Unconventional Weapons and International Terrorism

Ranstorp, Magnus; Normark, Magnus

"The volume's editors have assembled an important collection of papers originally presented at a 2007 workshop on these issues, held at the Swedish National Defence College... the volume's essays attempt to develop a new methodological framework that encompasses both the technical factors contributing to a terrorist organization's ability to use such weapons and the motivational factors that might drive it to plan and conduct such attacks." - Joshua Sinai, 'Terrorism Bookshelf: Top 150 Books on Terrorism and Counterterrorism', Perspectives on Terrorism, Vol. 6, No. 2 (2012)

• Introduction: Detecting CBRN terrorism signatures – challenges and new approaches Part I: The status of CBRN terrorism research 1. Defining knowledge gaps within CBRN terrorism research Part II: Al-Qaeda motivations/incentives for CBRN terrorism 2. WMD and the four dimensions of al-Qaeda 3. Al-Qaeda’s thinking on CBRN: A case study Part III: CBRN, capacity-building and proliferation 4. Indicators of chemical terrorism 5. Capacity-building and proliferation: Biological terrorism 6. Terrorism and potential biological warfare agents 7. Influence diagram analysis of nuclear and radiological terrorism Part IV: CRBN and terrorism: Dilemmas of prediction? 8. Approaching threat convergence from an intelligence perspective 9. Terrifying landscapes: Understanding motivations of non-state actors to acquire and/or use weapons of mass destruction 10. Conclusion