Terrorism: Concepts and Problems, Spring 2003 SAIS Wednesdays, 2:15pm 4:15pm, Rome205 Adjunct Professor Matthew A. Levitt

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1 Levitt, SAIS , Terrorism: Concepts and Problems, Spring Course Overview: Terrorism: Concepts and Problems, Spring 2003 SAIS Wednesdays, 2:15pm 4:15pm, Rome205 Adjunct Professor Matthew A. Levitt Office: mattl@washingtoninstitute.org This is an introductory course on terrorism and counterterrorism, with a strong grounding in the art of counterterrorism analysis. While exposing students to the issues and debates surrounding the modern phenomenon of terrorism and the war on terror, the course aims to provide students the necessary skills to analyze and contextualize the often competing, misleading, partial and/or uncorroborated information that, in both the open source and classified worlds, characterizes the sub-discipline of terrorism studies. The course seeks to strike a balance between theory and practice, with a particular focus on combating terrorism. Given that the primary source of the current international terrorist threat emanates from radical Islamic terrorists, the course draws primarily though not exclusively on examples from radical (or militant) Islamist terrorist groups. Students are encouraged, however, to apply lessons learned from readings and class discussions to other groups in their writing assignments. Each class meeting will raise and address key concepts and analyze the counterterrorism implications these present at the tactical, strategic and policy levels. Many meetings will flush out these ideas through in-class exercises. The course is divided into three main parts: 1. Introduction to terrorism and counterterrorism 2. Terrorist Groups, Sponsors and Networks 3. Countering the Ever-Changing Threat The course is taught through a combination of lecture, discussion and participatory exercises. Periodically, experts and practitioners will be invited either as in-class guest lecturers or to deliver supplemental lectures outside the classroom (attendance at the latter is not mandatory). Course Requirements: In addition to class participation, to include discussions and in-class exercises, students will be expected to:

2 Levitt, SAIS , Terrorism: Concepts and Problems, Spring Complete brief ( word) weekly writing assignments. Complete one term paper (Maximum 40 double-spaced pages). Complete a take-home final exam to draw on a set of core questions. Evaluation: Grades are determined as follows: Class participation 15% Weekly writing assignments 15% Term paper 40% Final exam 30% ** Please Note: ALL ASSIGNMENTS MUST BE HANDED IN ON TIME. ASSIGNMENTS HANED IN LATE WILL BE MARKED DOWN A FULL GRADE PER DAY LATE. ASSIGNMENTS RECEIVED MORE THAN THREE DAYS LATE WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED. Books Recommended for Purchase: Russell D. Howard and Reid L. Sawyer, Eds. Terrorism and Counterterrorism: Understanding the New Security Environment (Guilford, CT: McGraw-Hill/Dushkin, 2002) Matthew A. Levitt, Targeting Terror: U.S. Policy Toward Middle Eastern State Sponsors and Terrorist Organizations, Post September 11 (Washington, DC: The Washington Institute, 2002) Paul R. Pillar, Terrorism and U.S. Foreign Policy (Washington D.C.: Brookings Institute Press, 2001) Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, The Age of Sacred Terror (New York: Random House, 2002) Rohan Gunaratna, Inside al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002) Contacting the Instructor: As an Adjunct Professor, I have neither an office at SAIS nor regular office hours. I will be available a half-hour or so before and after each class, and can always be reached by at mattl@washingtoninstitute.org. My office number is , and the fax number is Additional Resources:

3 Levitt, SAIS , Terrorism: Concepts and Problems, Spring Kindly avoid research-by-google. That is, do not accept all information on the web as legitimate, especially is this sub-discipline. Precision searches in standard media sources can be productive, and there are reliable websites worth reviewing (though these too should be taken with grains of salt). There are many good books and journal articles on current issues in terrorism and counterterrorism, but the best resource on the subject remains government documents (court documents, press releases, Congressional testimony, etc). Finally, there are distinct advantages to studying International Relations in Washington, including the ability to conduct personal interviews, attending lectures, and more. Students are strongly encouraged to take advantage of such opportunities. Students are also encouraged to consult the instructor for further research advice. Course Calendar: PART ONE: INTRODUCTION TO TERRORISM AND COUNTERTERRORISM Session 1: Introduction/Defining Terrorism/Root Causes/Counterterrorism (Wednesday, January 21) - Pillar, Terrorism and U.S. Foreign Policy, Pp , Howard and Sawyer, Terrorism and Counterterrorism, Pp. 3-23, 55-73, Walter Laquer, The Age of Sacred Terrorism, Ch 4: Interpretations of Terrorism, Pp Levitt, The Causes of the 9/ll Attacks and the Scope of the Threat, Address to the 19 th World Media Conference: Media s Role in Peace and Conflict: Covering the Consequences of 9/11, Washington, D.C., September 27, 2002, available online at - Jennifer L. Windsor, Promoting Democratization Can Combat Terrorism, The Washington Quarterly, Summer 2003, available online at - Pillar, The Instruments of Counterterrorism, U.S. Foreign Policy Agenda: An Electronic Journal of the U.S. Department of State, Vol. 6, No. 3, November 2001, available at - Fouad Ajami, The Falseness of Anti-Americanism, Foreign Policy, September/October 2003 Optional Reading: -Gershom Gorenberg, The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount (New York: The Free Press, 2000) Session 2: Terror Tactics, Part I Weapons/Attacks (Wednesday, January 28) ** TERM PAPER ASSIGNMENT **

4 Levitt, SAIS , Terrorism: Concepts and Problems, Spring Howard and Sawyer, Terrorism and Counterterrorism, Pp , Bruce Hoffman, The Logic of Suicide Terrorism, The Atlantic Monthly, June 2003, available online at - Gal Luft, The Pales tinian H-Bomb: Terror s Winning Strategy, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 81, no. 4 (July/August 2002), pp John Parachini, Putting WMD Terrorism into Perspective, Washington Quarterly, Fall 2003, available online at - Robert A. Pape, The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism, American Political Science Review, vol 97, no 3, August 2003, available online at - Martin Kramer, Political Science Targets Suicide Terrorism Bystanders Take Cover! available online at (access website, then use search function with keyword Pape ) Section 3: Terror Tactics, Part II Other Operational Activity (Wednesday, February 4) - Martha Brill Olcott and Bakhtiyar Babjanov, The Terrorist Notebooks, Foreign Policy, March/April Al Qaeda Training Manual, available online at all - Trail of a Terrorist: The Story of a Young Algerian, Trained in bin Laden s Camps, Who was Caught Crossing the Canada-U.S. Border in December 1999 with a Carload of Explosives Headed for L.A., PBS Frontline, available online at all - Levitt, Blood Money, The Wall S treet Journal, June 4, 2003, available online at - Keith B. Richburg, ETA Aided by Broad Network of Support ers, Washington Post, January 19, 2003 PART TWO: TERRORIST GROUPS, SPONSORS AND NETWORKS Session 4: Terrorist Groups, Part I: Al Qaeda s Global Network (Wednesday, February 11) - Gunaratna, Inside Al Qaeda, Pp Benjamin and Simon, The Age of Sacred Terror, Pp

5 Levitt, SAIS , Terrorism: Concepts and Problems, Spring Steven Simon, The New Terrorism: Securing the Nation Against a Messianic Foe, The Brookings Review, Vol.21 No.1, Winter 2003, available online at - Congressional Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities before and after the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001, Part Two Narrative The Attacks of September 11, 2001, Pp , available online at Optional Reading: - Anonymous, Through Our Enemies Eyes (Washington DC: Brassey s, 2002) Session 5: Terrorist Groups, Part II: Hezbollah and Palestinian Groups (Wednesday, February 18) - Levitt, Targeting Terror, Pp Levitt, Hezbollah s West Bank Terror Network, Middle East Intelligence Bulletin (MEIB), vol. 5, no. 8 (August 2003), available online at - Levitt, Exposing Hamas: Financing Terror Under the Cover of Charity, [web link forthcoming] - Hizbollah: Rebel Without A Cause? International Crisis Group, 30 July 2003, available online at - Daniel Byman, Should Hezbollah Be Next? Foreign Affairs, vol. 82, no. 6, November/December 2003, available online at - Islamic Social Welfare Activism In The Occupied Palestinian Territories: A Legitimate Target? International Crisis Group, 02 April 2003, available online at - Jeffrey Goldberg, In the Party of God (par ts one and two), The New Yorker, October 14 and October 21, 2002, electronic version. Available online at: (scroll down to these articles) Read ONE of the following, the rest are Optional Reading: - Khaled Hroub, Hamas: Political Thought and Practice (Washington DC: Institute for Palestine Studies, 2000) - Shaul Mishal and Avraham Sela, The Palestinian Hamas: Vision, Violence and Coexistence, (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000) - Hala Jaber, The Party of God, in Hezbollah: Born With A Vengeance (New York: Columbia, 1997) - Magnus Ranstorp, Hizballah in Lebanon: The Politics of the Western Hostage Crisis (New York: Macmillan 1996) - Martin Kramer, Hezbollah's Vision of the West (Washington DC: Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 1989) Session 6: State Sponsors of Terror

6 Levitt, SAIS , Terrorism: Concepts and Problems, Spring (Wednesday, February 25) - Pillar, Terrorism and U.S. Foreign Policy, Pp Levitt, Targeting Terror, Pp Levitt, Confronting Syrian Support for Terrorist Groups, Middle East Intelligence Bulletin (MEIB), vol. 5, no. 5 (May 2003), available online at - Flynt Leverett, America Must Do More to Engage with Syria, Financial Times, October 9, 2003, available online at - Michael Rubin, "Tactical Terrorism: Iran's Continued Challenge to the Secular Middle East," available online at - United States Department of State, Overview of State -Sponsored Terrorism, in Patterns of Global Terrorism 2002, available online at - Ray Takeyh, The Rogue Who Came in from the Cold, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 80, no. 3, May/June 2001, pp Ray Takeyh and Nikolas Gvosdev, Do Terrorist Networks Need a Home? The Washington Quarterly, 25:3 pp , Summer 2002, available online at Session 7: State Facilitators of Terror (Wednesday, March 3) - Levitt, Targeting Terror, Pp Dore Gold, Hatred s Kingdom: How Saudi Arabia Supports the New Global Terrorism (Washington DC: Regnery, 2003), all - F. Gregory Gause, III, The Approaching Turning Point: The Future of U.S. Relations with the Gulf States, Brookings Project on U.S. Policy Towards the Islamic World, Analysis Paper Number Two, May 2003, available online at - Initiatives and Actions Taken By the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the War on Terrorism, Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia, Was hington, DC, September 2003, available online at [this is a 370 page document, skim it in its entirety, read portions of interest] - Levitt, Combating Terrorist Financing, Despite the Saudis, Policywatch #673, The Washington Institute, November 1, 2002, available online at - Levitt, The Two Faces of Saudi Arabia: Dubious Allies in the War on Terror, The Weekly Standard, June 30, 2003, available online at

7 Levitt, SAIS , Terrorism: Concepts and Problems, Spring Optional Reading: - Senate Hearings on Saudi-Terror Nexus, Center for Security Policy, available online at Session 8: Logistical and Financial Support Networks, Part I: Crossover (Wednesday. March 10) - Levitt, Untangling the Terror Web: The Need for a Strategic Understanding of the Crossover Between International Terrorist Groups to Successfully Prosecute the War on Terror," Testimony before the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, United States Senate (October 22, 2003), available online at - Declaration in Support of Detention, USA v. Abdurahman Muhammad Alamoudi, case No M, Alexandria Division, Eastern District of Virginia, September 30, 2003, available online at - USA V Suleiman Beheiri, DECLARATION IN SUPPORT OF PRE-TRIAL DETENTION, August 14, 2003, available online at **March Spring break** Session 9: Logistical and Financial Support Networks, Part II: Financing (Wednesday, March 24) - Levitt, The P olitics of Terrorist Financing in the Middle East, The Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, vol. 6, no. 4 (December 2002), available online at - Levitt, Stemming the Flow of Terrorist Financing: Practical and Conceptual Challenges. The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, vol. 27, no. 1, (Winter/Spring 2003), available online at - Carlta Vizthum, Aftermath of Raid: Spain Takes Fight Against Terror to Another Front Effort to Cut Off Finances of Basque Separatists Leads to Local Taverns An Empire of Companies, The Wall Street Journal Europe, August 26, Jonathan Winer, Origins, Organization and Prevention of Terrorist Finance, Testimony before Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, July, , available online at

8 Levitt, SAIS , Terrorism: Concepts and Problems, Spring aff.senate.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=hearings.testimony&hearingid=106&witnessi D=370 - David D. Aufhauser, General Counsel, Department of the Treasury, Testimony before the Judiciary Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security, July 26, 2003, available online at - Forty Recommendations, Financia l Action Task on Money Laundering, available online at - Terrorist Financing: Report of an Independent Task Force Sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations, Council on Foreign Relations, available online at - Congressional Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities before and after the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001, Part Three, Strategy to Disrupt Terrorist Financing, Pp , available online at PART THREE: COUNTERING THE EVER-CHANGING THREAT Session 10: The American Counterterrorism Bureaucracy (Wednesday, March 31) - Benjamin and Simon, The Age of Sacred Terror, Pp , Afterward - Russell Howard and Reid Sawyer, Terrorism and Counterterrorism, Pp , Levitt, Targeting Terror, Pp Congressional Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities before and after the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001, Part Two, The Development o f U.S. Counterterrorism Policy Before September 11, Pp , available online at Recommended reading: - Graham Allison, Essence of Decision, all Session 11: CT: Diplomacy and Military Action (Reschedule, TBD) **NOTE: Class rescheduled from Wednesday April 7** ** TERM PAPERS DUE ** - Diplomacy and the War Against Terrorism, Testimony of Ambassador J. Cofer Black, Coordinator for Counterterrorism, before the Senate Foreign Relations

9 Levitt, SAIS , Terrorism: Concepts and Problems, Spring Committee, March 18, 2003, available online at - The Diploma cy of Counterterrorism Lessons Learned, Ignored, and Disputed, Special Report, United States Institute of Peace, January 14, 2002, available online at - Pillar, Terrorism and U.S. Foreign Policy, Pp , Levitt, Diplomacy Run Amuck, The Jerusalem Post, October 9, 2002, available online at - Russell Howard and Reid Sawyer, Terrorism and Counterterrorism, Pp , Colin Gray, Handfuls of Heroes on Desperate Ventures: When do Special Operations Succeed? PARAMETERS, Spring 1999, available online at - Congressional Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities before and after the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001, Part Three Topics The Attacks of September 11, 2001, Pp , available online at Session 12: CT: Intelligence and Law Enforcement (Wednesday, April 14) - William Wechsler, Law in Order: Reconstructing U.S. National Security, The National Interest, Spring Paul Wilkinson, Terrorism Versus Democracy: The Liberal State Response, Ch. 5: Law Enforcement, Criminal Justice and the Liberal State, Pp Russell Howard and Reid Sawyer, Terrorism and Counterterrorism, Pp Reuel Marc Gerecht, The Counterterrorist Myth, The Atlantic Monthly, July -August 2001, available online at - Coleen Rowley Memo to FBI Director Robert Mueller, available online at - Congressional Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities before and after the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001, Part Three Topics The Attacks of September 11, 2001, Pp , available online at - DeNeen L. Brown, Ex -Detainee Details Fearful Path to Syria, The Washington Post (November 12, 2003) Session 13: International Organizations in the War on Terror (Wednesday, April 21) - Levitt, Targeting Terror, Pp

10 Levitt, SAIS , Terrorism: Concepts and Problems, Spring Reuven Paz, The Prospects of Arab Cooperation for Counter -Terrorism, Internationa l Policy Institute for Counterterrorism, August 25, 1999, available online at - See Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering overview, available online at - See United Nations Counterterrorism Committee (CTC) overview, available online at - See Egmont Group of Financial Intelligence Units overview, available online at - Eric Rosand, Security Council Rseolution 1373, the Counter -Terrorism Committee, and the Fight against Terrorism, The American Journal of International Law, vol. 97, no.2, April 2003, Pp , available online at - Syrian Arab Republic United Nations counterterrorism submission re UNSCR 1373, available online at ** TAKE HOME FINAL EXAM ** Hard copy of final exam MUST be received by Ms. Thayer Mckell (Rome 709) no later than Noon, Friday afternoon, April 23.