Are Terrorist Networks Just Glorified Criminal Cells?

Abstract

The notions of organized crime and terrorism have an old and rich history around the globe. Researchers and practitioners have been studying events and phenomena related to these notions for a long time. There are pointers in the literature in which it is misleading to see the unfair comparison between terrorist and criminal networks with the argument that all actors involved in these networks are simply evil individuals. In this paper, we conduct a systematic study of the operational structure of such networks from a network science perspective. We highlight some of the major differences between them and support our hypothesis with analytical evidence. We hope our work will impact current and future endeavors in counter terrorism, especially within the cyber realm, inside the United States of America and across our allied nations.

Keywords

• network science
• counter terrorism
• criminal networks
• terrorist networks
• cyber security