Strange Bedfellows or Brothers-in-Arms: Why Terrorist Groups Ally

799 Pages·2013·4.07 MB·English

STRANGE BEDFELLOWS OR BROTHERS-IN-ARMS: WHY TERRORIST GROUPS ALLY

A Dissertation
submitted to the Faculty of the
Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
of Georgetown University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the
degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
in Government

By

Tricia L. Bacon, M.A.

Washington, DC
November 12, 2013
Copyright 2013 by Tricia L. Bacon
All Rights Reserved

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STRANGE BEDFELLOWS OR BROTHERS-IN-ARMS: WHY TERRORIST GROUPS ALLY?

Tricia L. Bacon, M.A.

Thesis Advisor: Daniel Byman, PhD.

ABSTRACT

Conventional wisdom holds that terrorist groups with a shared enemy or ideology have
ample reason to work together, even if they are primarily engaged in separate conflicts. Partnering
with another terrorist organization creates opportunities to bolster operational effectiveness,
range, and efficiency as well as enhance legitimacy and stature. Cross-conflict terrorist group
alliances, however, are rare because they expose partnering organizations to serious
vulnerabilities, and terrorist organizations are ill-suited to forge these kinds of commitments.
Therefore, terrorist alliances occur under limited—but poorly understood and rarely studied—
conditions. The prevailing notion that terrorist groups with shared enemies or ideologies will
naturally gravitate toward one another mischaracterizes the nature of relationships among these
illicit, clandestine, and violent organizations. Furthermore, the common enemy and ideology
explanations predict that alliances should occur more frequently than they do, and that alliances
should form where none exist. Neither can account for the timing or duration of alliances; the
variation in the amount of cooperation among different dyads that share either an enemy or
ideology; or why the level of cooperation fluctuates over the course of relationships.
When alliances do occur, they are not evenly distributed across dyads. A small number of
groups, termed “alliance hubs,” demonstrate an aptitude for forging partnerships. Understanding
hubs’ anomalous behavior has significant scholarly and policy implications, given that their
alliances account for a disproportionate proportion of the relationships. Rather than acting as the
motives that precipitate and sustain alliances, this dissertation finds that shared ideology and
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enemies act as identity features that guide partner selection. The primary impetus for alliances with
hubs is organizational adaptation and learning needs for groups that lack self-reform capacity, often
due to organizational youth, crises or rapidly changing environments. Alliance hubs emerge as
superior alliance partners because they have the resources and willingness to fulfill other groups’
organizational needs. Hubs are willing to do so because they view themselves as the core of an
ideologically defined, balancing coalition against their enemies. This position generates perpetual
organizational needs that require alliances.

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“Writing my dissertation was the loneliest and most difficult experience of my life”—an
anyonomous CIA officer who served in Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Sudan.

“The show doesn’t go on because it is ready. It goes on because it is 11:30pm on Saturday
night.”—Tina Fey, remarking on working at Saturday Night Live

My life was very different when I started down this road. That seems like an obvious thing to
say, but it is sometimes hard to remember the person I was when I started the PhD program at
Georgetown in 2006. My name was different. I lived in a different house. I had a different job. I
had a vastly different vision for my future. The dissertation has been a part of my life for so long
that I can’t quite imagine what it will be like without it. Will I still take my laptop everywhere,
even to places as dangerous as Peshawar and on “relaxing” vacations to Costa Rica, simply
because I might steal a few minutes to write? Will I start watching television programs and
movies again? Will I read books for fun? I can’t quite imagine my life without a dissertation
looming over me at all times. But it is time to try.

My struggle over the course of the PhD, which has so often felt like a solitary journey, has not
been undertaken alone. I was fortunate to have an existing support system in place. My mom and
dad read every page of this dissertation. Any remaining missing commas or “made up words” are
my fault and mine alone. They tirelessly encouraged me, edited every page using their #2
pencils, and spent countless hours on the phone with me talking through their suggested changes.
My brother Lee was by my side pouring through archives at Columbia University, actings as my
“personal assistant and security” in Israel, creating reference indexes for lengthy trial transcripts,
and coming over on Sundays to grocery shop, walk Gator, and help me keep up with my life.
How do you thank your family for that kind of love and support? I don’t know, but I do thank
them from the bottom on my heart. I love you.

I was also fortunate to gain amazing new supporters during the PhD process. My dissertation
would not have been completed without “mini-DSG,” namely Lizzie Grimm and Sarah Cross-
inator. They never failed to challenge me and encourage me, in equal measure. I will never, ever
forget their support during the “Dark Days” of my divorce, as I tried to pass my comprehensive
exams and write my dissertation prospectus when getting up in the morning seemed like an
overwhelming feat. Quite simply, this disseration would not have been possible without them.
More than that, they are those rare and treasured friends who made me a better person just by
being in my life. Fellow DSG-ers, Col. Dan, PhD and John Sawyer have very different styles and
personalities, but are both brilliant and wonderful colleagues who provided immeasurable
assistance. Thank you DSG.

I have to take a moment recognize my first boss at INR, Mark Steinitz. My palms never failed
to sweat when I walked into his office or when he sat down with me to review one of my
Assessments. Though sparing with his compliments and unstinting with his incisive criticism, he
always backed me up when push came to shove, even when the shovers were located in the
powerful bowels of Langley. He probably did not realize the impact he had on me when he told
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me that, over the course of more than two decades as the head of INR’s terrorism analysis office
he had “seen analysts come and seen ‘em go, but I have never seen one as good as you.” Quite
simply, thank you Mark.

While Mark’s retirement came too early for my liking, I was fortunate to have Suzanne
McCormick replace him. She supported my PhD, even when it wasn’t easy for the office. Thank
you to all of the TNCers who sat through numerous brainstorming and feedback sessions that
were the source of my best insights. INR was an incredible place to work for ten years. I miss
seeing that quirky bunch of geniuses every day.

My pre-doctoral fellowship at Brookings provided an invaluable opportunity to write and
think. I was fortunate to have access to such intelligent and talented people, who were
exceedingly generous with their time. Thanks in particular to Bruce Reidel for being my mentor
and Julia Cates, who gracefully found a solution to every problem. Thank you to the University
of Maryland’s START Center for the Terrorism Research Award and other valuable assistance.
By far the most valuable asset START provided was an incredible research assistant and friend,
Nate Wilson. It is due to his Arabic skills and persistence that I was able to include essential
Arabic material in my dissertation.

Last, and certainly not least, I am incredibly lucky to have a committee filled with such
accomplished scholars, all of whom I admire and respect. My advisor, Dr. Byman, has gone
above and beyond in guiding me through this process and supporting my transition into
academia. Thank you all, and I truly am sorry this thing is so long!

With Gratitude,
Tricia L. Bacon
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Section I: Literature Review and Theory

Chapter 1: Terrorist Group Alliances: Key Concepts and Literature Review ............................. 2

Chapter 2: Alternative Theoretical Frameworks and Hypotheses..…………………………….……..35

Section II: The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and its Allies, Friends, and
Acquaintances

Chapter 3: The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-Special Operations Group:
Background and Development of an Alliance Hub……………………………..…………………………....77
Chapter 4: The Japanese Red Army and the PFLP-SOG……………………………………………………140
Chapter 5: The West German Red Army Faction and the PFLP-SOG...……..………………………..190
Chapter 6: The Weathermen and the PFLP-SOG……………………………………………………………..240
Chapter 7: PFLP-SOG as an Alliance Hub: Findings and Hypotheses Testing……………………292

Section III: Al-Qaida and its Allies, Friends, and Acquaintances

Chapter 8: Al Qaida: Background and Development of an Alliance Hub……………………………322
Chapter 9: Al-Qaida: Egyptian Islamic Jihad and Egyptian Islamic Group………………………….439
Chapter 10: Al-Qaida: the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat and
Armed Islamic Group……………………………………………………………………………………………………..507

Chapter 11: Al-Qaida: Lashkar-e-Tayyiba and Pakistani Deobandi Groups……………………....595

Chapter 12: Al-Qaida as an Alliance Hub: Findings and Hypotheses Testing……….…………….679

Section IV: Conclusions about Hubs and Alliances

Chapter 13: Comparative Findings, Conclusions, and Recommendations…………………………724

Works Cited…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..761

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Section I: Literature Review and Theory

1
CHAPTER 1:

TERRORIST GROUP ALLIANCES: KEY CONCEPTS AND LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1 Introduction
The amount of media attention and policy concern that terrorist alliances receive obscures
the reality that terrorist organizations struggle to form enduring cooperative relationships with one
another. They face a number of structural hurdles that make cooperation difficult; they lack access
to the mitigating strategies that states can sometimes employ to overcome these impediments.
Their clandestine nature further exacerbates obstacles and creates additional
challenges. Therefore, like alliances among states, partnerships among terrorist organizations occur
under limited conditions.
The paucity of terrorist group alliances is at odds with much of the policy and popular
discourse on these relationships. Alliances are often portrayed as ubiquitous and the natural,
almost inevitable, outcome when illicit, violent, and secretive groups share an enemy or ideology.
Yet if these two factors were the dominant reasons that terrorist organizations ally, then one would
expect alliances to occur far more frequently and to endure more easily over time. While inter-state
alliances are one of the most frequently studied and robustly theorized subjects in international
relations, terrorist group alliances are relatively a poorly understood, under-theorized
phenomenon that is often either over-simplified or examined narrowly with little
generalizability. The existing non-state actor literature has examined related topics, such as
competition and cooperation among factions within civil wars and internal conflicts, interactions
between terrorist groups and organized crime networks, and terrorist organizations’ relationships
with states. Empirical work on individual alliances, particularly those forged by al-Qaida, is also
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abundant. But relatively little work has been done to determine: 1) the motives that spur groups to
form and sustain relationships with one another over time; and 2) why certain groups are vastly
more able and willing to do so than others.
This dissertation contends that rather than being the norm, alliances among terrorist
groups are an anomaly. Moreover, when they do occur, alliances are not distributed evenly across
all possible dyads. Instead, within this population of anomalies, a small number of groups actively
engage in alliances and act as central nodes for multiple partnerships, termed “alliance hubs.While
their alliance aptitude poses a compelling research puzzle and generates substantial policy interest,
they have not received adequate scholarly attention.
A better understanding of alliance hubs’ behavior and appeal as a partner will have both
academic and policy implications. These relationships defy predictions about the ability of entities
to cooperate in an anarchical international system, perhaps even more so than states’ alliances,
because of the secretive, violent, and illicit characteristics of terrorist organizations. From a policy
standpoint, governments have had little success to date in disrupting terrorist alliances, though
doing so has been a U.S. Government priority since at least 2001. The 2003 U.S. Counterterrorism
Strategy asserted that “[t]he interconnected nature of terrorist organizations necessitates that we
pursue them across the geographic spectrum to ensure that all linkages between the strong and the
weak organizations are broken, leaving each of them isolated, exposed, and vulnerable to defeat”
(United States National Security Council National Strategy for Combatting Terrorism 9). The State
Department’s 2006 Country Report on Terrorism similarly argued that disrupting al-Qaida’s
alliance network is a key counterterrorism goal since:
[d]isaggregation denies al-Qaida its primary objective of achieving leadership
over extremist movements worldwide and unifying them into a single
movement. It does not remove the threat but helps reduce it to less dangerous
local components, which can be dealt with by individual governments and
communities working together ( 13).
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