Mock terrorists decisions’ concerning use of the internet for target selection: a red-team approach

ABSTRACT

In this study we sought to identify which locations appear more, or less, attractive to a terrorist in planning an attack and to investigate what attributes of those locations influence preferences. A sample of undergraduate university students (N = 147) were given the role of terrorists, and provided with five potential attack locations, including a pedestrian mall, a shopping center, a train station, a university and an airport. After using the Internet to learn about the target locations, participants placed the locations in rank-order from most to least preferred as targets and indicated why they had selected those targets. Results showed both a clear rank-order of target preferences: locations perceived as being more crowded were more preferred, while locations with a greater security presence were less preferred. Results also demonstrated a moderate positive correlation between the amount of online information viewed for a specific location and the preference for that location as a terrorist target, where participants who viewed more online content for a particular location were more likely to also prefer that location as a terrorist target. Findings from this study can potentially be used to reduce the likelihood of a terrorist attack occurring on specific locations, by altering the publicly available information on that location regarding the security and how crowded that location is.

KEYWORDS:

• Terrorism
• red-team
• internet
• target selection
• risk assessment

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Shooting attack on Fort Hood in the US in 2009.

2. Bombing of Oslo and shooting attack on Utøya in Norway in 2011.

3. Pedestrian mall, shopping complex, train station and university.

4. Train station, university and airport.