Insurgency/Counterinsurgency(COIN)

In recent years, the idea of ‘swarming’ – that is, simultaneous multidirectional attack or maneuver by large number of independent or semi-independent small units – became a subject of a heated debate. Some believe this is the future of warfare, while others see this belief as ridiculous and dangerous. In the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), specifically, swarming was heralded as the new way of war before the 2006 Second Lebanon War. But during and after the war, the word itself was turned into a derogatory term, symbolizing all that was wrong with the IDF’s performance: relying on new, untested and unrealistic concepts to pretend that the Army has a silver bullet which will solve its problems quickly and easily, ignoring reality in the process. This article draws on six historical case studies, from the American airborne operation in the Normandy Invasion to the Second Lebanon War, to examine the method of swarming, its relevance and its uses. Finally, the article concludes that Swarming is not a revolutionary method, and not ‘The future of conflict’. However it is a very useful method in certain situations, provided that commanders know and understand its possibilities and limitations.

This article examines the emergence of counterinsurgency doctrine in Coalition interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq. While counterinsurgency is complimentary to the tenets forwarded by its classical military predecessors in several respects, the article shows that it is also more than a refashioning of conventional military practice. Counterinsurgency is intimately tied to institutional practices that shape global liberal governance. It can be traced to dominant trends in international humanitarian, development and peace interventionism since the end of the Cold War and it deepens the links between the social development of war-affected populations and the politics of international security. Rather than simply a shift in military practice, counterinsurgency is distinguished by its investment in civilian modes of warfare. Counterinsurgency retells the narrative of intervention as part of the evolution of political and economic liberalisation, marking a passage from interventionary force to post-interventionary governance. Modern counterinsurgency, it is concluded, exposes the widening indistinction between contemporary modes of peace and those of war in international relations.

One of the greatest security challenges confronting the Nigerian state after the Civil War is the current insurgency campaign led by the Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awatiwal-Jihad popularly known as Boko Haram in the North East of Nigeria. This reign of terror continues to generate tensions and deepen existing mistrust between civilians and the military on the one hand and while on the other hand constituting security threats for security operatives in the region and in Nigeria at large. The situation in the North East is further compounded by other security challenges in other parts of the country involving other non-state armed and unarmed groups. These crises collectively pose threats to the peace and stability of the Nigerian state. Sadly, a common approach by the Federal Government of Nigeria to addressing these security challenges is the deployment of the military and other security agents to internal conflict and conflict-prone areas, which is progressively becoming a norm in Nigeria. The paper highlights the practicalities, opportunities, challenges and lessons learned in implementing a civil military relations project in Nigeria drawing extensively from field experiences. It further examines military approaches to civil military relations in Nigeria. While the challenges of civil military relations in Nigeria is deeply rooted in history, the paper recommends that positive civil military relations as a key approach and strategy to be deployed by all stakeholders particularly the Military in restoring trust amongst crisis affected communities and for improving the overall architecture of national security in Nigeria.

This work is a beguiling prospect for anyone who has been involved in South Asia or has an interest in the region. The idea of analysing so many distinct insurgencies and counter-insurgency (COIN) campaigns within the covers of a single book is both ambitious and tantalising. Unfortunately, and in spite of occasional good moments, this book provides few of the answers. It has a clunky structure, is peppered with editorial and factual errors and unsupported statements. The British General Templer in Malaya argued that COIN should only be 25% shooting. The remainder should be winning "hearts and minds". Sadly this has all too rarely been the case in South Asia where many of the COIN campaigns have been heavy-handed and brutal. Partly this is a function of capability; effective COIN needs excellent intelligence and highly trained and equipped Special Forces. Yet it is interesting to reflect that two "successful" COIN operations of recent years; the Indian defeat of the Khalistan movement and President Rajapaksa's suppression of the Tamil Tigers owed little to Templer or the proponents of minimum force

Existing literature on terrorism and counterterrorism (CT) has overwhelmingly focused on the strategic and operational policies of major Western states such as the USA and the UK. It is predominantly based upon theoretical reflections, which draw on both International Relations and other disciplines, and empirical analyses, which offer up case studies and regional overviews. Alex P. Schmid, a leading expert on terrorism studies, has identified, in Perspectives on Terrorism, that the CT policies of states and groups of states have received relatively little attention by experts in all fields.

It is for this reason that this edited book has been assembled. There has been little concentration on how terrorism has been a truly global phenomenon and how others have responded to this threat. The majority of titles, especially those about CT policies in the post-9/11 period, show that there is a compelling need for a multifaceted and comprehensive investigation of all aspects of CT, in which equal attention is given to state and non-state perspectives and approaches in all regions of the world.

Influence and persuasion are gaining increased attention in warfare, but often social psychology approaches remain underused or neglected while this academic field has provided useful insights into this approach, especially as a non-kinetic capability. To effectively influence and persuade, we need to understand the adversary and the specific frame of reference of the relevant audience, which can be determined through Actor and Audience Analysis (AAA), a relatively new tool that has shown promising results. Based on the results of AAA, the communicator's characteristics and persuasion techniques must be tailored to the specific audience. This chapter will use delegitimisation of the adversary, specifically in the context of extremism and terrorism, as an example to demonstrate how influence and persuasion can be applied in a military context.

The massacre of almost 50 Maidan protesters on February 20, 2014 was a turning point in Ukrainian politics and a tipping point in the conflict between the West and Russia over Ukraine. This mass killing of the protesters and the mass shooting of the police that preceded it led to the overthrow of the pro-Russian government of Viktor Yanukovych and gave a start to a civil war in Donbas in Eastern Ukraine, Russian military intervention in Crimea and Donbas, and an international conflict between the West and Russia over Ukraine. A conclusion promoted by the post-Yanukovych governments and the media in Ukraine that the massacre was perpetrated by government snipers and special police units on a Yanukovych order has been nearly universally accepted by the Western governments, the media, and many scholars. The Ukrainian government investigation identified members of the special company of Berkut as responsible for killings of the absolute majority of the protesters, but did not release any evidence in support, with the exception of videos of the massacre.
              The question is which side organized the “snipers’ massacre.” This paper is the first academic study of this crucial case of the mass killing. It uses a theory of rational choice and a Weberian theory of instrumental rationality to examine actions of major actors both from the Yanukovych government, specifically various police and security forces, and the Maidan opposition, specifically its far right and oligarchic elements, during the massacre.
          The paper analyzes a large amount of evidence from different publicly available sources concerning this massacre and killings of specifics protesters. Qualitative content analysis includes the following data: about 1,500 videos and recordings of live internet and TV broadcasts from mass media and social media in different countries(some 150 gigabytes), news reports and social media posts by more than 100 journalists covering the massacre from Kyiv, some 5,000 photos, and nearly 30 gigabytes of publicly available radio intercepts of snipers and commanders from the special Alfa unit of the Security Service of Ukraine and Internal Troops, and Maidan massacre trial recordings. This study also employs field research on site of the massacre, eyewitness reports by both Maidan protesters and government special units commanders, statements by both former and current government officials, estimates of approximate ballistic trajectories, bullets and weapons used, and types of wounds among both protesters and the police. This study establishes a precise timeline for various events of the massacre, the locations of both the shooters and the government snipers, and the specific timeline and locations of nearly 50 protesters’ deaths. It also briefly analyzes other major cases of violence during and after the “Euromaidan.” This study includes two video appendixes.
            This academic investigation concludes that the massacre was a false flag operation, which was rationally planned and carried out with a goal of the overthrow of the government and seizure of power. It found various evidence of the involvement of an alliance of the far right organizations, specifically the Right Sector and Svoboda, and oligarchic parties, such as Fatherland. Concealed shooters and spotters were located in at least 20 Maidan-controlled buildings or areas. The various evidence that the protesters were killed from these locations include some 70 testimonies, primarily by Maidan protesters, several videos of “snipers” targeting protesters from these buildings, comparisons of positions of the specific protesters at the time of their killing and their entry wounds, and bullet impact signs. The study uncovered various videos and photos of armed Maidan “snipers” and spotters in many of these buildings. The paper presents implications of these findings for understanding the nature of the change of the government in Ukraine, the civil war in Donbas, Russian military intervention in Crimea and Donbas, and an international conflict between the West and Russia over Ukraine.

Paper from a presentation at the International Congres in Sofia, Bulagaria about Afghanistan - MINISTRY OF DEFENSE OF THE REPUBLIC OF BULGARIAG. S. RAKOVSKI NATIONAL DEFENSE ACADEMYCenter of Military History and Lessons LearnedBulgarian Commission of Military HistoryInternational Conference: “Participation of Multinational Stabilization Forces in Afghanistan – a Priority NATO Mission”.

I wrote this Essay in 2013 for Professor Wayne Cox's 200 level International Relations class at Queen's University. The assignment was to prescribe a solution to NATO's war in Afghanistan using the liberal international relations paradigm. In researching this paper I quickly found that, realistically, there wasn't one. As such some of my recommendations range from difficult to implement to simply unrealistic. I attribute this to being a bright eyed second year student, but also to the limits of the liberal paradigm.

Since writing this essay I have had the pleasure of meeting and working with veterans of the Afghan conflict, both military and civilian. These people have had a deep effect on how I see the world and Afghanistan in particular. While I would not write this essay the same way today, I feel its a good example of my strong analytical skills, problem solving style, and writing ability.

Civil wars are often the product of low-level political violence that escalates, rather than emerging ex nihilo from a peaceful society. Therefore, it is important to focus on what causes the initial pattern of violence and why it escalates. This essay integrates structural and strategic theories of political violent to develop an analytical framework of violence escalation. This framework allows us to identify critical junctures where intervention may limit or halt escalation. The framework is applied to Iraq, 2003-2006 to determine how and why violence escalated, culminating in widespread sectarian civil war in 2006.

History books are so filled with stories of rebellion that it would seem that rebellion is a common thing. If we look at history as the flow of days and events, for most of those days for the vast majority of humans, rebellion has been a very rare thing. This is despite the fact that life for the
vast majority of people for much of the last 2,000 years was one of unfairness, hardship, and repression. According to data from the Quality of Government Institute at the University of Gothenburg, in a sample of countries from 1976 to 2004, the percentage in which political murder, police brutality, and unlimited detentions were common was at least 49% of the total sample in any given year, and often was much higher than that.1 Nevertheless, in the same sample of countries during those years, rebellions or civil wars never occurred more than 10% of the time. In other words, many governments treat their people very badly, but only on rare occasions do enough people rise up to start a full-scale civil war or rebellion

A presença da OTAN no Afeganistão representa o primeiro caso de envolvimento uma organização internacional numa contra-subversão, algo que até agora pertenceu ao domínio exclusivo dos Estados. A participação da OTAN neste tipo de conflitos, assim como a organização da resposta contra-subversiva requerem uma profunda reflexão, dadas as novas questões que levantam e às quais urge encontrar respostas. O envolvimento inicial da OTAN no Afeganistão, em 2003, foi concebido como uma operação de estabilização. Apesar da intervenção internacional no Norte do país, à presente data, ainda se assemelhar a uma operação de estabilização, no Sul verificaram-s e d e s e n v o l v i m e n t o s q u a l i t a t i v os significantes. A partir de 5 de Outubro de 2006, quando a OTAN oficialmente finalizou o alargamento da sua acção a todo o território do Afeganistão, passando a incluir o Sul e o Leste na sua área de responsabilidade, a Aliança viu-se envolvida numa contra-subversão.

The Iraq War’s enduring conflict has proven resilient in its on-and-off relationship with the US and international forces occupying.  Streamlining a more sustainable counterinsurgency plan remains a critical link to securing stability designed to promote Iraqi nation-rebuilding efforts.  While the smart power approach to foreign policy has yet to realize its potential full effect, recruitment of younger generations into recurrent violence via Islamist co-optation persists with threat to bleed across the region.  Military, diplomatic and politically weighed strategies struggle to contain the violence by advancing innovative methods to counter and disengage while supporting Iraqi democracy, not altogether unlike US operations in Afghanistan.  COIN directive requires in-depth analysis of the socialization of teenage youth as they undertake transnational violence into adulthood.  Nation building through better concerted and inclusive effort of relief, intelligence, military and policymaking drive is the key to tapping the potential of next generation Iraqis as immediate and future leaders.  Youth at risk raised with a history of violence will otherwise require constant intervention.  Policy transition moving towards internal stability and an exit strategy has the resources to launch effective social programming for political infrastructure and business strategy to guide better negotiation in resource and conflict management.  Media’s role in promoting proactive social networks promises to be a game-changer for ground game where youth are enabled to access it.  International support and inter-alia networking then remain to be fully realized if Iraq and the US are to emerge from the war in two pieces.

s stated purpose here is to explore the reasons for the shift in U.S. policy toward the Sandinistas [Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional, FSLN] from reasonably accommodating to outright antagonistic. The authors explicitly reject the view, which is popular among historians of U.S.-Latin American relations, that the United States precipitated the breakdown in relations with Nicaragua due to the Reagan administration's fierce ideological hostility toward the Sandinistas. The authors instead put forward a theory of international conflict that suggests radical revolutionary regimes will provoke status quo great powers for ideological and domestic political purposes. Juxtaposing this theory with the spiral model, which emphasizes the role of mutual suspicions in the breakdown of relations, the authors demonstrate that the FSLN's ideological commitment to international communism required both the sidelining of the moderate opposition at home and a vehemently anti-U.S. foreign policy.

Voici la première étude sur la guerre civile syrienne faite à partir d’entretiens réalisés en Syrie même et dans les pays voisins. 2011 : des centaines de milliers de Syriens de toutes confessions et origines ethniques manifestent pacifiquement pour réclamer la démocratisation du régime. La violence de la répression les contraint à prendre les armes, à organiser une contre-société et à regrouper des unités militaires improvisées au sein de l’Armée syrienne libre.
Après 2013, cette logique inclusive et unanimiste cède progres- sivement devant la montée des groupes transnationaux comme le PKK et l’État islamique, marginalisant les groupes les plus modérés.
Comment se structure l’économie de guerre? Quels sont les effets de la guerre sur la société syrienne? Quelles nouvelles hiérarchies communautaires et sociales résultent de la violence généralisée? Comment les trajectoires sociales des Syriens sont-elles affectées?
Un livre unique qui combine une recherche de terrain – rare sur le conflit syrien – et une réflexion théorique novatrice sur les situations de guerre civile.

In the rush to analyse contemporary conflicts we continually forget what our fathers and forefathers achieved, and so each age has to re-learn the lessons of the past – often at great pain and sacrifice. Hopefully, as I begin to revisit some of the historical aspects of the four Afghan wars that preceded the ISAF mission, you will see continuity between the Afghanistan of today and that of the 19th Century. The weapons and social mores may have changed, but the reasons that drove the wars – motivations fuelled by mistrust, misinformation and misinterpretation – still resonate clearly to this day.

Why insurgent organizations stay together over time and why they maintain the fight under stress are questions of major concern for our understanding of war duration, conduct, and outcome. Structural integrity is the property of an organization remaining as a single intact entity, while cohesion refers to the creation and maintenance of cooperative effort toward the attainment of the organization’s goals. Although closely related, the conflation of structural integrity and cohesion is problematic. The body of the paper is a structured comparative analysis of two cases, the Irish Republican Army and the Karen National Union. First, this analysis demonstrates that cohesion and structural integrity are discrete concepts that each helps us to understand part of why, and how, insurgent organizations keep up the fight. Thus, despite much recent emphasis on “spoilers” in the conflict literature, understanding why armed organizations stay together or fragment is not enough. We also need to understand what makes insurgents perform effectively in the organization’s interest. Second, it points to some limitations of existing theories of structural integrity and cohesion in insurgent organizations and allows the author to conclude by suggesting some fruitful avenues for future research on these dynamics.

This paper examines the ethical dilemmas surrounding the Algerian War of Independence (1954 – 1962) against France. This war is considered one of the bloodiest wars post-WWII, with estimates of 1 – 1.5 million killed as a result. I use a strong form of consequentialist ethics to provide a justification for the violent actions of the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) as actions that were justified by their ends. At the same time, I argue the actions of the French are not deserving of the same verdict. This paper examines the historical roots of the war, the meaning behind each party's strategies, and their consequences postwar in order to provide an effective ethical evaluation of means and ends.

Afghanistan's future will continue to be defined substantially by Islamabad's mischief. Unless Pakistan is compelled by the international community to end its support to the Taliban and other extremist formations in Afghanistan, the prevailing troubles can only escalate.

The primary goal of this paper is to investigate whether participation in terrorist activity can be linked to ignorance (measured through schooling) or to economic desperation (measured through poverty on the individual's level and various economic indicators on the societal level) using newly culled data of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terrorist cells. This paper performs a statistical analysis of the determinants of participation in Hamas and PIJ terrorist activities in Israel from the late 1980's to the present, as well as a time series analysis of terrorist attacks in Israel with relation to economic conditions. The resulting evidence on the individual level suggests that both higher standards of living and higher levels of education are positively associated with participation in Hamas or PIJ. With regard to the societal economic condition, no sustainable link between terrorism and poverty and education could be found, which I interpret to mean that there is either no link or a very weak indirect link. Special attention is given to the suicide bomber phenomenon, and the analysis of the determinants of becoming a suicide bomber provides additional intriguing findings. In contrast with the "classic" characteristics of a suicidal individual , suicide bombers tend to be of higher economic status and higher educational attainment than their counterparts in the population. Suicide bombers, however, come from lower socioeconomic groups when compared to other, non-suicidal, terrorists.

Whether or not charismatic leadership is essential to a successful insurgency is a question that depends on a variety of factors, and can therefore not be given a simple one-word answer. It is important to take into account the circumstances from which the insurgency is born, its longterm goals and at what stage the insurgency is in the overall process of achieving its short or long-term goals when the charismatic leader either appears or disappears. This essay will engage with different insurgent movements and their respective charismatic leaders in a comparative approach, taking into consideration the differing charismatic leaders, their actions and the consequences for the insurgent movements as a whole, in order to determine whether or not a charismatic leader is indeed a guarantee for success.

Diyala can be said to be a microcosm of Iraq. It is the home to all three major ethnosectarian groups in the country. It has lush farmlands and mountain ranges. It also remains a battlefield between the security forces, militias and the insurgency today. In 2005 Richard Buchanan worked there as a defense contractor interrogating prisoners where he saw first hand the early stages of the civil war. Here is an interview with Buchanan about how the Iraqi insurgency was organized, what the militias did in response, and how the Americans were caught in the middle.

Palompo, Mariella S.                                     
AB Foreign Service, FS302                                                 
International Political Economy                         
Sir. Jumel G. Estrañero
February 25, 2018

Title: The Long Running Insurgency in the Philippines

A MINUSTAH (Missão das Nações Unidas para estabilização no Haiti) contou com a liderança militar do Exército Brasileiro, de 2004 a 2017, e teve como objetivo restabelecer a segurança e a normalidade institucional no Haiti após sucessivos episódios de turbulência política. Apesar da atuação de instituições, como as Forças Armadas, o Ministério das Relações Exteriores e do Governo Federal chamarem mais a atenção da mídia e dos analistas, a participação brasileira na MINUSTAH vai mais além do que a presença de entidades estatais. O envolvimento brasileiro na missão contou também com atores não estatais, da sociedade civil, que estavam, e ainda estão, presentes na tentativa declarada de pacificar e reconstruir o país caribenho. Um exemplo é caso da ONG brasileira Viva Rio, que desenvolve projetos de pacificação e mediação de conflitos urbanos nas comunidades de Porto Príncipe desde 2006. Apontada como um ator importante e um exemplo de iniciativa singular do modelo brasileiro de construção da paz, a Viva Rio ganhou destaque nas análises que se propuseram a explicar a participação brasileira na tentativa de reconstruir o Haiti. Com efeito, o objetivo deste trabalho é examinar a atuação da ONG Viva Rio no Haiti no contexto de uma missão de paz liderada pelo Exército Brasileiro. Argumentamos que, através da análise do caso da Viva Rio, podemos compreender algumas dinâmicas concretas sobre a participação brasileira na MINUSTAH de maneira mais precisa. A hipótese defendida é de que, por meio dos programas sociais e da prestação de serviços, a Viva Rio colabora para conquistar “mentes e corações”, pacificando a população das comunidades de Porto Príncipe. Os programas sociais e de mediação de conflitos ajudam a construir e aprimorar uma rede de governança que tem como principal objetivo administrar a sociedade civil e controlar as comunidades pobres de Porto Príncipe.

The Malayan Emergency (1948–1960), one of the earliest conflicts of the Cold War, remains understudied despite the voluminous literature produced by specialists on the topic. Most of these works have focused primarily on unpacking the lessons offered by the Emergency in the realm of counterinsurgency at the expense of explorations of the conflict as a lived experience. This article explores how the historiography on the Emergency has changed over time, focusing on how it has been studied primarily in terms of its political and military implications with the key debate emerging over which strategy and tactics ultimately led to British victory. One school of thought argues that success was a consequence of British forces embarking to win “hearts and minds” rather than focusing on traditional warfare. Newer works have challenged this discourse, suggesting instead that the Emergency was won through strict and oftentimes violent “population control.” While these approaches have been integral to furthering understandings of the Emergency, the overwhelming focus on the military aspects of the Emergency has resulted in a number of gaps in the field, which this article highlights before concluding with discussions on how these gaps might be addressed.

... Following a firefight between the Mahdi Army and the Badr Organisation in Karbala in August 2007, Sadr called the ceasefire to reform his ... to the transfer by pointing to evidence of progress: the Iraqi Security Forces contained an eruption of violence by the Jund al-Samaa cult in ...

Diplomatic and peacekeeping initiatives by the international community in emerging cultures in conflict have failed to stem the violence and resolve the underlying conditions. Based primarily on political analysis, such initiatives do not address the underlying causes of the civil war at the individual, family, and tribal levels. This paper examines the psychological and sociological motivations for the violence within and between the Arab and African tribes of Darfur, to include motivation exploration of ethnic defections, failing cultural identity markers, and the effects of cognitive dissonance of the personal and social identities of the Darfur tribes. Research suggests that the identities of the African and Arab tribes are deeply contested over ethnicity, tribalism, religion, race and the generational memory that historical narratives provide. This fundamental identity conflict is overlaid by decades of violent physical, psychological and emotional assault upon the population. The result is a fundamental change of the psycho-sociology of tribal life and threatens disintegration and disestablishment of large group identity. The resulting societal and leadership breakdown of and within the tribes creates conditions of warlord-ism commonly found in ungoverned states such as Somalia. The paper concludes that the international community will ultimately fail unless measures are taken to create conditions for survival of the tribes physically, psychologically and sociologically.

The term terrorism is as value-laden a descriptor as one will encounter in the contemporary period. Though it evokes a strong image of an Orientalist, colonized, brown body enacting brutal, theatrical violence from behind a balaclava, the term itself describes very little. The decision to label a particular act, individual, or movement as terroristic is more a discursive question of politics than means. In the post-9/11 era, state-level rhetoricians describe their ideological enemies that can be "othered" as terrorists, while some are considered extremists. In doing so, Muslim, Arab, Asian, African, and foreign-born advocates and practitioners of political violence are termed terrorists with near universality, while white, Christian, Westerners acting in the name of white supremacy, anti-abortion, and so-called patriot, or sovereign citizen movements are left largely outside of that taxonomy. Through an analysis of the film Black Hawk Down, jihadist-produced media designed for US audiences, media accounts of Boko Haram in Nigeria, and the framing of rightist violence, it is clear how violence is viewed positionally. Furthermore, these examples demonstrate how terrorism has been utilized as a defamatory label applied asymmetrically to some proponents of political violence-those brown and black lives existing in precarity who challenge discursive claims on violence, statehood, capital, and what are broadly understood to be Western values.

Abstrak Tindak Pidana Terorisme merupakan sebuah perjalanan panjang dari sebuah perang yang pada akhirnya akan berkepanjangan. Adanya konsep fundamentalis islam dan Insurgensi serta kesalahan pemikiran dalam pendefinisian lone wolf merupakan sebuah keberhasilan dari kegiatan terorisme dalam memotivasi ideologi, melakukan perekrutan, dan juga melakukan publikasi atas apa yang sudah dilakukan. Dengan memahami konsep fundamentalis islam, maka kita dapat memahami bagaimana sebuah ajaran yang seharusnya murni mengajarkan sebuah jalan yang lurus pada umatnya, menjadi sebuah tindakan radikal yang dilakukan oleh para terorisme saat ini. Elemen psikologis yang menjadi tujuan utama dari kegiatan terorisme untuk mengambil simpatik masyarakat dan menjadikan perbuatan mereka sebagai sebuah pembenaran di jalan Tuhan. Dengan memperkenalkan konsep bai'at dalam mengimplementasikan khilafah islamiah, merupakan langkah yang diambil dalam mewujudkan tujuan dari insurgensi yang membutuhkan perjuangan akan sebuah perang yang panjang.

The primary goal of this paper is to investigate whether participation in terrorist activity can be linked to ignorance (measured through schooling) or to economic desperation (measured through poverty on the individual's level and various economic indicators on the societal level) using newly culled data of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terrorist cells. This paper performs a statistical analysis of the determinants of participation in Hamas and PIJ terrorist activities in Israel from the late 1980's to the present, as well as a time series analysis of terrorist attacks in Israel with relation to economic conditions. The resulting evidence on the individual level suggests that both higher standards of living and higher levels of education are positively associated with participation in Hamas or PIJ. With regard to the societal economic condition, no sustainable link between terrorism and poverty and education could be found, which I interpret to mean that there is either no link or a very weak indirect link. Special attention is given to the suicide bomber phenomenon, and the analysis of the determinants of becoming a suicide bomber provides additional intriguing findings. In contrast with the "classic" characteristics of a suicidal individual , suicide bombers tend to be of higher economic status and higher educational attainment than their counterparts in the population. Suicide bombers, however, come from lower socioeconomic groups when compared to other, non-suicidal, terrorists.