Weapons of Mass Destruction and Terrorism

During the first decade of this century, terrorist attacks claimed thousands of lives in New York, London, Madrid, Bali, Jakarta, Mumbay, Istanbul, Ankara, Amman, Riyadh, Baghdad, Kabul and many other cities in Iraq, Afghanistan and around the world. Meanwhile, in many countries such as Canada, England, Germany, Pakistan and the U.S., among others, significant terror plots have been disrupted. Clearly the international community is facing a terrorist threat of historical proportions; countering this threat requires an understanding of both the intensions and capabilities of terrorist groups and individuals (lone wolves) to carry out violent acts. The national counterterrorist strategies mainly focus on constricting the capabilities of terrorists (through military action and disrupting the financial and logistics networks, all of which require a significant amount of intelligence capabilities) and destroying their will to attack. This is particularly the case when addressing the threat of terrorists who seek to acquire and use weapons of mass destruction(2) (WMD). However, there is much more that nations and international organizations can do to understand and counter the ideological motivations behind the threat of catastrophic terrorism.