The Present Terrorists Group Organization Overview - Case Study Example

MEMORANDUM Secretary of DHS Terrorism Analyst The Present Terrorists Group Organization Overview and Policy Recommendation Date: [] SUMMARY: There are numerous terror attack threats that the United States of America face. The threats come from the different anti-Western group, most recently ISIS. ISIS is a terror group consisting of people of the Muslim faith that believe in destroying the United States of America. The militant Islamic terror groups have taken the center stage in attacking the US. They have roots that are deep in the Middle East and South East Asia. The motivation of the groups is primarily religious, though they do not represent every one of the said faith. An overview and analysis of the emerging terror groups is a requirement for familiarization to the threat they bring to the American people. There should also be recommendations for action on the terror groups. The article will focus on understanding the terror groups, their evolving nature, the present terrorist groups and give suggestions for dealing with the terrorist. BACKGROUND: The creation of Israel, failure in post-colonial attempts to form a state, and the colonial era engendered a series of anti-Western and Marxist movements and transformations throughout the Islamic and Arab world. The growth of the movements and their view that terrorism could be a way of getting political goals generated the first modern international terrorism phase. There were secular movements in Palestine in the late 1960s such as the Al Fatah who were targeting civilians. The targeted civilians were outside the arena of conflict. The defeat of Arab forces in 1967 by the Israelites made Palestinian leaders realize that the Arab military could not defeat Israel. Radical Palestinians then took advantage of the modern way of transportation and communication systems to make their struggles international. They launched a series of, kidnappings, hijackings, shootings and bombings that led to the deaths of Israeli athletes in the 1972 Munich Olympic (Purpura 16). These Palestinian groups became role models for many secular militants, and also offered lessons for ethnic and religious movements all over the world. Terrorist groups emerged after learning from the Palestinians. There was the rise of the Afghan jihad. There was a wave of Iranian Islamic Revolution in 1979 that caused fear both in Arab and Western countries of Shia Islam. The Soviet Union invading Afghanistan led to the rise of terrorists. Terrorism groups attacked anyone with the Western interest until the United States had to come up with policies against terrorism. The policies were not clear as it was politicized and left out many countries. The states disintegration in the post-Cold War and the legacy of the Cold War of a world with advanced conventional weapons have helped in the spread of terrorism worldwide. Conflict and absence of governance have led to instability in areas such as Afghanistan, the Balkans, Colombia, and some African countries are areas ready for terrorist recruitment and training activity. The increase in the ease of transportation and communication transnationally has reached new heights in supporting terrorism (Purpura 17). The rise of ISIS in the recent past has been causing the Western nations to have sleepless nights while trying to come up with ways to end the terror group. Other terror groups of recent past include Boko Haram in West Africa and Alshabaab in Somali. ISSUES: ISIS splashed in the world’s headlines sometime in June 2014. The terror group is moving from Syria to Iraq to take over the city of Mosul. The group during this time encountered no opposition. ISIS has over twenty thousand new recruits in their team from over one hundred different countries. There are an additional five thousand new recruits in Libya and Yemen. All these people are uniting to fight the Western countries in the Middle East and to get rid of them entirely. The Reagan – Bush administration saw the creation of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan in the late 1980s. The 9/11 attack on American soil saw the idea of the Al-Qaida turn against them as the recruits bombed US (Scheider and Davis 60). ISIS is recruiting new members every day at a high rate, and more than 71% of them are foreigners. The foreigners post a threat to their countries as they are competently vast with information about the country. ISIS, Al Qaeda, and other known terror groups have shown interest in seeking weapons of mass destruction. The war on terror has become challenging for Western countries as the terror groups have tremendously intelligent individuals that can quickly access weapons of mass destruction. There are weapons of mass destruction that come in one form or the other. ISIS and Al Qaeda have shown some interest in getting the weapons. Al Qaeda has already done some experimental stuff regarding the use of the weapons. Osama Bin Laden famously said in 1998 that it was his Islamic duty to acquire weapons of mass destruction. It was a top priority for his lieutenants until his death in May 2011. The statements by Osama Bin Laden and the reflection of Al Qaeda’s thoughts about acquiring WMD should be a threat to the US. The government has come up with different ways to ensure the occurrence of such does not happen in the near future or the long run. Nuclear WMD The interpretation of the statements by experts cannot be idle threats of the terrorist groups. The weapons of mass destruction mostly come in the form of chemical and biological weapons. There is, however, no evidence that any of the terror groups around the world have involvement in the making of the weapons. The United States intelligence, however, is insisting that Al Qaeda is trying to acquire this type of evidence. The nuclear weapon is the most destructive of all the WMD (Bowman 7). Obtaining such a weapon poses the greatest difficulty of the terror groups. Nuclear weapons are not easy to come across, and the terror groups have been trying all along to have access to them at the time of Osama bin Laden. The availability of sufficient amount of fissile material is one of the major obstacles i.e. uranium. The availability of such materials will see the terror groups built a nuclear destruction weapon according to experts. The groups are left to deal with high-end explosives as their alternative. Countries like Iraq are capable of acquiring such a weapon. The State sponsors of the terrorist groups have not however given the permission and authority for the use of such weapons. The reason for this is sponsors are afraid the groups will leave them and be independent once they acquire access to weapons of mass destruction. It is, therefore, unlikely for any terror group to get access to any weapon of mass destruction. Biological WMD A recent research shows that terrorists who are working outside a laboratory that is run by the state would have to overcome many challenges. The challenges include technical and operational to be able to come up with a viable biological WMD. Coming up with a weapon that can cause mass casualties outside a laboratory is almost impossible. There was a fall 2001 Anthrax released in the United States. Experts say the losses were not massive, so their argument still holds water. The anthrax is suspected to have been from a government-owned laboratory (Bowman 8). The security on the laboratories had to go high since the release of the anthrax. Effective dissemination of the agents to form the weapons of mass destruction is the main challenge of the terrorists. The process requires an aerosol form to be successful. The process requires much care and the right meteorological condition for them to be carried out. The country cannot, however, sit back and watch as the terrorists are coming up with different ways to find the WMD. A particular concern of the biological WMD is the smallpox infection. The disease is airborne and can spread very fast among a particular community. Agroterrorism is also a concern. It is the use of biological agents to work against individual agricultural targets. Chemical WMD Toxic chemicals are easily available and can be readily used by the terror groups to cause mass destruction. Chlorine or phosgene is the ones that can have an effortless manipulation as nerve agents are not easy to produce. They require synthesis of significant number chemicals for them to work. The by-products are toxic and dangerous, thus not a viable option. They also require very high temperatures for them to work properly. The chemical weapons give unpredicted outcomes as the Aum Shinrikyo attack had only twelve fatalities while the attack on the embassies of America in Kenya and Tanzania resulted in three hundred and one deaths (Bowman 9). The US chemical industry is paying much attention to the possibility of terror groups destroying the facilities that host toxic chemicals. OPTIONS The war of the US Military in the Middle East and South Asia has led to the increase in terror groups rising from those people. The war in Afghanistan and Iraq has left many people of Islamic faith dead or with no place to call home. The people feel the need to retaliate against the US and its supporters hence the rise of the terror groups. The new terrorists have much dangerous weapons and intelligence that post a threat to the USA and other countries. The killer drones seem to be having a reverse effect on the number of ISIS members continues to rise in areas where the drones are common (Hagopian 15). The US ideas and its governments do not gain support from the large population of people because the states form their interest instead of the interest of the citizens. The groups that emerge to fight the government and its policies is what makes people rise against them and forms the terror groups that are now so rampant all over the world. The US-NATO invasion in Afghanistan and other parts of the Middle East has led to the lives of the people from these areas to be worse than what it was initially. It has left most of the states demolished and no homes for the citizens. RECOMMENDATIONS The war on terror is a hard war, and no state can end it in a quick, easy way. The end of the war should be systematic to ensure all the terror groups are no longer there. The United States should remove its troops from the Middle East to show the terror groups they are not interested in their land and killing their people. The terror group is, as a result, to try and bring the foreign forces out of their countries. Getting the troops is, therefore, the easiest and safest way to win the fight against terrorists. Works Cited Bowman, Steve. Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Terrorist Threat. Congressional Research Service: The Library of Congress. 2002 Hagopian, Joachim. The West Recruits Terrorists: 25,000 ISIS Fighters from Foreign Countries since Mid-2014, UN Report. 2015 Online < http://www.globalresearch.ca> Purpura, Philip P. Terrorism and homeland security: an introduction with applications. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann, 2007. Print. Scheider, Barry and Davis, Jim. Avoiding the abyss: progress, shortfalls and the way ahead in combatting the WMD threat. Santa Barbara: Greenwood Publishing Group. 2009. Print Read More