
article by reinsurance intermediaries Guy Carpenter explains, ‘The attack created an entire new
regime of risk that hadn’t been contemplated by most risk bearers.’79 Prior to 9/11 most firms’
risk management was carried out using the natural catastrophe computer simulation models
established in the wake of Hurricane Andrew and the Northridge earthquake in 1992 and 1994,
two of the most expensive natural disasters in US history.80 The difficulties posed by 9/11 were
twofold. First, acts of terrorism are not predictable (and therefore insurable) in the same way
that natural disasters are.81 Second, while the industry obviously had dealt with terrorism
before, the sheer scale of 9/11 threatened its very economic foundation.

Essentially, the thirty to forty billion dollars, which will be the ultimate insured loss
arising out of the events of 9/11 will be paid for out of insurance company capital, and
the total amount of capital available is roughly $125 billion. Once you start modeling
some of the potential loss scenarios, and if you see numbers start to get up into the
hundreds of billions of dollars, those events are no longer insurable.82

It was not so much that the industry could not afford 9/11, but that it opened their eyes to a
world of potential losses that they had not previously foreseen and would not be able to cover.
The American solution was the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA), which was designed to
temporarily shield the industry from any further acts of terrorism because they needed time to
stabilise, build capacity and work out how best to absorb future losses. 83

The UK industry’s watershed moment had come eleven years earlier in the wake of several IRA
bombs in the City of London between 1990 and 1993. Following the cost of these events,
particularly the Bishopsgate
bombing in 1993, the industry
realised that there were
potential future loss scenarios in
which the reinsurers would not
be able to give financial

The larger the claim, the further

outward the liability spreads (Fig. 3)

79 Tedeschi, J., Lienau, K. A., and Cheesman, P., Guy Carpenter, Terrorism Modelling, 2004, p. 1
80 Ibid.
81 Thomas, R., Underwriting Terrorism Risk, 2004, p. 498
82 Ibid., p. 499
83 Ibid.
 P a g e | 13

protection to the insurers, so a new approach had to be found. 84 The result was the Pool
Reinsurance Scheme (Pool Re), which pays out to its members (insurance companies) in the
event that one of their policyholders makes a claim following an act of terrorism. As with TRIA,
if the losses exceeded Pool Re’s reserves it would turn to the government for money which it
would be required to repay in time.85

The ultimate purpose of both Pool Re and TRIA is to enable firms to offer terrorism protection
in the first place. The reason they might be reluctant to do so without government support is
that their usual method for pricing cover involves looking at historical losses and trending them
forward.86 As many analysts and firms are at pains to emphasise87, when it comes to terrorism,
there is ‘an astounding lack of historical data’ 88. It seems many in the industry take the view
that there have only been two events of ‘foreign-inspired’ terrorism in the United States; the
World Trade Centre bombing of 1993 and 9/11. 89 Thus, without enough data to trend forward,
firms have had to develop different ways of modelling terrorism risk and it is to these that we
now turn.

It is widely accepted that risk has three components: threat, vulnerability and consequence.

 Threat = the probability that a specific target is attacked in a specific way during a
specified time period
 Vulnerability = the probability that damages… occur, given a specific attack type, at a
specific time, on a given target
 Consequence = the expected magnitude of damage… given a specific attack type, at a
specific time, that results in damage to a specific target.90

As we are concerned with insurgents’ target selection as a function of intent, the first category is
the one this investigation is concerned with. (Having said that, it is clear from the above that the
accuracy of the vulnerability and consequence components is to some extent dependent on that
of the threat component.) Willis et al state that, ‘People or organizations represent a terrorist
threat when they have the intent and capability to impose damage to a target’.91 This is similar
to the approach taken by one leading terrorism insurance provider who takes the view that
probability (of attack) is a function of capability, intent and opportunity.92 However, they have

84 Pool Re, History of the Pool Re Scheme, 2010, <http://www.poolre.co.uk/HistoryOfPool.html>

85 Pool Re, How The Scheme Works, 2010, <http://www.poolre.co.uk/HowItWorks.html>
86 Thomas, 2004, p. 500
87 Ibid., p. 500 and Willis, H. H., LaTourette, T., Kelly, T. K., Hickey, S., and Neill, S., RAND, Terrorism Risk

Modelling, 2007, p. 5
88 Tedeschi et al, 2004, p. 5
89 Thomas, 2004, p. 500
90 Willis et al, RAND, Estimating Terrorism Risk, 2005, p. 10
91 Ibid.
92 Author’s own interview with Crisis Management Risk Advisor, 11.08.10, their offices, London
 P a g e | 14

to take an ‘educated guess’ when it comes to intent.93 Indeed, deference to ‘expert opinion’ is rife
throughout the literature whenever the thorny issue of threat measurement arises 94 and despite
the use of Game Theory and other complex systems, expert geo-political analysis and extensive
databases of potential threats and targets95,

[These sources] support only crude estimates of the probability of attacks against
specific targets or classes of targets (e.g., banks). Experts frequently disagree about the
goals of terrorist groups and their capabilities, and some terror groups may exist about
which little is known. Consequently, assessments of terrorist motivations and
capabilities may systematically under- or overestimate threats. Given this, our threat
estimates must be treated with suspicion.96

The question of relevance to the second hypothesis is whether an understanding of propaganda

of the deed could, alongside expert opinion, enhance this aspect of risk measurement. Whether
the variety of experts informing underwriters and insurance companies take it into account is
difficult to say, as insurance companies tend not to reveal the exact sources of such information
and one suspects they are too widespread for their views to be generalised. However, the
literature, likely authored by at least some of the same experts, does give a helpful overview of
how much POTD is taken into account.

Suffice to say, the phrase ‘propaganda of the deed’ is extremely difficult to locate in literature
pertaining to any aspect of terrorism insurance and risk. However, there is fairly widespread
acknowledgement that iconic landmarks and events are targeted, but then that much is obvious
from history alone. The missing link – the gap that this dissertation is attempting to bridge – is
between recognising that fact and doing something about it. A US Treasury report entitled
Terrorism Risk Insurance reported that insurers were largely sceptical of probabilistic modelling
(the type of modelling into which an understanding of POTD would fit) with only 19% using it in
any capacity.97 The situation might have improved in the four years since that was published,
but the UK industry is still undergoing a process of sophistication in terms of how it deals with
this subject, and some companies still treat terrorism as an irrational and entirely unpredictable
act.98

93 Author’s own interview, Ibid.

94 Tedeschi, et al, 2004, p. 5, Willis et al, 2007, p. 7
95 The Country Risk Evaluation and Assessment Model (CREAM) is perhaps the best example of this and is

used throughout the industry: ExlusiveAnalysis.com, CREAM, 2010, <http://www.exclusive-

analysis.com/services/cream.html>
96 Willis et al, 2005, p. 14
97 US Treasury, Terrorism Risk Insurance, 2006, p. 24
98 Author’s own interview, 11.08.10, Ibid., and Trager et al, Deterring Terrorism, 2006, p. 91
 P a g e | 15

Risk Management Solutions (RMS) is a company that incorporates part of the concept – if not
the phraseology – of POTD into their probability model. They rely on expert judgements of the
following factors:

 the relative likelihood that any particular city will be attacked

 the relative likelihood that any particular target type will be attacked
 the relative likelihood that any specific target will be attacked because of its inherent
iconic value or security
 the relative likelihood that any particular attack mode will be used in an attack.99

They also assess the absolute probability of an attack, which is classified into three components:

 the probability that a terrorist attack of any kind will occur in the next year
 the probability that, if an attack occurs, it will be a single attack or a set of coordinated
attacks
 the probability that, if an attack occurs, there will be other attacks within the year.

If one accepts that POTD is a series of dramatic events designed to shock for attention and incite
members of its audience by attaching itself to pre-existing grievances one can see straightaway
the effect this would have on the RMS model. Furthermore, if an understanding of the narrative
propagated by the contemporary insurgent threat – in our case al Qaeda’s narrative (whether
the attack comes from them or not) – was also incorporated, one might be able to further refine
a list of targets. According to the RAND article on the RMS model, it can be adjusted to allow for
individual targets’ iconicity and status, but this feature is largely unused because the data for
individual buildings does not exist.100 Thus, ‘nearly all targets of a given target type are assigned
the same iconic value and security levels.’ Of further note is the following paragraph:

The model assigns the same relative likelihood of attack to a hotel in Las Vegas as it does
to a hotel in any other city (city tier notwithstanding). While reason might suggest that
hotels are at greater risk in Las Vegas, financial institutions are at greater risk in New
York, and government buildings are at greater risk in Washington, D.C., there has not
been an attempt to adjust the current model to reflect those additional factors. Adjusting
the iconic value of specific targets could capture these dynamics.101

Reason certainly would suggest that a government building in Washington is more at risk than
in any other city, but so would an understanding of POTD. The RMS model also deals with the
relationship between the mode of attack and how that affects its likelihood of taking place. 102
This is a largely obvious relationship – a 600lb bomb is more likely than a 1 ton bomb and so
forth – but if POTD could be considered a type or mode of attack in this way, as something

99 Willis et al, 2007, p. 7

100 Ibid., p. 9
101 Ibid.
102 Ibid.
 P a g e | 16

designed not only to kill and raise viewing figures, but to incite, recruit and mobilise, it might
lead to more accurate estimations. This is admittedly a conflation of two different categories –
the weapon and the target – but there might be a case for arguing that POTD should be
considered as a weapon in and of itself, albeit a theoretical one. In fact, when selected, it dictates
the design of the attack even more than a weapon would. Also, in the same way that a larger
bomb is less likely but has far greater consequences, a successful POTD attack is also
comparatively less likely but, because of its power to incite, its consequences are essentially
infinite.

In order for any of these ideas to hold firm, several things need to be established. First, we need
a way of classifying exactly what a POTD attack is. The definitions have been covered and they
will be tested against empirical evidence in the next section. Second, we need to be able to
predict who is likely to use a POTD attack in order to say whether it is a likely mode of attack at
any given time. Third, and with the method of classification in place, a data set can be
established that will, to some extent, solve the problem of the lack of historical data so often
bemoaned by the industry. If successful this could be of use to those seeking to better predict
any characteristics of future attacks.

COMPETING PHILOSOPHIES
Before moving on to the next section, there is a final angle on the subject of terrorism insurance
that warrants some attention. Given that insurance is about spreading risk over the largest
possible area and that even RMS, a company leading the way in the field, admits that all
buildings of a given type are assigned the same category, it could be that it is simply not in
insurers’ interests to single out buildings that are clearly more at risk than others. Thomas
explains,

There are… competing philosophies. If we thought that only those businesses that were
really targets would buy, we would have to charge them a lot more money. Insurance is
a concept of spreading risk out over broad populations. Therefore, some companies have
adopted the philosophy that we want to sell full coverage to every one of our
customers.103

One Crisis Management Risk Advisor explained the process to me in more detail.104 As an
example, a reinsurance company might sell £100m worth of risk pertaining to a specific area –
perhaps two city blocks – to some underwriters, who would then advise the insurance
companies on what to charge the businesses in that area. The underwriters would split into two
panels. One would hold £25m in reserve, the other £75m. The latter takes on the risk of (to use

103 Thomas, 2004, p. 501

104 Author’s own interview, 11.08.10, Ibid.
 P a g e | 17

their jargon) a spectacular, the former takes on the risk of the smaller but more likely attacks.
Thus, the underwriters make financial arrangements for the higher cost of spectacular/POTD
attacks. But according to RMS and Thomas, all the buildings within that specified area would be
paying roughly the same premiums. One suspects this is not just because they have not yet
figured out how to differentiate between individual buildings’ levels of iconicity, but because it
suits everyone concerned not to bother. While it might seem as though ordinary buildings that
will probably never be targeted are being overcharged, one can see the logic in them paying
more just by geographic association with an iconic structure given the potential for huge
collateral damage in a built up area, where iconic buildings tend to be.

III: CONCLUSION
This chapter has explored the ways in which an understanding of POTD might be incorporated
into current models of terrorism risk. There is potential, it seems, for it to aid with the accuracy
of certain categories of likelihood, namely particular places, targets and whether there will be
single or multiple attacks. In order for it to do so it has to be firmly established precisely what a
POTD attack is and what kind of enemy might seek to use it. Finally, some data is required in
order to test careful assumption against actual fact. All of this will be undertaken in the
following section. In the meantime, the final section on competing philosophies will be revisited
in the conclusion to establish whether or not it has fatally undermined the second hypothesis.
 P a g e | 18

IV: THE COMPLEX REALITY OF POTD

In the first chapter the definitions of a POTD attack were established and unpacked. Given that
the ultimate aim of this dissertation is to explore the extent to which there is an element of
predictability within POTD attacks it is important that a method of classification is established.
This will allow for the creation of a data set, which might yield some idea of what constitutes a
symbolic target. Therefore in this section the definitions will be tested against four historical
examples to see how they stand up to empirical scrutiny. Obviously, since a method of
classification has yet to be established, we cannot yet unequivocally say that the examples used
are POTD attacks. However, the major requirement amongst the definitions already covered is
that the event must be dramatic enough for its propagation by the media to be ensured.
Therefore it seems sensible to look at four attacks that incontrovertibly achieved that aim:
September 11th 2001, the Madrid train bombing of February 2004, the London bombings of July
7th 2005 and the Mumbai attacks in November 2008.

Among the other definitional criteria are that the attacks must incite those predisposed to
violence, provoke state retaliation, attach themselves to an underlying grievance and have a
high death toll and/or watershed character. 105 Aside from the fact that the concept of a
watershed moment might prove difficult to pin down, there are more concrete problems. While
9/11 and 7/7 were clearly designed in part to incite Muslims to take up arms against the
west106, the propaganda element of the Mumbai attacks was much less clear. While they are
largely attributed to Lashkar-e-Taiba107, a militant Islamist terror organisation, their apparent
absence of motive caused some to suggest that they were carried out in the name of almost
nothing at all. Paul Cornish, chairman of Chatham House’s International Security Programme,
argues in The age of ‘celebrity terrorism’ that the act is now a kind of duologue, in which the
targets’ reaction is at least as important as the terrorists’ action, if not even more so. 108
Furthermore, he suggests that so little was known of the perpetrators’ cause because they knew
the world’s media would fill in the gaps:

105 See 25, 27 and 42.

106 Bolt et al, 2008, p. 6 and YouTube, Video message of Mohammed Sidique Khan, 2010,
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPd1rbPz7_U>
107 Terrorism Tracker, Incident Key Data,

<https://www.terrorismtracker.com/search/incident/id/6291> - this page relates to the attack on the

Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus in Mumbai but makes reference to the other attacks which are detailed on
different pages. It cites Lashkar-e-Taiba as responsible and refers to them as a ‘global Islamist’ group.
108 Cornish, P., BBC News, The age of ‘celebrity terrorism’, 2008,

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7755684.stm
 P a g e | 19

In a novel twist, the Mumbai terrorists might have embarked on propaganda of the deed
without the propaganda in the confident expectation that the rationalisation for the
attack - the narrative - would be provided by politicians, the media and terrorism
analysts.109

While anyone with the inclination to research Lashkar-e-Taiba can discover their primary
purpose is to create an Islamic state in South Asia and liberate Muslims in Indian Kashmir110,
and therefore sensibly assume the latter point is their main grievance, in terms of propagating a
message this is some way from the explicit and powerful elucidation of the Islamist grievance as
seen in Mohammed Sidique Khan’s martyrdom video, which is worth quoting at length:

I, and thousands like me, have forsaken everything for what we believe… Our religion is
Islam, obedience to the one true God, Allah… This is how our ethical stances are dictated.
Your democratically elected governments continuously perpetuate atrocities against my
people all over the world, and your support for them makes you directly responsible,
just as I am directly responsible for protecting and avenging my Muslim brothers and
sisters. Until we feel security, you will be our targets, and until you stop the bombing,
gassing, imprisonment and torture of my people, we will not stop this fight. We are at
war and I am a soldier. Now you too will taste the reality of this situation.111

Not only was his message a useful insight into the mind and rationale of a suicide bomber, it was
also an example of a successful propagation of a message which was widely aired on national
news.112 In comparison, the Mumbai attacks achieved no such propaganda coup, which arguably
means they failed to attach their deed to any underlying grievance. On the other hand, if Paul
Cornish is right and the gap where the propaganda should have been was filled by analysts and
the media, and, crucially, if they guessed the message right, perhaps it was successful. The point
is, without evidence of their intent one is left able only to speculate.

Another definitional problem is that the Madrid train attacks did not provoke state retaliation;
in fact, quite the opposite. Following the detonation of ten bombs on four trains leaving the
capital, the ruling Popular Party’s comfortable majority was overturned, bringing the Socialist
Party to power who promptly enacted their campaign pledge to withdraw Spain’s 1,300 troops
from Iraq.113 This was not a coincidence, as wiretaps of the perpetrators later revealed that this
had been partly their intention.114 However, other commentators pointed out that the Popular
Party in fact lost a great deal of favour because they initially mislead the public by blaming the

109 Cornish, P., 2008, Ibid.

110 Dawn.com, Who are the Lashkar-e-Tayiba, 2008, <http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-
content-library/dawn/news/world/who-are-the-lashkar-e-tayiba-yn>
111 YouTube, Video message of Mohammed Sidique Khan, 2010, Ibid.
112 BBC News, London bomber video aired on TV, 2005, <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4206708.stm>
113 Richburg, B. K., WashingtonPost.com, Madrid Attacks May Have Targeted Election, 2004,

<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38817-2004Oct16.html>
114 Ibid.
 P a g e | 20

attacks on ETA, while knowing this to be incorrect, and not necessarily because of their
involvement in the Iraq War.115

In a more general sense one might question whether the Madrid bombings were a POTD attack
at all, given the supposed significance of symbolic targets. Although Mackinlay and Bolt do not
specify this criterion in their definitions, both make reference to the selection of easily
recognisable targets and/or events selected for their symbolic impact. 116 Indeed it is fair to say
that almost every article and book on the subject cited thus far, even those that do not mention
POTD, make some reference to this idea, and yet it was Madrid’s train system – of little symbolic
relevance – that was targeted. At the same time, 9/11 and 7/7 were prime examples of the
targeting of iconic landmarks117 as was the Taj Mahal in Mumbai118.

If these four attacks are to belong to the same category the fixed criteria clearly need to be more
general. This is not to say there will not be similar and recurring characteristics, but in order to
progress toward establishing the second hypotheses, fixed criteria must be identified.

A BROADER METHOD OF CLASSIFICATION

Al Qaeda’s use of POTD is partly what classifies them as a global insurgency.119 Where the
population of a traditional Maoist insurgency was confined to an operationally tangible,
territorial space (usually the jungle), today’s population, although they remain the vital ground,
are now globally dispersed.120 It is therefore the case that the contemporary threat is
territorially two dimensional: the actual tactical field of battle (i.e. Iraq and Afghanistan) and the
virtual dimension, ‘in which belligerents contend with words and images to manufacture
strategic narratives which are more compelling than those of the other side’121. That POTD is
largely a weapon of the latter dimension is perhaps obvious and has already been covered in
detail. However, it does offer a simple solution to the problem outlined in the previous section.
It seems only sensible to suggest that the majority of actions perpetrated by a global insurgency
are going to be designed to appeal to the virtual community and therefore, POTD in nature. So,
when trying to identify a POTD attack – successful or failed – we could ask:

115 BBC News, The legacy of the Madrid bombings, 2007,

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6357599.stm>
116 Mackinlay, 2009, p. 141 and Bolt et al, 2008, p. 9
117 Osama Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, however small their involvement, have both stated that

targets were selected for this reason. See 74 and 76.

118 BBC News, Mumbai attacks: Key sites, 2009,

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7751876.stm>
119 British Army Field Manual, 2009, CS2-1
120 Mackinlay, 2009, p. 140
121 Betz, 2008, p. 510
 P a g e | 21

1. Who was behind it and are they global in nature?

2. Was the attack of any tactical significance?
a. If not, was there a POTD outcome from the attack?

The second question is designed to filter out attacks on the military that might well be
spectacular but would be of tactical significance, such as al Qaeda’s attack on the USS Cole while
docking in Aden in 2000 in which 17 U.S. Navy members were killed. 122 This method of
classifying a POTD attack assumes that if an attack does not and was clearly not intended to
yield any tactical military advantage, it must have been intended as a POTD attack. This broader
approach allows for the myriad characteristics of different POTD attacks to be incorporated but
also posits a standardised method of classifying this mode of attack.

Just as any object of the military – base, building, aircraft carrier and so on – would
automatically be seen as a potential enemy target, this method takes us a step closer to viewing
POTD targets in the same way. Figure 2 presents a visual method of classification.

How to classify a POTD attack (Fig. 4)

Are the perpetrators

affiliated with a global
insurgency?

No Not sure Yes

Are they trying to appeal Was there a propaganda

to a globally dispersed message?
population?

Yes Yes No

= ACT OF POTD Attempted POTD?

Congressional Research Service Memorandum, Terrorist Attacks by Al Qaeda, 2004, CRS-2,

122

www.fas.org/irp/crs/033104.pdf
 P a g e | 22

The first question is phrased in this way in order to sidestep the complexities of those attacks
where the existence of direct links between the perpetrators and al Qaeda are the subject of
much debate.

This looser approach would allow for the inclusion of any attack propagating the al Qaeda
narrative and thus affiliated with them. Without it we might find ourselves debating whether
9/11 itself was a POTD attack123, which would not bode well for a system of classification.

It should be acknowledged that this approach is not without its problems. The Mumbai attacks
present a thorn in the side of this system of classification as well as the academic definitions.
Given that an ideal conclusion to this dissertation would be to present a way of deducing
whether a building or an event is a likely POTD target or not, intent is clearly the major factor.
As we have established, the intent is, in very simple terms, to attract the media and propagate a
message. Thus, even if the perpetrators fail in one of their aims, as an indicator of potential
targets the element of intent remains valid. So, despite the absence of a clear message, the
Mumbai attackers’ choice of luxury hotels, business complexes and a hospital, rather than
seeking actual territorial gains in Kashmir, still point towards a POTD attack designed to appeal
to multiple populations. This is the reason for the inclusion of the ‘Attempted POTD?’ strand of
the system; that a failure to attract the media or propagate a message does not mean it was not
their intention and that their targets were chosen in light of that aim.

This analysis reveals that the academic definitions explored previously are ideal-type
definitions. They specify all of the theoretical elements that comprise a POTD attack. If used as a
filtering system to differentiate between POTD and non-POTD attacks they would create a third
category of attacks that were clearly not tactically territorial in nature and attracted the
attention of the global media machine, but would fail the POTD test. That would only create
confusion and further complexity.

In light of all this, the broader and more flexible classification system outlined above will be
tested against a list of all attempted and successful attacks in Europe and the United States
undertaken, funded or inspired by al Qaeda from the 1993 World Trade Centre bomb onwards.
These parameters are fairly loose because finding links between attacks and al Qaeda is both
difficult and not the purpose of this investigation. The focus here is on the propaganda

123Osama Bin Laden initially denied orchestrating the attacks and many still argue that Khalid Sheikh
Mohammed masterminded them without Bin Laden’s involvement, cf. Telegraph.co.uk, Bin Laden
congratulates tower terrorists, 2001,
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/1340409/Bin-Laden-congratulates-tower-
terrorists.html> and also, AlJazeera.net, September 11 suspect ‘confesses’,
<http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2007/03/200852512026300115.html>
 P a g e | 23

disseminated as a result of the deed, so any attack propagating the al Qaeda narrative (as
outlined above) is deemed to be relevant data. (The fact that an attacker has chosen to
propagate that narrative is, for the sake of argument, taken here to mean that they were
‘inspired’.)

COMPILING THE DATA SET

The data set is limited to Europe and the United States for two reasons. If it was not, it would
include hundreds of attacks which would create problems of time and space for this study.
Furthermore, it would decrease its relevance to the other topic at hand, the insurance industry,
which, for the purposes of this study, pertains to the industries in the UK and US only. It also
includes attempted attacks that were interrupted at the planning stage (this is rationalised on
the next page).

The data set has been compiled by combining two lists. The first is from the Congressional
Research Service, the public policy research arm of the United States Congress. It was provided
to the House Government Reform Committee on 31 st March 2004 in response to their request
for a list of al Qaeda attacks up until the present day (at that time).124 The information therein
was sourced from the US State Department’s Patterns of Global Terrorism 2002 and the RAND-
MIPT Terrorism Incident Database. These could have been used as primary sources, but the
former was withdrawn from annual publication in 2004125 and while the latter is arguably more
authoritative than a CRS memorandum or the BBC, its structure is problematic for this research.
For example, a search for all al Qaeda attacks between 1968 and 2010 (the largest time span
allowed) yields no results for the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing or the 7/7 London
transport suicide bombings. This is because the former is attributed to the ‘Liberation Army
Fifth Battalion’126 and the latter the ‘Secret Organization of al Qaeda in Europe’127. Aside from
the contestability of these claims 128, such a level of specificity makes compiling a data set of al
Qaeda affiliated attacks almost impossible. Interestingly the Congressional Research Service
included the 2004 Madrid train bombings as part of the al Qaeda list, while the RAND database
attributes them to the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigade. Although the database admits they are
affiliated to al Qaeda this does not change the fact that a search for al Qaeda attacks would not

124 Congressional Research Service Memorandum, 2004, Ibid., CRS-1,

125 The Seattle Times, U.S. eliminates annual terrorism report, 2005,
<http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002243262_terror16.html>
126 RAND-MIPT Terrorism Incident Database,

<http://smapp.rand.org/rwtid/incident_detail.php?id=7023>
127 Ibid., <http://smapp.rand.org/rwtid/incident_detail.php?id=24394>
128 Hoffman, 2006, p. 283 and Clarke, M., Soria, V., the RUSI Journal, Terrorism in the United Kingdom,

2009, p. 46
 P a g e | 24

have yielded this result. Thus it appears the CRS have done the compilation work already, so it
seems sensible to use their results as a starting point.

The second list is a timeline of al Qaeda events published on the BBC’s website in 2008.129 It is
included chiefly to bring the data set a little more up to date. It also includes the 1993 World
Trade Centre bomb. In all there are five attacks that appear on one list and not the other. Aside
from those and the longer time span of the BBC list, the two are identical. Finally, three more
attacks have been added because of their relevance to the topic: Nidal Hasan’s shooting of US
military personnel at Fort Hood in November 2009, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s attempted
suicide attack on board Northwest Airlines Flight 253 in December 2009, and the attempting
Times Square bombing by Faisal Shazhad in May 2010. Although al Qaeda claimed
responsibility for American Airlines Flight 587130, which crashed over Queens, New York, in
November 2001, the official verdict was that the plane malfunctioned 131. It would be a highly
contestable inclusion in the data set and is thus left out.

THE INCLUSION OF ATTEMPTED ATTACKS

In total there are eighteen attacks that fall within this framework. This includes attempted
attacks that never actually occurred, the reasoning for which is as follows. In order to properly
evaluate their risk exposure, insurers require an understanding of the potential frequency and
severity of terrorist attacks.132 Given that the vulnerability of a POTD attack lies in its need for
specific target selection, if a plot is uncovered at a stage where the target has already been
identified, it seems a little punctilious to spurn that data just because the attack never actually
happened. Interrupted plots could contain very useful information that would benefit an
understanding of the likely frequency and severity of attacks. Of course, capability should also
be taken into account and fanciful plots should not be treated as seriously as those already
underway. All of the plots included in this data set were at a level of preparation where, had
they not been prevented either by the public, the authorities or a failure to detonate properly,
would almost certainly have gone ahead.133

129 BBC News, Timeline: Al Qaeda, 2008, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/7546355.stm

130 LibertyPost.org, Al Qaeda lists successes since 9/11 on Global Islamic Media, 2004,
<http://www.libertypost.org/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=51498>
131 National Transportation Safety Board, Aircraft Accident Report, p. xi,

<http://www.ntsb.gov/publictn/2004/AAR0404.pdf>
132 US Treasury, Terrorism Risk Insurance, 2006, p. 25,

http://www.fbi.gov/publications/terror/terror99.pdf
133 Evidence to support this statement can be found in a variety of places. See Appendix B for full details.
 P a g e | 25

TESTING THE METHOD OF CLASSIFICATION

When fed through the system of classification illustrated above (fig. 4), every one of these
eighteen incidents comes out as a POTD attack. For those attempted attacks that did not take
place for one reason or another, they are still classified as such because there is evidence to
suggest that was the intention. That is ensured by the question, ‘Was there a propaganda
message?’ There is hard evidence of intention to propagate the jihadi narrative for most of these
incidents134, but proving that is perhaps to miss the point. The al Qaeda narrative is worth
restating:
 Islam is under general unjust attack by Western crusaders led by the United States;
 Jihadis, whom the West refers to as ‘terrorists’ are defending against this attack;
 The actions they take in defence of Islam are proportionally just and religiously
sanctified; and, therefore,
 It is the duty of good Muslims to support these actions.
Versions of this story have been propagated repeatedly by Bin Laden and his colleagues in
interviews and videos since the mid 1990s. The simplicity and generality of the narrative mean
that, as a result of its propagation, any attempt to attack the west is automatically subsumed
under the al Qaeda umbrella. As Paul Cornish pointed out, the Mumbai attackers gave almost no
indication of their grievance but the news media and its analysts filled the gap. All they actually
had to do was call themselves the Deccan Mujahideen, which nobody had ever heard of, and the
world did the rest.135 So if it was included in the list (it isn’t because the list is confined to
Europe and America) it could be argued that it too would be classified as a POTD attack rather
than an attempted one.

That all of the attacks and attempted attacks in the data set can be classified as POTD is no real
surprise, given that al Qaeda are a global insurgency attempting to appeal to and incite a global
audience. An equally relevant and better use of the data would be to see what, if anything, it
reveals about target selections. As discussed above, many in insurance feel there is a lack of
historical terrorism data that hampers their abilities to project it forward and model various
categories of likelihood vis-à-vis its recurrence. The data set might also contain some answers
as to the importance of iconicity in terrorists’ target selection and, if it does, exactly what kind of
iconic buildings are most at risk.

134 See Appendix B

135 Cornish, P., BBC News, The age of ‘celebrity terrorism’, 2008, Ibid.
 P a g e | 26

METHODOLOGY FOR CATEGORISING AND ANALYSING THE DATA

If the STRATFOR article136 invoked to summarise the first chapter is to be believed, then the fact
that terrorists select symbolic and iconic targets is a weakness in their attack cycle that can be
exploited. The insurance industry claims that terrorism risk modelling suffers from a crippling
lack of data, with some claiming (in 2004) that the two World Trade Centre attacks were the
only relevant data in this regard137. The purpose of the data set in Appendix A is to reveal the
extent to which terrorists’ target selection can be exploited in such a way as to benefit the
creation of terrorism insurance models, as per the second hypothesis. In order to do this, the
attacks need to be separated into categories of target selection. The categories created are,
‘Personal’ – attacks on specific individuals – ‘Military’ – direct attacks on the military –
‘Infrastructural’ – transport, utilities and construction – and ‘Symbolic’ – targets chosen for their
‘easy recognition and symbolic impact’138. ‘Symbolic’ is taken to mean targets are broadly
symbolic of western capitalism.139

The first difficulty with the categorisation of this data is that a single plot can have multiple
targets, as is the nature of POTD. Considering the value of targets, with their assigned values in
brackets, if each target represents a value of (1) then arguably individual planes should also be
considered as (1) value each. However, insurance is not sold to the airline industry on a per-
plane basis, but is sold to businesses on a per-building basis, so for that reason the attacks and
attempted attacks are separated into incidents – the act or plot as a whole – and targets, the
number of identified targets that were or were likely to have been attacked. Multiple planes,
hotels, synagogues and so on are treated as having a value of (1) in the event that we cannot be
sure which exact planes/buildings would have been targeted. Furthermore, they are symbolic in
a general sense, unlike, for example, the New York Stock Exchange, of which there is only one.

As an example, the literature reveals that Operation Rhyme uncovered plans to attack London in
general using gas limos (0 – this is too vague to be of value), the London Underground (1),
Heathrow Express (1), the NYSE (1), a Prudential building in New Jersey (1), the World Bank
(1), the International Monetary Fund (1) and hotels in London (1).140 Some of those hotels are
mentioned but they are treated as one target here because hotels are generally symbolic of

136 See 77
137 See 89
138 Bolt et al, 2008, p. 9
139 Lloyd’s, Home Grown Terrorism: What Does It Mean For Business?, 2007, p. 14,

<http://www.lloyds.com/~/media/Lloyds/Reports/360%20Terrorism%20Reports/HomeGrownTerror
ism.pdf>
140 See Appendix B
 P a g e | 27

Western capitalism141; it would be difficult to argue that the Dorchester is more at risk than the
Berkeley.

Equally one could dispute the categories assigned to some targets. There is little question of the
iconicity of the London bus, but here it goes in the ‘Infrastructural’ category, as does all
transport. Likewise, many of the targets in the ‘Symbolic’ category provide an infrastructural
function. The rule followed is that targets are assigned a category based on their primary reason
for being targeted. Whilst one cannot unequivocally know this, it is fairly safe to assume that
HSBC and the World Trade Centre were not targeted because of their infrastructural power in
the same way that the Transco gas supply was not targeted for its symbolism. Although some
have argued that the Madrid train bombings were designed to cause, and achieved, the
withdrawal of Spanish troops from Iraq, there were certainly other contributing factors to that
decision, so it is placed in the ‘Infrastructural’ category here.

9/11 receives a value of (3) because there were three distinct targets. The Pentagon is
considered more symbolic than military because the attack was prior to the expeditions to Iraq
and Afghanistan. Although the intended target of Flight 93 has never been fully established, it
was almost certainly the Whitehouse or Capitol Hill 142, so it is assigned a value of (1) in the
‘Symbolic’ category.

Finally, Nidal Hasan’s assassination of thirteen people at Fort Hood military base could be
placed in the ‘Militarily’ or ‘Symbolic’ categories with equal veracity. However, the fact his attack
was directed at military personnel sets it apart from the others, so it is placed in the former
category but not without an appreciation for its symbolism.

141See 77
142Schuster, D., MSNBC, 9/11 Mystery: What was Flight 93’s target, 2006,
<http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14778963>
 P a g e | 28

THE RESULTS

20

15

10

0
Infra-
Personal Military Symbolic
structural
Total 1 1 16 19
Successful 0 1 2 6

Attacks and attempted POTD attacks in Europe and the US, 1993-2010, differentiated by target category
(Fig. 5)

While some of the categorisations are debatable, minor alterations to the methodology would
not disguise the fact that there have been far more attacks on infrastructural and symbolic
targets than on personal or military-related ones. However, for the data to be of any value to the
insurance industry, the data in the ‘Symbolic’ category needs to be analysed further. Figure 6
displays the symbolic attacks broken down into four categories that the data easily lends itself
to. The nightclubs and financial institutions are specific because the buildings themselves are
individual and identifiable in a way that synagogues and hotels are not. However, whether or
not it matters in terms of the attacks success which financial institution or nightclub is attacked
is debatable. It might be the case that synagogues, hotels, nightclubs, financial institutions,
skyscrapers – any symbols of western capitalism – are equally at risk. The next section looks at
the limitations of this data and explores this line of argument and discusses why it ultimately
causes the second hypothesis to fall short.
 P a g e | 29

Number of attacks or attempted attacks on symbolic

targets (data taken from fig 5)

Fig. 6
Specific Targets General Targets

Financial
Nightclubs Synagogues Hotels
Institutions

TC x 2; NYSE;
Ministry of Sound; Prudential, NJ; Operation Crevice;
Operation Rhyme
Tiger Tiger World Bank; IMF; Istanbul
HSBC

2 6 2 1
 P a g e | 30

ANALYSIS OF RESULTS AND DATA LIMITATIONS

Clearly figure 4 has some intrinsic value as historical data, but the question here pertains to the
potential value of that data to those in the insurance industry seeking to trend it forward to
model for the likelihood of terrorism. In the previously discussed RAND article, Terrorism Risk
Modelling, Willis et al admitted that, while Risk Management Solutions’ model included a
parameter for the iconic value of different buildings, it was rarely used because of a lack of data.
They suggested more information on this would be useful. The problem is how to differentiate
between iconic buildings. How can we say that the White House is more or less iconic than
Buckingham Palace, or that one nightclub is more iconic, more at risk and should therefore pay
a higher premium than another? The data above shows that, in Europe and America, more
financial institutions have been attacked than nightclubs, synagogues and hotels put together,
but that does not necessarily mean they are more likely to be attacked. The decisions that went
into choosing those targets were a mixture of intent, capability and opportunity143, with the
iconicity of the targets probably being a factor in its selection, but not the only factor. Thus data
revealing the historically more targeted types of iconic building can only be a factor in a model
such as Risk Management Solutions’, which considers the relative likelihood of particular cities,
target types, and attack modes alongside the likelihood that a particular target will be attacked
because of its iconicity144.

The fundamental problem with attempting to do that which Willis et al suggest is that we cannot
be so specific as to say that one iconic building is more at risk than another chiefly because the
perpetrators of POTD attacks are not that specific themselves. Iconic structures form part of
their target list because of the greater attention their act will receive, but the propaganda
message disseminated through the deed almost certainly would not be lessened or heightened
depending on the choice of iconic target, as long as it was iconic enough to attract attention in
the first place. Mapping levels of iconicity is arguably rendered pointless by the nature of POTD
itself. It is not that specific a tool.

Al Qaeda published a document in 2004 entitled The Targets Inside the Cities145. In it, targets are
divided into three categories: faith targets, economic targets and human targets. It asserts that it
is not advisable to target religious places unless they are missionaries in Islamic countries,
covert intelligence operations, hostile to Islam or supportive of action against it any way.
Economic targets are designed to have the dual effect of dissuading companies from Muslim

143 These are the functions of probability as viewed by one terrorism insurance firm, see 92
144 See 99
145 IntelCenter, al-Qaeda Targeting Guidance – v1.0, 2004, <http://www.intelcenter.com/Qaeda-

Targeting-Guidance-v1-0.pdf>
 P a g e | 31

lands and destabilising western economies. Human targets are Jews and Christians with
important status in Islamic countries, the purpose of attacking them being to ‘stress the struggle
of the faiths [and] show who the main enemy is’146. The extent to which this guidance influences
target selection is unknown, but it is a useful insight nonetheless. It chimes with our data set in
the sense that targets are categorised at all, as well as some of the categories matching. The
difference is that they do not claim to be targeting anything solely for its iconicity, but instead
for the strategic implications of its destruction – a destabilised western economy, fewer
Christian missionaries, fewer Jews in high office and so on. That these attacks would send a
message is perhaps so obvious that it goes entirely unsaid within the document. However, while
it is an insight it is not definitive, and comments by Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri about the
symbolism of the 9/11 and 7/7 targets should not be forgotten.147

IV CONCLUSION: SPECIFICS AND SKYSCRAPERS

IntelCenter, the publishers of The Targets Inside the Cities, conducted their own study into all
core, regional and affiliated al Qaeda attacks (save for those in insurgency theatres) between
1998 and 2007. They concluded that,

There are many factors that impact both targeting and tactic selection, however, one
basic rule always applies. Al-Qaeda and its affiliates will always select the target/tactic
pairing that guarantees the greatest amount of success while remaining within the
competency level of the resources available.148

The central claim of the second part of the first hypothesis (H1b) is that part of that ‘success’ lies
in mobilising as much as possible the tiny part of the ummah that is potentially sympathetic to
the attackers’ cause. The first two chapters explored the exploitation of grievance through the
propaganda of the deed, itself disseminated globally by the news media. That this is the
intention behind many of al Qaeda’s acts of terrorism has been largely substantiated throughout
and this may prove useful to those in the insurance industry looking for a model to suggest
levels of intent.149 However, several sources and an examination of the data set suggest that
their success does not depend on iconic targets enough for the second hypothesis to be true.
That is to say, there is an inherent element of predictability inasmuch as they choose iconic
targets, but their choices are not so specific that this element of predictability is exploitable by
the insurance industry. Moreover and as mentioned at the end of chapter three, it might also be

146 IntelCenter, al-Qaeda Targeting Guidance – v1.0, 2004, p. 9, Ibid.

147 See 74 and 76
148 IntelCenter, Jihadi Tactics & Targeting Statistics v1.9, 2007, p. 6, Ibid.
149 As suggested to the author in an interview with a Crisis Management Risk Advisor, 11.08.10, Ibid.
 P a g e | 32

the case that the economic mechanics of terrorism insurance mean it is simply not in the
industry’s interest to differentiate between levels of iconicity.

Therefore it could be that, were the concept of POTD to be factored into terrorism insurance, its
real relevance would pertain to an explanation of why a business needs no terrorism cover at
all. While some insurers have an open dialogue with their clients and explain that, for example,
their paper factory in Slough does not need terrorism cover, others do not and will sell it to any
business that asks for it.150 This is not necessarily as underhand as it might seem, for
increasingly it is required of businesses by their banks and some lawyers already regard
terrorism as a foreseeable event.151 Thus it becomes ever clearer that there is a limit to the
levels of specificity one can employ when it comes to the iconicity of targets.

This argument is supported by the contemporary response to terrorism from the worlds of
architecture and urban design. The unprecedented nature of 9/11 led some to predicate the
death of tall buildings and the forced creation of an, ‘architecture of terror’.152 Not only has this
dystopic vision of a low-rise concrete future failed to materialise but skyscrapers have
continued to be built apace, their potential benefits deemed to outweigh even today’s risks.153 If
we assume all skyscrapers to be iconic structures then, in the same way that it would be very
difficult to assess their relative iconicity, it would also be hard to justify the prevention of more
being built due to the risk of terrorism. Indeed, more tall buildings would help to spread the
risk. Instead, two major developments have taken place. The first is that cities have experienced
an expansion of the Foucaultian militarisation of urban space that began very visibly in 1970s
Belfast and is present but rather more invisible in Manchester and London today. 154 London’s
‘Ring of Steel’ was, like Pool Re, born out of the early 1990s IRA bombing campaign and
consisted of a one way system that reduced the number of lay vehicle access roads and an
‘electronic panopticon’ of cameras.155 In some ways 9/11 proved such systems are fatally
flawed, but the Ring of Steel has only been upgraded and expanded ever since and the principles
of its design were exported to New York in 2005 as the Lower Manhattan Security Initiative.156

150 Author’s own interview with Crisis Management Risk Advisor, 11.08.10, Ibid.
151 Ibid.
152 Coaffee, J., Rings of Steel, Rings of Concrete and Rings and Confidence, 2004, p. 208
153 The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, Conference Report, 2009,

<http://www.ctbuh.org/Events/Conferences/Chicago2009Home/Chicago2009Overview/tabid/1282/la
nguage/en-GB/Default.aspx>
154 Coaffee, J., Terrorism, risk, and the city, 2003, pp. 20-28 and 100
155 Ibid. p. 104
156 Lipton, E., New York Times, To Fight Terror, New York Tries London’s ‘Ring of Steel’, 2005,

<http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/24/weekinreview/24lipton.html>
 P a g e | 33

The second major development was the architectural concept of ‘designing out terrorism’,
known as the ‘architecture of paranoia’ by its detractors.157 Following the publication of Home
Office Guidance, the Royal Institute of British Architects published its own counterterrorism
guidance in April 2010. It states that,

Terrorism risks can be mitigated in two basic fashions: by introducing physical,

technical and procedural protective measures, such as barriers and bollards and
landscaping, access control and surveillance devices, and by reducing the impact that
the loss of a particular element may have on the asset as a whole. 158

It stresses the importance of the incorporation of security risk assessments into the preparation
and design stages of new buildings, so that measures such as ‘stand-off landscaping’,
strengthened street furniture and ‘Hostile Vehicle Mitigation’ barriers can be seamlessly
integrated, thus avoiding a retreat into a bunker mentality, both architecturally and
psychologically in terms of the public at large. 159 The debate about how to strike the balance
between securities and freedom – particularly of movement and design – is ongoing, but
structures such as the Welsh National Assembly (below) are held up as examples of how
terrorism can be designed out without architectural compromise. 160

Assembly plaza modelled with hostile vehicle mitigation measures

© National Assembly for Wales

157 Coaffee, 2004, p. 202

158 RIBA, Guidance on designing for counter-terrorism, 2010, p. 10,

<http://www.architecture.com/Files/RIBAHoldings/Communications/Press/General/RIBAguidanceonc
ounterterrorism.pdf>
159 Ibid. pp. 8, 10 and 12
160 Ibid. p. 12
 P a g e | 34

FINAL CONCLUSION

Both the ‘fortress urbanism’ and architectural counterterrorism approaches support the
argument that terrorists’ target selection is only so specific. The borderlines of the Ring of Steel
clearly represent the area within which the authorities perceive the greatest risk to be. This
goes hand in hand with the counterterrorism guidance for individual architects building within
that designated area. Together this approach to risk mitigation exploits terrorists’ target
selection up to a point, i.e. they accept there is a high risk area and within it, high risk buildings,
but no further. Thus it appears to be in the interest of architects, the emergency services, the
government, the insurance industry and the general public to be no more specific than that. If
they were it would mean strengthening the defences of one iconic building at the expense of
another. The central premise of this conclusion is that such a move would be a mistake for the
following reasons:

1. The insurance industry:

a. Would not benefit from differentiation between iconic buildings, and they

b. Underwrite risk based on a defined area, not a defined building, which is, on
balance, the right approach because;

2. POTD does not require such levels of specificity in order to succeed.

In summation, the first hypothesis has been established in full and its demonstration of the true
intent behind terrorist acts perpetrated by global insurgents may be of some use to the ‘expert
opinion’ branch of terrorism modelling. The second hypothesis falls short because, while there
certainly is an inherent element of predictability in terrorists’ target selection, it is not precise
enough to be of demonstrable value to the industry.
 P a g e | 35

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Stationery Office.

 Mackinlay, J. (2009). The Insurgent Archipelago. London: Hurt & Company.

 Mir, H. (2001, November 10). Osama claims he has nukes: If US uses N-arms it will get
same response. Retrieved August 4, 2010, from Dawn.com:
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 National Transportation Safety Board. (2004). Aircraft Accident Report. Retrieved

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 Pool Reinsurance. (2010). Definition of an Act of Terrorism. Retrieved August 4, 2010,

from Pool Re: http://www.poolre.co.uk/Definition.html

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 RAND. (2010). Terrorism Incidents Database Search. Retrieved August 7, 2010, from
Database of Worldwide Terrorism Incidents:
http://smapp.rand.org/rwtid/incident_detail.php?id=7023

 Richburg, K. B. (2004, October 17). Madrid Attacks May Have Targeted Election.
Retrieved August 3, 2010, from WashingtonPost.com:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38817-2004Oct16.html

 Author’s own interview with Crisis Management Risk Advisor, August 11th 2010, their
offices, London

 Royal Institute of British Architects. (2010, April 13). RIBA Launches New Counter
Terrorism Guidance. Retrieved August 20, 2010, from RIBA:
http://www.architecture.com/Files/RIBAHoldings/Communications/Press/General/RI
BAguidanceoncounterterrorism.pdf
 P a g e | 38

 Sandler, T., & Rosendorff, P. B. (2004). Too Much of a Good Thing? The Proactive
Response Dilemma. The Journal of Conflict Resolution , 48 (5), 657-671.

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August 10, 2010, from MSNBC.com: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14778963

 Smith, A. D. (2006). Nationalism and Modernism. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

 Sparago, M. (2007). Terrorist Recruitment: The Crucial Case of Al Qaeda’s Global Jihad
Terror Network. New York: New York University.

 STRATFOR. (2005, September 30). The Terrorist Attack Cycle: Selecting the Target.
Retrieved July 28, 2010, from STRATFOR.com:
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 Tedeschi, J., Lienau, K. A., & Cheesman, P. (2004, December). Articles - Guy Carpenter.
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 Thomas, R. L. (2004). Underwriting Terrorism Risk. St. John's Journal of Legal

Commentary , 18, 497-507.

 Trager, R. F., & Zagorcheva, D. P. (2006). Deterring Terrorism: It Can Be Done.

International Security , 30 (3), 87-123.

 U.S. Department of Justice. (2004). Terrorism 2000/2001. Retrieved July 23, 2010, from
Federal Bureau of Investigation:
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 U.S. Treasury. (2006). Terrorism Risk Insurance. Retrieved August 10, 2010, from Federal
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 Willis, H. H., LaTourrette, T., Kelly, T. K., Hickey, S., & Neill, S. (2007). Terrorism Risk
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APPENDIX A
L I ST OF AL L AC TS AN D ATTEMPTED AC TS OF POTD I N EUROPE AN D THE US
PROPAG ATI N G THE AL Q AEDA N ARRATI VE F ROM 19 93 ON W ARDS
Date Target/details (value in fig. 4) Result (Killed/injured)

26/02/93 World Trade Centre (1) 6/1000+

06/01/95 Pope John Paul II and 12 N/A – foiled
transatlantic flights, aka the Bojinka
plot (2)
14/12/99 Los Angeles International Airport N/A – foiled
(1)
11/09/01 World Trade Centre, the Pentagon, 2,995/6,000+
Capitol Hill OR the Whitehouse (3)
23/12/01 Flight from Paris to Miami, Richard N/A – foiled
Reid, ‘shoe bomber’ (1)
05/01/03 London transport network, North N/A – foiled
London’s Jewish Neighbourhoods
(the Ricin plot) (2)
15/11/03 Synagogues in Istanbul (1) 25/300+
20/11/03 British Consulate and HSBC bank in 27/450
Istanbul (2)
11/03/04 Madrid train network (1) 191/1800+
30/03/04 Ministry of Sound, Bluewater N/A – foiled
shopping centre, football matches,
British synagogues (in general),
hijacking a plane, Transco, Amec
Construction Co., British Telecom
(Operation Crevice) (8)
03/07/04 London in general (using gas limos), N/A – foiled
the London Underground, Heathrow
Express, NYSE, Prudential building
in New Jersey, World Bank, the
International Monetary Fund, hotels
in London (Operation Rhyme) (7 –
London ‘in general’ is too vague to
be counted)
07/07/05 London transport network (1) 52/700
21/07/05 London transport network (1) N/A – attempted
09/08/06 6-10 transatlantic flights, aka N/A – foiled
Bojinka II (1)
29-30/06/07 A London bar and Glasgow airport 1/5 – attempted
(2)
05/11/09 US soldiers at Fort Hood military 13/30
base (1)
25/12/09 Transatlantic flight to Detroit (Umar 0 – attempted
Farouk Abdulmutallab) (1)
01/05/10 Times Square (Faisal Shahzad) (1) 0 - attempted

Totals: Number of targets: 37 3,310/10,285+

Number of incidents: 18
 P a g e | 40

Terminology

‘Foiled’ means the attack was interrupted by the authorities during the planning phase.
‘Attempted’ means the attack was set in motion but did not occur as intended.

Sources

 Cronin, A. K. (2004, March 31). Congressional Research Service Memorandum: Terrorist

Attacks by Al Qaeda. Retrieved July 20, 2010, from Federation of American Scientists:
www.fas.org/irp/crs/033104.pdf

 BBC News. (2008, August 7). Timeline: Al-Qaeda. Retrieved August 10, 2010, from BBC
News: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/7546355.stm

 Clarke, M., & Soria, V. (2009). Terrorism in the United Kingdom. The RUSI Journal , 154
(3), 44-53.

 Lloyd's. (2007). Home Grown Terrorism: What Does It Mean For Business? Retrieved
August 9, 2010, from Lloyd's.com: http://www.lloyds.com/News-and-Insight/360-Risk-
Insight/Research-and-Reports/Terrorism/Home-Grown-Terrorism
 P a g e | 41

APPENDIX B
REF EREN C ES F OR EVI DE N C E THAT ATTEMPTED A TTAC KS W OUL D HAVE G ON E AHEA D
W ERE I T N OT F OR I N TERVEN TI ON B Y THE PUBL I C , AUTHORI TI ES OR DEVI C E F AI L UR E
Also included are some references evincing the intended propagation, through these deeds, of
the jihadi narrative. As discussed in the main text, the al Qaeda narrative is such that an atrocity
attempted or committed by a Muslim does not necessarily require an explanatory martyrdom
video for it to be attached to the al Qaeda brand and for the world to assume that they all seek to
propagate the same message as each other.

Date Target/details References

06/01/95 Pope John Paul II and 12 transatlantic
flights, aka the Bojinka plot
14/12/99 Los Angeles International Airport
23/12/01 Flight from Paris to Miami, Richard
Reid, ‘shoe bomber’
05/01/03 London transport network, aka the
Ricin plot
30/03/04 Utility companies, nightclub, shopping
centre, football matches, synagogues
and a construction company, in and
around London (Operation Crevice)
03/07/04 London generally (using gas limos)
and the London Underground
(Operation Rhyme, Dhiren Barot)
21/07/05 London transport network
09/08/06 6-10 transatlantic flights, aka Bojinka
II
25/12/09 Transatlantic flight to Detroit (Umar
Farouk Abdulmutallab)
01/05/10 Times Square (Faisal Shahzad)
Bonner, R., and Weiser, B., New York Times,
Echoes of Early Design to Use Chemicals to Blow
Up Airliners, 2006,
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/11/world/eur
ope/11manila.html?_r=1&ref=bojinka_jetliners_bo
mb_plot
US Department of Justice, FBI, 30 Years of
Terrorism in the United States, 1999, p. 9
BBC News, Timeline: al-Qaeda, 2008,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/7546355.stm#
2001
Clarke, M., and Soria, V., Terrorism in the United
Kingdom, 2009, p. 45
Lloyd’s, Home Grown Terrorism: What Does It
Mean For Business?, 2007, p. 28; Clarke, M., and
Soria, V., Terrorism in the United Kingdom, 2009,
p. 45
Lloyd’s, Home Grown Terrorism: What Does It
Mean For Business?, 2007, p. 28; Clarke, M., and
Soria, V., Terrorism in the United Kingdom, 2009,
p. 46
It is generally known that these bombs only
failed thanks to the incompetence of the actors.
Evidence of the perpetrators’ Islamism can be
found here: BBC News, Profile: Muktar Ibrahim,
2007,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/email_news/663490
1.stm
Clarke, M., and Soria, V., Terrorism in the United
Kingdom, 2009, p. 47
Both Abdulmutallab and and Nidal Hasan form
the backdrop to a video by ‘the Bin Laden of the
internet’, Anwar al-Awlaki, responsible for
recruiting many of the above perpetrators:
YouTube, Message to the American People by
Sheikh Anwar al-Awlaki, 2010,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRTY9uFtyz
M
BBC News, Video of Times Square bomber, 2010,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us+canada-
10634960