Changing Face of Terrorism - Rohan Gunaratna

The face of terrorism dramatically changed during the past decade. Instead of resisting globalisation, terrorist groups are harnessing the post-Cold War environment advancing their aims and objectives. Benefiting from the widespread availability of communication technologies, inexpensive travel, porous borders, privation of security and access to saturated weapons markets, terrorist groups are growing in strength, size and reach. Governments have been slow to appreciate and respond to the post-Cold War behaviour of terrorist groups until Al Qaeda launched multiple co-ordinated suicide attacks against America's icons. Contemporary terrorist groups have no hesitation whatsoever of using chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons. This collection of essays from experts in the field will address these issues by providing specialist knowledge on terrorist intentions and capabilities, opportunities for attacks, principal terrorist actors, modus operandi, technologies, tactics and targets. It will also offer an unsurpassed platform to learn from an international panel of experts and gain first-hand knowledge of the evolving threat of terrorism. READERSHIP: Academics, practitioners in the field of defence and security, and those interested in the study of regionalism and regional security.