Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 14
Terrorist Tradecraft I:
The Attack Cycle
Raymond M. McPartland
Contents
Terrorist Motivations and Goals ........................................................................329
Terrorist Cells....................................................................................................330
The Terrorist Attack Cycle .................................................................................331
Phase I—Target Selection..................................................................................332
Phase II—Operational Planning and Preparation ..............................................334
Phase III—Plan Implementation .......................................................................334
Phase IV—Escape and Evasion..........................................................................335
Phase V—Media Exploitation ...........................................................................336
Intelligence-Driven Counterterrorism ...............................................................336
The New Terrorism—Radicalization and Growing Threat of Homegrown
Terrorism ..........................................................................................................338
Rashid Baz ....................................................................................................339
Major Nidal Malik Hassan ......................................................................... 340
Taimour Abdulwahab al-Abdaly .................................................................. 340
At its most rudimentary level, conducting a terrorist operation consists of following
a generically created, yet ultimately effective, cycle. This cycle is known as the
ter-
rorist attack cycle
and has been analyzed and reworked by countless counterterror-
ism officials since the inception of the threat. Although some discuss the possibility
of it consisting of six steps and another, four, the reality is that at the cycle's core lies
a very general yet germane set of actions that are required to launch and accomplish
327
