What type(s) of non-state actors, according to their characteristics and objectives, are most likely to use CBRN weapons? by Amaury Vergely
Ever since the 1995 sarin attack of the
Tokyo Subway by the religious cult Aum Shinrikyo (“Aum Supreme Truth”),
there has been a growing fear that non-state actors, especially
terrorist groups, might decide to resort to Chemical, Biological,
Radiological and Nuclear weapons (CBRN) on a large scale. Governments
and counter-terrorism agencies have set up measures to minimize the
threat, while academics and experts have tried to profile the groups
interested in acquiring and using such weapons. First of all, it is
important to explain why this paper will deliberately focus on terrorist
groups, which are only one sub-category of non-state actors (other
groups would include political lobbies, criminal organisations,
separatist groups or even single individuals). When it comes to CBRN
weapons, this paper argues that any group willing to use them could be
defined as a terrorist organisation (but not automatically, insofar as
“terrorist” remains a label that does not have a globally shared
definition), whatever its personal objectives or characteristics.
Indeed, although CBRN weapons can be very different from one another,
they share some key aspects that make them all identifiable as “terror
weapons” (their ability to provoke mass destruction and generate
unprecedented fear among the population, to name a few). The few case
studies of previous CBRN incidents have lead experts to identify key
characteristics of terrorist groups that would potentially have an
interest in CBRN weapons. Most of them agree that apocalyptic or
religious extremist groups are the most likely to use CBRN weapons.
However, although groups that present such characteristics might be the
most dangerous ones regarding the subject matter, I think that the
assumptions underlying these conclusions are misleading. To overcome
these issues, this paper will attempt to follow the same analytic
pattern, identifying shared characteristics of groups that have turned
to CBRN terrorism through four case studies. It will then present the
conclusions drawn by academics and experts in major research papers and
discuss them, stressing the risk of misconceptions regarding CBRN
weapons. Finally, this paper will argue that the type of a group is too
reductive to determine effectively which group(s) are most likely to use
CBRN weapons and is not as crucial as the combination of factors that
might lead the group to this decision.
Four different case studies are usually discussed when experts want
to determine the characteristics of potential users of CBRN weapons.
Three of them are large-scale “successful” CBRN attacks, while the last
one is a potential threat that seems to be a major concern for the US
government and the international community as a whole. Chronologically,
the first successful CBRN attack happened in 1984, when the Rajneeshee
religious cult poisoned 751 people, spreading Salmonella typhimurium bacteria
over ten salad bars. No fatality was reported. The aim of the attack
was to influence a local vote in Oregon by limiting the voter turnout.
Another deadly agent, Salmonella typhi, had been suggested to the
leader of the group, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, but he reportedly refused,
claiming that the attack was aiming at incapacitating people, not
killing them.
The second case occurred in 1990 in Sri Lanka. The Liberation Tigers of
Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a separatist militant organisation active in the
north of the country, assaulted a military facility using chlorine gas.
At least 60 soldiers got sick due to gas exposure, although no fatality
was reported. The operation was a success, despite that members of the
LTTE got exposed to chlorine when the wind shifted. The third case,
previously mentioned, was the 1995 release of sarin gas in the Tokyo
subway by the religious cult Aum Shinrikyo. The attack killed 12 people
and injured 200, while up to 5,000 stormed in hospitals believing they
had been exposed. Finally, the last case study is Al Qaeda’s reported
attempt to acquire and intention to use a CBRN weapon. Extensive
evidence can be found to support this statement: the declaration of bin
Laden in 1998 that acquiring CBRN weapons ‘is a religious duty’ (remaining very vague regarding its actual possession of such weapons), the 2003 fatwa
(a religious decree) condoning the killing of 4 Million of Americans,
described as a legitimate act of vengeance, as well as numerous
documents found in Afghanistan attesting of active researches and
experiments in CBRN weapons. A whole volume of Al Qaeda’s “Encyclopaedia
of Jihad” even details the construction of Chemical and Biological
weapons.
Although it is not clear whether Al Qaeda remains at an early stage of
development of CBRN weapons, there is no doubt regarding the
organisation’s interest in such weapons.
Even though these case studies differ by many more aspects than they
resemble each other, they share a few common points. In all four cases, a
charismatic leader was involved: Prabakaran, leader of the LTTE,
controlled the entire life of his followers up to their diet, bin Laden
required that Al Qaeda’s members swore allegiance to him (bay’ah),
while Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and Shoko Asahara were the spiritual
leaders of their cult. In the case of Asahara, he had a huge influence
over his followers, predicting the end of the world and promising
salvation to all members of Aum. Indeed, a charismatic leader is an
important factor for a group that would turn to CBRN terrorism: the
influence of the leader can be so important that his decisions are
enough to suppress any moral constraint that a member would have,
because he holds the truth and the justification of all the actions
carried out by the group. Moreover, he is the only one bearing
responsibility for them, the individual fading away in the group as a
whole. An analogue argument regarding a divine justification of
religious groups’ actions is also often put forward. In two cases,
members of the group had a personal interest or obsession with CBRN
weapons: Ma Anand Puja, the member of the Rajneeshees who suggested the
use of Salmonella typhi, was suspected of being a ‘serial poisoner’,
while Aum Shinrikyo had a very hierarchical organisation with
scientists as head of chemical and biological departments, not to
mention Asahara personal fascination with unconventional weapons. He
even wrote a song about sarin, titled ‘Song of Sarin, the Magician’.
Social alienation also played an important role in the Aum and
Rajneeshee cults: after losing the 1990 elections, Aum decided that no
one from outside of the group could be saved, drawing a clear line
between “us” and “them”, while the Rajneeshees were living in a small
community in Waso County, isolated from anyone else. The consequence of
this alienation was that any exterior social constraint regarding
violence would have no impact on the group’s decisions. Finally, religion was a factor in three of these cases, or at least a major characteristic of the groups involved.
But that is as far as this comparison goes. The use of CBRN weapons
was a rational choice that addressed very different needs and objectives
in each case. While it played a central role in Aum’s prophesised
apocalypse (although the 1995 sarin attack was a desperate action
triggered by a planned operation of the Japanese police to close in on
the group’s facilities), the LTTE only resorted to chemical weapons that
one time because of a shortage of conventional weapons and has never
used chlorine again. While Al Qaeda might be willing to use CBRN weapons
for their psychological and symbolic impact, which requires visibility,
the Rajneeshees’ attack went unnoticed for over a year. According to
John Parachini, Director of the Intelligence Policy Center at the RAND
Corporation, the role of religion has been played up, even in the cases
of Aum and Al Qaeda.
Asahara had an egocentric personality and wanted to be the emperor of
the post-Armageddon world, one of the few to actually survive the end of
the world. Bin Laden’s divine justification of a holy war can be regarded as a personal vanguard against the United States and its allies.
The Rajneeshee was a religious cult but had a secular objective
(winning a local election). Therefore, it seems that a simple profile of
a group willing to use CBRN weapons cannot be deducted from these case
studies only.
The literature on the subject reveals two different trends: one that
mostly expends on the case studies mentioned above as well as minor CBRN
incidents, using a qualitative approach to establish a typology of
groups most likely susceptible to resort to CBRN weapons, and a second
one using a quantitative approach, exploiting the CBRN terrorism
database of the Monterey Institute of International Studies. It is worth
noticing that the findings of both the approaches differ at some point.
Regarding the qualitative approach, the different typologies are very
similar in their content. I present here Drs. Charles Ferguson and
Wiliam Potter’s typology of terrorist groups according to their
potential interest in nuclear terrorism, but it differs very little from Professor Robin Frost’s.
Ferguson and Potter focus their study on four types of groups:
‘apocalyptic groups’, ‘politico-religious groups’,
‘nationalist/separatist groups’ and ‘single-issue terrorists’. According
to them, apocalyptic groups pose the greatest threat when it comes to
nuclear terrorism, because some of them might want to bring about the
Apocalypse they foresee, in which case the means becomes the end itself.
The key characteristics of such groups are ‘charismatic leaders,
isolation and alienation from the larger society, sense of paranoia and
grandiosity’.
It is obvious that this category refers directly to Aum Shinrikyo,
which is nonetheless a very specific religious cult that cannot be
compared to any other existing terrorist group.
The second category they mention is ‘politico-religious groups’,
cause and offspring of the 9/11 attacks. They call such groups ‘hybrids’
as an answer to those who claim that Al Qaeda’s objectives are not only
religious, but also political (creation of a global caliphate, but also
pushing the United States out of the Middle East). Ferguson and Potter
contend that nuclear weapons might appeal to such groups, using the
example of Al Qaeda that is willing to inflict mass casualties to the
West. Whether the group would actually use a nuclear weapon if it
managed to acquire one is not discussed by the authors, but that is a
debatable point to which we will come back later. Interestingly, Frost
puts apocalyptic groups and politico-religious groups into one single
category, ‘religious terrorism’, that encompasses altogether the
Rajneeshee, Aum Shinrikyo and Al Qaeda. He insists on the threat posed by a divine justification of an act presented as a religious imperative.
The third category of Ferguson and Potter’s typology,
nationalist/separatist groups, also appears in Frost’s typology. The
authors all agree on the disincentives such groups might be confronted
with when it comes to using nuclear weapons. These groups, like the
Irish Republican Army or Chechen rebels to name a few, are depending on
their base constituency’s support and therefore cannot risk to alienate
them by undertaking actions that they would not approve of. It was the
case for the Real IRA, an offshoot of the IRA responsible for the
bombing of a shopping centre in Omagh, Northern Ireland, which lost the
support of the population after this operation, leading to its
dismantlement.
These groups present themselves as “freedom fighters” in order to gain
international support and claim to merely target military and
governmental installations, although Frost mentions that their rhetoric
does not deceive anyone: out of 1,800 victims of the IRA between 1969
and 1994, 600 were civilians.
Using a nuclear weapon would be counterproductive according to their
strategy, although Ferguson and Potter claim that they ‘might benefit
from appearing to have the capability’, an argument that they oppose
themselves, mentioning the radicalisation of the government’s stance
every time Chechens have mentioned resorting to CBRN weapons.
Finally, being geographically focused, they would risk a massive
retaliation from the country they would attack, potentially leading to
their annihilation.
The last category of Ferguson and Potter are single-issue terrorists
(eco-terrorists, anti-nuclear activists, animal liberationists,
anti-abortionists, etc…). According to them, these groups do not
represent a threat insofar as they have very targeted goals that do not
include mass casualties. In this category, Frost mentions an exception:
‘green anarchists’, terrorists who advocate a rebirth of the earth
through the annihilation of the human race. This sub-category presents
similarities with apocalyptic groups and might very well be willing to
use a nuclear weapon to achieve its end, with very little moral
constraint whatsoever.
Frost also adds ‘social-revolutionary’ and ‘right-wing’ groups in his
typology, but argues that nuclear weapons would probably not appeal to
them, as they present similarities with nationalist/separatist groups.
Other qualitative studies have also addressed the typology of groups
that would be interested in using biological weapons, which is
considered to be the most likely scenario of a CBRN attack by most
articles in the literature.
According to Francisco Galamas, Islamic extremist groups are the most
likely to use biological weapons, because they are set on killing
non-believers in an indiscriminate manner. Biological weapons have the
potential to kill thousands and could be effectively combined with
suicide tactics to provoke mass casualties, such as using a contaminated
terrorist to propagate a pathogen in a public area.
This argument would however be refuted by Adam Dolnik, who underlines
the differences between a suicide bomb attack and a suicide CBRN attack,
the latter lacking any of the incentives of the former.
According to Galamas’ typology, the second group that is most likely to
use a biological weapon are religious cults. The author draws his
argument from the examples of the Rajneeshee’s Salmonella poisoning and Aum’s numerous attempts to produce and use Botulinum
toxin and anthrax between 1990 and 1993. It is worth noticing that
religion remains the primary factor in biological weapons qualitative
studies.
The main quantitative studies have been conducted by Kate Ivanova and
Todd Sandler in 2006 and 2007, using data of hundreds of CBRN attacks
indexed on the Monterey Institute’s CBRN terrorism database from 1988 to
2004. Their findings indicate that democracy, past CBRN incidents,
corruption and transnationalism increase the risks of a CBRN attack.
However, Ivanova and Sandler have also found that ‘religious
fundamentalists and nationalists/separatists do not present (…) a CBRN
concern’. According to them, non-religious groups are five times more likely to use CBRN weapons than religious groups.
However, these results are not entirely at odds with qualitative
studies, because Ivanova and Sandler found that religious groups that
are also transnational – such as Al Qaeda – were the most likely to use
CBRN weapons. Nevertheless, it would seem that the factor
“transnational” is of the uttermost importance and that religion alone
does not support the use of a CBRN weapon.
All these studies attempt to profile groups that would be interested
in using CBRN weapons. However, some of the assumptions they base their
arguments on can be misleading. I will discuss three points that are
often overlooked in the literature. First of all, I do not think like
Frost that ‘the decision to “go nuclear” would necessarily involve the
intention to do so’.
For example, in my opinion, Al Qaeda would probably benefit more from
pretending to have a CBRN weapon than using one. The group is not
insensitive to its followers’ opinion, otherwise the organisation would
not have felt the need to justify the killings of 9/11. However,
claiming to “potentially” have a CBRN weapon is a cost free
psychological weapon in itself. Therefore, whether Al Qaeda would
actually use a CBRN weapon is debatable. Another misconception is that
CBRN weapons are necessarily weapons of mass destruction, and that
terrorists would automatically use them to kill a lot of people and
carry out an attack more spectacular than 9/11. Given its psychological
impact, a CBRN attack does not need to make mass casualties to reach
what Ivanova and Sandler call the ‘media bar’ of 9/11. Moreover, to date, conventional attacks have proven far more lethal
than CBRN attacks. Therefore, it appears that the “mass casualty” factor
is not necessarily fundamental to explain the choice of a group to use a
CBRN weapon.
This paper has attempted to show that the traditional approach
consisting in determining the type of non-state actors most likely to
use CBRN weapons through typologies and case studies might lead to false
conclusions, when trying to fit all groups in one single model. CBRN
weapons are very different from each other, and the motives explaining
why one group would choose to develop and use one particular agent
depends on its own objectives and characteristics. While these
characteristics can be shared with other groups, they are not
self-sufficient. Therefore, this paper argues that a correct approach to
the issue would be to think of it as a threshold depending on a
combination of all the characteristics mentioned above. Religion is not
enough to resort to CBRN weapons, but if a religious group is also
transnational, apocalyptic and lead by a charismatic figure, it becomes
much more likely to use a CBRN weapon. This proposition would also
explain why the Aum Shinrikyo case, symbol of CBRN terrorism, is unique
and unlikely to be replicated: many positive factors have simultaneously
converged to one very specific group.
