CASOS Working PAPER

"Knowing the Enemy: a Simulation of Terrorist Organizations"(PDF file)
Authors: Maksim Tsvetovat and Kathleen M. Carley

Abstract
Given the increasing threat of terrorism and spread of terrorist organizations, it is of vital importance to understand the properties of such organizations and to devise successful strategies for destabilizing them or decreasing their efficiency. However, intelligence information on these organizations is often incomplete, inaccurate, or simply not available - thus making a study of terrorist networks more difficult. In this paper, we propose a methodology for realistically simulating terrorist networks for the purpose of developing network metrics specific to the terrorist networks and testing strategies for destabilizing them.