Threat Convergence: The Most Lethal Category of Terrorist Warfare

This chapter presents a methodology to analyze a new category in terrorism studies: threat convergence. It designates a significantly expanded, more operationally capable, and more lethal category of terrorist warfare which results from the convergence in certain terrorist groups of what are generally considered nine separate and distinct types of terrorist-related activities and violence. These nine types of terrorist activities, violence, and enabling conditions that converge consist of mass casualty terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, cyber activities, cyber warfare, criminality, enabling conditions in weak and failed states, vulnerable regions within strong states, partnerships with other like-minded terrorist groups, and state sponsors. It is important to analyze these converging of terrorist activities, violence, and enabling conditions because they provide government counter-terrorism services with valuable early warning indicators of emerging lethal threats that need to be addressed in a more comprehensive way.