The challenge of 'new terrorism'
The effective management of terrorist incidents is, in a sense, not a new
challenge for most of the Asia Pacific region. The anti-colonial struggles
and the communist insurgencies experienced by many regional countries
during the 1940s, 50s and 60s were characterised by many incidents of
domestic violence. In more recent times, regional states have had to cope
with threats, or potential threats, from the Japanese Red Army, the Red
Army Faction, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the Moro National
Liberation Front, Abu Sayyaf and a range of other politically-driven
violent groups. In general, these diverse groups behaved in what might be
seen as 'traditional' terrorist ways. Their motivations were clearly
political; they generally used terrorist violence in order to gain
political attention, not to generate large body counts; they were organised
and financed in predictable ways; and they usually behaved as 'rational'
political actors in order to attract public attention and extract specific
concessions from the authorities.
Now, however, the Asia Pacific region faces a threat from a new, more
dangerous form of international terrorism.2 It has been described as being:
'increasingly networked; more diverse in terms of motivations, sponsorship
and security consequences; more global in reach; and more lethal.'3
In contrast to the old, social-revolutionary leftist or
nationalist-separatist terrorists, the new terrorists are likely to be one
of the following: a religious, extremist terrorist; a transnational
terrorist; a 'new religions' terrorist; a right-wing terrorist; or an
isolated, rogue terrorist from a shared 'community of belief'.4
Many of the 'new terrorists' are driven by apocalyptic ideologies, and
unhesitatingly accept high risks. Moreover, because almost all of these new
terrorist groups have a broad international focus, they are largely
indifferent to the interests of local constituencies. Amongst other things,
this makes them extremely difficult to deter. Their highly networked and
dispersed organisations also make their activities far more difficult to
detect and stop. Their level of creativity and innovation, and their
apparent willingness to contemplate the use of weapons of mass destruction,
make their operations both very unpredictable and also potentially
catastrophic. Several of these groups have become well established in the
Asia Pacific during the last decade. Their active members and direct
supporters now number several hundred at least, and possibly a few thousand.
The consequences for the Asia Pacific of the emergence of this new style of
terrorist threat are many. Amongst the more important and immediate are the
following.
The horizontally networked and highly dispersed nature of these new
terrorist organisations reduces markedly the effectiveness of traditional
methods of detection and apprehension.
In contrast to most forms of traditional security threat, these new
terrorists may be effectively non-deterrable.
Whilst these groups may find the novel use of 'conventional' weaponry
generally to be preferred, they are likely to be less constrained in the
use of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weaponry than their
predecessors were.
Several of these new-style terrorist groups have strong links into parts of
the Asia Pacific and some have already undertaken operations in the region.
The level of destruction that may be wrought by these new terrorist
organisations on countries in the Asia Pacific may be an order of magnitude
greater than any previous terrorist threat, and could be catastrophic.
In addition to the attacks in the United States on 11 September 2001, there
have already been some dramatic examples of this new threat in the Asia
Pacific. On 20 March 1995, members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult released
sarin, a deadly nerve agent, into Tokyo's subway system, killing 12 people
and injuring some 3,800. In November—December 2001, Singapore's Internal
Security Department arrested 13 members of Jemaah Islamiah, a terrorist
network that reportedly spans Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and
Singapore. Intelligence subsequently gained indicates that this group had
already acquired and stored four tons of ammonium nitrate and planned to
acquire a total of 21 tons of this explosive, that was to be assembled into
seven truck bombs. These seven bombs, each larger than the Oklahoma City
bomb (which killed 168 people), were to be detonated in Singapore almost
simultaneously. Were this plan to have reached fruition, the scale of the
casualties and the extent of the infrastructural damage would almost
certainly have been very high.5
The scale of the problem was captured by the United States Secretary of
Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, when he said that it was not a question of
whether weapons of mass destruction would be used by these new terrorists
somewhere in the world, but when.
The likely effects of a biological attack on an urban area are difficult to
calculate because there are so many variables including population density,
the urban layout and terrain, and the weather at the time of the attack.
Nevertheless, the World Health Organisation calculated in 1970 that the
release of 50 kilograms (perhaps two suitcases worth) of anthrax over a
developed urban area of 5 million people could infect as many as 250,000
people, of whom 100,000 could be expected to die. However, in other
conditions, the same 50 kilograms of anthrax might kill a much smaller
36,000 people, and incapacitate another 45,000.
A 1993 report by the United States Congress' Office of Technology
Assessment estimated that between 130,000 and 3 million people would die
following the release of 100 kilograms of aerosolised anthrax over the
greater Washington area. A separate part of this same study estimated that
100 kilograms of a 1 to 5 micron aerosol of anthrax could kill 3 million
people in the Washington area, compared to the likely deaths of 750,000 to
1.9 million people following the detonation of a 1 megaton thermonuclear
bomb. The economic costs of the consequences of an anthrax attack of this
type were estimated to be US$26.2 billion per 100,000 persons exposed.
Sources
World Health Organisation, Health Aspects of Biological Weapons, World
Health Organisation, Geneva, 1970, pp. 98-99.
Office of Technology Assessment, Proliferation of Weapons of Mass
Destruction: Assessing the Risks, United States Congress, Washington DC,
OTA-ISC-559, 1993, pp. 52-54.
http://www.aspi.org.au/occ_paper_01/site/dp_01.html
