Counter Terror Gazette

Terrorist Profiling: analysing our adversaries personalities

26 Aug 2011

Whilst the issue of profiling may be controversial as a screening methodology deployed at airports and by airlines, it is very much accepted within the security services as a means to identify potential perpetrators long before they even book airline tickets. The attack in Norway on 22 July 2011, allegedly by a Christian fundamentalist, generated significant debate as to how somebody of his ilk could have been identified as a threat to society, granted his alienation from society and his rhetoric on social networking sites. Sagit Yehoshua advocates the importance of terrorist profiling for preventing attacks against aviation and looks at some of the high profile attacks that have taken place and what we know, and perhaps knew before, of the perpetrators’ personalities.

Criminal profiling methodology relies on the assumption that criminals exhibit certain behaviour while committing their crimes, leaving indicators as to their mindset and personality type; understanding this behaviour therefore allows assumptions to be made about these perpetrators. Especially in extremely serious crimes, such as serial murders and sex offences, analysing the signs and conduct of offender behaviour – or as it is branded by profilers, the offender ‘signature’ – elaborates on the existing knowledge and information on the likely offenders, which assists law enforcement investigators in tracking down these offenders and neutralises their capacity to continue perpetrating their horrific acts.

However, in the case of terrorism, there is usually no need to reveal the identity of the offender, due to the fact that the act itself is committed in order to publicise the name of the organisation or the ideology they represent. Therefore in most terrorist acts the perpetrators are eager to announce who they are and the agenda they want to promote. Moreover, counter-terrorism intelligence is primarily concerned with the identification and interruption of terrorist activity before an attack occurs, rather than identifying terrorists’ personality characteristics, or their profile, after the event.

Hence, most scholars argue that profiling in relation to terrorism is a formidable task and the effort to create a typical profile of a terrorist generally fails due to the huge variation in terrorists’ characteristics, motives and conduct. Even so, the fact that there is probably not one profile that describes people who become involved in terrorism does not mean that there are not psychological, as well as sociological, similarities and social psychology profiling is the best method to appreciate these similarities and the conduct of terrorists in a way that might allow us to predict their future behaviour.

Moreover, it is important to note that profiling is also a very dynamic method and practitioners must remain up to date with the events and social changes happening in the world as well as the development, sophistication and globalisation of terrorism in order that they may be able to better forecast future events.

Correspondingly it is worth emphasising that globalisation has changed the way terrorists operate or even perceive their goals and ideology. Terrorist operations during the previous century mainly addressed local grievances, such as reacting against occupation or improving the quality of life for a particular community. Examples of this include terrorist organisations such as the IRA (Irish Republican Army) which wished to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom, ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna –  Basque Homeland and Freedom),  which aimed to create an independent Basque homeland, and  the PLFP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine), which aimed at liberating the Palestinian territories from Israel.

The PLFP is well known for its terrorist operations and especially for aircraft hijackings in the late 1960s and early 1970s. One infamous incident was the hijacking of an El Al flight in July 1968, en route from Rome to Tel Aviv, which was diverted to Algeria where 32 passengers and crew members were held hostage for 39 days. Another example is the hijacking of a TWA flight in August 1969, this time from Rome to Athens, which resulted in the plane diverting to Damascus – and later destroyed – and two Israeli passengers being held for 44 days. This operation was led by Leila Khaled who became one of the most famous members of this organisation. In both cases, as well as in other similar PFLP actions, the demands were to free fellow members of the organisation who were incarcerated in prisons, without causing death or injury to the civilians they were holding hostage to achieve their goal. Thus, such terrorist organisations were more localised in both their objectives and in the means that they employed.

READ MORE ONLINE