The Media: The Terrorists' Battlefield - Volume 17 NATO Security through Science Series: Human and Societal Dynamics (Nato Security Through Science Series E: Human and Societal Dynamics)

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THE MEDIA: THE TERRORISTS’ BATTLEFIELD

NATO Security through Science Series This Series presents the results of scientific meetings supported under the NATO Programme for Security through Science (STS). Meetings supported by the NATO STS Programme are in security-related priority areas of Defence Against Terrorism or Countering Other Threats to Security. The types of meeting supported are generally “Advanced Study Institutes” and “Advanced Research Workshops”. The NATO STS Series collects together the results of these meetings. The meetings are co-organized by scientists from NATO countries and scientists from NATO’s “Partner” or “Mediterranean Dialogue” countries. The observations and recommendations made at the meetings, as well as the contents of the volumes in the Series, reflect those of participants and contributors only; they should not necessarily be regarded as reflecting NATO views or policy. Advanced Study Institutes (ASI) are high-level tutorial courses to convey the latest developments in a subject to an advanced-level audience. Advanced Research Workshops (ARW) are expert meetings where an intense but informal exchange of views at the frontiers of a subject aims at identifying directions for future action. Following a transformation of the programme in 2004 the Series has been re-named and reorganised. Recent volumes on topics not related to security, which result from meetings supported under the programme earlier, may be found in the NATO Science Series. The Series is published by IOS Press, Amsterdam, and Springer Science and Business Media, Dordrecht, in conjunction with the NATO Public Diplomacy Division. Sub-Series A. B. C. D. E.

Chemistry and Biology Physics and Biophysics Environmental Security Information and Communication Security Human and Societal Dynamics

Springer Science and Business Media Springer Science and Business Media Springer Science and Business Media IOS Press IOS Press

http://www.nato.int/science http://www.springer.com http://www.iospress.nl

Sub-Series E: Human and Societal Dynamics – Vol. 17

ISSN: 1574-5597

The Media: The Terrorists’ Battlefield

Edited by

Centre of Excellence Defence Against Terrorism, Ankara, Turkey

Amsterdam • Berlin • Oxford • Tokyo • Washington, DC Published in cooperation with NATO Public Diplomacy Division

Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Research Workshop on The Media: Vital Ground for Terrorist Operations Ankara, Turkey 8–9 June 2006

© 2007 IOS Press. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior written permission from the publisher. ISBN 978-1-58603-730-7 Library of Congress Control Number: 2007924023 Publisher IOS Press Nieuwe Hemweg 6B 1013 BG Amsterdam Netherlands fax: +31 20 687 0019 e-mail: [email protected] Distributor in the UK and Ireland Gazelle Books Services Ltd. White Cross Mills Hightown Lancaster LA1 4XS United Kingdom fax: +44 1524 63232 e-mail: [email protected]

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The Media: The Terrorists’ Battlefield Centre of Excellence Defence Against Terrorism, Ankara, Turkey (Ed.) IOS Press, 2007 © 2007 IOS Press. All rights reserved.

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Preface The Centre of Excellence Defence Against Terrorism is an international body – accredited by NATO – of military and civilian expertise in the field of counter terrorism, aiming to assist NATO in its understanding of terrorism and methods to combat it. In its first full year of operation, the CoE DAT received funding for two Advanced Research Workshops: the first to look at the traumatic effects of terrorism; the second to understand the triumvirate of the media, terrorists and the population that is targeted. Up to this point, the Centre’s activity, both in its five-day courses or its two-day International Symposium, had been a unilateral activity, looking at a wide variety of terrorism related issues. The added responsibilities of conducting a workshop in accordance with NATO’s criteria pushed the content of its activity beyond predominantly military training at the operational level to an academic, inter-disciplinary approach. For this workshop, ‘Media: Vital Ground for Terrorist Operations’ held on 6–7 June 2006 in Ankara, Turkey, the approach was to bring the experiences of western media, military media operations experts and contemporary academic expertise in terrorism together. As the title suggests, the workshop commenced on the premise that in contemporary conflict, – ‘war amongst the people’1 – the objective is public opinion. Conventional warfare between clearly identifiable armies is no more: now armies are sent to neutralize insurgents, armed militias and terrorists amongst a civilian population, preferably with the latter’s consent. A state’s actors in combating terrorism – the military, the police or the security services – may achieve tactical successes against the terrorists, but strategic success cannot be achieved unless the government and its agencies can both maintain the consent of its population and discredit the goals of the terrorists they face. The media have a vital role to play in both these criteria of success: they must challenge the methods used by governments to ensure the legitimacy of the latter’s counter terrorist policy and practice, and they must find a balance between reporting incidents of terrorism and serving the terrorists’ interests. The stated objective of the workshop was ‘to understand ways that terrorist organisations use the established media to increase the awareness of their ideological goals, and how this may manifest in the Caucasus Region’. This objective fixed the debate in two ways. Firstly, though most of the presentations considered the threat of Islamic international terrorism, the PKK or the insurgency in Iraq, the organisers felt that it was important to focus the discussion during the latter stages of the workshop on a specific region. This served to concentrate the composition of the participatory audience to Caucasian, Central Asian and SE European countries. This use of Turkey’s geographic and cultural proximity to the Caucasus Region, in order to raise awareness of terrorist use of the media to these countries, served NATO’s continued diplomatic outreach into the region. Secondly, to limit the scope of the workshop, ‘established media’ was seen as those media with recognized editorial control, and therefore does not include the Internet (except for the homepages of the established media). The workshop was also based on the assumption, challenged by some, that the media can achieve changes of 1

Rupert Smith, The Utility of Force (Penguin Books, 2005, London), p. 3.

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public opinion in the long-term, rather than cause brief fluctuations because of the public’s emotional response to a terrorist incident. The workshop was composed of five sessions, over two days, with each session building on the understanding reached in the earlier sessions. The first session, ‘The Evolution of the Media’s Coverage of Terrorism’, was non-specific and looked at the bilateral relationship between media and terrorism, and how this has changed over time and, furthermore, how the media itself has evolved as a result of technological advancement. As modern terrorism is intended to influence the local and international political processes, the influencing of public opinions through mass media – the most efficient means of shaping politics – is vital for terrorists. Therefore a modern terrorist organization needs to understand the operation of the local and international news media and to speak in their language(s). The terrorist organization will try to cater for journalists and columnists, to supply them with continuous information, news items, photo opportunities, in order to achieve its goals. The second session entitled ‘The Dynamics between Terrorism, Public Opinion and the Media’ was specific, and looked at this triumvirate within the context of regional issues and legal constraints upon both governments and the media. The international media’s coverage of the PKK was questioned as to why it was not as detailed as other contemporary instances of terrorism were, especially during the first decade of separatist violence. The use of appropriate news media was discussed, looking at the phenomenon of Al-Jazeera in detail as a means to influence Arab public opinion by western governments. The idiosyncrasies of hostage taking in Iraq were also studied and, as in the case of televised hostage-takings, it appears that spreading the video, and hence the message, is often more important for the hostage-takers than achieving the political demands required for release of the hostage. Furthermore, the tactic of hostage taking reveals that Iraqi insurgents have a ‘public relations’ campaign intended to affect audiences inside and outside Iraq. Indeed, video footage of hostages had proved successful in forcing world leaders to withdraw troops from Iraq, preventing international firms from participating in reconstruction efforts, and instigating rallies against the occupation of Iraq in the hostages’ countries. ‘The Struggle between Governments and Terrorist Organisations for International and Domestic Public Opinion’, the title of the third session, looked at an area where the initiative has traditionally lain with the terrorist. The media’s increasingly global reach and its strong democratic potential for social and political engagement have led to some academic and governmental concern that terrorist groups may employ this useful tool to distribute information, promote ideas and publicize their activities. To counter this ‘abuse’ of the media, the ethical balance, codes of conduct and legal constraints that the ‘Free Media’ observe in varying degrees around the world were discussed. In an examination of some of the proactive attempts by legitimate authorities to combat terrorism, the British and American governments’ struggle, during the course of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, to successfully harness the potential of information and the media was focused upon. Lastly, the balance of media’s coverage of terrorism was addressed: whilst media coverage can amplify the public’s fear and anxiety of attack, if well managed and informed, it can increase public awareness of the topic and ways to limit its effects. The tactical considerations of the media’s coverage of terrorism were addressed during the fourth session ‘The Security Challenge to the Media Dealing with Terrorism’. This session looked at how media personnel are threatened by terrorism and the

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challenges of reporting in this environment; the role of the military was also discussed as a source and as a host for embedded media. The responsibilities of the press during conflict, journalistic values such as objectivity, and the relationships among the press, the public and the government, were all explored. Questions were raised regarding the media’s own protection. Should the media risk the balance of their coverage by obeying the limitations as an embed in a trade-off for their own security? If the media seek to report independently on terrorism, who should provide protection? The final session, ‘Focus on the Threat of Terrorism to the Caucasus and the Media’s Coverage of this Danger’, examined the internal and external terrorist threats to the stability of the Caucasus by focusing on both how the Caucasian governments could reduce this threat in the region and the part that the media could play in this reduction. The ongoing conflict in Chechnya continues to destabilise the entire region and provides a focus for radicalised Muslims around the world, who perceive it to be another example of the repression of the Muslim people. The role of the media in promulgating both the terrorist threat and cause, and the tensions between attempts to impose media controls on the one side and the ferocity of subsequent attacks on the other, were considered key to a possible solution. The natural frictions that exist between the media and the military provoked great discussions about the roles and responsibilities of the media during the discussions on the first day. Opinions varied, though were predictable considering the national experiences of terrorism. The lack of a common definition for terrorism was seen as an obstacle by many to portraying, and therefore condemning, organizations as terrorists. This symmetrical approach in politicizing the government’s response has limited utility and is short sighted. Labelling its foes as terrorists may assist in legitimizing the government’s actions against a non-homogenous and politically violent part of its population in the short term, but it will not address the long-term ‘root causes’. Furthermore, contemporary terrorist organizations will happily oblige in using the vocabulary of violence, deliberately seeking the classification of terrorism, to spread both fear and their message further. It seems that the priorities of government, its military and counter terrorism agencies and the media are difficult to reconcile, one requiring secrecy for the security of its intelligence and operations, the other requiring free access to information to fulfil its public duty. An extant argument to limit the freedom of the press is shrouded in transparent phrases such as ‘ethical balance’ and ‘responsible journalism’. Yet the response from the journalist community is no more complex: based on values of freedom of reporting that have since been overridden by other priorities, namely deadlines and ratings. It is ironic that one journalist, in arguing for greater coverage of a chronic domestic security threat, asks why the foreign press did not seek to cover his country’s struggle, in effect, wishing to dictate the news agendas of other nations to satisfy his country’s national agenda. Such opinions make it quite clear that what journalists, military and academics refer to as the concept of free media are irreconcilable, and a consensus was not reached. The dynamic between governments and media is not solely about control, and all the speakers did not wholly miss this point. Rather than seeking to impose the terms used by journalists, to restrict their movement with embedding as an unfortunate byproduct of ensuring their safety, or to impose restrictions on press coverage, governments can seek to use more proactive, intelligent approaches. No government, with its agencies, can immediately counter the media impact of a terrorist attack. The terrorists

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have gained the initiative and have temporarily seized the ‘vital ground’. The issues of the use of a long-term campaign in the media in informing the public of what to do in the case of terrorist attack, and how to help victims in the immediate aftermath were analysed. Anecdotal evidence of those communities better prepared for attack, such as Israel, are noted for the public reaction to an incident: people do not run away in fear from the site; instead they run to the site to assist in any way their training allows. It was demonstrated that a community bonded by purpose, its fears allayed by practical information, will be more resilient to terrorism. If governments seek imaginative and informative ways to utilize the media to educate their public, they are more likely to enjoy strategic success. Concurrent to this, the media should be encouraged to ensure that it reports without emotion or sensationalism. In short, the established media should report, and not entertain. These recommendations would not be well received by journalists, even those with international reputations for accuracy and trustworthiness. Our keynote speaker was from one such organization, having reported from the Beslan school siege in 2004, he was most suited to speak at this workshop. An edited transcript of his speech is the last entry in this book. He likened his work to intelligence gathering, piecing together the tactical picture to gain insight. All networks claim that they provide ‘analysis’ from this tactical picture, stressed by deadlines and an immediate demand for breaking news. In truth, journalists have an unenviable job, similar to that of the military commander, who has to clarify the tactical picture in order to make decisions that will directly affect the success of his mission. His error will lead to tactical failure, and perhaps operational difficulties, but he will have received considerable training to increase the chances of his decisions being the right ones. However, the journalist is unlikely to have had military training. Such a journalist, with limited scope to cover a wide area, can only report on his or her immediate environment, and may portray the tactical incident as the operational picture, due to ignorance, time pressures or inaccurate information. Worse still is the phenomenon that the media’s very presence may trigger the terrorist attack itself, blurring the ethical picture immensely. This is an immediate requirement for media networks to acknowledge that much of their coverage is local, a snapshot of often intense suffering, that does not summarize the operational picture nor does it provide the much claimed ‘analysis’. Military media operatives are equally at fault for not providing accurate and useable summaries to the journalists, to assist them in providing perspective to their stories. Military deployments do have a limited capacity to engage with local or international media, but this engagement is seen as a lower priority to the military objective in hand. Slowly, many commanders have realized that tactical success – very much in their gift to achieve – will not lead to operational success in contemporary operations unless the media have access to and publicise this success. Strategic success, by its very nature a political outcome, requires informed public opinion, which can only be achieved with the involvement of the media. The content and coverage of the media cannot be changed in a democratic society, so it must be embraced in its current, occasionally flawed, form. Therefore, if the media is an underutilized asset that requires assistance to achieve the balance that it craves, it should merit greater resources at the government’s disposal. This would ensure that the established media is in a position, if it chooses, to counter the terrorists’ message. Maj. Peter CORCORAN COE-DAT, Ankara

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Contents Preface Peter Corcoran

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1. The Evolution of the Media in the Coverage of Terrorism Media Coverage as Advertising Eviathar H. Ben-Zedeff Ethical Balance of Reporting on Terrorism Yusuf Kanli

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2. Aspects of the Interactions Between Terrorism, Public Opinion and the Media Losing the Information War in Iraq: The Dynamics Between Terrorism, Public Opinion and the Media Steve Tatham

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Media and Terrorism Ercan Çitlioğlu

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A Theory of Televised Hostage Takings Anders G. Romarheim

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Iraq’s Hostage Crisis: Kidnapping, Mass Media and the Iraqi Insurgency Ibrahim Al-Marashi

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3. The Struggle Between Governments and Terrorist Organisations for International and Domestic Public Opinion Television News and Terrorism Bülent Çapli

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Creating a Citizenry Prepared for Terrorism: Education, Media and Public Awareness Yael Pries-Shimshi

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The Struggle for Public Opinion Within the Media and Information War on Terror Emma L. Briant

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4. The Security Challenge to the Media Dealing with Terrorism Security of Media Personnel Whilst Reporting on Terrorism Viorel Mihaila

111

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Reporting from War Zones and Its Challenges Nevin Sungur

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5. Focus on the Threat of Terrorism to the Caucasus and the Media’s Coverage of this Danger Terrorism in the Caucasus: A Western Perspective Tracey German Mass Media and the Internal and External Dimensions of the Terrorist Threats to the Stability of the Caucasus Oktay F. Tanrisever

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141

Reporting on Terrorism Jonathan Charles

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Author Index

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1. The Evolution of the Media in the Coverage of Terrorism


The Media: The Terrorists’ Battleﬁeld Centre of Excellence Defence Against Terrorism, Ankara, Turkey (Ed.) IOS Press, 2007 © 2007 IOS Press. All rights reserved.

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Media Coverage as Advertising Eviathar H. BEN-ZEDEFFi Research Fellow International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism, Interdisciplinary Centre, Herzliya, Israel

Abstract. Modern terrorism is intended to influence the local and international political processes. Therefore, influencing public opinions is a vital means for terrorists. The most efficient means to influence the political processes is through the mass media, which consciously and unconsciously cooperate with terrorist organisations. The media’s main myth about themselves is that they are guided by news worthiness/news value, competition, objectivity, and time frameworks and pressures. However, the media’s self-perception permits them to explain away, or ignore, implications of their impact on the agenda of public discourse. A modern terrorist organisation is a public entrepreneur; it fights for its case to be heard, well perceived, and understood. The terrorist organisation’s thirst for public recognition can be achieved through pseudo events, such as press conferences and interviews, and by orchestrating gory events that attract the media’s attention. Modern counter-terrorism leaders have to understand the media in order to improve their operations against terrorism and overcome the media’s tendency to describe the terrorists in a positive terminology. Keywords: media and terror, political communication, media ethics.

Introduction In Network (1976),1 American movie director Sidney Lumet and screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky forecasted an ironic, cynical view of UBS, an American television network, in the early 1970s. For UBS the only name of the game is ratings, namely profits (see Appendix 1). Lumet & Chayefsky’s fictitious story has become a reality in most of the Western world in the last quarter of the 20th century. Their depiction of the so-called symbiosis between terrorists and the news media (hereafter the media) is a critical theme of media-terrorism research and practice. Some researchers claim that there would be no terrorism if the media did not deliver their messages. On the other hand, war on terrorism has to be won without unproportionally losing freedom; i.e. as in every war, democracy has to make some temporary concessions of civil and political rights in order to preserve freedom. In the war on terrorism, we should always remember that the end, freedom and security, justifies the harsh means applied throughout that war. Freedom and security are worth it and deserve such sacrifices. In this paper, I would try to investigate media-terrorism relations in a comparative, international, inter-cultural approach. Being Israeli, I might have been more sensitive to terrorism and counter-terrorism than most of my colleagues from other countries. Yet, I would deal with the subject-matter as a researcher of civil-military and media-military relations. Counter-terrorism is merely a derivative of national political culture; it is a i

The opinions expressed here are not necessarily representing those of The International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) at The Interdisciplinary Centre (IDC), Herzliya

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E.H. Ben-Zedeff / Media Coverage as Advertising

national cultural issue, set and guided by national history, attitudes, values and opinions. Nevertheless, there is a common character in liberal democratic approaches to counter-terrorism rather than in non-democratic approaches.

1. Public Opinion, Terrorism and Counter-terrorism Counter-terrorism needs to deal with public opinion and the media. Terrorism differs from conventional war in that it is aimed at subduing the opponents’ will. It is a kind of psychological operations (PSYOPs) used in the sphere of political communication. Targeted killings, kidnappings, bombings and other means of terrorism are aimed at weakening the enemy so that they will accept the terrorists’ demands. In contrast to a conventional war, casualties are not the targets of terrorism but merely a means to an end. Former terrorism theorists (mostly Russian Social Revolutionists in the late nineteenth century) believed attacks were “Propaganda by Deed”2, by committing an act (hitting a target) a terrorist group draws the world's attention to its cause, and publicises it. Other Russian thinkers developed personal terrorism, the elimination of high-ranking personalities, in order to create chaos or to pave the road for their political and social aspirations. Casualties – the quantitative aspects of damage – are not the modern terrorists’ primary objective,3 which are the political and qualitative aspects of the damage. Yet, these aspects are interrelated. A high ratio of casualties (in human lives or material) has a qualitative effect in terms of propaganda and political influence. For example, the initial estimated number of casualties caused by the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States of America, was over 8,000. The high estimated toll, as well as the actual one (about 2,900), made it a unique event in human history. However, the number of victims does not come into play when they are prominent personalities or attract considerable attention. Consequently, a terrorist will choose an important target. As Laqueur states: “The number of victims may be small, but terrorism is designed to undermine government authority, and it may have this effect by showing that democratic governments are unable to respond effectively.”4 Another goal of terrorism is the undermining of government by proving that officials, institutions and symbols can be attacked without being able to defend themselves, counter-attack or control the situation. The symbolic face of terrorism is aimed at destroying the regime's authority, ability to govern and legitimacy.5 Terrorism creates a sense of vulnerability and defencelessness within the target population while undermining the state’s governance.6 In this regard, a terror attack such as September 11, is supposedly aimed at proving that even the USA is also vulnerable and weak, in order to solicit sympathy, support, human and financial resources for their cause. Their goal is not to force the USA to capitulate, but is aimed at domestic public opinion, in order to demonstrate the terrorists’ devotion, resilience and invincibility. The purpose of the attack on the USA was to discredit it. In spite of its might, the USA was unable to prevent the actions of a devoted Shahid [a martyr]. The Japanese were fully aware that the bombing of Pearl Harbour alone would not defeat the USA, but it would cause considerable damage and confusion. Less than three and a half years later, the Americans were able to destroy Japan entirely. International terrorists can rely on international public opinion, domestic public opinion or inter-power games to prevent an attacked state from retaliating. The second


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player/target must, therefore, also be taken into account, neutral public opinion. The USA must persuade European, Arab and other nations to join a coalition to fight alQaeda, the Taliban, and Iraq in its War against Terrorism. One should not disregard the third player/target, the opponents. Sometimes, domestic public opinion prevents or hinders retaliation. Such considerations, coupled with political considerations, can be seen in the Israeli response to suicide-bombings since 1995, particularly when the Labour Party was in power. Ganor suggests an integrated news-media model which will incorporate the terror organisations’ domestic public opinion, the target population’s public opinion, and international (neutral) public opinion. News-media is used as a mediation tool to pressure decision-makers and influence their policies (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Terrorism Strategy7

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According to Lewin, Schramm, Janowitz, White, Snider, and Shoemaker8 the media are the gatekeeper that controls the flow of information between events and players (sources) and the public (receivers). Janowitz has divided these gatekeepers into two ideal-types: x a gatekeeper (the so-called objective one); x an advocate (the so-called subjective, biased one). In addition to mediation, political approaches to the media's functions can be divided into the following models: x a free marketplace of ideas; x the fourth branch of government; x a watchdog for democracy; x the reconstruction of reality; x a supplier of data and interpretations (surveillance and correlation); x a transmitter of cultural heritage, x a venue for entertainment and escapism. The media can serve as a vehicle where various actors and groups try to convince audiences and gain influence. Both terrorist and media organisations use democratic fair-game rules in order to further their cause. The terrorists are trying to obtain political advantages and the media are seeking revenues (via ratings). Therefore, the media and the terrorists have a reciprocal relationship. Some refer to it as a “symbiosis” which could have a negative connotation. I would prefer the neutral term of “relationship” since it is a mutual one and not a parasitic relationship.9 A mediaterrorist relationship is similar to any other media-source relationship. Reporters want “stories”, “data”, “colour”, “scoops,” etc. and are willing to give the terrorists time, space and exposure. The terrorists’ goals are political and logistic. They perpetrate their attacks to influence political decision-making by pressuring divided public opinion. They try to raise their own morale by demoralising their “enemies” and recruiting activists, creating refuges, support and money for their operations (see Figure 2). Whilst doing this, they inflict damage on the targeted government. As mentioned above, the terrorist’s method for gaining power is to destroy the target government's authority (delegitimization), credibility and control. In this respect, a terrorist organisation can be described as a public relations agency which stages events in order to win public opinion. According to Gamson and Modigliani, they are another entrepreneur in the political arena.10 Boorstin developed the concept of pseudo-events in order to analyze the influence of public relations on the media. Pseudo-events are staged in order to attract the media's attention to an event that an entrepreneur wants covered by the media.11 In the early 1970s, Brian Jenkins invented the term theatre of terror in order to describe the relationship between the terrorists and their victims and audiences. In his concept, the terrorists are staging and directing an event with the victims as coerced participants in order to attract a certain audience and the media to their case. A terrorist organisation designs various messages for consumption by segmented publics, by knowing the standard operation procedures of the media; namely, the concepts of news worthiness/news value,12 time frameworks and pressures (especially the legendary “deadline”),13 and competition.14

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Terrorist Organisation

Enhancing Morale

Fear Democratization Sympathy & Respect Recruiting Getting Attention Safe Haven Logistics & Resources

Public Opinion (Through News Media)

Figure 2. Terrorist Goals15

According to Raphael Cohen-Almagor, there are only three actors in the game: (a) the terrorists; (b) the government; and (c) the media.16 Yet, the incorporation of the public into the actors in Ganor’s model and the emphasis on the segmentation of the audiences seems to be vital to the understanding of the media-terrorism relationship. Terrorist organisations frame the news in such a way as to attract maximum attention from the media and obtain the highest impact. Unfortunately, most terrorist events have many news attributes, and are certainly newsworthy from the electronic media’s viewpoint. Sometimes, the attacks are staged especially for the benefit of the media, occurring where reporters have easy access to the site and the ability to file their stories quickly.17 Terrorist organisations use information to satisfy the media. The dissemination of these reports is subtle, sometimes in order to cover their sources. Many terrorist organisations use internal media (printed as well as electronic), press releases, flyers, photo opportunities, etc. (see Figure 3). In some cases, a terrorist organisation employs free-lance photographers to assist the international media in filing their stories. Obviously, these reporters are always biased. Other news crews are coerced into being pro-terrorist. The number of journalist casualties worldwide, in recent years, reflects this coercion.18

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Coercing the Media

Hosting the Media

Filming events

Flyers

International Media

Filming terrorist actions

Videotapes

Press releases Praising the terrorists

Blowing-up the terrorist story

Disseminating Ideology

Terrorist Media

Creating anxiety Creating expectation for more actions

Claiming responsibility

Figure 3. Disseminating Terrorist Messages19

The introduction of “Third Wave” data collecting technologies and telecommunications into post-modern journalism bears a direct influence on this mediation. The so-called “CNNization” of the news, limits the ability of decisionmakers to form their response. Leaders and decision-makers are urged by the media to respond immediately to the other side’s actions and declarations. Additionally, the presence of cameras and microphones makes secrecy more difficult or even nonexistent.20 Television and live coverage of events changed international and national politics. According to Crelinsten, it also has another face: “As a whole, however, television tends to diminish the quality of the political discourse, with its emphasis on simplification and dramatization. In time of crisis, this can have serious consequences for the decision-makers who depend upon an informed public to understand the issues at stake and the limits of government action...”21 Hallin pointed out the importance of consensus within the political and military elites when a nation embarks on a national war. According to him, most of the coverage of the Vietnam War was about rifts in the US top civilian and military echelons managing the war. He showed that the missing consensus had been a major


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factor in shaping the tone and content of war coverage.22 A war against terrorism should involve domestic and international consensus on the cause and means. PostVietnam American Presidents James E. Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. Bush, William J. Clinton, and George W. Bush, have coped with this problem while tackling threats from revolutionary Iran, Iraq, fundamentalist Muslims, and Serbs. It seems that their hesitations are a consequence of much more than the casualty-shyness of Western-type democracies, they could be caused by their political inability to recruit support for their military moves. The comparison of the international coalitions against Iraq in the Second Gulf War (1990-91)23 and the present one might show the imperative of consensus. It is needed for the projection of international and national military power even in the shape of an international peacekeeping force that seems to be less offensive than an expeditionary force like the international coalition against Iraq in the Second Gulf War. Political rifts might be of greater importance when a nation fights against terrorism. In the Israeli case, the future of Arab-Jewish relations in the Middle East, namely, the political solution to the crisis,24 is one of the rifts tearing Israeli society apart. The Oslo Accords, signed by the Israeli Government (under Yitzhak Rabin) and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO), are the cornerstone of an intense public debate that tore Israeli society apart even before Rabin’s targeted killing in November 1995. Therefore, designing an Israeli national counter-terrorism strategy, or even tactics, is a question of domestic Israeli politics. The so-called Israeli left (the “Doves”) would support certain concessions for peace (within the framework of “Peace for Territories”25). They would support transforming the Palestinian Authority, created by the Oslo Accords, into a Palestinian state. On the other hand, the so-called Israeli right (the “Hawks”) would resist the formation of a Palestinian state, the very notion of “Peace for Territories”, and even the Oslo Accords themselves.26 They prefer the more “appropriate” idea of a “Peace for Peace” framework. In such a case, any support for the Palestinian Authority would be defined by the “Hawks” as blatant support for the PLO, Hamas, and other terrorist organisations. Documents confiscated at Arafat's headquarters in Ramallah, the Palestinian Authority’s headquarters, and other sites during Israeli Operation Defensive Shield, prove that a distinction between the Palestinian Authority and the terrorists cannot be made: Arafat himself is highly connected to the Palestinian terrorist war against Israel. Distorted distinctions made between the “military” branch of terrorism and its “political” arm, are strategic assets for terrorist movements operating within the framework of democracy. Terrorist movements abuse the democratic system (especially the civil rights granted to citizens) in order to undermine the regime. Examples are abundant in the twentieth century: Jews in Palestine under British rule; the Irish Republican Army and Sinn Fein Party, as well as Protestant militias and the Loyalist political movements in Ulster; the ultra nationalist Basque Batasuna Party and Euskadi ta Askatasuna (ETA - Basque homeland and Freedom) in Spain, etc. It would appear that since WWII, there is a new trend in covering conflicts. Coverage, even of a national conflict, by local Western media, would be from both “sides of the hill”. During the Vietnam conflict, reporter Harrison Salisbury went to Hanoi, and filed some very interesting subversive stories.27 During the so-called Cod War between Iceland and the United Kingdom in the late-1960s, British media were blocked by the Royal Navy, and, therefore, covered the conflict aboard Icelandic fishing ships. There were rumours of the British press trying to cover the 1982 Falklands Campaign from Argentina due to strict British censorship. The most

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renowned case is CNN's Peter Arnett covering the Second Gulf War from Baghdad. Yet, coverage of terrorist activities, such as the IRA in Ulster, the ETA in Spain, the Red Brigades in Italy, the PLO and Hezbollah in South Lebanon, would appear to be less clear-cut than covering a war. However, the propaganda aspects of terrorism and low-intensity conflicts are much more significant than in national or international wars. Figure 3 shows how members of the media corps, and especially the international ones, are taken hostage by the terrorists. A subtle way of disseminating terrorist propaganda is the use of photographs and videocassettes prepared by the terrorists in news items without notifying the audience of their source. Such whitewashing (“laundry”) procedures are very common in public relations-journalism relations. Sometimes local TV stations (like the Qatari al-Jazeera station), national TV stations, and news agencies are used to cover the terrorist messages under the guise of a legitimate news item rather than a press release. In the first half of October 2001, Dr Condoleezza Rice, then President Bush's National Security Advisor, personally asked the chief executives of major US TV networks not to air a videocassette proliferated by Osama Bin Laden through unknown sources and the al-Jazeera TV station. She asked them to wait until the US intelligence community was sure that no coded messages had been inserted into those tapes. Dr Rice requested the top US TV executives to air the tapes not as a complete item, but as strips to “colour” their report on Bin Laden's message. Her advice was noted by the US TV industry, and most of the national networks acted accordingly. A similar request to the Israeli media not to use (and recycle) Hezbollah’s videocassettes depicting their raids on Israeli bases and convoys in South Lebanon was denied by the Israeli media,28 including Israeli TV Channel 1, which is semi-national and operated by the Israel Broadcasting Authority, like the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). Another issue which arose during events taking place in Gaza and the West Bank (in 1987-1993, and from September 2000 to date), is hostage news crews. I claim that it is not a unique phenomenon in the Middle East, that in order to operate in a dangerous area, media crews must have some kind of protection from the locals. The latter operate an implicit system of censorship; in order to survive and file their stories a news crew knows precisely what it has “permission” to report. When such an understanding is violated, the very lives of the crew are at stake. For example, the Italian RAI TV crew which reported the Palestinian mob and policemen in Ramallah lynching three Israeli soldiers in October 2000, had to leave the Middle East immediately, and then sent the PLO a letter of apology for filing the story. Eason Jordan, the President of CNN, admitted that his news organisation had signed an agreement with Saddam Hussein’s government, in which CNN‘s presence in Iraq was conditioned by the network’s agreement not to file stories detrimental to Iraq.29 Responding to the September 11 attacks, Palestinian mobs in the Palestinian Authority celebrated the damage inflicted on the USA by dancing in the streets. Palestinian police troopers aggressively prevented European and American crews from filming the joyous parades and collected the tapes already filmed. In both cases, the foreign news corps did not report the fact that they had been censored by the Palestinian Authority. In early January 2003, in Gaza, a reporter from al-Jazeera TV was arrested by the Palestinian security forces after he declined to reveal his sources for a story relating to the double suicide-bombing in Tel Aviv.30 I assume that this was the atmosphere in Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War (1976-1991).31 Thus, reports by the media must be taken with “a pinch of salt.” They


11

must be treated as press releases originating from the terrorist organisations rather than a true piece of journalism. Sometimes, the hostage media crews willingly cooperate with the terrorists, since they politically support the terrorists’ case. And, at other times, they are co-opted in the manner of the “Stockholm Syndrome”.32 The CNNization of the news has another aspect: a continuous live show which recycles news items. The endless repetition of the horrors has a ripple amplifying effect. Hence, it serves the terrorists on the one hand and creates apathy (the so-called “Spiral of Cynicism”) on the other. It is very risky for photographers to focus on gruesome pictures, which sometimes violate the victims’ right to privacy. Most of the American TV networks omitted the horrific pictures of September 11, even those of the skyline of New York City with the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre. On the other hand, Israeli TV channels and foreign networks operating in Israel continuously show close-up pictures of the casualties in shooting and suicide-bombing attacks.33 The question of seditious publication takes on a new perspective when dealing with counter-terrorism. Since terrorism is a kind of psychological war, public opinion aspects are also involved in counter-terrorism. There is a need, therefore, to stop proterrorist propaganda and religious preaching for Shaids and Shahada [martyrdom] in spite of the fear of governmental involvement in religious matters. In the US, the Supreme Court ruled in favour of freedom of expression even in wartime, in accordance with the First Amendment. The US Administration is apparently unable to prevent preaching in mosques, churches and synagogues. The involvement of Muslim religious leaders, such as the “Blind Sheikh” Omar Abd-al-Rahman, involved in the first bombing of the World trade Centre in New York in February 1993, in preaching for Shahada in the USA, could pose a threat to the USA. Another threat might come from the religious cover of welfare and charity organisations which raise funds for terrorist organisations such as Hamas. In comparison, in Israel, according to the Israeli Penal Law of 1977, any publication regarded as seditious or demoralizing soldiers and the public is illegal.34 Another disturbing aspect is fund-raising for terrorist ends under the cover of paying religious charities. Yet, this aspect is unfortunately far beyond the scope of this paper, even if it bears some elements of free speech and religious freedom. Israel has acted against the involvement of Jewish and Arab religious leaders in seditious religious propaganda and illegal organisations. The growing involvement of Israeli Arabs35 in terrorist activity and propaganda is one of Arafat’s achievements in the war he launched on Israel in September 2000.36 Moshe Katzav, the Israeli President, took advantage of a 2003 New Year’s reception, which he hosted for Israel’s Christian leaders, to denounce the involvement of religious leaders in the promotion of terrorism37 and terrorists who are religiously motivated.38 Upon being sworn into office, Thomas Jefferson, America’s Third President, did his utmost to immediately revoke The Sedition and Alien Acts enacted by his predecessor John Adams, despite the broad language of the First Amendment. Ever since, the problem of supporting the enemy in wartime has never been a problem, particularly after the Supreme Court rulings during WW I and the “Red Scare” which followed.39 The question of subversive activity and speech of Americans and aliens living in the USA, only became relevant after September 11 when the USA felt itself under international attack by al-Qaeda. Whilst the Adams administration concentrated its efforts against opposition journalists and newspapers, the main thrust of the Bush administration is aimed at aliens’ political activity, welfare organisations’ fund-raising,

12


illegal residence in the USA and electronic media, the Internet and e-mailing. US agencies are trying to collect as much information as possible from the worldwide net and analyze it, in order to forecast any new attack on the USA. Other counter-measures are being used in immigration and naturalization processes.

2. Films, Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism Another venue of media-terrorism relations is the film industry. Early Communist and Nazi propaganda extensively used films to support their causes – for local and foreign consumption. In the 1960s the most interesting milestone is Gillo Pontecorvo’s La Battaglia di Algieri (1965).40 The movie is subtitled “a surprisingly unbiased account of the bloodiest revolution in modern history” in spite of the fact that it was commissioned by the Algerian government and shows the Algerian revolution supposedly from both sides. Terrorism and counter-terrorism are starring in many movies, especially those about the Vietnam conflict, since the 1960s.41 A very interesting milestone in the genre is Edward Zwick’s The Siege (1998)42 which is a futuristic film coping with civil rights during a counter-terrorist campaign launched on Muslim terrorists. Some people say that this film was ahead of its time; namely about three years before September 11. The Siege tells a story about the USA: when a crowded city bus blows up in Brooklyn and a campaign of terror begins to make its bloody mark on the streets of New York, it is up to FBI special agent Anthony “Hub” Hubbard (Denzel Washington) and U.S. Army General William Devereaux (Bruce Willis) to find out who is responsible and put an end to the destruction. Together, they face explosive danger at every turn as they team up to wage an all-out war against a ruthless band of terrorists who happen to be Muslims. A pro-Palestinian story is told by Muhamed Bakri’s Jenin, Jenin (2002) that describes what supposedly happened in the Palestinian city of Jenin during the Israeli Operation Defensive Shield. Jenin, Jenin, directed and co-produced by an Israeli Arab actor and director, includes testimony from Jenin residents after the Israeli Operation Defensive Shield (April 2002), during which the city and refugee camp were the scenes of fierce fighting. The operation ended with some parts of Jenin flattened and about fifty Palestinians dead. Palestinians as well as numerous human rights groups accused Israel of committing war crimes in the April 2002 attack on the refugee camp. Jenin, Jenin shows the extent to which the prolonged oppression and terror has affected the state of mind of the Palestinian inhabitants of Jenin. Bakri’s movie was partially funded by the Palestinian Authority in order to disseminate anti-Israeli propaganda.43 On the first stage, the Israeli Supreme Court (The ISSCT) turned over an Israeli film censorship board’s decision to ban the film. The ISSCT’s decision was very problematic since it was evident that Jenin, Jenin contains some claims that are not true. Then, a group of reserve soldiers and bereaved families sued Bakri for libel. As of now, there is no judicial ruling on the case.44 Hany Abu Assad’s Paradise Now (2005), a Dutch-German-Israeli co-production, deals with Palestinian suicide-bombers.45 Paradise Now depicts two close Palestinians friends, Said and Khaled, recruited by an extremist group to perpetrate a terrorist attack in Tel-Aviv, blowing themselves up. However, things go wrong and both friends must separate in the border. One of them maintains his purpose of carrying out the attack to the end, and the other will have doubts about it.


13

Another film dealing with terrorism and counter-terrorism is Steven Spielberg’s Munich (2005). The story takes the viewers to the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, Germany. During those Olympic Games, eleven Israeli athletes are taken hostage and murdered by a Palestinian terrorist group known as “Black September”. In retaliation, the Israeli government recruits a group of Mossad agents to track down and execute those responsible for the attack. Steven Spielberg’s film Munich has met with predictably widespread acclaim. Predictably, the film has quickly found itself in the centre of a storm of criticism, argument, counterargument, explanation and apology. While some, but not all, of the Arab responses to the film have been negative, faulting Spielberg for being a Jew and for failing to list every case of Palestinian suffering, others, such as the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, gave the film a seal of approval. The laurels heaped upon the film, however, have come mainly from commentators who are either antiSemitic or anti-American, or anti-Israel or ignorant of history, or some combination of these. It has had particular appeal among audiences who, rather than go to the trouble of thinking, cling to platitudes and clichés such as “violence begets violence,” “an eye for an eye leads to a world of blind men”, and “both sides are at fault.46 Munich is seemingly a boring, apologetic film that fails to meet standards of thrillers due to a bad screenplay written by Tony Kushner with Eric Roth based on an inaccurate book on the events.47 Munich diverts us from the historical reality. It was “inspired by real events” (as Spielberg’s caption says in the opening minutes) but it does not claim to be historically accurate. Spielberg, who has repeatedly proven his ability to produce films with astounding historical precision, has paid virtually no attention to historical accuracy in Munich. In this regard, Munich is like Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004). In this film, Moore turns his eye on President George W. Bush and his War on Terrorism agenda. He illustrates his argument about how this failed businessman with deep connections to the royal house of Saud of Saudia Arabia and the Bin Ladens got elected in fraudulent circumstances and proceeded to blunder through his duties while ignoring warnings of the looming betrayal by his foreign partners. When that treachery hits with the September 11 attacks, Moore explains how Bush failed to take immediate action to defend his nation, only to later cynically manipulate it to serve his wealthy backers’ corrupt ambitions. Through facts, footage and interviews, Moore illustrates his contention of how Bush and his cronies have gotten America into worse trouble than ever before and why Americans should not stand for it. Both Munich and Fahrenheit 9/11 were aimed at the moral issues of democracies going to war. Both films are aimed at the American public in order to criticise President Bush’s strategy. However, in order to achieve this, Spielberg is targeting Israeli counter-terrorist policy in the 1970s and now.

3. Malpractices of the Media In covering terrorism and counter-terrorism, as in covering conflicts and crises, the media are caught between the event, their audience and editors. They are running against time in order to file their stories in time, before their competitors. Therefore, any help, especially in foreign environment, is welcomed. Running against the clock while trying to understand the setting, actors and event is complicated. Yet, journalism is not history. It is made for instant use, and the news

14


crews are ready for their next item. In most cases, they are not, especially foreign press corps, part of the story. Sometimes the foreign press crew is not able to speak the language, and needs interpreters,48 who are their gatekeepers. The Eason Jordan case shows that it is still a problem.49 There are some problems in covering terrorism, most of them are ethical. The rest of them are in the realm of journalism. Some of those problems have been detected since the 1970s in spite of the big technological development in news gathering and telecommunications. As a thumb rule, the most problematic seems to be real time, live coverage, by the electronic media (radio and TV). Today’s most problematic in this regard is Internet which seems to be unlicensed and uncensored.50 Since the 1970s, military and police in democracies around the world try to agree with the media on some guidelines for coverage of terrorism and counter-terrorism. Those efforts yielded nicely phrased documents that have had no influence on coverage of incidents.51 Yet, on September 11, the American media understood the developing situation, and acted accordingly in a very responsible manner without any order or document. The main problem is that divulging information on real time events might endanger lives (of hostages and rescue teams), or hinder operational plans.52 This is the case of irresponsible coverage. In the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, the East German TV reported, in real time, a West German police failed rescue operation while the terrorists were tuned to the local radio. In the Lufthansa case, on October 1977, a Boeing 707 plane was forced to land in Mogadishu, Somalia. A radio station reported that the captain of the kidnapped plane was briefing the authorities by radio on the situation in his plane. The brave captain was immediately executed by the terrorists. On the same case, Israeli TV reported on the ongoing rescue operation before the Grenzschutzgruppe (GSG)-9, the West German counter-terror group, landed in Mogadishu. Fortunately enough, no one informed the terrorists about that news item.53 Another aspect of bad journalism is the usage of irresponsible terminology, which glorifies the terrorists and/or their deeds, or shows bad homework and preparations. Furthermore, since the media is thirsty for news, it gives the terrorists a status of credible source equal to governmental sources.54 A third aspect of bad journalism is co-production of events in order to file some news. There are rumours about a tariff for staging events in the occupied territories of the West Bank (Judea and Samaria). Beyond those rumours, many of the photos taken in so-called events of the Palestinian Intifada seemed to be staged. It is known that the very presence of a camera and especially TV camera in an event has a potential of escalating the level of aggression of that event. A thumb rule of public relations is that the more an event is aggressive, the more chances that it would be covered by the media.55 Cheque-book journalism, paying for interviews, photo opportunities, exclusive stories, etc., is another aspect of bad journalism. Some terrorist organisations have a constant source of revenues by selling stories to the media. Another method of indirect revenues is sending their members and/or supporters to serve as drivers, interpreters and stringers for the media.56 The media have to sell their products. Yet, as shown in Network, that end cannot justify any means. A sensational coverage that is made out of people’s blood, sorrow, devastation, grief and crying should be regarded as infamous “yellow journalism.” In this regard, Israeli media usually is very “yellow” in covering terrorism and other


15

events while the British media show much restraint.57 The coverage of September 11 seems to be very exceptional for American media.58 Sometimes the media are used as a public space of bereavement in which, after the event, relatives and friends mourn the casualties, air their emotions and share their memories with the public. Yet, those moments give some outlets to politicians to be interviewed and use the opportunity to deliver their messages. This phenomenon, “fishing in the filthy water of the swamp,” says the Hebrew proverb, has better chances to exist during live broadcastings following terror events. Some of this “fishing in the filthy water of the swamp” is a legitimate use of the media in order to criticise the government, share views and/or suggest alternatives.59 Interviewing terrorist leaders, terrorists and victims of terrorist acts while the act is still ongoing might also be regarded as bad journalism. On one hand, the terrorists are abusing the media in order to terrorise their audience or to gain points on their home front. On the other hand, a hostage (victim) has no right for free expression. Therefore, an interview with him/her, sometimes while threatened at a gun point, has no news value.60 Many journalists would like to make their own imprint on history by being smarter. They try to show that they are more creative than the governmental handlers of the situation. Yet, in most cases, the media lack information and cannot handle the situation. They serve as a think-tank for the terrorists by divulging some of the government proposals and analyzing them. Other journalists would like to be remembered as the ones that mediated between the parties. Yet, mediation is a profession that has to be learnt and exercised, as is journalism, and most of the people, including journalists, lack the know-how. Live coverage of a conflict, especially kidnapping, in the new, wild world of developed telecommunications gives the handlers of the situation less time to think and respond. The media are reporting almost each and every move made by the terrorists and the handlers, and demand responses and information. The media’s needs for live coverage sometimes infringes on the best handling of a sensitive situation. Therefore, the handlers have to be secluded and off-limit for media and relatives of the hostages.61

Conclusion Modern democratic governments have to defend their citizens and borders while defending democratic procedures, freedoms and rights. This dual obligation can be met in a proportional manner that balances security and freedom. Effective counter-terrorism is based also on good handling of media relations. Modern counter-terrorism leaders have to understand the media in order to improve their operations against terrorism and overcome the media’s tendency to describe the terrorists in a positive terminology. Terrorism is merely a variety of psychological operations, winning the people’s hearts and minds. In a representative democracy it can be done only through winning the war on the media battlefield which is, in the 21st century, the most important arena for wars, disputes and conflicts. Media-terrorists relations are based on mutual interests of the parties involved. Therefore, modern counter-terrorism leaders have to learn about the media, and teach their troops about the media. In counter-terrorism, each person might be confronted by a representative of the media, and must react in a wise manner. To some

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extent, on this battlefield, there are no second chances and make-ups. Therefore, it is the commander/top manager’s obligation to be trained and well prepared for a confrontation on the media front as well as preparing his/her subordinates to fight on that battlefield. Recommendations x x

x

x

x x

x

x

Smart counter-terrorism has to understand the news media in order to improve their operations against terrorism and overcome the media’s tendency to describe the terrorists in a positive terminology. Modern counter-terrorism has to devise means and methods of handling the situation while catering for the media’s needs which are based on the media pivotal functions in a democratic society. First priority is given to the saving of lives while defending the public’s safety. Media-military/counter-terrorism relations have to be based on a wide mutual confidence between the parties involved that the media is given true information and honestly briefed whenever it is possible, and especially after the crisis. The media have to do their utmost not to give terrorists useful information during a crisis. Basically, for the media it is a matter of ethics – especially whereas the leading ideologies are freedom of the press and freedom of information. Minimising legislation and regulation would help media-military/counterterrorism relations. The lion’s share must be on a voluntary, professional basis; namely, ethics. Live and other coverage of terrorism and counter-terrorism must be socially responsible, restricted to a low-key manner in order not to serve or help the terrorists in terrorising the public. Such coverage should evaluate the government’s performances whilst, especially after the crisis, analysing the roots of terrorism, governmental activities, etc. in order to enlighten the readership to enable them to understand their situation and their government’s behaviour. Authorities should reach an agreement with the media corps, local and foreign, on guidelines of responsible coverage of terrorism and counterterrorism. Part of this agreement has to be briefing the media about terrorism and counter-terrorism in order to make them better understand the issue. Authorities should do their utmost to keep a live, honest, fair communication with the media corps in daily routine in order to be able to influence the media content on crises. Such communication is reciprocal and serves interests of both parties involved.


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Appendix 1 Network, film by Sidney Lumet and Paddy Chayefsky (1976) displaying an ironic, cynical view of UBS, an American television network, in the early 1970s. In Network, Howard Beale (Peter Finch) plays a veteran network anchorman who has been fired because of low ratings. His character’s response is to announce he will kill himself on live television two weeks hence. What follows, along with skyrocketing ratings, is the anchorman's descent into insanity, during which he fervently rages against the medium that made him a celebrity. Diana Christensen (Faye Dunaway) plays the frigid, ratings-obsessed producer who pursues success with cold-blooded zeal; Max Schumacher (William Holden) is the married executive who tries to thaw her out during his own seething midlife crisis. Therefore, the producer gets in touch with the Ecumenical Liberation Army,62 an ultra-Marxist Black American terrorist organization, and together they bring the viewers “The Mao Tse-Tung Hour” – a series of real terrorist actions filmed by the terrorist organisation for the network. In that show, the producer is interested in the show rather than the terrorists’ political messages. Upon meeting Ms. Laureen Hobbs (Marlene Warfield), a representative for the ELA, the TV producer is totally adopting the terrorists’ vocabulary: Diana Christensen: Hi. I'm Diana Christensen, a racist lackey of the imperialist ruling circles. Laureen Hobbs: I'm Laureen Hobbs, a badass commie nigger. Diana Christensen: Sounds like the basis of a firm friendship. And, then, Christensen puts forward her plan I am interested in doing a weekly dramatic series based on the Ecumenical Liberation Army. The way I see the series is: Each week we open with an authentic act of political terrorism taken on the spot, in the actual moment. Then we go to the drama behind the opening film footage. That's your job, Ms. Hobbs. You’ve got to get the Ecumenicals to bring in that film footage for us. The network can't deal with them directly; they are, after all, wanted criminals. By depicting that UBS TV, Network is showing a morally neutral journalistic work that is trying to maximise profits with paying almost zero attention to any moral considerations. Upon losing rating, anchorman Howard Beale (Peter Finch) is executed by Great Ahmed Khan (Arthur Burghardt), the ELA’s leader – the co-sponsor of “The Mao Tse-Tung Hour” – on live TV, in order to gain a better rating and to get rid of Beale. According to Christensen, “The Mao Tse-Tung Hour” is going to bring viewers. That is its only justification. Look, we've got a bunch of hobgoblin radicals called the Ecumenical Liberation Army who go around taking home movies of themselves robbing banks. Now, maybe they’ll take movies of themselves kidnapping heiresses, hijacking 747s, bombing bridges, assassinating ambassadors. We’d open each week’s segment with their authentic footage, hire a couple of writers to write a story behind that footage, and we’ve got ourselves a series. The story of Network is framed by a narrator opening the movie by saying, This story is about Howard Beale, the acclaimed news anchorman on UBS TV. In this time, however, he was a mandarin of television with a hot rating of 16 and a 28 audience share. In 1969, however, his fortunes began to decline. He fell to a 22 share. The following year, his wife died, and he was left a childlissful world with an 8 rating and a 12 share. And on September 22, 1975, he was fired … And the movie ends by a narrator concluding: This was the story of Howard Beale: The first known instance of a man who was killed because of lousy ratings. According to Frank Hackett (Robert Duvall; UBS president), there are no morals in the way to profits. Nelson Chaney (Wesley Addy): All I know is that this violates every canon of respectable broadcasting. Frank Hackett: We're not a respectable network. We're a whorehouse network, and we have to take whatever we can get. Nelson Chaney: Well, I don't want any part of it. I don't fancy myself the president of a whorehouse. Frank Hackett: That's very commendable of you, Nelson. Now sit down. Your indignation is duly noted; you can always resign tomorrow. And, then, again: Nelson Chaney: The affiliates won't carry it. Frank Hackett: The affiliates will kiss your ass if you can hand them a hit show.

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Notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

17 18

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21 22 23

24 25 26 27

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USA, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and United Artists Walter Laqueur. The Age of Terrorism (Boston, Toronto and London: Little, Brown and Company, 1978), 48 ff Some researchers would say that post-modern terrorism is aiming on inflicting a huge amount of random casualties. For example al-Qaeda in September 11, 2001 Laqueur, The Age of Terrorism, 9. Boaz Ganor. The News Media in Terrorists’ Strategy. Ma’arachoth 340 [Hebrew] (1995): 41 For a detailed discussion of media-terrorism relations – see Boaz Ganor. The Counter-Terrorism Puzzle (New Brunswick, NJ and London, UK: Transaction publishers), Chapter 8. Based on Boaz Ganor. News Media in Terrorism Strategy. Ma'archoth 340 [Hebrew] (1995), p. 41; Boaz Ganor. Terrorist's Strategy. Ma'archoth 334 [Hebrew] (1994), p. 53. Werner Severin and James W. Tankard. Communication Theories (New York: Hastings, 1979). Director Sidney Lumet treats this aspect in his movie Network (1978). William A. Gamson and Andre Modigliani. Media Discourse and Public Opinion on Nuclear Power: A Constructionalist Approach. American Journal of Sociology 95 (1984): 1-37. Daniel J. Boorstin. The Image (New York and Evanston: Harper and Row, 1962). For a thorough elaboration of the concept, see the seminal work of Yohan Galtung and Mari H. Ruge. The Structure of Foreign News. Journal of Peace Research 2-3 (1965-66): 64-91. For a thorough elaboration of the concept, see Gaye Tuchman. Making the News by Doing Work: Routinizing the Unexpected. American Journal of Sociology 79 (1979): 110-131. For a further elaboration of the issue, see Matthew C. Ehrlich. The Competitive Ethos in Television Network. Critical Studies in Mass Communication 12 (1995): 196-212. Based on Ganor, News Media in Terrorism Strategy, and Ganor, Terrorist's Strategy. A lecture on the seminar “Communication and Terrorism” in the Jerusalem Centre for Ethics, May 30, 2006; Raphael Cohen-Almagor. Media Coverage of Acts of Terrorism: Troubling Episodes and Suggested Guidelines. Canadian Journal of Communication. Volume 30, No. 3 (2005), pp. 383-409. A critical approach to media-terrorist relationship is depicted in Sidney Lumet's movie Network (1972). For reports on journalists killed on duty, see reports by the Washington, DC based Journalists Memorial near the Freedom Forum's Newseum and the Committee for Protection of Journalists annual reports. Both are available online. For analysis of threats on journalists, see Journalists in Peril, Media Studies Journal 10, 4 (Fall 1996); Front Lines and Deadlines, Media Studies Journal 15, 1 (Summer 2001) Thanks to Boaz Ganor, Vice Dean, The Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy at The Interdisciplinary Center (IDC), Herzliya and past General Director, The International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) at the IDC, from whom I borrowed this idea. For a further elaboration of the issue, see Eviathar H. Ben-Zedeff. Achilles’ Heel: Feasibility of Military Censorship of the News Media in the 'Third Wave' Era of Technology. A paper presented at the biennial international conference of the Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society (IUS), Baltimore, Maryland (1997). Ronald D. Crelinsten. Television and Terrorism: Implications for Crisis Management and PolicyMaking. Terrorism and Political Violence 9, 4 (1997): 1. Daniel C. Hallin. The “Uncensored War”. The Media and Vietnam (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986). Gulf War I was fought between Iran and Iraq in the late-1970s and 1980s. In Gulf War II, the USA and its coalition fought Iraq for the liberation of Kuwait (Operations Desert Shield/Storm). In Gulf War III, the US and its coalition fought Iraq for the removal of Saddam Hussein (Operation Iraqi Freedom). Usually referred to in the Israeli political discourse as “a political future/horizon.” Framed in the United Nations’ Security Council’s Resolutions 242 and 338. A very popular sticker in Israeli says: “Try the Oslo Criminals.” Many (“Hawkish”) Jews and Israelis are trying as of now to initiate a move to revoke Arafat's Nobel Prize. A comparison might be made between journalist Harrison Salisbury and actress Jane Fonda in the Vietnam conflict and "Tokyo Rose" in WW II. Both Salisbury and Fonda were maligned (maybe unwillingly) by their national enemy's propaganda and psychological warfare machines. For example, on April 10, 2002, Hezbollah crews filmed their troops raising the organisation's flag on the outer perimeter of an Israeli base in Mt. Dov [Jabl Ros] off Mt. Hermon on the Israeli-Lebanese border.

E.H. Ben-Zedeff / Media Coverage as Advertising 29 30 31

32

33 34 35 36 37 38 39

40 41 42 43 44 45

46 47 48

49

50 51 52 53 54

55 56

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Eason Jordan. CNN: The News We Kept to Ourselves. The New York Times (11 April 2003). http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/11/opinion/11JORD.html. http://www.maariv.co.il [Hebrew] (January 7, 2003). The atmosphere in Beirut is well depicted by the Associated Press's Terry Anderson, who was kidnapped in March 1985 by Shiite gangsters and spent seven years as a hostage. Terry Anderson. Den of Lions (New York: Ballantine Books, 1993). In 1980, Ford Rowan, the NBC TV reporter in the Pentagon, resigned, protesting his network’s decision to give the Iranian Revolutionary Guards an outlet during the US Embassy Hostages Crisis. Robert B. Sims. The Pentagon Reporters (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 1983), 122. Some years ago, Member of the Knesset Yuval Steinitz, PhD (Likud) suggested an amendment to Israeli law of privacy forbidding transmission of close-ups of wounded persons without their consent. Moshe Negbi. Freedom of the Press in Israe. The Legal Aspect (Jerusalem: The Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies, 1995) [Hebrew], 64. Israeli Arabs are about 11 % of the Israeli population – more than 1.1 million people. Kimchi, Even and Post, Yasir Arafat. It is worthwhile mentioning that in 1995, the ISSCT upheld the conviction of an orthodox rabbi who wrote a racist, anti-Arab pamphlet. Negbi, Freedom of the Press, 64-65. Worried of Religious Leaders Promoting Terrorism, Arutz 7 [Hebrew] (December 31, 2003). Available online at http://www.a7.org. See especially the cases of Schenck v. US, US v. Dennis, and Abrams v. US. Harold L. Nelson and Dwight L. Teeter. Law of the Mass Media. Freedom and Control of Print and Broadcast Media (Mineola, NY: The Foundation Press, 1978), 34-42. Screenwriter: Franco Solinas (Algeria and Italy: Kasbah Film, Igor Film). See Jeremy M Devine.Vietnam at 24 Frames a Second: A Critical and Thematic Analysis of Over 400 Films about the Vietnam War (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1999). Story and screenplay writer: Lawrence Wright. Bakri won Best Film prize in the 2002 Carthage International Film Festival, the international prize for Mediterranean documentary filmmaking and reporting, etc. Eviathar H. Ben-Zedeff. Two Questions on One Verdict. News First Class [Hebrew] (September 5, 2004). Available online at http://www.nfc.org. In 2005, Abu Assad’s film was the first Palestinian film to be nominated for an Academy Award (the “Oscar Prize”) for best foreign language film of the year, after being awarded the Golden Berlin Bear in the Berlin International Film Festival, and other prizes. David Patterson and Elliot Chodoff. On Spielberg’s Munich and More. An unpublished paper (2006) – from the author’s archive. Eviathar H. Ben-Zedeff. “A Bad Thriller.” News First Class [Hebrew] (January 21, 2006). Available online at http://www.nfc.org. See Roland Joffe (Director). The Killing Fields (USA: Warner Brothers, 1984). The movie is about the coverage of the war in Cambodia in the early 1970s, based on a real story of a New York Times’ correspondent in Phnom Pen. See in the Phil Taylor’s Web Site at the Institute of Communication Studies at the University of Leeds, UK. Available online at http://ics.leeds.ac.uk; Eviathar H. Ben-Zedeff. Eason Jordan Goes Home. News First Class [Hebrew] (September 5, 2004). Available online at http://www.nfc.org (February 13, 2005). See discussion of the problem in Ben-Zedeff, Achilles’ Heel. Some of those documents are brought by Yonah Alexander and Richard Latter (esd). Terrorism & the Media (Washington, DC New York: Brassey’s (US), Inc., 1990), 81-116. As happened in the case of the Hanafi take-over of buildings in Washington, DC on March 1977. The same reporter reported, some thirty months later, on the Israeli TV, about the failed American rescue operation in Iran. In the so-called “objective journalism,” a reporter/anchorman has to use sources of both sides. By this practice, the terrorists get equal time and place to the government. The so-called “new journalism” does not have this practice. It might use any source that fits the journalist/medium’s line. It conforms with news analyses suggested by Galtung and Ruge, The Structure of Foreign News. Especially the foreign press corps would depend on such professional help. The PLO succeeded in forcing all the news agencies and networks not to employ Jewish crew members on covering the West Bank and Gaza. Another example is that most of the field coverage of the war in Iraq is made, as of 2006, by local journalists rather than by the embedded American and foreign media corps. Shown recently in the July 7 2005 bombings in the United Kingdom.

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E.H. Ben-Zedeff / Media Coverage as Advertising For example, in comparison with the coverage of the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 1995. For a detailed analysis of the political effects of the March 2004 bombings in Madrid, Spain – see Jose A. Olmeda. Fear of Falsehood? Framing the 3/11 Terrorist Attacks in Madrid and Electoral Accountability. A Working Paper, Real Instituto Elcano de Estudios Internacionales y Estrategicos (Madrid, May 2005). Available online at http://www.realinstitutoelcano.org. Such as happened in the kidnapping of the TWA 847 flight to Beirut, Lebanon on June 1985. In the kidnapping of the Air France Airbus on Flight 193 from Tel Aviv via Athens to New York, on June 1976, some relatives of the Israeli hostages met Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and tried to force him to meet the kidnappers’ demands in order to free their relatives. The “ELA” is portrayed after the “Symbionese Liberation Army” that kidnapped Patty Hearst on February 1974.


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Ethical Balance of Reporting on Terrorism Yusuf KANLI Editor in Chief, Turkish Daily News, Ankara

Abstract. The foremost difficulty in the fight against terrorism is the failure of the international community to come up with a common description of terrorism and a collective and resolute position to fight this common menace. It is not only the duty of governments to come up with a firm position against terrorism. The media is responsible also in deploring this threat and must act with the awareness that the kingpins of terror aim to unleash a wave of horror, sow the seeds of distrust and bring down all the concepts of a free and open society with such acts. Propaganda is as deadly weapon as are the bombs for the masters of terrorism. On the other hand, freedom of press is not just a right enjoyed by journalists. The right has two faces: on one side we have the right of journalists to report on developments freely in their newspapers, TV and radio bulletins or on their Web sites. That is very important. However, the other side of the freedom of press coin, which could be described as the right of people to be informed, constitutes the backbone of the democratic rights of the modern society. It is for this aspect that journalism is considered to be a “public service.” The third problematic area, unfortunately partly stems from the absence of an international description of terrorism and partly from the “objectivity” cornerstone of the ethics of journalism. Thus, the problem at hand is how to strike a balance between “responsibility” and a fundamental right while at the same time conform with the objectivity principle at a time when the international community is yet unable to define this common threat. Keywords: Ethical balance, freedom of press, fundamental rights

Introduction It is very unfortunate that despite all the efforts of the past decades the international community could not come out yet with a definitive description of “What is terrorism” and “What is a terrorist act”. In a typical hypocritical manner members of the international community of nations have been condemning terrorism with the harshest available terminology when they suffer from it, but otherwise prefer to turn a blind eye to the sufferings of other nations and suffice with lofty statements rather than engaging in a concerted global effort to face what aught to be considered as a global menace of modern times: international terrorism. The “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter” complaint that we often hear, is not just a cliché used by some “terrorism-obsessed” people to demonstrate their frustration with what they consider an international hypocrisy in dealing with terrorism, but indeed it underlines the most fundamental reason behind this menace becoming an international threat. It has to be acknowledged in all clarity that the foremost difficulty in the fight against terrorism is the failure of the international community to come up with a

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Y. Kanli / Ethical Balance of Reporting on Terrorism

common description of terrorism that would help devise a collective and resolute position to fight this common menace.

1. Defining Terrorism In their book Political Terrorism, Alex P. Schmidt and Albert I. Jongman cited 109 different definitions of terrorism, which they obtained through a survey of leading academics in the field[1]. Whereas, while the matter of definition and conceptualisation is usually a purely theoretical issue, a mechanism for scholars to work out the appropriate set of parameters for the research they intend to undertake, in the struggle against terrorism, as Boaz Ganor has put it in his “Defining terrorism” article, the problem of definition is a crucial element in the attempt to coordinate international collaboration, based on the currently accepted rules of traditional warfare[2]. Why can the world community not agree on a description like “Terrorism is the use of violence against civilians with the aim of promoting political or social objectives”? Will the European Union agree on a common definition of terrorism? Will the international community reconcile at the United Nations and come up with common language on this international threat? Will the world maintain its “ifs” and “buts” and simply allow the international kingpins of terror to continue holding the entire international community hostage? We shall all see how things develop, particularly when the U.N. General Assembly convenes in September. We shall see if the rhetoric continues to dominate common sense or if the petty national interests of individual countries outweigh the overall interests of humanity and whether the efforts to restructure the world body to reflect the present-day realities of the world to meet the changing challenges succeed. The absence of a clear definition of terrorism and the international “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter” illness, unfortunately, has been blurring minds in the media sector as well. “What is terrorism and who are terrorists?” Thus, these dastardly crimes against humanity, are on-the-job training for the international media at the same time. While the Western media have little difficulty in referring to the Al-Qaeda terror network as “terrorist”, they refrain from using the same description for the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and its members under the pretext of upholding the “objectivity” principle of the journalism profession. But, what is the difference between Al-Qaeda and the PKK? Do they not both use violence against civilians? Do they not both try to promote their so-called political aims through use of violence, intimidation and coercion? It is definitely unfortunate that some newspapers and TV channels, particularly in the Muslim world, are preferring to hide behind lofty statements on the “root causes” of terrorism, that is, behind “what if” and such excuses, and could not come up with a bold condemnation of terrorism. But, is it not also unfortunate for the Western media to refrain referring to the PKK as terrorist or to try providing legitimacy to the PKKrelated violence by presenting the terrorist gang as some sort of organisation fighting for the rights of the Kurdish people of Turkey? Do not such reports, as well as footages from camps of the terrorists portraying them as “some cute volunteers devoted to obtain rights for their people” constitute indeed some sort of collaboration with terrorists by intentionally opening the media organs to their propaganda?


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Since 1984, start of the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) terrorism, Turkey has been complaining about the hypocritical approach of some of its Western allies. “Yes, the PKK is a terrorist organization, but it is promoting the rights of the Kurdish people!” is a cliché used by these so-called allies of Ankara, making the Turks angry. Neither the murder in broad daylight of leading Kurdish intellectuals questioning the PKK’s decisions, as was the case of Hikmet Fidan, with a bullet in the head with a gun equipped with a silencer, nor the “execution” of members trying to flee the gang or the cold-blooded murder of innocent, mostly Kurdish, villagers without any regard to age or gender, were able to effect the dropping of the West's “but” clause in describing the PKK. Ankara was unfortunately unable to utilise to full advantage such important and revealing evidence as the chieftain's admissions, before and during his trial, of “foreign assistance” he and his gang received or about the passport issued in his name or his capture while leaving the embassy residence of an allied country in Nairobi. Why not? We have no idea. Could it be that some promise was made to the Americans when they handed the chieftain on a golden platter to Turkish agents? This hypocrisy has to be stopped. The gang is either a terrorist organisation or it is not. If it is a terrorist organisation, which it is, then the “ifs” and “buts” must be scrapped in a discussion about what joint action can be taken against terrorism. Would it not be ludicrous to describe the London bombings as “terrorist attacks” and then try to give that inhumane act, which claimed the lives of so many innocent civilians, some sort of legitimacy? What expression can one use in describing a gang other than “terrorist” if it indiscriminately kills many thousands of people, most of them women, children and the elderly, plants mines on roads and explosives on commuter buses, and dispatches suicide killers with the intention of killing civilians and attracting public attention to its “cause”? We have to be clear. We have to be determined. We have to be definitive. Exposure of their criminal acts in the media is one of the principal aims of the terrorist groups. After all, propaganda is as deadly a weapon as are bombs for the masters of terrorism. The goal of terrorism must be taken into consideration in reporting on terrorism. There cannot be “good terrorism.” No cause can help condone terrorism; no background can justify the worst crime against humanity. Wherever it strikes, whomever might be targeted, whoever might have staged it, terrorism has to be deplored in the strongest possible manner with the awareness that no one and no society is immune to this menace, which is aimed at destroying the fundamentals of a free society, democracy, freedom of belief and all such norms that constitute the backbone of a contemporary democratic society.

2. Reporting on Terrorism It is not only the duty of governments to come up with a firm position against terrorism. The media is equally responsible in deploring this threat and must act with the awareness that the kingpins of terror aim to unleash a wave of horror, sow the seeds of distrust and bring down all the concepts of a free and open society with such acts. It is indeed one of the leading fundamental ethics of our profession to avoid graphic content that could enrage the public, such as decapitations, body parts, and which could damage the honour of the victims.

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We appreciated after 9/11 the reporting by the American media. Despite the immense dimension of the tragedy experienced, there was hardly any graphic content in any media showing bodies of victims. At the 3/11 in Madrid, unfortunately we saw such scenes. In the terrorist attacks in Britain, there was again exemplary behaviour by newsmen. No such graphic content was reported in the papers or on TV bulletins. Exaggeration was avoided, and throughout the day all media outlets tried to reflect the developments with an exemplary sense of responsibility. Is it this way in Turkey? Unfortunately, taking into considerations both the Istanbul attacks as well as the outlawed PKK-related violence, it is clear that we have to learn a lot from our American and British colleagues. If they can avoid graphic content that could enrage the public and see such an action as a product of “responsible journalism” that does not contradict the “freedom of press”, perhaps Turkish journalists must think on this issue once again. Freedom of the press is not just a right enjoyed by journalists. The right has two faces: On one side we have the right of the journalists to report on developments freely in their newspapers, TV and radio bulletins or on their Web sites. That is very important. However, the other side of the freedom of press coin, which could be described as the right of people to be informed, constitutes the backbone of the democratic rights of modern society. It is in this aspect that journalism is considered to be a “public service.” No one can dispute that in a democratic society there ought to be no taboos. Discussion on any issue must be possible and people must be mature enough to accept that there might be different evaluations, perceptions and even attachments on certain matters. This is, more or less, what we keep on stressing: “freedom of thought” or “freedom of expression.” Governments of semi-democratic or totalitarian countries may have trouble understanding it, but in true democracies it is none of their business to make editorial decisions on behalf of news people and journalists. Governments may not wish to see it happen but in democracies the media may report on issues that might be considered “taboo” by some establishment or group of people or that may hurt the “national interests,” according to some. In democratic countries, governments, rather than acting with political considerations and thinking of clamping down on such reporting, generally take such issues to court and let it be resolved through the judicial process, as do the establishments, interest groups or individuals who feel their rights were infringed on or their interests hurt with such reporting. In the absence of a court decision to the contrary, publishing articles, commentaries, photographs, cartoons or sketches cannot be restricted in a democracy, and people who might feel their rights were infringed on or interests unjustly hurt by the publication of such material have the right to go to court and demand legal action against those responsible, seeking apology or compensation, or both. Thus, to what extend can avoidance of graphic content, that could enrage the public, or censoring of news articles or graphics, because of national security concerns, as a voluntary contribution by the media to the fight against terrorism, conform with the “freedom of press” concept, particularly in view of the fact that such a move would not limit the liberties of the journalist only, but would at the same time restrict access of individuals to information?


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Conclusion The problem at hand is how to strike a balance between “responsibility” and a fundamental right while at the same time conform with the objectivity principle of the journalism profession at a time when the international community is yet unable to define this common threat.

References [1] [2]

Alex P. Schmidt and Albert I. Jongman et al., Political Terrorism (SWIDOC, Amsterdam and Transaction Books, 1988). Ganor, Boaz, Defining Terrorism: Is One Man’s Terrorist Another Man’s Freedom Fighter? ICT Website (www.ict.org)


2. Aspects of the Interactions Between Terrorism, Public Opinion and the Media



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Losing the Information War in Iraq: The Dynamics between Terrorism, Public Opinion and the Media Lieutenant Commander Steve TATHAM1 Royal Navy

Introduction In 1997 two researchers at the RAND Corporation published a book entitled In Athena’s Camp: Preparing for War in the Information Age[1]. In this and later publications the authors (Arquilla and Ronfeldt) advanced a variation on the idea of military persuasion which they called Netwar. Netwar, they argued from their pre-9/11 viewpoint, would allow the targeting of the polity, society and culture of an otherwise superior opponent, the objective of this action to demoralise and to confuse. If you remove the inferred technological component of this definition then their idea sees it roots in the writings of Chinese Military philosopher Sun Tzu who sometime between 400 and 320 BC wrote his classical study, The Art of War. Tzu noted that there were five circumstances when an army might anticipate victory. He wrote “he who understands how to use both small and large forces will prevail; there are circumstances in war when the weak can master the strong”. Today Tzu’s prophecy seems alarmingly accurate as a ragtag army of insurgents in Iraq and a geographically dispersed yet ideologically dedicated group of Al-Qaeda supporters mount a very effective insurgent action against the world’s only super-power. A power that out guns and out weighs them in any measure of military might, and yet has still returned over 3000 dead US servicemen to the USA. Their apparent success on the battlefield is exceeded only by their success in the environs of the media, both new, such as the internet, and old, such as the world’s newspapers and televisions. While the physical insurgency may well be mounted in the streets of Baghdad and Tikrit, the ideological insurgency exists in a media battle space where a netwar is being mounted. In the West that war is often rather simplistically articulated as “a battle for hearts and minds” and in the words of no less an observer than the US Secretary for Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, “we [the US led Coalition] are losing”. In my book Losing Arab Hearts and Minds[2], which is built upon my observations as Royal Navy spokesman during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, I argue that the Western Coalition all but ignored the organic Arab media, and its Arab and Muslim audience, focusing attention instead upon Western domestic audiences. Over 500 journalists were embedded with front line Coalition units during March and April 2003, yet of this total 1

The views in this paper do not necessarily reflect those of HM Government.

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S. Tatham / Losing the Information War in Iraq

less than 3% were from Arab or Muslim news organizations. British forces had no Arab media with them at all. The concerted anti-war campaign instigated by some sections of the British Media led to a major effort to woo UK audiences through the embedding of correspondents with front line units. The British Daily Mirror newspaper, at the very forefront of the anti-war rhetoric, found its defence correspondent embedded with Royal Marine Commandos, amongst the first troops to land ashore in Southern Iraq. That particular correspondent filed reports that told the stories of individuals, of men, and in some instance women, with families, homes, lives and aspirations. Indeed, across the Coalition’s forces, embedded journalists permeated the often intimidating façade of body armour, kevlar helmets and wrap around sunglasses to tell their audiences of the humanity of the person beneath. Arguably it was the portrayal of the combatant as an individual which perhaps more than other single factor brought the British public around to supporting their troops through a war that was hugely and manifestly unpopular with the majority of the British public, thus winning the campaign to secure [British] hearts and minds.

1. The Arab Media and the Nature of Commentary in Arabic. Al Jazeera Case Study Yet in the Arab world television screens were filled with very different images. Their portrayal was not of the humanity of US and UK forces, instead they were of the effects of the direct and indirect actions of those forces on the Iraqi civilian population. This very often meant very unpleasant and graphical images of death, destruction and misery. In the West, news organisations such as the BBC and CNN are prevented from airing images of death and horror by broadcasting standards legislation. The result is a rather clean cut portrayal of military action. In the 22 countries of the Arab world, many of them no strangers to civil war and to the carnage of combat, no such standards applied and the hard, cold edge of real warfare was openly displayed to the anguish and anger of Arab viewers. With the images came the commentary, and unlike the 1991 conflict, this time that commentary was in the Arabic language. Arabic is a language that carries with it a great linguistic and emotional solidarity, encapsulated in the Arab word qaumiya ( ‫) ه‬, an idea articulating commonality and oneness. This in itself is based on a much older and basic concept of asabiya ( ), blood solidarity. Such imagery was difficult for Coalition forces and governments to comprehend and it was undoubtedly unhelpful to the Coalition’s information campaign that sought to dispel the worry that Donald Rumsfeld articulated in his private diary in October 2002, when he wrote that the world would see the Iraqi attack as an “assault upon Islam”. Matters came to a head when the Al-Jazeera channel, arguably the most influential of all new Arab media, aired images of captured and, later, dead Coalition servicemen. Their depiction created a storm of diplomatic protest. In the Qatari capital, Doha, both the British and the US Ambassadors made official representations to the Qatari government and numerous Coalition officials claimed that the channel had violated the terms of the Geneva Convention. Certainly the images would have been distressing for the families of the victims. The channel was caught out by the ensuing outcry, they had after all been showing imagery of dead and mutilated Iraqi citizens on a daily basis and surely, they reasoned, this was no different. Indeed there appears just a hint of hypocrisy over the whole issue, not least because Al-Jazeera, as a media organisation,


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was hardly a signatory to the Convention. However, there were more fundamental issues than this at stake. The Arab media pointed to the duality of the Coalition’s words and its deeds, a criticism that continues to resonate even today. Coalition military combat camera teams had already filmed imagery of captured Iraqi soldiers and this had been released to, and aired by, the Western media. True the Coalition quickly withdrew the images when they realised their error, however the damage, or if one takes a more Machiavellian view, their purpose, had been achieved. Thus if such action had breached the Geneva Convention it was the Coalition who did so first. And later on in the campaign the US released images of the dead bodies of Saddam’s sons, Uday and Qusay. In defending the decision to show the unpleasant images Secretary of State Rumsfeld told a Pentagon convened Press Conference that the photographs “would help convince frightened Iraqis that Saddam’s rule was over, a consideration that far outweighed any sensitivities over showing the corpses.” Why then, in the not unreasonable view of Arab media news rooms, should their networks exhibit any particular sensitivity? The whole issue served to illustrate the absence of understanding of the Arab media by the Coalition, a failing that was to degenerate into an atmosphere of antagonism and demonisation rather than a more useful recognition of the utility that such huge and powerful opinion formers wielded. However, controversy and antagonism are not new to Arab media in general and the Al-Jazeera channel in particular. Since its establishment in 1996 it has upset many of the ruling Arab regimes. When the tiny peninsular state of Qatar established the channel, broadcasting news, opinions and views from an Arab perspective, world wide, they could hardly have anticipated the tremendous influence that it would have in international affairs just seven years later. From humble beginnings the channel has grown in size and output, and today broadcasts twenty-four hours a day to an audience estimated to exceed 35 million viewers. Its impact was not lost on the annual Freedom of the Press Survey, which noted in its 2003 edition that: “This glimmer of hope for expanding press freedom in the Middle East, a region long resistant to press freedom, was part of a small but significant series of signs of change in that region. Rulers of Qatar quietly funded Al-Jazeera, the television channel whose frank coverage of Arab and international affairs angered many neighbouring regimes”. Indeed its willingness to court controversy brought it to the attention of emerging neoconservatives in Washington who praised it as an example of the type of discussion needed in the region. Under its strap-line “The opinion and the Counter Opinion” the channel has managed to enrage nearly every sector of international society, while simultaneously being courted by all. Variously described as anti-Arab, anti-Jewish and anti-American, the channel and its increasing number of clones around the region have transformed civil society in the Arab world. As CNN became the face of the 1991 Gulf war, so Al-Jazeera defined the first conflicts of the twenty-first century’s coming of age in Afghanistan (the only broadcaster officially allowed into the country by the then Taliban government) and became a major non-state actor during the Iraq War. Its effect in the Middle East was electric. The absence of the censor’s “red lines”, whether self-imposed or state-controlled, was quite unique for a region characterized by a largely subservient and uncritical media. Journalists from the channel were actively encouraged to shed the shackles of censorship and to say what they thought and report what they saw. Suddenly Arab journalists seemed prepared to push and break old taboos, asking previously unaskable questions and airing footage that previously would not have reached the public eye. In

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the West such coverage is not unusual. Politicians and public figures are regularly subjected to the most detailed and at times intensely personal questioning, often on issues to do as much with their private lives as with their professional responsibilities. Yet such impertinence and inquisitiveness were anathema in the Arab world, at odds not only with years of self- and state-imposed censorship but also culturally alien to a people who value privacy and discretion. New York Times’ columnist, Thomas Friedman, perhaps best summed it up when he wrote: “[Al-Jazeera] is not only the biggest media phenomenon to hit the Arab world since the advent of television, it is also the biggest political phenomenon”. This is undeniably so and its daily coverage from embattled frontiers, such as Palestine and Chechnya, has had a deep effect upon the everyday consciousness of Muslims around the world. Today’s Western objections to the channel’s coverage are long predated by the actions of many of the ruling Arab regimes, to whom Al-Jazeera has been viewed as a considerable problem. There are numerous examples. In May 2002 the government of the tiny state of Bahrain banned Al-Jazeera from reporting inside its borders. A government spokesman told the BBC: “We will not deal with this channel because we object to its coverage of current affairs; it is a channel penetrated by Zionists. ” The Zionist reference is undoubtedly a smokescreen for the real reason for Bahraini protest; the channel’s coverage of anti-US protests in the kingdom triggered by ongoing Israeli military action in the West Bank. Bahrain is by no means alone. In July 2003 Reuters reported an unnamed Qatari governmental official as saying: “Al-Jazeera is a headache; we need to sort it out as we are one [Gulf Arab] family and share the same destiny.” This followed the airing of Saudi dissidents on one of the channel’s prime talk-shows who criticised the Al-Saudi regime. Qatar’s Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Jabr al-Thani offered to visit Riyadh to resolve the dispute that followed the programme but pointed out to Reuters that: “Al-Jazeera is not an official channel, we just help it financially, like Britain helps the BBC.” It is evident that Saudi sensibilities have been repeatedly offended by the channel’s output and led directly to the establishment of the second largest pan-Arab channel, Al-Arabiyia (funded by a member of the Saudi Royal Family). However even today there remains no senior Saudi representation in Doha; a direct consequence of Al-Jazeera’s critical coverage of the Kingdom. The recall of ambassadors from Doha has developed into a regular occurrence: Tunisia, Morocco and Libya have all recalled their diplomats in response to Al-Jazeera programmes. The Algerian government famously cut power to several of its major cities, including its capital Algiers, in an attempt to silence an Al-Jazeera programme about that country’s civil war. Even the PLO has been embroiled in a dispute with the channel. The airing of an interview with the late Hamas leader, Sheikh Hamad Yessin, reportedly so incensed the then PLO leader Yasser Arafat that the Palestinian bureau was all but taken over in March 2001 by PLO security personnel. Yet in the West the channel’s existence remained largely unknown. Its focus on the Arab world, and in particular upon the Palestinian crisis, was only of passing interest to Western news organizations which had their own correspondents covering events. That was to change in the wake of 9/11 as America began asking itself “why us” and started seeking alternative views of its role in the world. On the night of 7 October 2001, when the US launched its attack on the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, Al-Jazeera was the only news channel allowed in by the Taliban government and illustrated in graphic detail the effect of ordnance landing in the already war-torn city


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of Kabul. The imagery contrasted sharply with that shown by the largely supportive Western news-providers and immediately caused US Administration officials to question the allegiance and integrity of the channel. But it was the airing of Osama Bin Laden’s videotapes that was to rocket Al-Jazeera to international prominence and earn it the unfortunate and undeserved sobriquet “Bin Laden TV”. In one of his first interviews Bin Laden stated that he had “high regard and respect for the people who bombed [US barracks in Saudi Arabia]” while in a later tape he accused America of “violating our land, occupying it and stealing Muslim possessions”. These tapes marked the beginning of an uneasy relationship between the channel and the United States and are almost certainly the reason for much of the anti-Al-Jazeera sentiment that many US servicemen demonstrated during operations in Iraq the following year. Immediately after the imagery of the dead US servicemen appeared in March 2003 the head of the US military media operation in Doha, civilian corporate communications specialist, Jim Wilkinson, proclaimed that “Al-Jazeera was absolutely biased” and severed all contact with the channel. It seems incomprehensible that the Coalition should so comprehensively have ignored Arab and Muslim public opinion. Yet ignore it it did. Worse still, the organic Arab media, and the Al-Jazeera channel in particular, became the object of demonisation, as allegations of anti-US and proSaddam coverage volleyed across the Atlantic. Unsurprising therefore that few in the Arab world believe that the Coalition attack on the Al-Jazeeera Bureau in Baghdad, in which correspondent Tarek Ayoub was killed, was an accident of battle as it almost certainly was. Nor does the channel or its audiences accept the continued imprisonment of journalists Tayseer Allouni in Spain and Sami al-Haj in Guntanamo Bay as anything other than a further attempt to muzzle a trusted and respected media organisation. Now we could argue that it is unrealistic to have expected anything other than largely negative coverage in the Arab media and that the Arab world was already, by virtue of the West’s foreign policy, ill disposed to putting across a US or Western view. There may be some element of truth in this but the sad reality of the Iraq information campaign was that even had we been so inclined, we in the west were culturally unprepared to deal with the Arab media and offer suitable responses to the manner in which news is presented and dissected. No clearer indication exists of the disparity in views between West and East than the fall of Baghdad and the toppling of Saddam’s statue. While the images of the fall of the statue in Paradise Square entranced the Western media, in the Arab and Muslim world they triggered a different reaction. When Baghdad fell, Muslims around the world entered a state of shock and of self-denial. To many, the one Arab leader who had stood up to the “Crusaders”, who had threatened to fight to death in the streets of Baghdad, the one Arab leader who did not “kowtow” to the West or to other prowestern regimes, that leader had simply and rather rapidly capitulated. Shame and humiliation enveloped the Arab world, triggering a violent response that mixed with underlying grievances long held over issues such as Palestine, Chechnya and Kashmir and, crucially, the perceived duality of US foreign policy.

2. Coalition “Hearts and Minds”: Limitations and Failures It is quite clear that Coalition forces did not win the Arab hearts and minds campaign during the 2003 war, indeed it is arguable if the Coalition even sought active engagement in that campaign. Sadly this observation also characterises the post combat

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phase, as the Coalition’s Provisional Authority (CPA) sought to establish control over the country. Organic Iraqi media mushroomed after the fall of Saddam, and within just a few months over 250 newspapers and magazines were being published, many of them affiliated to particular political or religious groupings. The UK Foreign Office sent a specialist team out to create a national media architecture, whilst the US run CPA focussed upon the creation of a state broadcaster, to be known as Al-Iraqiya TV and designed to present a unified and pro-government agenda. Both attempts proved shambolic, the latter absorbing huge amounts of reconstruction money and described by an independent media auditor as “the worst mess I have ever seen in my life.” This was not the case with some of the independent media, in particular Al-Hawza newspaper, allied to Shia cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr, which gained a considerable following. The decision of the CPA to shut the paper down after a series of reports which were, in the words of a CPA spokesman “inflammatory and designed to provoke violence” is believed to have been the catalyst behind the Al-Sadr led Mhadi army uprising in early 2004. More particularly Arab audiences questioned again what the Coalition meant by its articulation of freedom of expression and of the press. The battle for hearts and minds continued to languish and a 2004 Gallup Poll revealed that only 5% of Iraqi believed that the invasion of Iraq had been to help the Iraqi people – a key strategic communication’s message - while only 1% believed that it had been to establish a democracy. Nearly half however believed that the US had invaded in order to steal Iraqi Oil and 94% believed that Baghdad was more dangerous after the occupation than ever it was under Saddam’s regime. Perhaps the situation is best summed up by former CENTCOM commander, US Marine General Anthony Zinni, who publicly declared that “Our whole public relations effort out there has been a disaster.”

3. “Hearts and Minds”: The Media Campaigns of the Terrorist/Insurgent Groups Three years on from President Bush’s declaration of “Mission accomplished”, it is apparent that the information campaign in Iraq is more complex and difficult than ever, with its battles being fought not just in the organic Arab media and in an increasingly hostile Western media, but in global cyberspace. Indeed one of the enduring characteristics of this campaign is the manner in which the internet has been used by the insurgents to attract support, to recruit fighters, to gain technological advantage, to repudiate Coalition statements and to sustain the wider, global Jihad that September 11th unleashed. Indeed today, as the deaths of two British presspersons on 29 May 2 illustrate, there is a significant paradox in the way the world’s media cover events in Iraq. Never has the media had such technologically sophisticated equipment, able to relay real time images across TVs, and the net, of live and developing events anywhere on the globe. Never have viewers had so much choice of news and opinion. Yet for all this sophistication, in Iraq today the world’s media are largely cooped up behind the walls of Baghdad’s green zone, unable to report on momentous events because the situation on the ground is so dreadfully dangerous. Indeed distinguished Middle East Correspondent Robert Fisk acknowledged this in a recent newspaper article when he wrote: “we are unable to venture outside Baghdad itself. Iraq’s vastness has fallen 2 CBS cameraman Paul Douglas and sound recordist James Brolan were killed by an IED and correspondent Kimberley Dozier sustained serious injuries.


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under a thick all consuming shadow […] for fear of the insurgents’ knife we can no longer investigate. And the Americans like it that way.”[4] Today, being embedded with Coalition forces is not a guarantee of safety; indeed just the opposite as they are actively and persistently targeted by the insurgents. But neither is reporting as a unilateral. As we have seen in numerous distressing events, Westerners are easy targets for hostage takers if they venture outside the safety of the Green Zone. One of the problems the West faces is that if “real” media cannot cover these stories, because it is so dangerous, then there are others who are more than happy to oblige. And the conduit for their messages is the internet which has become a strategic force multiplier and which is attempting to offset the perceived western domination of the conventional media. Citizen journalists do not need sophisticated camera’s and satellite TV equipment. In today’s technological savvy world anyone with a handicam and computer can distribute material and commentary of an “event” for the world to see. And they have enjoyed some considerable success. Over the last three years there has been a significant rise in the number of jihadist websites, the vast majority reflecting a Sunni view of the world, and many of them now in multiple languages. And as well as carrying speeches and religious justifications of events and actions many also stream video of attacks on Coalition forces. Indeed if you know where to look, or even if you randomly search the internet, you will find high quality, professionally produced videos made by Jihadists. These videos are carefully edited together and carry professionally produced graphics, often the logo for Al-Qaeda in the land of the two rivers, and a soundtrack invariably comprising suras from the Koran. The content of these videos is often compelling. Many start in the same manner as a Hollywood film, with trailers of forthcoming productions. Their content is carefully constructed. Many show repeated attacks upon Coalition forces; designed of course to graphically illustrate that the Jihadists can strike at will. Many are designed as instructional films. Others are designed to appeal to particularly young audiences, showing attacks on Coalition assets as if they were video games. And others, particularly the beheadings, are designed to mirror the Coalition’s psychological operations and create their own shock and awe. Another development is the manner in which these videos have sought to create heroes. The most famous is arguably Juba, who may or may not exist, but who is portrayed online as the Baghdad sniper. One particular video lasts for nearly 15 minutes and contains a “kill” of a Coalition soldier every 10 seconds. In the same manner as pictures and busts of Osama Bin Laden appeared in Arab souks in the aftermath of 9/11, so Juba has his acolytes aspiring to his greatness. Perhaps of more concern is the use of the internet to acquire knowledge and weapons. The use of white phosphorous in Falluja has provided Jihadists with the justification to acquire their own chemical weapons, citing the Koranic references to proportionality as their religious justification. The internet allows the Jihadists to post questions, for knowledgeable sympathisers to provide answers and for materials to be purchased. Indeed in the last six years the number of pro-terrorist websites has multiplied by a factor of over 100, from 40 to over 4000. Thus the web has proved a remarkable and effective tool for the insurgency and presents a very significant cerebral challenge for the West and indeed for the many millions of peaceful and law abiding Muslims that do not subscribe to Bin Laden’s message of hate.

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4. “Inclusivists” versus “Exclusivists” The Ibn Kaldhun chair of Islamic studies at the American University in Washington, Akbar Ahmed, has studied the problems that he believes will beset Islam in the 21st century. He concludes that future battles will not be between civilizations, a reference to Professor Samuel Huntington’s famous clash of civilizations, but between “inclusivists” (those prepared to accommodate and to interact with others and who believe that human civilisation is essentially one, regardless of religious, cultural or languages differences) and the “exclusivists” (those who create boundaries and who believe in their own superiority). Sadly, as experience shows, the world’s media prefer “exclusivists”, for their violence and messages of hate sell a much better story than the messages of peace, inclusion and dialogue. By inference, “inclusivists” are therefore at a significant disadvantage before even attempting to sell their message in the public domain. Not only is their message far more difficult to communicate but the media by which they hope to transmit it are focused not on them but on their adversaries. So the question that we must ask ourselves is how we enable the “inclusivists” voices to be heard above those of the “exclusivists”. And here is the challenge, because the inability to establish a meaningful rapport with the organic Arab media both during and after the conflict, and their belief that they were actively targeted by the Coalition, has added an additional complexity and barrier to an already difficult situation. Sadly it is not a task that the US, in particular, appears to understand; for the rhetoric, much of it factually incorrect, continues to flow and damages the establishment of meaningful relationships. This is not to say that the US has not invested a considerable amount of money in the issue. In the late 90s the “Shared Values” campaign was launched, led by a leading civilian marketer, Charlotte Beers. This campaign filmed the daily lives of American Muslims and sought to place the programmes onto Middle Eastern TV channels. The campaign was a flop; most channels viewed it as nothing but blatant propaganda and choose not to air the imagery. As we have seen, millions of dollars were invested in AlIraqiyah TV and even more is spent on the US congress funded Al-Hurra TV station and Radio Sawa. Both have had a rocky road although Sawa, with its eclectic mix of western music, has been more successful than Al-Hurra which is widely ridiculed around the Middle East and all but ignored in Iraq. It has perhaps not helped that AlHurra is based on the Eastern seaboard of the USA, some few thousand miles and eight time zones away from its market place. After the disasters of Iraq it is easy to be too critical of initiatives such as Al-Hurra, however it is important to accept that this is an attempt to engage in the struggle of ideas and that it needs to be included in a package of intelligent and nuanced measures. Researcher Leo Bogart studied the US Information Agency in 1995 and his observations are as, if not more, relevant today than when he wrote them: “Influencing attitudes requires experience, areas of knowledge and instinctive judgement of what is the best argument for an audience[5].”

Conclusion There are a substantial number of lessons to be learnt from the Iraq experience; chief amongst them is recognition that Iraq and its portrayal in the media and on the net has radicalised Muslims around the world and our predicament now extends much further than that country’s boarders. Many of those lessons will be unpopular and go against


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established governmental positions. We must recognise the utility of organic Arab media and prioritise their needs ahead of our own domestic media, even if that is at the expense of short term political expediency. We are engaged in a battle that our enemy believes may last 100 years and we must take a similar, long term, view. In doing so we need a much more nuanced approach to engagement, accepting and where necessary investigating long standing grievances such as the death of Al-Jazeera correspondent Tareq Ayoub. This engagement will not be without cost but we need to become less risk adverse. We need to engage with people whose ideas may not resonate precisely with our own but who hold sway, credibility and authority within the wider Muslim “umma” (community). For example, a storm of indignant UK tabloid media protest accompanied the arrival of Sheikh Yusef Qaradawi, the populist Islamic scholar and regular Al-Jazeera guest, on his visit to London. The Sheikh holds considerable standing and respect amongst Muslims world-wide and his condemnation of the London 7/7 bombings was hugely important. However, the Sheikh has, in the past, expressed support for the actions of disenfranchised Palestinians and their suicide operations against Israeli occupation forces. We have to accept that these are widely held beliefs and that their articulation does not merit the disbarment of an otherwise authoritative and influential figure. In any such engagement we need to accept and to publicly debate the root causes of terrorism. This means a close examination of long standing disputes and in particular the issue of Palestine. In doing so the West needs to develop a degree of humility and accept that there are other views of the world which may not resonate with our own but which are none the less just as keenly held. As the post invasion phase in Iraq has indicated, we must match our actions and our words. It cannot be acceptable to tell the world that our intentions in the Middle East are to promote democracy and freedom of speech while simultaneously shutting down emerging newspapers and media outlets in Iraq on the basis of their alleged bias. We need to promote engagement with organic Arab media at every level and we must attach very considerable importance to the force protection of journalists, regardless of editorial leaning or inclination. We cannot expect to successfully counter the images on the internet, for as fast as one site is shut down another will open. We also need to provide our troops with a far greater level of cultural sensitivity and awareness of the world in which we ask them to operate. Today the US Military is preparing a crash course in battlefield morals, values and ethics. After the event is just too late. This needs to be a core component of pre-deployment training. As we deploy them we simultaneously need to export our values and our beliefs so that they complement existing societies and not over-run them. The soft power of the west has long been an attractive proposition. The ideal that draws so many immigrants to the US and the UK is an ideal of freedom, of fairness, of prosperity, of safety and of selfworth. We need to remind ourselves of these core principles and reinvigorate them in today’s contemporary setting. There can be no easy solution to the dilemma in which the West now finds itself. Sadly 9/11 was an extreme response by a small minority to years of frustration and anger. However, these thoughts resonate much further and far deeper than the hijackers and Al-Qaeda’s followers. We have much ground to make up and it will take a concerted and sustained effort over many years to convince the Muslim world of the integrity of the West. But that battle needs to be fought and fought as robustly and as intellectually as any military engagement, targeting those generations still to come,

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those who have not had their hearts or minds formed by events of history but who aspire to a future of fairness and peace. Such cerebral thoughts may collide with the harder edges of the world’s war against terrorism. But contemplate the results of a survey conducted by the UK’s Muslim Students Body which asked Muslim undergraduates in Universities across the United Kingdom what measures the British government could take to reduce the threat of Islamic terrorism. The first answer is predictable, the second is illuminating; 36% believed that the UK needed to change its foreign policy while 29% believed that the UK needs to make better efforts to communicate with and listen to the Muslim world. References [1] [2] [4] [5]

RAND Corporation (25 October 1997) ISBN: 0833025147 Hurst & Co (1 Jan 2006) ISBN 1850658110 The Independent Newspaper 3 June 06. Bogart L. “Cool Words, Cold War. A New Look at the USIA’s Premises for Propaganda”, Washington DC, American U P 1995.


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Media and Terrorism Speech by Ercan ÇITLIOöLU President Strategic Research Centre, Bahçeúehir University, Turkey

The media, both written and audiovisual, should be impartial, unbiased and objective while performing their duties by principle. The main aim and responsibility of the media is to give correct information to the public based on truth only. As a guest lecturer at many communication faculties I have stated for over fifteen years to my students the above mentioned rules as the key factors of media coverage. Having these facts in mind, which should be considered as the “Magna Carta” of all media, both local and global, the biased attitude of media coverage of terrorism by the PKK, as printed and published in the democracies of today should be considered rather unfortunate. It is a very well know fact that the PKK is a terrorist organization and has been listed under the terrorist organization list in most of the EU countries and the US. Although in fact the PKK is accepted for what it is from the governmental perspective, I find it astonishing that certain media channels in these countries still present the PKK as a guerrilla group or insurgents. When considering that the core mission of the media is to enforce the freedom of information, and provide unbiased information to the public, the question that comes to mind is whether the execution of this mission should face any limitations. Since any limitation on the media by governments is considered censorship and a constraint of freedom, can the media be constrained with the conditions that laws and the media’s own ethics will not be violated, in an era where individual rights and freedoms have become core values. The answer to these questions is a firm negative in democracies and free societies. Based on these two negatives we can now express the critical question: if and when the media chooses to distribute biased and single sided information knowing that it may adversely affect a states national security, should the government intervene for the sake of the humanity. While defending our own democracy and free society, as well as free press, how can we avoid to give mortal damages to other nations’ democracies, free societies and of course national securities? This brings us to a conflict where the reformists, regarding the concept of national security in second place to democracy and unlimited freedom, argue that obstacles to the freedom of communication brought about especially by globalisation and the information age should be removed, and the classicists, who defend national security, and assess democratic ramifications in this light. Can the constraints on media be transformed into a universal law on issues that concern national security? This question also warrants a negative response, because there are no two countries whose concepts of national security and perception of threat and concern are same. Moreover, the concept of national security is almost entirely dependant on the global situation, what was of prime importance yesterday may have become trivial today.

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E. Çitlio˘glu / Media and Terrorism

In an environment of such rapid change and continuous revision of the parameters of freedom, how will the media succeed in remaining unbiased in matters of freedom, how will the media succeed in remaining unbiased in matters concerning national security such as terrorism, without challenging the concept itself? This rhetoric can extend to eternity through similar questions; however, since my subject is analysing how this can be possible, I should provide you with a negative or positive answer or propose a method. I would like to give some examples regarding the media coverage of the PKK terrorism both in Turkey and abroad. These examples could be applied easily to the media coverage of other terrorist organisations all over of the world; such as Chechnya, Spain, Afghanistan, Palestine, Somalia, Iraq, Lebanon, etc. The excerpts are selected from the nationwide leading Turkish newspapers through 1984-1995. At the beginning of the PKK terror campaign, the Turkish press had difficulties on how to name these violent actions. For example on the 18th of August 1984 after the PKK’s brutal attack on a village in southeast of Turkey, Milliyet, one of the most distinguished and leading newspaper in Turkey used this headline: “Separatists attacked. One dead, 12 wounded.” On the very same day the office of Chief of General Staff made a statement and described the attack as; “armed terrorists attacked a village, killed one civilian and wounded 12.” On the very same day the most circulating newspaper in Turkey, Hürriyet gave this attack the title “Traitors, killed one and wounded 12.” As you notice there were three different definitions for the same event; separatists, traitors and armed terrorists. On the 25th of January 1987, another news article published in Milliyet after two houses were attacked by the PKK terrorists. “PKK militants attacked two houses and killed 10, seven of them were children aged between 1 and 12.” On the 26th January, just a day after, Milliyet published another news article regarding a new attack by PKK. “Separatist PKK militants attacked a wedding ceremony with hand grenades, 15 killed and 27 wounded.” The literature has become richer with the additional definitions militants and separatist militants after traitors, separatists and armed terrorists. When we came to March of 1987 another news article appeared in Milliyet. “PKK killers raided a village, killed 8, 6 of them were children.” While the Turkish media were trying to find their way on how to name these brutal and violent attacks targeting innocent civilians, let us have a look at the foreign media and how they have reacted to this inhuman escalate of violence in Turkey. There was not even a single news article let alone any headlines in the European and American media. Contrary to the Western World, radios in Tehran and Tabriz broadcasted warning messages to Turkey on the same day, 9th of March, demanding Ankara to immediately stop the military operations against the Kurdish guerrillas. One of the speakers that took part in the Tehran radio broadcast was Jelal Talebani, the leader of the KYB, now president of Iraq, maybe the first person to ever name the PKK terrorists guerrillas. Now, I am sure you added the two new definitions on your list; killers and guerrillas, so the number of names given to PKK terrorists have now reached seven but this is not yet the end. On the 20th of August 1987 when PKK terrorists raided a village in Eruh, southeast of Turkey, and killed 25, 19 of them were women and children, Milliyet named them “Bandits.” A year later Milliyet published a new definition for PKK terrorists, “Separating organisation militants.” At this time the foreign press such as Financial Times, Daily Telegraph, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Le Monde,


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Chronicle, etc. insisted on presenting the PKK as “Kurdish Fighters” and “guerrillas” but not for what they really are, TERRORISTS. In the early nineties the PKK started changing its tactics dramatically and began to attack schools, mine pits, road construction sites, government buildings, pipelines, military barracks, border stations, shopping malls, public buses and trains. The PKK raided a mine pit in Elazı÷ on the 23rd March 1990 and killed 6 mine engineers along with 3 civilians. Two days after the attack the new target was a primary school in Lice, Diyarbakır. The terrorists killed 4 teachers and set the school on fire. On the 26th of December 1991 the PKK terrorists were in Istanbul, they set a shopping mall in Bakırköy on fire just before Christmas, result 11 dead 18 wounded. The only comment regarding this vicious attack came from Belgium on the 28th of December. La Libre Belgique wrote; “Mystery in shopping mall fire in Istanbul.” While the Belgian press described this attack as some mystery trying to create question marks, the leader of the PKK, Öcalan, surprisingly accepted the responsibility for the attack. There was not even a single comment regarding La Libre Belgique’s misleading article which was obviously written on purpose. But on the same day as the publication of La Libre Belgique, the PKK organised mass demonstrations in various cities of Europe such as Hamburg, Essen, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Köln, Munich, Rotterdam, Zurich and, of course, Brussels in order to protest against the pressures and oppression on the Kurds in Turkey. A month after the shopping mall fire on the 26th of January 1992 the PKK bombed the Covered Bazaar and Galleria one of the most crowded shopping malls in Istanbul, killed one and wounded 12. Unsurprisingly there were again no news articles in the Western press. On the 22nd of March 1992, also named Nevruz, a traditional Turkish spring festival the PKK attacked various civilian targets, killing 30 and wounding 32. On the same day PKK sympathisers were on the streets of Stockholm, Copenhagen, Frankfurt, Hamburg and Oslo. The European press was full of news articles regarding these demonstrations; as you have already guessed; there were no articles whatsoever regarding the events in Turkey. On the 17th of May 1992 PKK terrorists from northern Iraq raided two border gendarmerie stations in ùırnak, Taúdelen and Iúıkveren. As a result of these raids 27 soldiers and officers lost their lives and 40 terrorists were killed during the action. Three months after the raids the German TV channel SAT broadcasted a film, shot during the combat between soldiers and terrorists naming the terrorists “Kurdish guerrillas.” On the 7th of July 1993, PKK terrorists raided a village near Erzincan. The terrorists killed 28 civilians worshipping in the mosque and set the whole village on fire. This purposeless, vicious attack did not attract the attention of the foreign media in any way. It was the same when 24 civilians in Bahçesaray, a small town near Van, were killed by PKK terrorists on the 20th of July 1992. 15 of these innocent victims were children, aged between 1 and 11 and the rest were women, two of them pregnant. This vicious attack, regardless of the nationality of the victims, so called justifications by the attackers, and where it took place, deserved to be published as a news article from the headlines to be shared with the world in all civilized countries and their media. It is possible to give hundreds of examples of such news articles. The real astonishing side, and what amazes me after all these years, is the behaviour of the foreign press, I have difficulties in understanding the approach towards the PKK. If terrorism is considered as a global threat for humanity, world peace and tranquillity how can one justify the PKK’s abstraction from terrorism? How can PKK sympathisers take over the streets of western capitals whenever and however

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they please? How is it that the PKK is given legal permission to open representative offices in western countries? How can the PKK have its own TV channel “Roj” broadcasting freely from Denmark? Can we define this as a result of free society and democracy or freedom of press? Is it civilised to call terrorists “guerrillas” or “freedom fighters” and try to make them decriminalized and legitimate?


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A Theory of Televised Hostage Takings Anders G. ROMARHEIM Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies

Abstract. Technology has facilitated a new breed of hostage-takings. Televised hostage-takings are facilitated by inexpensive video cameras and the Internet, but even more importantly by TV-stations who choose to broadcast extracts from hostage-takers’ videos. The videos are designed to make the hostage-takers appear as influential and powerful people. For televised hostage-takings it appears that spreading the video is often more important for the hostage-takers than actually getting the authorities to yield to their demands. This decreased importance of political demands has resulted in some hostage-takings having quite moderate demands. Contrary to what one might expect, moderate demands may complicate the choice of strategy for the authorities, making yielding to demands a more viable option. Two models constitute the foundation for the theory presented here: the hostage-game from game theory, and a model developed by the author to describe the paths of influence from hostage-takers to authorities. This influence may go via TV-stations, family of the hostage and public opinion. The key to effectively countering televised hostage-takings lays just as much in the hands of media executives as in politicians’ or other government officials’.

Introduction “How do you cover something where, time and again, your coverage is part of the reason why the hostages were taken in the first place? Perhaps the media has been a little slow off the mark here, blinded by a certain arrogance. We couldn't believe that Chechen revolutionaries or al-Qaeda terrorists with beards and kaftans could be sophisticated spin doctors, too - let alone that it was us they were spinning. But that is the truth of it.” Peter Preston, Former editor of the Guardian1 In 2004 there was a considerable increase in hostage-takings of foreigners for political purposes in Iraq.2 Here it is argued that the increase came because this tactic was deemed effective and successful in the eyes of many terrorist and insurgent groups. Terrorist groups often copy other terrorist groups “successful” operations and tactics, and thus may capitalize on other groups’ experience. One reason why the hostagetakings were successful in the eyes of the terrorists is that they were televised. The terrorists produced videos of the hostage-takings, and were quite successful in getting these videos televised. Al Jazeera was the broadcaster who in most cases was first to show the terrorists’ home-produced videos. A questionable role indeed, yet once the dam was broken, many TV-stations from many different countries followed suit. Thus, the stations adhered to the same ethics of journalism as those who first screened the videos. The goals of televised hostage-takings can be diverse. Three main goals will be listed here. They deal with political concessions, exercising power and media coverage. The defining idea of hostage-takings is for a group to take a hostage in order to make authorities yield to their specified demands. This idea encompasses two of the goals:

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A.G. Romarheim / A Theory of Televised Hostage Takings

firstly, the political goal specified in the demands; secondly, if the political goal is achieved, the hostage-takers will have exercised power over the authorities. The latter is in itself very important. Even if the concession from the authorities is very minor, it is still a success for the hostage-takers if they can demonstrate that they can direct the authorities’ behaviour. This is in accordance with Robert Dahl’s definition of relational power: “A has power over B to the extent that he can get B to do something that B would not otherwise do" (Dahl, 1957, p. 202). The third goal of generating media attention seems to be increasingly important. It is also a goal which was achieved by many hostage-takers in Iraq in 2004. In one Jihadist manual of how to conduct hostage-takings it is explicitly stated that media coverage is an important goal in itself. Regarding the Dubrovka siege the manual’s unknown author writes “[the] operation was 100% successful, because it brought the case back to the attention of the international scene” (Lia 2004:50). Through the Internet, terrorists are able to distribute videos themselves to their own congregation. But getting videos broadcast on TV gives the terrorists an opportunity to communicate with a global audience who would otherwise not pay attention to them. This article will now proceed with some observations on terrorists’ use of the media. Following that, the hostage-game from game theory and a model describing paths of influence will be presented. Then two empirical sections will follow. First a case study of the Islamic Army in Iraq’s hostage-takings of foreigners in 2004, and then a closer look at how Tawhid and Jihad sought to influence British authorities under the hostage-taking ending with the brutal killing of Ken Bigley. This article is first and foremost a theoretical article. The case studies are therefore primarily included to illustrate the theory of televised hostage-takings presented here. No classified material is used for this article.

1. How Do Hostage Takers Make Use of the Media? A theory of televised hostage-takings must be anchored in a more general idea of how terrorists construct their communication through the media. A definition of terrorism may also be useful. The following definition is the starting point here: Terrorism is a non-state actor’s systematic use, or threat of use, of destruction on non-combatants to create fear, generate attention to a political cause, and to make someone other than the direct target of the crime yield to the terrorists’ demands. Note that threats of destruction are also one form of terrorism. Of great importance for this article is the tenet that one of the terrorists’ goals is to create fear. This is often evident in hostage-takings. It is frequently stated that there is a symbiotic relationship between international terrorism and the news media. This is because global terrorism is close to impossible without mass media of some sort. Without it, terrorism would be merely local or possibly regional. Acts of terrorism are designed to be fascinating news. They are typically designed with such a dramaturgy that any journalist who follows his or her own professional instincts will give terrorist acts massive coverage. News media channels, which refrain from covering terrorism, have a commercially unsustainable stance. They risk being neglected or to wind up out of business. It would be wrong to argue that the series of televised hostage-takings in 2004 has taken us all by surprise. Margaret Thatcher said in her seminal speech before the American Bar Association in 1985 that democratic nations “must try to find ways to


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starve the terrorist and the hijacker of the oxygen of publicity”3. A year after, Livingstone warned that “terrorists will put increasingly inexpensive portable video technology to use. This may include sending tapes of violent acts in process to television stations. […] Certainly, media executives face painful decisions when provided by terrorists with videos of hostages they have executed or of their captives making apparently voluntary but probably coerced statements” (Paletz and Boiney 1992:8). What we are witnessing today was warned about two decades ago. Still, both governments and media executives frequently end up with making questionable decisions in hostage-situations. There is no doubt that al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations of the 21st century are increasingly media savvy. Media skills can be terrorists’ force multiplier that gives them leverage they would not otherwise have.4 A letter from Ayman al-Zawahiri to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi5 intercepted by the United States in Iraq gives interesting insights into how al-Qaeda regards the news media. One of the most quoted statements of the letter is the following: “I say to you: that we are in a battle, and that more than half of this battle is taking place in the battlefield of the media” (DNI 2005:10). In the very same paragraph Zawahiri comes close to chastising Zarqawi on his beheadings of hostages: “We can kill the captives by bullet”. His advice against “scenes of slaughtering the hostages” (Ibid) is made because this may be detrimental to public opinion. It is not because beheading defenceless hostages is a method mala in se. The fact that al-Qaeda’s principal ideologue and strategist gives televised hostage-takings particular attention in the letter, demonstrates the centrality of the hostage-takings to al-Qaeda’s global jihad. Al-Jazeera’s pivotal role in al-Qaeda’s propaganda strategies is also documented in the letter. On the very first page, al-Jazeera is mentioned twice (DNI 2005:1). It is clear that getting videotaped communiqués on al-Jazeera not only serves propagandistic purposes. It is also a way of communicating the state of affairs for the global jihad. As the interception of the letter itself documents, such communication between highprofiled jihadists is severely complicated by counterterrorism operations. This underlines the responsibility laying with the editors who broadcast these messages. Zawahiri also expresses deep resentment with what he describes as “the deceptive and fabricated media” (DNI 2005:10).6 This is interesting for two reasons. Firstly, it suggests an ambivalent love-hate relationship between the news media and al-Qaeda. The nature of this relationship might be mutual as the media are very eager to report on any conceivable al-Qaeda related stories. Secondly, the fact that Zawahiri conceives the media (at least certain sections of it) to be fabricated raises the question of who manipulates it. Zawahiri’s answer might be something along the lines of “the Zionistcrusader alliance”. This recognition of manipulation naturally leads to a desire to direct these fabricated channels in a more veracious direction. It remains a question whether Zawahiri’s guidance would lead to less deceptive and fabricated content. Some argue that it is important to show the videos of the hostages so that their voice is heard and they have a way of communicating with the outside world. We need to understand their suffering, and we are only fooling ourselves if we pretend that real world is more benign than it really is. “Citizens who have the profound ill luck to be taken hostage deserve more than being left to die in silence” (Preston 2005). I do not agree with this logic. Hostages deserve to be released. It does not necessarily (as Ken Bigley’s macabre beheading proves) aid the hostage in any way when its pleas are broadcast to a worldwide audience.7 There is a real chance that such broadcasting may

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give the hostage-takers momentum in their communication towards authorities and public opinion.

2. The Logic of Hostage Takings “[t]hey have political views, a political agenda, so they are not crazy you know. So they have the logic, even if it's cruel and very awful.” Christian Chesnot, 2005 “Shall we release them? Bargain them? Or kill them? And by talking to them we managed to guess their intentions, their logic.” Georges Malbrunot, 2005 In order to find the right angle from which to counter hostage-takings we need to look carefully at the logic driving them. The statements above, from hostages who survived captivity in Iraq in 2004, serve as a starting point in looking for the logic of hostage-takings. We may also apply game theory. Game theory explains strategic action between rational actors where the actors’ outcome depends upon the decisions made by other actors. Complete rationality is rare, yet there is no doubt that actors making rational choices is common. “Rational choice is instrumental: it is guided by the outcome of action” (Elster 1989:22). All governments will argue that they act rationally. Moreover, many scholars subscribe to the notion that terrorists in many cases act as strategic and rational actors. (Stohl 2005:201 and Pape 2005). It is presupposed here that terrorist groups expect to enhance their cause by performing the actions and attacks they perform.8 If not, why should they be undertaking these actions? The hostage-game is a dynamic sequential game where the players have successive moves. Using a model like the hostage game structuralizes our thinking about the flow of events and the logic of hostage-takings. The game can unfold several times if a terrorist group chooses a strategy of repeated hostage-takings. Such repeated games open for a learning curve where you look at how your opponent has acted in previous hostage situations. (Brynjar Lia 2005:52) has documented that placing a hostage-taking in the context of a series or campaign of hostage-takings is something Jihadists are conscious of, and even encourage.9 Several hostages can also give the hostage-takers the opportunity to execute a random hostage to demonstrate their seriousness. Before presenting the model it is important to remind ourselves of some limitations of game-theory. It is of great importance that we do not crystallize our thinking around hostage-takings only within the framework of models of game theory. Models are manmade depictions of the real world with varying levels of precision. Terrorists have a strong tendency of aiming at unpredictability. Predictable terrorists are easier caught than those constantly adapting to their environment and improving their asymmetric way of war. Below is a model of the hostage-game in extensive form. The hostage-game has a maximum of three moves. The first decision to be made is by the terrorists. For a hostage-taking to take place a terrorist group must decide to initiate such an action. If no hostages are taken the game is in a sense over, and the authorities need not make any moves.10 However, if a terrorist group does take hostages and issues demands, the authorities have to decide whether they will give in to the demands or refuse to give in to the demands. At this stage of the game we have a traditional bargaining situation. Many governments’ position on this is not to bargain with terrorists and not to give in to blackmail. The terrorists, however, can initiate a strategy of negotiation regardless of the government they face’s interest in negotiating. Sometimes governments will “negotiate” (typically covert) in order to buy time.

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Hostage takers choose

Take hostage(s) and issue demands Not take hostage Authorities choose

Give in to demands

Refuse to give in to demands

Hostage takers choose

Release

Outcome 1

Outcome 2

Kill

Outcome 3

Release

Outcome 4

Kill

Outcome 5

Figure 1. The Hostage Game

Ultimately, the game it boils down to a situation where the terrorists perceive the government as having chosen to succumb or not to succumb.11 The final move of the game must then be made. The terrorists must choose either to kill the hostage or to release the hostage. The terrorists will have an opinion (or know) whether the authorities have yielded to their demands or not. When the choice of release or killing the hostage has been made, the game and the hostage crisis have come to an end. This simple model of hostage-takings has many interesting aspects to it. All of these cannot be fully explained here. Let me just briefly provide some clarifications. What outcome is preferred by the actors? A suggested order, or preference structure, for the 5 possible outcomes of the hostage game is suggested below. The authorities’ preferences: Outcome 1 Outcome 4 Outcome 5 Outcome 2 Outcome 3

The hostage-takers’ preferences:12 Outcome 2 Outcome 5 Outcome 1 Outcome 3 Outcome 4

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Outcome 3 is clearly worst for the authorities as it implies giving in to demands, and still the hostage is killed. Outcome 1 is best, since any government would prefer not to be exposed to blackmail with its citizens’ life in jeopardy. Moreover, Outcome 4 is also very good (given the circumstances) for the authorities. This outcome has the government standing firm against blackmail and threats, and the terrorists unwilling or unable to enforce the threatened execution of the hostage. This leaves us with the only real question when it comes to authorities preferred outcomes. Which one of Outcomes 2 and 5 do the authorities rank highest? The fatal dilemma occurs if you know with a very high degree of certainty that the hostage will be executed if you do not yield to the demands, and you also believe that there is a very high probability of release if you give in to the demands. Then the decision to give in, or not to give in, to the demands looks less like a gamble and will be a decision determining life or death to the hostage. Here we assume that the authorities would rather stand firm (5), even if it means the death of the hostage, than yield to the hostage-takers (2). As the case study with the Philippine hostage Angelo de la Cruz will show, some governments would prefer Outcome 2 to Outcome 5 under certain circumstances. For Cruz the moderate demand played a crucial role. For the hostage-takers the preferences are much harder to decide. Hostage-takers will typically announce that they intend to kill the hostage if the demand is not met (they state that they prefer Outcome 5 over Outcome 4). However, this is sometimes an empty threat. What is certain is that their best outcome is normally Outcome 2, because the hostage-takers want the authorities to succumb to the demands. However, sometimes Outcome 3 might be good too. Some hostage-takers have no intention of releasing the hostages regardless of government concessions.13 If we on the other hand presume that the hostage-takers would rather not kill the hostage. Then the common government strategy of never to “negotiate” with terrorists should suffice to save the life of the hostage. In the event of an unyielding government and hostage-takers unwilling to kill hostages, the best option for the hostage-takers will coincide with the government’s Outcome 1, not to take hostages. One might argue that if no hostages are taken, we are not dealing with a hostage situation. Yet, this early stage is quite important to include in the game model. The reason is that here lays the key to reducing the amount of hostage-takings. The argument put forward here is that many terrorists would refrain from taking hostages, if they do not believe that it will enhance their cause in any way. A government strategy of never negotiating with terrorists is designed to make Outcome 1 more attractive to terrorists. The first move of the hostage game is here defined as: Take hostage(s) and issue demands. The second part of this is important. It has occurred several times in Iraq in 2004 that hostages have been taken and no demands have been issued. One example of this is Ansar al Sunna’s brutal killing of 12 Nepalese workers. No demands were ever issued.14 Similarly, the beheading of Nick Berg was allegedly done by Abu Musab Zarqawi himself as a revenge for the Abu Ghraib scandal. These are grotesque killings of innocent by-passers, not hostage-takings in order to achieve any specified concession from someone. A different and much more benign variant is when hostages are taken and “judged” by senior hostage-takers and found “not guilty” (of whatever they are accused of) and subsequently released. This has happened to hostages from many countries in Iraq in 2004. These hostage-takings will here be categorized as Outcome 1 since they were abducted, but no demands were issued.15 The countries normally have had no military

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engagement in Iraq. This also goes to show that many groups engaged in hostagetaking “take what they find”. They seize foreign-looking hostages and then decide whether they can be used for political purposes. Some might argue that Outcome 3 in the model is counter-intuitive. If the demands are met, the hostages must be set free. Unfortunately, this is not always the case, although it is the normal sequence of events. Let us look at three reasons for why this does not always happen. Firstly, we must keep in mind that people who are ruthless enough to take hostages and threaten them on their lives, may have different moral standards than most people. Sticking to their word is not necessarily a worshipped virtue for all terrorist groups. Outcome 3 remains a conceivable outcome. Yet, none of the hostage-takings considered in this study ended with Outcome 3. Secondly, releasing a hostage represents a considerable security hazard for the hostage-takers. The hostages may know their captor’s faces or other important information about their whereabouts, modus operandi etc.16 The release operation itself is obviously also a security concern, as the hostage will have to be transported to a location (preferably not to close to where the hostage was kept) and released or handed over. Finally, it may be too late for saving the life of the hostage. It may just have been executed as the authorities give in. The authorities may then make the massive double-error of giving in to demands (in itself rarely wise) without compelling evidence that the hostage is still alive.

Hostage-takers

Authorities

General Public The Hostage(s)

The Media

The Hostage’s Family

Figure 2. Paths of influence from hostage-takers to authorities

This model is designed to show the most important paths of influence from hostage-takers to authorities. Models are by nature supposed to simply.17 The model does not include the authorities’ possibilities for exerting influence. The authorities have the ability influence the family, the media, the general public and the hostagetakers, but not the hostage. The hostage is normally at gunpoint being told what to say and do.18 If hostages refuses to comply and intends to engage in heroics, it is at an enormous risk to their life. In short, under such inquisition-like circumstances hostages will say what the hostage-takers want them to say. In the event of hostages refusing to act and speak in a manner that satisfies the hostage-takers, the video will probably never be sent to any TV-station. For all practical purposes the hostage is through duress and maltreatment – or even torture – transformed into a propaganda vehicle for the terrorists. We should be cautious in believing that the statements of the hostages serve

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any other purposes than enforcing the hostage-takers agenda, and demonstrating that the hostage is still alive. It is easy to see from the model that the media acts as a gatekeeper, and will normally determine whether the public and the hostage’s family will be exposed to the potential influence of the hostage-takers. For the hostage-takers, this model opens for three main strategies to influence the authorities. The strategies do not exclude one another, and televised hostage-takings must by definition involve strategy 3. The most common pattern is that all three strategies are applied. The strategies (or options) for the hostage-takers are: x To communicate directly with the authorities themselves. x To videotape the hostage and make it appeal directly to the authorities. x To send the videotape of the hostage to TV-stations hoping they will televise it. If the hostage-takers succeed with strategy 3, the authorities may be exposed to massive pressure deriving from: hostage-takers, the hostage, the media, the hostage’s family and the general public. The terrorists (sometimes with great effect) try to drive a wedge between the people and the authorities. Countries like South Korea, the Philippines and Italy have all experienced this in some form in 2004. It is a very interesting observation that the people of Italy were driven to the streets to protest Italy’s involvement in Iraq.19 The terrorists threatened to kill the hostage if demonstrations did not take place. This amounts to a demand issued towards the general public. We keep Dahl’s power definition in mind, and note that parts of the general public were doing something they would otherwise not have done. The terrorist’s exercised power when getting the Italian people to protest in the streets. Considering the massive efforts of PR-operatives of governments or companies put down in order to get their message on TV, the sloppiness of TV-channels is baffling when something is defined as news. Hostage-takings are indeed news, moreover, very sellable news. However, it is manufactured news, and TV-stations should always be cautious when someone is actively trying to decide the content of their news. Businesses are willing to pay to get their advertising messages on TV. Some terrorists are willing to kill to get their message on TV. Other types of “mega-news” are normally not instigated by the news’ protagonists with the intent of generating media interest. Examples could be wars, civil wars or political scandals. The media’s role in these situations is further illustrated by a hostage-taking place in Uganda in 2002. The Lord’s Resistance Army took United Nations staff as hostages. Rather than targeting the UN or the hostages’ home country, the LRA issued demands towards the BBC. If BBC World would not radiobroadcast an LRA statement in its entirety, the prisoners would be executed. At first the BBC refused. The reply from the LRA’s representative was: “So you’re ordering me to shoot them?” Dialogue was initiated and a settlement was reached. The BBC read out a summary of the LRA’s demand, and hostage Paul Kilama was interviewed. The hostages were released, yet the LRA blackmailed its way into a global broadcaster’s program.20

3. Islamic Army in Iraq: Instrumental in its Hostage Takings The hostage taking of the group calling itself Islamic Army in Iraq (IAI) is a good case for illustrating the hostage-game model. This is because there is much to suggest that

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there is intentionality behind the group’s hostage-takings. The IAI’s hostage-takings have ended with various outcomes depending on the circumstances of each hostagetaking. The IAI is thought to have been formed in 2004, and it has been one of the groups most frequently using the tactic of hostage-taking of foreigners in Iraq. Their first registered hostage-taking (Angelo de la Cruz) is also one of the most effective hostage-takings to take place in Iraq in 2004. Below is a table with information on the hostages taken by the IAI in 2004.21 They are sorted chronologically by date.

Table 1. Foreigners Taken Hostage by the Islamic Army in Iraq in 2004

Date

8/23 2004 “

Macedonia D. Markovic

Contractor

Publicly known Demands Withdraw troops Several demands Several demands Prisoner release Withdraw troops Headscarf ban Headscarf ban No demands

Macedonia Z. Naskovski

Contractor

No demands

Killed (none)

“

Macedonia D. Lazarevski

Contractor

No demands

Killed (none)

9/15 2004 10/31 2004 “

Lebanon

A. Antoine

Businessman

Unknown

Released (1)

Sri Lanka

D. Rajaratnam

Driver

Unknown

Released (1)

Bangladesh A.

Driver

Unknown

Released (1)

2/11 2004 ”

Jordan

A. A. Yacoub

Driver

No demands

Released (1)

Jordan

J. H. A. Shneik

Driver

No demands

Released (1)

”

Jordan

Abu-Zaytoon

Driver

No demands

Released (1)

7/7 2004 7/23 2004 “ 8/4 2004 8/19 2004 8/20 2004 “

Home Country

Name

Profession

Philippines A. de la Cruz

Driver

Pakistan

R. Azad

Engineer

Pakistan

S. Naeem

Driver

Iran

F. Jahani

Diplomat

Italy

E. Baldoni

Journalist

France

G. Malbrunot

Journalist

France

C. Chesnot

Journalist

Ostensible Outcome Released (2) Killed (5) Killed (5) Released (4) Killed (5) Released (4) Released (4) Killed (none)

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It is hard to confirm and verify all the information in this table. Some problems must be mentioned. The three main sources used to retrieve data are often diverging on the exact dates of the hostage-takings, but normally by no more than 3-5 days. Another issue is that it is sometimes hard to know if it is indeed the IAI who conducted a hostage-taking, or if it is only a loosely affiliated group that took the hostage(s).22 The table includes all of, and only, those incidents attributed to the IAI in MIPT’s knowledge base. A final issue deals with the demands; “demands” here refers to publicly known demands. There may have been demands put forward by the IAI that authorities have chosen not to disclose in public. Finally, the category “no demands” suggests that it is highly unlikely that any demands were put forward in that particular incident. It appears that the Macedonian’s were killed as spies without any demands issued. Furthermore, the Jordanian drivers were held only 2-3 days and appeared in a video warning of cooperation with the US. The video apparently did not communicate any demands. As the issuing and nature of demands is crucial for identifying any logic using the hostage-game, we will proceed by focusing on the hostage-takings where we have some knowledge of issues demands. If we do not have any “official” reasons for why someone is taken hostage we have very little to analyse, and authorities have no natural starting position for time-winning negotiations. Those hostage-takings where the demands are known are naturally also among those given most publicity by the news media. A demand in the form of an ultimatum will explicitly implicate the authorities or company it is issued to in the news story. We will now take a closer look at the cases with hostages from the Philippines (Outcome 2), France (Outcome 4), Italy (Outcome 5) and Pakistan (Outcome 5). The case of Angelo de la Cruz is arguably the most successful hostage-taking conducted by IAI in 2004. The influence exerted on President Arroyo’s government came from all the entities listed in the model above. The media, the family and certainly the general public demanded that Arroyo brought Cruz safely home. This massive pressure contributed to making this the only hostage-taking by IAI in 2004 where it is publicly known that Outcome 2 was reached. The quite modest demand of having the Philippines withdraw their troops earlier than scheduled was succumbed to. In what many considered a public disgrace Arroyo openly admitted to this. “I made a decision to bring our troops home a few days early in order to spare the life of Angelo”. No wonder the IAI set-off on a hostage-taking spree after this initial success. President Arroyo’s decision was very controversial.23 It is an action whose negative consequences are impossible to determine. Yet here are some possible negative consequences. Arroyo’s surrender to the terrorist’s demands proved the effectiveness of hostage-taking as a tactic to coerce foreign nations to leave Iraq. There is no doubt that many Iraqis want foreign troops to leave their country. Additionally, the vicious tactic of hostage-taking is given an undeserved “benign” complexion when the hostage is released. There was no bloodshed and the people of the Philippines took to the street to celebrate. Moreover, it has been publicly demonstrated that terrorists (here the IAI) have power, can be negotiated with, and even worse, stick to their word. “If we do as the hostage-takers say, no one will get hurt”. The Philippines took the easy way out, and their leaving Iraq in this manner was taking out security for itself at the expense of the remaining coalition partners in Iraq. The US State department’s response came through a statement from the Multinational force in Iraq; it was issued by Spokesman Richard Boucher. “[W]e are united in our resolve to make no concessions to terrorists nor succumb to terrorist threats. We are committed to making


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sure that the perpetrators of terrorist acts against our citizens and soldiers are brought to justice. We understand that conceding to terrorists will only endanger all members of the Multinational Force, as well as other countries”.24 The next situation, which involved Pakistani citizens, was also seminal. Their Iraqi driver was released whereas Raja Azad and Sajad Naeem were executed within six days (Outcome 5). IAI thus proved for the first time that they were willing and capable of killing their hostages. This was possibly the first known incident of foreign hostages from Muslim countries being killed by militant Islamists in Iraq for political reasons (Hegghammer 2004:30). All subsequent hostage-takings are influenced by the fact that the IAI established a perception of sticking to their word in the two first hostagetakings. The demands issued for Azad and Naeem’s release are somewhat diffuse. It seems as though they were simply found guilty of cooperating with the American forces and therefore had no viable chance of release. Hegghammer (2004:36) suggests that the demand was that the company they worked for (Kuwait-based al-Tamimi group) had to withdraw from Iraq. MIPT stated that “the perpetrators said they killed the workers because Pakistan was discussing sending troops into Iraq.”25 The Pakistanis may also have been “found guilty” of cooperating with the American forces, and therefore had no real chance of release.26 There is much to suggest that there were considerable back-channel negotiations with the possibility of demands being issued that have not been given much publicity. According to al-Jazeera.com27 the hostage-takers made threats to the al-Tamini group in a video sent to the news channel. The al-Jazeera article also suggested that there had been negotiations with both the Pakistanis and the al-Tamini group directly. Another factor for this case is the time factor. The Pakistanis were killed within six days. That leaves little time to build the trust and verify the authenticity of whomever one tries to negotiate with. Italian Enzo Baldoni was the next victim to be killed by the IAI. He was abducted around the 20th August, and a video of him was televised by al-Jazeera. Like in many other cases his family made appeals for his release on Arab television stations. The situation did not build up the kind of media momentum that other more protracted hostage situations did.28 Baldoni was killed after the IAI’s demand of withdrawal of all Italian troops within 48 hours was not met. It was the second consecutive IAI hostagetaking that ended with hostages killed (Outcome 5). The time factor may be of great importance. A 48 hour deadline is a very short time to respond for the authorities.29 The demand of complete and immediate withdrawal was far from moderate, and for practical purposes almost impossible to comply with had there been any such intention on Italy’s part. The longer a hostagetaking takes place, the more time the government has to initiate negotiations or rescue operations. This was exactly what happened when Special Forces rescued three Italian hostages held captive for almost two months.30 It is also a matter hostage-takers are made aware of in manuals warning of the intricacies of the authority’s chief negotiator. “He attempts to win time so that the security agencies can prepare a plan for breaking in and carrying out a storming operation” (Lia 2004:52). Finally, the longer a hostage is kept, the more time he has to understand routines in the event of attempting to escape. American Thomas Hamill managed to escape from his captors after 24 days in captivity in Iraq. Had he been executed after six days: no escape. The final case of IAI’s hostage-takings to be studied here was the protracted seizure of French journalists Georges Malbrunot and Christian Chesnot. Both survived after being held hostage from the 20th August until their release (Outcome 4) on the 21st

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December after four months of captivity. Both have given in depth interviews to BBC’s Panorama31. This provides an open-source which lifts the veil to some of the driving factors of the hostage-takings of the IAI. The demand of the hostage-takers was peculiar. It took the IAI more than a week to come up with a clearly stated demand. They demanded that France repealed its ban on the wearing of religious symbols in schools. This demand suggests that the IAI perceives themselves to be part of larger global struggle, and not only a player in a local insurgency. What contributed to their release? There seems to have been several factors that played a role. The first thing Chesnot mentioned in his interview is that he speaks Arabic fairly well. This seems to have aided them tremendously. Even though they were moved around frequently the language skills enabled them to communicate with their guards. Such communication can be crucial to avoid harsh treatment. You humanize yourself in the eyes of the hostage-taker, and there is also an element of respect in learning someone’s native tongue. “So immediately there was a human contact with the hijacker, we were down but I continued to speak in Arabic. I show my press card, it was in Arabic” (Chesnot 2005). Hostages who cannot communicate effectively with their hostage-takers are often accused of doing espionage for the Americans. France’s stance on the war in Iraq was also an important factor. Chesnot recapitulates one of the leading hijackers as saying “We prefer to kill the British and the American to make a debt and we will have the maximum effect in New York or London”. Hostages from nations contributing troops to the multinational force in Iraq apparently have meagre chances of release. So being French and speaking Arabic put them in a better position. Malbrunot is very clear on this, and describes how they were aware of the killing of Italian Enzo Baldoni, and also witnessed maltreatment, possibly leading to the death, of the Macedonian hostages. There were extensive negotiations going on between the IAI and different branches of the French Government. France does not have the same “no negotiations” attitude towards hostage-takers as the UK and the USA has. Malbrunot claims that there was contact with French officials as early as from day three. Both Chesnot and Malbrunot stress that there was a lot of e-mail correspondence directly between the authorities and the hostage-takers. The release was done directly to French officials32, and many believe that the French Government offered some sort of concession to secure the release. As regards the payment of a ransom Chesnot answers: “we don't know, and maybe we'll never know. […] but you can have political cost, you can have different way to pay ransom you know, It's not just money”. One such concession or reassurance Chesnot and Malbrunot suggest is that France may have promised the IAI not to change its policy in Iraq. There were no plans to change this policy, so no power was exercised by the IAI on France, if this is indeed true. One final reason why this hostage-taking ended with a fairly good Outcome (4) is the fact that the hostage-takers seemed unable to drive a wedge between government and people in France. There was no French engagement in Iraq for the IAI to exploit in an attempt at influencing the authorities via the general public. Chirac got personally involved in the incident, and the hostage crisis did not trigger much vocal opposition to the law banning the wearing of Hijabs by Muslim girls in French schools. The French people took to the streets. But it appears that the demonstrations were pro and not anti-government demonstrations. French citizens of all faiths rallied to protest against the hostage-taking and demanded a release of Chesnot and Malbrunot. Unlike the demonstrations in the Philippines and South Korea there did not seem to be


55

a public outcry to change existing policies or laws. Malbrunot explains that the IAI was also happy with the demonstrations. This gave the IAI publicity, but did not result in the hostage-takers exerting pressure on the French government via the general public.

4. Ken Bigley: Tracing the Paths of Influence from Hostage Takers “Please talk to, talk to everybody that you know who can influence people, can talk to politicians, can talk to anybody who can let the decision makers know.” Ken Bigley The devastating hostage-taking, and subsequent execution (Outcome 5), of Kenneth Bigley is one of the cases that must be studied closely in order to avoid similar outcomes in the future. Bigley was abducted from his home on September 15 2004 along with Americans Jack Hensley and Eugene "Jack" Armstrong. All three worked as engineers. Few other hostage-takings have so clearly illustrated the paths of influence the hostage-takers may try to exploit. The group who abducted Ken Bigley was Zarqawi’s group, Tawhid and Jihad. It is arguably the most notorious and ruthless group involved in hostage-takings in Iraq in 2004. The group also bears the responsibility for beheading American, Nicholas Berg, South Korean, Kim Sun-Il, Bulgarians Ivaylo Kepov and Georgi Lazov. Tawhid and Jihad are responsible for the killings of other prisoners too. The demand of the hostage-takers was the release of female prisoners held by the Americans in Iraq. Within a week, the two Americans were beheaded with the grotesque videos distributed on the Internet. The ordeal lasted an additional two and a half weeks for Ken Bigley. Several videos of Ken Bigley were broadcast. Ultimately, the BBC decided to stop showing these humiliating and appalling videos. The video of Bigley released around the 23rd September, shortly after the killing of Armstrong and Hensley, will be given particular attention here. It was a statement packed with manipulative information, and it was quite effective in shaking up the public and catching the media’s attention. The full statement is attached as an appendix. The video is obviously designed for TV, something Bigley explicitly states: “You are going to be watching because it is on TV I presume.” Bigley is making pleas for help to a magnitude of entities that are mentioned by name in the statement. Among them are: x PM Tony Blair x Bigley’s closest family x the Liberal party and the Conservative party x MPs and the Government x people of Britain and people of Liverpool x Amnesty International x the Red Cross and the red Crescent x the Asian Community in England. There is little doubt that Bigley is under pressure to act as a mediator to influence groups and entities that an appeal from the hostage-takers themselves would not effectively reach. This puts the government in a difficult situation, and also contributes greatly to the spread of fear, which terrorists seek. The wedge the terrorists attempt to create between the government and the British people is addressed in statements like “anybody in England, anybody at all that can talk to you Mr. Blair and convince Mr.

56


Blair to help me”. Through such statements the terrorists try to confuse the public and manipulate the preconceptions of who is the good and who is the bad guy in this crisis. The moderate, and even somewhat gentlemanly, demand of releasing the female prisoners adds to this. I do not argue that the British people in any way sympathized with Tawhid and Jihad in this matter. However, the terrorists have succeeded if the people turn towards their government demanding that they bring the hostage safely home. And if releasing a few prisoners is all it takes, the public may be manipulated into thinking that yielding to the demands (Outcome 2) is the best way to solve the crisis. The public’s preferred outcome (2) would then be identical to the hostage-takers’ preferred outcome listed earlier in the text. This is an utterly disturbing and undesirable situation, which is more easily achieved by hostage-takers who put forward moderate rather than utopian demands. The despair and anguish felt by Bigley is immeasurable. One token of it is in the massive usage of the words “please” and “help”. As history proves, he was pleading for his life, alas in vain. In a statement of 1088 words Bigley utters the word “please” 30 times and uses the word “help” 21 times. Anyone familiar with quantitative content analysis will understand that these are astonishing numbers. It resulted in passages like the one below, invoking empathy in those who possess it. “Please, please release the female prisoners who are held in Iraqi prisons. Please help them. I need you to help Mr Blair. You are now the only person on God's earth that I can speak to. Please, please help me to see my wife”. Bigley’s wife and Prime Minister Blair are also mentioned. Blair’s name is mentioned a total of 9 times in the statement. This underlines the fact that he, and his government, is the real target of the hostage-taking. By ruthlessly exploiting empathy, Tawhid and Jihad, with TV-stations as a sloppy gatekeeper, were able to influence public opinion in Britain. Additionally, some commentators argued that the choice of life and death for Bigley were in Blair’s hands. The Independent wrote “Mr Blair didn't wield the knife. Yet the Prime Minister is substantially responsible for the gruesome murder of Kenneth Bigley” (Whittam Smith 2004). This is hardly accurate. We keep in mind that a stand down for the terrorist (Outcome 4) is quite normal for hostagetakings, also in Iraq. Giving in is also no guarantee for the hostage’s life. We recall that French hostage Chesnot explained that the IAI preferred to kill British and American hostages. Bigley’s closest family was in a state of shock and horror. Like in many other hostage-situations they made public appeals and gave emotional appeals on Arabic television to increase the emotional burden the hostage-takers might feel about executing their loved one. Like any wise political leader would, Blair met the family and probably told them what the family never can be expected to understand: We cannot give in to the demands. We will not even negotiate (publicly) with the hostagetakers. The Bigley family had an ambivalent attitude towards Blair during different stages of the hostage-taking. At times, some of them were critical of Blair’s handling of the crisis and voiced their views publicly33 (Watt 2004). This suggests that Tawhid and Jihad managed to pressure and influence Blair via the media and the family of the hostage. The media has an obligation to make life hard for politicians providing criticism and checking their power to some extent. But this does not amount to an obligation to play the role of devil’s advocate in times of crisis. The Bigley case had a tragic outcome, and it is a case that demonstrates how the influence of the hostage-takers manifested itself through public opinion, media and Bigley’s family. This added to the immense pressure already on Tony Blair’s shoulders


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to secure his release. Some reports suggest that an MI6 rescue operation was initiated, and that Bigley was freed for about 30 minutes before his captors caught up with him (Jaber and Rifat 2004). Such clandestine operations are hard to acquire certain knowledge of unless the services that conducted them choose to downgrade the classified reports of the incident. Out of utter despair something good might arise. It appears that the media have given consideration to their coverage of hostage-takings involving Britons following the tragic death of Ken Bigley. The impression I am left with is that the coverage of British-born Margaret Hassan was contributing less to the dramaturgy of the hostagetakers. Al-Jazeera did show two videos of Hassan. However, they refused to show a third video of her in which it is claimed that the poor woman faints after making an appeal. Al-Jazeera cited “humanitarian reasons” for not showing the video. BBC’s coverage of Hassan also seems to have been much more prudent than that of Bigley. Sadly, the fates of the hostages were identical.

Conclusion This article is an attempt at developing a theory of televised hostage-takings. There is ample reason to believe that some hostage-takings have a logic behind them, and thus we may structuralize our thinking by applying models like the hostage-game. It should also be recognized that many hostage-takings diverge from the logic presented here. In cases where there is hard to identify any logic we may start by looking at what possible goals the terrorist say they have. The three goals listed here deal with political concessions, exercising power and media coverage. The hostage-takings analysed here suggest that these three goals are important to many terrorists. Power and influence are related concepts. A powerless terrorist organization is negligible and may have difficulties with making it into the news headlines. Terrorists have a political agenda and most hostage-takings aim at getting authorities to do something they would otherwise not do. An interesting observation in this article is that hostage-takers also issue demands to the family of the hostage, the company he or she works for, the media, and sometimes even to the public at large. Driving a wedge between authorities and the people can result in dangerous situations. The case of Angelo de la Cruz is of special importance here. President Arroyo simply gave in to the demands of the Islamic Army in Iraq. The modest demand of an early withdrawal of troops who were going home soon anyway was cunning. The choice of strategy for the authorities is complicated when demands are moderate. It is easier to get approval of a non-negotiating firm line if the demands are utopian. When demands are modest, politicians may be regarded as heartless cynics who have little regard for the man in the street. The situation facing President Arroyo was enormously challenging. The IAI and a considerable proportion of the general public had corresponding views of how the crisis should be solved: by succumbing to the terrorists demand. As stated above this materialized and the result was Outcome 2. However, governments need to consider the signals it sends by succumbing to terrorists’ demands. It is rational for terrorists to engage in hostage-takings if governments can be expected to give in to demands. Those hostages released due to succumbing governments, may be planting the seeds of tomorrow’s hostage-takings. This is a governmental responsibility. No individual hostage can be expected to be content with a government unwilling to negotiate. Hostages are not “sacrificed for

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principles” in most situations. A government strategy of standing firm has been awarded with many releases of hostages throughout time. We can never measure how many hostage-takings the perception of firm governments has prevented. The media’s role is crucial for televised hostage-takings. Ethics of journalism and a better understanding of the logic of televised hostage-takings might address the problem. It is indeed a problem when TV-stations like al-Jazeera choose to award terrorists with primetime broadcasting of their videos. It is a problem the media, not the government, should solve. Censorship is obviously not the right way forward. If TVstations do not agree that showing videos of hostages plays cards into the hands of the terrorists, then there is little anyone else can do about it. It should never be forgotten that terrorists are also effective if they can force us to alter the way we go about our daily life. Security precautions must not turn into draconian countermeasures or compromise the basic values of open societies.

Bibliography Apple JR., R. W. (1985): “Thatcher Urges the Press to Help Starve Terrorists”, The New York Times July 16. Chesnot, Christian (2005): Interview with BBC Panorama. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/4628283.stm Dahl, Robert (1957): "The Concept of Power," Behavioural Science, Vol. 2, no. 3 (July), 201-215. DNI (2005): Director of National Intelligence. “Letter from al-Zawahiri to al-Zarqawi”. http://www.dni.gov/press_releases/20051011_release.htm Elster, Jon (1989): Nuts and Bolts for the Social Sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hegghammer, Thomas (2004): FFI-Rapport no. 03105. The Iraq Hostage Crisis: Abductions in Iraq, AprilAugust 2004. Kjeller: Forsvarets Forskningsinstitutt. Jaber, Hala and Rifat, Ali (2004): “Bigley beheaded after MI6 rescue backfired”, The Sunday Times, Oct. 10. Lia, Brynjar (2005) "Al-Qaeda online: understanding jihadist internet infrastructure" Jane’s Intelligence Review Dec. 02. Lia, Brynjar (2004): FFI-working paper: ”Nye aksjonsformar i internasjonal terrorisme: Konsekvensar for norsk samfunnstryggleik" (sections in English) http://www.mil.no/multimedia/archive/00077/Nye_aksjonsformar_i__77456a.pdf Malbrunot, Georges (2005): Interview with BBC Panorama. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/4619555.stm Paletz, David L. & Boiney, John (1992): “Researchers perspectives“ in David L. Paletz, & Alex P. Schmid, (eds.) Terrorism and the Media. London: Sage. Pape, Robert A. (2005): Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism, New York: Random house. Stohl, Michael (2005): “Expected Utility and State Terrorism”. In Tore Bjørgo (ed.) Root Causes of Terrorism: Myths, reality and ways forward. London: Routledge. Watt, Nicholas (2004): “Brother Attacks Blair's refusal to act”, The Guardian, September 27, 2004 http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour2004/story/0,,1313574,00.html Whittam Smith, Andreas (2004): “Why I hold Blair responsible for Ken Bigley's murder”, The Independent Oct. 11. http://comment.independent.co.uk/columnists_m_z/andreas_whittam_smith/article27831.ece

References 1 2

3 4 5

Quoted from: “Are the media helping the hostage takers?” http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3702574.stm Hostage-takings of Iraqis were unfortunately quite common prior to that. Most of these intra-Iraqi hostage-takings, or kidnappings, were initiated for a ransom. Kidnappings, with demands of a ransom to be paid by the family, are best defined as crime rather than terrorism. This article focuses on terrorism, and therefore also exclusively on the logic of hostage-takings for political reasons. Quoted by the New York Times By R. W. Apple JR. (1985) Computer skills to utilize the Internet is of great importance. See Lia (2005) for information on how alQaeda uses the Internet. The letter was released by the Director of National Intelligence’s office, and is available from its homepages. http://www.dni.gov/press_releases/20051011_release.htm. At this URL, it is stated that:


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“The document has not been edited in any way and is released in its entirety”. There have been raised questions on its authenticity, however, there is much to suggest that it is a reliable source. The references here go to the DNI’s publication. 6 In a statement screened by al Jazeera August 4 2005 Zawahiri said: “the losses you are having in Afghanistan and Iraq, in spite of all the media blackout, are only the losses of the initial clashes”. 7 French hostages Chesnot and Malbrunot argue for showing the videos. In their case the public demonstrations did indeed contribute to their release. For many other hostage-takings the public dimension has been more government hostile and hardly contributed to any good solution of the crisis. 8 This position is academically challengeable. One type of action immediately comes to mind: vengeance. Vengeance can be irrational, but also rational at times. Vengeance in the form of punishment can be applied in order to subdue opposition , and deter one’s opponents into altering their behaviour in the future. 9 “In case of any stalling, starting to execute hostages is necessary […] the authorities must realize the seriousness of the kidnappers, so that when another operation is carried out, if will be known that you actually do what you said you will do” (Lia 2004:52). 10 In this article it is the interaction between authorities and hostage-takers that is studied. Many hostagetakers in Iraq have issued demands to the company the hostages have worked for, calling for their withdrawal from Iraq. The dynamics of such a situation is very different. The normal outcome of such hostage-situations is that the company withdraws. Companies cannot be expected to adhere to the same ethical standards as states. 11 Initiating a storming operation of the terrorists’ hideout by special forces is one sign of non-cooperation by the authorities. This may come as a surprise attack whilst pretending to be seriously engaged in negotiations. Unsuccessful rescue attempts may sometimes trigger execution of hostages. 12 It is much more complex to determine the preferences of the hostage-takers. The following discussion will focus mostly on the preferences of the authorities. 13 Large scale hostage-takings like Beslan and Dubrovka had no real exit-strategy for the hostage-takers. The terrorists issued demands without any realistic chance of being accepted, (immediate Russian withdrawal from Chechenya). It seems clear that outcome 3 is what these “suicide” hostage-takers were aiming for. Additionally, Christian Chesnot was held hostage in Iraq. He quotes one of his captors saying that they prefer to kill British and American hostages. 14 Such cases should perhaps not be defined as hostage-takings. It is plain murder on the basis of nationality. 15 Table I in the case studies lists hostages held by the IAI from Lebanon, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Jordan who were released without any issuing of demands. 16 Unmasked hostage-takers, like for instance Movsar Baraev during the Dubrovka operation, is normally a bad sign for the hostages. French hostage Chesnot quotes one of his captors to have said about masks/kuffia: "Until I have my kuffia on my face you are safe. If I put off my kuffia, you will be dead tonight." (Chesnot 2005). 17 One simplification (illustrated by the Ken Bigley case studied later in the article) is the role of NGOs and political opposition. In this model, any influence deriving from them would file under “the general public”. 18 A hostage-taking in November 2004 in Afghanistan by Jaish-e-Muslimeen is interesting in this respect. In the video (which was in “Iraq-style”) the hostage-taker orders hostage Annetta Flanigan to cry. She answers: "I have cried and cried, and I can't cry any more." http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,1284,1340957,00.html 19 Turkish hostages Mustafa Bal, Mehmet Bakir and Abdulselam Bakir were released by Tawhid and jihad. Part of the reason was anti-US demonstrations held in Turkey during President George W. Bush’s visit. The Turkish hostages also pledged not to work again for the Americans. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3850025.stm 20 An account this incident by Robin White, Editor, African Service, BBC is available from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/specials/1738_respect/page7.shtml 21 The data has been compiled using multiple sources. Of special importance was Hegghammer (2004), BBCnews.com and the MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base: http://www.tkb.org/Incident.jsp?incID=25169. It should be noted that IAI-incidents from 2005 are not included in the table. This includes December 2005 kidnapping and execution of American Ronald Schultz, and also the capture of Sudanese drivers Muhammad Harun Hamad and Mahir Ataya in March 2005. 22 One example: Angelo de la Cruz was taken by the Khalid Bin-al-Walid Corps of the IAI. French hostages Malbrunot and Chesnot state in their interviews with BBC that their captors spoke of other

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A.G. Romarheim / A Theory of Televised Hostage Takings hostages such as Baldoni and the Macedonians. It appears that the IAI’s hostages were sometimes kept in the same houses. Some of the different views expressed in the Philippines’ media can be found here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3897435.stm. The coverage ranged from statements like: “For once, [President Gloria Arroyo] seems to have done something agreeable to the whole nation,” to statements like: “No self-respecting government should allow itself to be blackmailed by terrorists.” Available from: http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2004/34926.htm Available from: http://www.tkb.org/Incident.jsp?incID=19406. The Pakistan-based Daily Times also claimed that the demand was company withdrawal. http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?date=7/28/2004 According to the Austalian-based The Age, their driver Omar Khaled Salman was released because he was found innocent after investigations. http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/07/29/1091046066389.html?oneclick=true Available from: http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=2843. Note that the al-Jazeera magazine is not in any way affiliated with the TV-station al-Jazeera. Examples of this are Cruz, Malbrunot/Chesnot and Bigley. The latter two cases will be examined in the next sections of the article. It should be noted that “protracted” in this context is not comparable to the real protracted hostage-crises of the 70’s and 80’s. Terry Waite was held hostage for four and a half years by Islamic Jihad. Manuals on how to conduct hostage-takings stress the importance of having a short time limit (Lia 2004:53). The fourth hostage was Fabrizio Quattrocchi. He was among the first foreign hostages to be executed by Islamist militants in Iraq in 2004. Available from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/4628201.stm This direct handover differs from other releases. Angelo de la Cruz was for example handed over to the United Arab Emirates Embassy in Baghdad. Intermediaries are common in such situations. “Mr Blair can go fishing, as far as I'm concerned” Paul Bigley is reported to have said on BBC Radio. The Guardian quoted Ken’s brother Paul as stating: "Nothing is happening. We have silence, total silence and that is a death warrant for Ken. Mr Blair's silence for the past 10 days is a kiss of death for my brother," (Watt 2004). Paul Bigley also said that Blair had blood on his hands in Iraq. The final words of the Bigley’s to the BBC supported the government: “[t]he family here in Liverpool believe our government did everything it possibly could to secure the release of Ken in this impossible situation.” Available from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3727984.stm

Appendix I This is a transcript of Mr Bigley's statement given in a video of 22 September 2004. It is available from different web sites. One belongs to The Daily Telegraph. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/core/Content/displayPrintable.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/09/23/wirq423.xml&site=5 Begin transcript: I am Ken Bigley from Liverpool in the Walton district. I am here in Iraq and I think this is possibly my last chance to speak to someone who will listen from Europe. I need you to be as compassionate as you have always said you are and help me, help me to live so I can see my wife and my son and my mother and my brothers again. I don't want to die, I don't deserve it and neither do those women held in the Iraqi prisons. Please, please release the female prisoners who are held in Iraqi prisons. Please help them. I need you to help Mr Blair. You are now the only person on God's earth that I can speak to. Please, please help me to see my wife who cannot go on without me. She really can't. And my son. [breaks down] Please help me . . . please help me. I also now realise how much the Iraqi people have suffered. The Iraqis have suffered, the Iraqi children who haven't got their mothers. It's not fair. A child wants his mother, it's of no use keeping a mother in prison, no use whatsoever. Let the mothers go back to their children, give these people a chance. Please I beg you [breaks down]. My wife, she can't even speak very good English. She doesn't know anything, she rings Paul and asks, 'Where's Ken?'. Mr Blair, I am nothing to you, it's just one person in the whole of the United Kingdom that's all. With a family like you've got, a family, with children, like your children, your boys, your wife.


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Please you can help. I know you can. These people are not asking for the world, they're asking for their wives and the mothers of their children. Please Mr Blair, please show some of the compassion you say you have. Please, I don't know what I can say. Please, I wish you could talk back to me. I wish you could tell me what I've got to do. I'm nothing, am only a small man. I'm nothing, I have no political gains. I have no ambitions of grandeur. I made the mistake in coming here, but I've worked a long time in the Emirates. I just didn't have real fear, not like I have today. Please, please help me Mr Blair. You know you can, you know you can. Thank you, thank you. And [inaudible] . . . also if there's anyone else that can help me within the British political world, the Liberal party or the Conservative Party, if you can talk with Mr Blair and assist him. I know things aren't easy, I know things aren't black and white, white and black, but we can overcome this. We can overcome it, I need to live. I need to see my family and these people here need to see their mothers and their wives back in their homes, they do. I've been here a week and they've taken good care of me. They have, under the circumstances, they've taken very good care of me so please anybody, anybody in England, anybody at all that can talk to you Mr Blair and convince Mr Blair to help me and help the Iraqi people. This is not only helping me, this is helping the Iraqi people who need help, they don't need bully boys, they need help, they need care and they need compassion - the things you say you are Mr Blair. Please, anyone at all who can help and also to the British people, you are going to be watching because it is on TV I presume. You look at yourselves and think of your wife or think of your husband not being home, not because they committed a crime but because they just get arrested and are guilty by association, just thrown inside a jail and the families want these people home like you would want your family, your mothers, your wives, your husbands home. Please, please lobby Mr Blair. Please lobby all of the political parties that you are involved with and ask them to stop and have a look at the Iraqis' plight. Iraq is suffering and has been suffering too long and it needs its country like you. Would you like the Germans or any other country walking down the street with a gun, in England, in Scotland, I don't think so. And the Iraqis don't like foreign troops on their soil walking down the street with guns, it's not right and it's not fair. We need to pull the troops out and let the Iraqis run their own country, their own destiny. And I ask you all, of course I need help, of course I do, that goes without saying but the Iraqis also need help, they need to be left alone to rebuild their country and their own futures at the speed they want to do it and not be pushed and shoved. People of Britain and people of Liverpool particularly, you are very special people, you are people who can open your mouths and speak and say enough is enough. Enough is enough of playing with Iraq like a toy. Pack your bags and get out and let's hope we can come back and visit the country as a guest, as a guest of the Iraqis. Please, especially all the people of Liverpool, we all know how important, how special Liverpool is to everybody, people who speak the truth. I'm not afraid to speak the truth. I never have been, that's probably why all the Liverpudlians have suffered over the years. I'm begging you, please, please talk to MPs, talk to the Government, talk to anyone. Please, please look at Iraq and help. Me, yes, I want to live, yes I want to live, but please look and help Iraq, Iraqi women and children, women and children. I've been in Iraq some months now, believe me they have nothing; they have nothing only their pride. They're kind people, please talk to, talk to everybody that you know who can influence people, can talk to politicians, can talk to anybody who can let the decision makers know, people who are close to the Government, who are close to the opposition, Amnesty International, the Red Cross, the Red Crescent, everybody. And the Asian community, the Asian community in England, please, please open your mouths and be listened to and speak up for the freedom of Iraq. Please.

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Iraq's Hostage Crisis: Kidnappings, Mass Media and the Iraqi Insurgency By Dr Ibrahim AL-MARASHI Post-doctoral fellow at Sabanci University, Istanbul Lecturer at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, and research associate at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies

Abstract. This article analyzes the use of kidnapping as a tactic by the Iraqi insurgency in its effort to influence Iraqi, Arab, and Muslim public opinion and politics, as well as the international arena. It assesses how this method has yielded important advantages for the insurgents, despite the horror and opposition this behavior arouses in the outside world.

Introduction Since the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s state in 2003, there have been ample reports covering and analyzing the Iraqi insurgency’s diverse use of armed tactics such as roadside explosives, mortar attacks, and suicide bombings. At the same time, though, there has been less attention paid and understanding developed on the insurgents’ media campaign directed at Iraqis as well as the Arab and Muslim worlds more generally. Observers of the Iraqi insurgency agree that its combat techniques have grown more sophisticated since President George W. Bush announced the end of major combat operations in May 2003. A media strategy, however, has simultaneously complemented these military activities. Iraqi insurgents1 employed these methods in order to garner sympathy from the Iraqi population for their “struggle,” while keeping the international media spotlight on the American-led occupation of Iraq. The phenomenon of kidnapping foreigners in Iraq emerged as a result of the insurgents’ attempts to influence world media. Taking hostages and releasing video recordings of their captivity proved to be a successful tactic for gaining immediate coverage in both Arabic and international news sources, as well as pressuring world leaders to give in to the insurgents’ demands. The tactic of kidnappings reveals that Iraqi insurgents have a “public relations” campaign intended to affect audiences inside and outside Iraq. Videos of kidnapped hostages had proved successful in forcing world leaders to withdraw troops from Iraq, preventing international firms from participating in reconstruction efforts, and 1

Those taking part in the violence in Iraq against Coalition forces, the interim Iraqi government and civilians have been referred to as either “resistance fighters,” “terrorists” or “foreign jihadists.” For the sake of this article, the term used most often in the media “insurgent” has been employed.

I. Al-Marashi / Iraq’s Hostage Crisis: Kidnappings, Mass Media and the Iraqi Insurgency

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instigating rallies against the occupation of Iraq in the hostages’ countries. Therefore, however repugnant the footage, it served the insurgents successfully in attracting world attention to their cause.

1. The Media and Terrorism According to James E. Lukaszewski, a pubic relations counselor who previously advised the U.S. military and major international firms, “Media coverage and terrorism are soul mates, virtually inseparable. They feed off each other. They together create a dance of death, the one for political or ideological motives, the other for commercial success.”[1] Lukaszewski has argued that this relationship is a mutually beneficial arrangement, “Terrorist activities are high profile, ratings-building events.” The media, Lukaszewski continues, provide the terrorists with access to an audience out of necessity, especially since they need “[t]o prolong these stories because they build viewership and readership.”[2] His comments, made in 1987, prior to the spectacle of planes crashing into the Twin Towers, hold true in understanding why kidnappings occurred in Iraq. Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington described the beheadings videos as “made-fortelevision events.” He writes that the beheadings videos are part of “A calculated set of actions and images directed toward influencing a mass audience. In this way, the audience is often more important than the action itself, and the symbolism is inseparable from the strategy. Missing this vital point can lead to precisely the wrong response.”[3] Brigitte L. Nacos, who has written extensively on the subject of terrorism and the media, describes a “classical terrorist desire for publicity in terms of sheer volume of news coverage.”[4] Nacos explains the relationship between the media and terrorism based on three variables. She calls the first “the Bomb and the Message,” or in other words, the terrorist act and the media’s reporting of the incident. The second variable is “public opinion,” which reacts to the terrorist attack, while the third variable is the “decision-makers,” which have to react based in large part on the public perception of the event. By manipulating these three variables, terrorists affect public policy in a more efficient way than peaceful methods such as petitions or marches. Terrorism is guaranteed to create a mass-media mediated debate that influences policymakers, proving that when peaceful methods fail, violence succeeds. Kidnappings in Iraq, Nacos’s first variable, have proven to succeed in rallying “public opinion” in countries. This has forced decision-makers to react, either by paying a ransom for hostages, withdrawing their troops entirely from Iraq, or refusing to negotiate with the terrorists, an option that has so far resulted in the death of the captives.

2. The Emergence and Evolution of the Iraqi Insurgency In 2003, Ahmed Hashim, an instructor at the US Naval War College, categorized the Iraqi insurgents into three groups: regime loyalists, Iraqi nationalists and Islamist groups. At first, the regime loyalists appeared to be the strongest element in the Iraqi insurgency, yet he predicted that if one faction of the Iraqi insurgency were weakened,

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another faction could manage to consolidate its control over the others: “The elimination of Saddam’s sons, of Saddam himself, and of regime fighters opened the way for the consolidation of a group whose combat against U.S. forces had nothing to do with trying to bring back the ancien regime.”[5] Hashim suggested that the triumph over one group opened the field for its rivals. The most prominent insurgent group immediately after the 2003 Iraq war was “The Return” (Al-‘Awda), made up of former Iraqi security service members and soldiers determined to bring their former leader back to power. However, after Saddam Hussein’s capture in December 2003, the group’s stated goal seemed unattainable as he was in U.S. custody. Therefore, many of these forces offered their services to the armed Islamist organizations and bolstered their ranks, as Hashim predicted. A few months after the war, elements in Iraq emerged that had no desire to fight for the return of their former dictator. Their attacks against Coalition forces were specifically directed towards ending the occupation of Iraq. These groups can be categorized as the second faction, the Iraqi nationalists, most of whose fighters are recruited from Iraqi towns such as Falluja, Ramadi and Samarra, in what has become referred to as the “Sunni Arab Triangle.” They have limited themselves to guerrillatype tactics, and if they kidnapped foreigners, they avoided the grisly punishment of beheadings that have become synonymous with the third group, the Islamist insurgents. A shadowy organization known as “The Soldiers of Islam” (Jund al-Islam), emerged in September 2001, made up of Kurdish Islamists who began to seize control of several villages near the Iraqi town of Halabja in northern Iraq in order to establish a mini-state similar to the Taliban’s Afghanistan. The organization, which has ties to alQa’ida, accepted that organization’s fighters as they fled Afghanistan in October 2001. The group later changed its name to “The Supporters of Islam” (Ansar al-Islam) in December 2001. After U.S. Special Forces and Kurdish militias destroyed their main base during the Iraq war, members of Ansar al-Islam scattered over Iraq itself and, most likely, among Iraq’s neighbors. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian national and former Arab fighter in Afghanistan, was believed to play a key role in directing Ansar, although he was not declared its leader. Al-Zarqawi opened his own terrorist base in the Afghan city of Herat in 2000, where it was believed that he forged some connections with Al-Qa’ida during this period[6]. It is reported that in late 2003, Abu Abdallah al-Shafi’i, also known as Warba Holiri al-Kurdi, took over the leadership of Ansar al-Islam and changed its name to “Army of the Supporters of the Sunna” (Jaysh al-Ansar al-Sunna). Its relationship to another organization, “The Unity and Jihad Group” (Jama’at al-Jihad wal-Tawhid), also believed to be led by al-Zarqawi, is unclear. For example, a posting on the internet depicting the beheading of a Turkish truck driver appeared on the website of the Jaysh al-Ansar al-Sunna. However, the statement read out during the beheading identified the kidnappers as belonging to the Unity and Jihad Group’s Qaqa’ Brigade. The various names of these organizations are confusing. In fact, they essentially refer to the same group of insurgents, but perhaps also reveal a tactic designed to give the impression that the Islamist elements are more numerous than the other factions. To make matters even more confusing, the Unity and Jihad Group assumed a new name, “The al-Qa’ida Organization for Holy War in the Land of the Two Rivers” (Tandhim Qa’ida Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn), indicating al-Zarqawi’s allegiance to Usama bin Ladin’s organization.


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Besides the al-Zarqawi-linked factions, there are other Islamist insurgent groups responsible for conducting kidnappings in Iraq. The “Mujahideen Battalions of the Salafi Group of Iraq” (Kata’ib al-Mujahidin fil-Jama’a al-Salafiyya fil-‘Iraq) claims its spiritual mentor as the deceased Abdallah ‘Azzam, bin Ladin’s mentor in Saudi Arabia and later Afghanistan. The other faction includes the “Islamic Army in Iraq” (al-Jaysh al-Islami fil-‘Iraq); yet, it is unclear if the organization is made up of Iraqis or foreign fighters. 3. Hostages and Insurgent Messages2 Gary Bunt, author of Islam in the Digital Age, coined the term “Cyber Jihad,” to describe those Islamist organizations which use the internet to propagate a message of religious violence.[7] The current conflict, in which Iraqi insurgents have appropriated the internet in a quest to popularize their actions against the Coalition presence in Iraq, can be described as a “Cyber Insurgency.” The Iraqi insurgents have proven adept at manipulating the internet, as well as international news outlets in order to send their message to domestic and international audiences. The spate of kidnappings in Iraq began after the 2003 Iraq war, but the primary victims were Iraqis abducted by Iraqi criminals and ransomed for financial reasons. In April 2004, as U.S. forces conducted simultaneous attacks against insurgents in Falluja and Najaf, the Islamic Army in Iraq and al-Zarqawi-linked groups began kidnapping foreigners in an attempt to prevent those countries from sending troops or participating in Iraq’s reconstruction. These two organizations were primarily responsible for the spectacle of kidnapped hostages pleading for their lives in front of a video camera. The videos are designed both for local Iraqi and international consumption, sending simultaneous messages to very different audiences. 3.1. Messages to the Iraqis Videos of decapitations are designed to serve as warnings for any Iraqis serving in the interim government’s security forces or “collaborating with the Crusader American army,” in the words of groups linked to al-Zarqawi. A videotape posted on their website in October 2004 depicts the beheading of two Iraqis, Fadhil Ibrahim and Firas Imayyil, reported to be members of the Iraqi National Intelligence service, who were captured on Baghdad’s Haifa Street on September 28, 2004.[8] The kidnappers identified themselves as the Brigades of Abu Bakr al-Sidiq of Jama’at al-Jihad walTawhid. Before their executions, the victims warned fellow Iraqis working in Iraq’s security services to leave their posts and “repent to God” for their sin of collaboration with the occupation. Jaysh al-Ansar al-Sunna kidnapped another Iraqi, Sayf ‘Adnan Kana’an, for working as a mechanic for the American forces based at the Mosul airport. The videotape showed him bound, in front of three masked insurgents and the group’s black flag with white Arabic script. His execution was based on the charges that he was “a 2

Insurgent messages are usually posted on their websites which are closed after a few weeks, if not days. Their statements can also be heard in Arabic on “beheading videos,” which have proliferated to numerous websites that have no link to the insurgency. Rather than encouraging access to these websites and for the sake of this article, the author has relied on transcripts of insurgent comments found in the Associated Press or various news sources in English.

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crusader spy recruited by the American troops to follow and carry information about the mujahidin in Mosul.” Before his execution he was forced to confess in a fashion similar to the Iraqi security agents: “I am telling anybody who wants to work with Americans to not work with them. I found out that the mujahidin have very accurate information and strong intelligence about everything. They are stronger than I thought.”[9] Other beheadings are directed to specific Iraqi communities, as an October 2004 video that appeared on the Jaysh Ansar al-Sunna’s site depicting the execution of a Shi’a Muslim, Ala’ al-Maliki[10]. Al-Maliki is depicted as reading a statement, similar to a forced confession, whereupon he is beheaded amid screams of “God is Great” from the kidnappers. The Shi’a have been a specific target for the al-Zarqawi groups as they have been accused of conducting attacks against Sunni Muslims in Iraq as well as allying themselves with U.S. forces. Al-Zarqawi has attempted to spark a civil war between the two sects in Iraq, thus undermining American attempts to bring stability to the country. He allegedly released a 33-minute audiotape where he declared that Iraqi Shi’a were not true Muslims and were “the ears and the eyes of the Americans” in Iraq. Thereafter, he urged the Sunni Muslims in Iraq to “burn the earth under the occupiers’ feet.”[11] The insurgents have also targeted Iraqi Kurds for their alleged collaboration with U.S. forces. In September 2003, members of the Jaysh al-Ansar al-Sunna beheaded three Iraqi Kurdish militiamen in retaliation for the cooperation of Kurdish political parties with the Americans in Iraq. The statement of their website said that they were “renegade military men, affiliated with the traitor Kurdistan Democratic Party” and that they were beheaded “for them to be an example to others, and for us to avenge our women, children and elderly who die daily from American raids.”[12] As in the case of the Shi’a killings, these groups have targeted the Kurds for their “sworn allegiance to the crusaders [who] fought and are still fighting Islam and its people,” and have accused Massud Barazani, leader of the Kurdish Democratic Party and Jalal Talabani, leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan of being Israeli agents[13]. Essentially, the insurgents have justified the killing of Iraqi Muslims by branding their captives as “unbelievers” (kafirs) for aiding in the reconstruction of Iraq, under an “infidel occupation.” Insurgents have used kidnappings to even demonstrate that the Iraqi interim prime minister, Ayad ‘Allawi was not immune to their actions. On November 10, 2004, a previously unknown group called Jama’at al-Ansar al-Jihad claimed responsibility for kidnapping three of Allawi’s relatives. On an Islamist website, the following declaration was made: “Praise be to God, for with his support and his Glory in this holy month, a faction from Ansar al-Jihad, may God honor them with victory, and set their aim upon the target, kidnapped three relatives of the head of Iraqi treason, Allawi, may God burn him and slay him.”[14] The group demanded that all male and female prisoners be released in Iraq, and that U.S. and Iraqi security forces end their assault on Falluja, which began in the first week of November 2004. They threatened to behead ‘Allawi’s relatives if their demands were not met, perhaps indicating that the group was linked to al-Zarqawi. 3.2. Messages to International Businesses Insurgents have carried out kidnappings in order to drive foreign companies out of Iraq or to deter future investors from aiding in the U.S.-led reconstruction of the country.


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Before the 1991 Gulf War, Turkey was one of Iraq’s largest trading partners and it seems Turkey will reclaim that role. The presence of Turkish companies doing business in Iraq is clearly visible not just in the north of Iraq, but as far as the markets in Basra in the south. Most of the trucks providing transportation for Iraq’s reconstruction effort originate in Turkey. Due to this visible role, Turks have been the primary victims of this aspect of the insurgents’ campaign. Al-Zarqawi’s Jama’at al-Jihad wal-Tawhid posted videos on the internet of the executions of Murat Yuce, an employee of Bilintur, a Turkish company, and Durmus Kumdereli, a Turkish truck driver.[15] In October 2003, Maher Kemal, a Turkish contractor, and Ramazan Elbu, another Turkish truck driver, were executed by another al-Zarqawi linked group, Jaysh al-Ansar al-Sunna. While the video of Elbu’s death was released on the website of Jaysh al-Ansar al-Sunna, the kidnappers identified themselves as belonging to the Qaqa’ Brigade of Jama’at al-Jihad wal-Tawhid, underlining the close link between the two groups. Before his beheading he was most definitely coerced into saying the following: “I drove a truck of supplies to the Americans.... When I was coming back (to Turkey), the group captured me. I call on all Turkish drivers not to come to Iraq.”[16] Afterwards, one of the masked gunmen behind him declared that his holy warriors will deliver death upon those who help “the Crusaders” (i.e. the Americans). The “Salafist Brigades of Abu Bakr al-Sidiq,” also believed to be linked to al-Zarqawi, claimed responsibility for seizing ten Turkish hostages in September 2004. On October 4, the al-Jazeera news channel received a video from this group depicting the death of one of the hostages.[17] These kidnappers made demands that the Americans release all Iraqi prisoners and demanded that all Turks conducting business with the Coalition vacate Iraq. “We of the group of Unity and Jihad announce… that we will cut off the head of this hostage if our demands are not met.” The kidnapper directed a final warning to his Turkish audience, “We have long warned them not to enter the land of Islam and land of Jihad, the land of Iraq.”[18] Another group of kidnappers, under the previously unknown name of the Holders of the Black Banners, kidnapped three Indians, two Kenyans and an Egyptian, even though those countries had not participated in the war or occupation of Iraq. Nevertheless, they manipulated these hostages to deliver a warning to a broader international audience: “We have warned all the countries, companies, businessmen, and truck drivers that those who deal with American cowboy occupiers will be targeted by the fires of the Mujahidin.” The statement continued saying, “Here you are once again transporting goods, weapons, and military equipment that backs the U.S. Army.”[19] The message they sent was that no nationality is safe upon entering Iraq. 3.3. Message to Nations Deploying Troops in Iraq The main focus of the insurgents has been to kidnap foreigners from nations contributing military forces to the Coalition. Usually, these foreigners were threatened with decapitation unless their leaders withdraw their troops from Iraq. One of the first victims was Kim Sun-il, a 33-year-old South Korean translator beheaded on June 22, 2003 by Jama’at al-Jihad wal-Tawhid in retaliation for his nation’s refusal to withdraw its troops from Iraq.[20] Italians in Iraq have also been kidnapped and executed due to the presence of their military in the southern Iraqi town of Nasiriyya. Enzo Baldoni, an Italian journalist, was executed on August 26, 2004, by the Islamic Army in Iraq when the Berlusconi

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government refused to withdraw its troops.[21] On September 7, two Italian aid workers, Simona Pari and Simona Torretta, were kidnapped. A statement released over the internet from a group called the Islamic Jihad Organization in Iraq threatened to kill the two Italian women if Italy failed to withdraw its troops within 24 hours. The hostages were released, but only allegedly after a ransom was paid to the kidnappers, a payment the Italian government denies was made.[22] Iraqi insurgents threatened to behead the Filipino hostage, Angelo de la Cruz, unless the Philippines withdrew its troops from Iraq. The Philippine government acceded to the kidnappers’ demands and withdrew 51 soldiers and police officers from Iraq.[23] This event proved that hostage takers could force governments to reverse their positions on committing troops to the American-led Coalition. Other foreigners have been killed due to their government’s mere contemplation of sending troops to Iraq. Raja Azad and Sajad Naim, both from Pakistan, were working in Iraq for a Kuwaiti-based firm. They were killed on July 28, 2004, by the Islamic Army in Iraq because Pakistan was considering dispatching troops to aid the Coalition.[24] These executions had a two-fold message: deterring Pakistan from bolstering the ranks of the occupation forces and discouraging the Kuwaiti firm from contributing to Iraq’s reconstruction. Even private Nepalese security guards in Iraq were targeted as troops contributing to the Coalition. The Jaysh al-Ansar al-Sunna killings were rationalized with the following statement: “We have carried out the sentence of God against twelve Nepalese who came from their country to fight the Muslims and to serve the Jews and the Christians... believing in Buddha as their God.” They used the Nepalese kidnapping to launch a verbal assault on the United States: “America today has used all its force, as well as the help of others, to fight Islam under the so-called war on terror, which is nothing but a vicious crusade against Muslims.” The video concluded with a kidnapper vowing to fight the interim Iraqi government: “We will work on exterminating them until the last fighter.”[25] 3.4. Messages to the United States and the United Kingdom In addition to protest against U.S. actions in Iraq, kidnappings also occurred to protest against the American “war on terror” in general. For example, Nicholas Evan Berg, a young American businessman conducting telecommunications work in Iraq, was captured in April 2004. The video of his death shows Berg wearing an orange boiler suit, symbolic of those worn by al-Qa’ida inmates detained at the Guantanamo Bay facility. He was surrounded by five masked men reading a lengthy statement claiming that his execution is retaliation for the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. troops at the Abu Ghraib prison. On May 11, 2004, an Ansar website broadcasted a video entitled “Abu Musab al-Zarqawi Slaughters an American,” which shows Berg being decapitated over a period of five minutes. Berg’s father publicly blamed George W. Bush for his son’s death, demonstrating the insurgents’ can even succeed in alienating American support for the ongoing occupation of Iraq. Jama’at al-Jihad wal-Tawhid kidnapped British engineer Kenneth Bigley in Baghdad on September 16, 2004, along with two American co-workers employed with the Gulf Services Company of the United Arab Emirates. A video issued in the name of al-Zarqawi threatened to kill the captives unless the United States freed all Iraqi women in custody.[26] The two Americans, Jack Hensley and Eugene Armstrong, were beheaded, with the videos of their murders posted on the internet on September 21. The


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next day, another video was released showing Bigley pleading for his life, begging British Prime Minister Tony Blair to help him and release the female detainees held by the coalition. Various individuals, politicians and non-governmental organizations participated in a campaign to save Bigley’s life. The Muslim Council of Britain sent a delegation to Iraq to negotiate his release. Since Bigley’s mother was Irish, politicians from this country appealed for his release on the al-Jazeera station, as did Muammar Gaddafi and Yasir Arafat. The fact that international leaders intervened on his behalf bestowed upon these groups a sense of legitimacy and importance. Nevertheless, these overtures failed to save his life as, on October 10, a video of Kenneth Bigley’s execution was posted on an Islamist website. On October 19, 2004 armed men abducted Margaret Hassan, the head of the humanitarian group CARE International in Iraq.[27] A video was later released where Hassan was seen begging to be spared the fate of Bigley, demonstrating how the latter has emerged as a symbol of what would happen if the kidnappers’ demands go unmet. The video, which received maximum exposure in the Western media, coincided with a British decision to dispatch 850 troops southwest of Baghdad. She said in the video, “Please help me. Please, the British people, ask Tony Blair to take the troops out of Iraq, and not to bring them to Baghdad. That's why people like Mr. Bigley and myself are being caught, and maybe we will die like Mr. Bigley. Please, please, I beg you.”[28] Such comments have demonstrated how the kidnappers can send a message directly to the British public thus avoiding dealing with its leaders altogether. In this case, the British public viewed what the kidnappers wanted them to see. The Dar al-Salam radio station in Baghdad announced on November 18, 2004 the news of the death of Margaret Hassan.[29] She was the first woman foreign hostage to be killed by kidnappers creating a widespread outrage among the Iraqis. Articles appeared in Iraq questioning why her captives would kill someone who had devoted her life to helping the Iraqi people.[30] However, others in Iraq surprisingly defended those who killed her. Nuri al-Muradi of the Iraqi Communist Party blamed her dearth on the Iraqi authority: “The Iraqi Government killed her to damage the reputation of the resistance, but they will fail.”[31] Fakhri al-Qaissy, a leader among the Iraqi Salafists justified her murder in response to the images of a US Marine that killed an unarmed Iraqi in a Falluja mosque in mid-November: “Since the Americans are waging an extermination war on us, the resistance, too, will kill everyone, women, old people, infants. The Americans have left us with no other choice than violence.”[32] 3.5. Messages with Islamist Themes Kidnappers have also used hostages in attempts to force foreign leaders to change their policy on broader Islamic issues with little relevance to events in Iraq. In late August 2004, the Islamic Army in Iraq kidnapped two French reporters, George Malbrunot and Christian Chesnot, despite the fact that France had vehemently opposed the 2003 war. The group gave the country 48 hours to revoke a government ban on Muslim girls wearing headscarves at schools.[33] Moderate French Muslim organizations condemned the tactic.

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4. Analysis of the Hostage Videos The videos of beheadings have been described as the insurgents’ version of “shock and awe,” terrorizing their audiences into submission. These acts reached the front page of almost every major newspaper, giving the perpetrators of such crimes the international attention they crave and the ability to broadcast terror to a wider audience. Insurgents have released most of these video communiqués to Arabic news channels, knowing that they serve a dual purpose: these news channels enable terrorists to reach young Arabs and Muslims in the region, while at the same time the broadcasts will be picked up by channels such as CNN or the BBC. These videos, because of their gruesome nature, serve the insurgents’ interests on numerous levels. First, the videos give them the ability to display their symbols, whether they be flags or logos, leaving a permanent impression on Arab and Muslim viewers. Some of the insurgents’ communiqués have become quite sophisticated, most likely using advanced computer programs to display flashing logos in Arabic of their organization on the corner of the screen. Most of the beheading videos were conducted with the black and yellow flag of Jama’at al-Jihad wal-Tawhid or black and white flag of the Jaysh al-Ansar al-Sunna in the background, thus associating their banner with the fear caused by such violent executions. The images of American and British hostages were designed to intimidate Western audiences, while damaging the popularity of President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair, the two key partners in the Coalition. The videos served to taunt Bush during his election campaign. While they failed to prevent his re-election, they highlighted the instability that has beset Iraq since he declared the war’s end in May 2003, thus preventing him from declaring Iraq as a victory in the “war on terror.” Perhaps Kenneth Bigley’s kidnappers kept him alive for an extended period of time before murdering him to maximize their manipulation of the British press, causing the British public to question Blair’s commitment to the Coalition. These videos were also produced for consumption in Iraq, as well as the Arab and Muslim world at large. For some Muslims, the image of a helpless foreign hostage redresses the humiliation of a Western power occupying a country in the heart of the Middle East. In these cases, the insurgents are in control of the hostages’ fate while the impotent West is helpless to obtain their release. There are indications that such images are not only popular in Iraq, but the wider Arab world as well. Videos of insurgent attacks against Coalition forces as well as of the beheadings of foreigners have proven to be fast-selling “entertainment” in Iraq, implying that sympathy for these acts exists. The sale of video discs featuring hostages being executed by Islamic militants was banned by the Iraqi police, yet still makes up 75 percent of the domestic movie vendors’ sales, indicating that Iraqis are aware of the insurgents’ capabilities for sowing fear in Iraq, if not approving of the insurgents’ actions.[34] Discs depicting scenes of Iraqi resistance in Falluja, as well as beheadings, are also being purchased in markets in Cairo and Damascus. These films feature the lyrics of Fallujan singer Sabah al-Janabi celebrating such insurgent tactics: “We are the men defending the town and beheading the enemy. When Falluja called on us, we rose up and met the challenge.”[35] The messages al-Zarqawi sends through these videos also inspire young Muslims to join his jihad in Iraq. One account describes how a Lebanese man was inspired by his message and later volunteered, albeit unsuccessfully, to conduct a suicide mission against U.S. forces: “Zarqawi addressed himself to all Muslim youth, saying that the


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Americans have come and come with all their armies, they attacked us, so we should go ourselves to take our revenge.”[36] For those Muslims who do not find inspiration in such brutal acts, the videos also serve another purpose. Beheadings could be the insurgents’ message that their enemies are in fact violating “Islamic” law, even though this is merely what the insurgents claim. In other words, aiding the Coalition is “un-Islamic” and those collaborators will be punished in kind for such blasphemy. The debate over beheading raises the question of how the media should deal with phenomena of televised beheadings. One must ask if the insurgent videos serve the interests of the mass media. Bigley’s kidnapping created a personal drama of the kind that most television news stations crave. However, even if the media fails to report on the kidnappings, insurgents can still publicize their captives and their fate over the internet. When the video of the decapitation of Nicholas Berg was released, it was the most popular search item on the internet.[37]

Conclusion The phenomena of beheadings proved to be a brief, yet violent episode in post-war Iraq and occurred with less frequency after its peak in late 2004. Yet several lessons can be gleaned in terms of the relationship between media and terrorism. The former Ba’athist state instilled an all-embracing sense of fear into Iraqi society. The insurgents have essentially replicated these tactics. Their videos instill fear in Iraqis who might consider cooperating with the Iraqi authorities. However, unlike the domestic fear of Saddam’s regime, the insurgents have exported this atmosphere of fear into the Arab and greater Muslim world. They serve as a warning to any oil workers, businesspersons, or diplomats contemplating taking part in Iraq’s reconstruction. The videos send a message of fear to any world leaders who take part in the process, proving that they could hurt their domestic popularity, such as in the case of Prime Minister Blair. This tactic had yielded successes for the insurgents, such as exposure in the international media. The kidnappers claimed victories in forcing companies to withdraw from reconstruction efforts, hampering the Coalition’s attempts to create stability for a new Iraqi government. For al-Qa’ida-linked insurgents, it is in their best interests to perpetuate the jihad necessary for their existence. These decapitation acts can also be said to bolster advocates of the “war on terror” by showing the “barbarity of the Islamic world.” By releasing these videos, al-Zarqawi has emerged as the defacto leader of the Iraqi insurgency. More than 160 foreigners had been kidnapped in Iraq since President Bush announced the end of major combat operations in May 2003. While some hostage takers have been rewarded with ransom money, others with political objectives have succeeded in forcing the withdrawal of foreign companies or troops serving in the U.S.led multi-national force. Yet by November 2004 the trend of beheadings began to end. Whether the terrorists acknowledge it or not, their actions are a communicative act and they share much in common with any political communicator. “Terrorism, like all other forms of political communication, involves developing messages “saleable” to a particular social sector (or mix of sectors).”[38] As the insurgents began to find it difficult to kidnap foreign Western hostages, they targeted easier targets, mostly Muslims in Iraq. The decline in the beheading phenomena indicated that insurgents realized that such barbaric acts in the long run were causing the loss of sympathy in the

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Muslim word, demonstrating that even terrorist factor in the public opinion of their constituencies when formulating their actions.

References [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30]

Cited in Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber, Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush’s War on Iraq (New York: Jeremy P. Tacher/Penguin, 2003), p. 136. James E. Lukazewski, “The Media and the Terrorist: A Dance of Death”, Executive Speeches, June 1987 http://www.e911.com/speeches/mediaandterrorists.html Ahmed Hashim, The Sunni Insurgency in Iraq, Middle East Institute Perspective, August 15, 2003, http://www.mideasti.org/articles/doc89.html. Brigitte L. Nacos, Terrorism and the Media, From the Iran Hostage Crisis to the Oklahoma City Bombing (New York: Columbia UP, 1994), p. xv. Ahmed Hashim, “The Sunni Insurgency in Iraq,” Middle East Institute Perspective, August 15, 2003, http://www.mideasti.org/articles/doc89.html David S. Cloud, Elusive Enemy: Long in U.S. Sights, A Young Terrorist Builds Grim Resume, Wall Street Journal, February 10, 2004. Gary R. Bunt, Islam. In the Digital Age: E-Jihad, Online Fatwa’s and Cyber Islamic Environments (London: Pluto Press, 2003). Maamoun Youssef, “Tape Shows Insurgents Beheading Two Iraqis,” Associated Press, October 14, 2004. “Web Site Shows Iraqi Militants Beheading Man,” Associated Press, October 23, 2004. “Ansar al-Sunnah Army Claims It Beheaded Shi’ite Worker,” Iraq Report, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 15 October 2004, Volume 7, Number 38. Ibid. Mariam Fam, Militants Behead Three Iraqi Kurdish Militiamen, Associated Press, September 19, 2004. Ibid. “Ansar al-Jihad Group Claims Responsibility for Kidnapping Allawi's Relatives, States Demands” Foreign Broadcast Information Service, (FBIS) GMP20041110000157, November 10, 2004. “More Than 150 Foreigners Kidnapped in Iraq,” The Associated Press, October 14, 2004. “Kidnapped Turkish Driver Is Beheaded In Iraq, Shown On Video On Islamic Web Site,” Associated Press, October 14, 2004. ”Militant Group Says It Is Holding 10 Hostages in Iraq in A Video Broadcast On Al-Jazeera,” Associated Press, September 18, 2004. Rawya Rageh, “Islamist Web Site Shows Beheading of Two Hostages in Iraq; Another Turkish Hostage Threatened,” Associated Press, October 11, 2004. Tarek El-Tablawy, “Militants Threaten To Behead Hostages,” Associated Press, July 21, 2004 Todd Pittman, “Militants in Iraq Kill South Korean Hostage; Arab TV Says He Was Beheaded,” Associated Press, June 22, 2004. Mariam Fam, “Italian Journalist Held Hostage Is Killed Al-Jazeera Says,” Associated Press, August 26, 2004 Katrin Bennhold, Hostages in Iraq: For Europe, It's Personal, The International Herald Tribune, September 30, 2004 James Glanz, Iraqi Insurgents Using Abduction As Prime Weapon, New York Times, July 26, 2004. Omar Sinan, “Militant Group in Iraq Says It Has Killed Two Pakistani Hostages,” Associated Press, July 28, 2004 “Website shows Nepalese Hostage Execution Video and Images,” CNN, Aug. 31, 2004 Hamza Hendawi, “Suicide Bomber Targets Baghdad Police, U.S. Forces Pound Fallujah and Nearby Villages,” Associated Press, September 17, 2004. Karl Vick, Head of CARE in Iraq Abducted, Washington Post, October 20, 2004 Kim Sengupta, “Harrowing Footage Shows Hassan Pleading For Her Life,” The Independent, Oct. 23, 2004 “Program Summary: Baghdad Dar al-Salam Radio in Arabic,” (FBIS) GMP20041118000123, Nov. 18, 2004 Abd-al-Qadir Ahmad, “Why Did They Kill Margaret Hassan?,” Irbil Khabat, (FBIS).GMP20041124000262, November 24, 2004


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[31] “Iraqi CP Official Accuses Iraqi Government; Defense Minister of Kidnapping Hassan,” Al-Jazeera Satellite Channel (FBIS) GMP20041123000286, November 23, 2004. [32] “Iraqi Salafist Official Defends Hassan’s Murder,” Liberation, (FBIS) EUP20041118000039, Nov. 18, 2004. [33] “French Reporters Vanish in Iraq,” BBC News, August 22, 2004. [34] Matthew Mcallester, “Iraqi Beheading Now Fueling New Global ‘Snuff’ Film Market,” Newsday, October 17, 2004, http://www.SundayTribune.com [35] Jim Michaels, “U.S., Iraqi Forces Gear Up For Fallujah Showdown,” USA Today, October 20, 2004 [36] Neil Macfarquhar, “A Recruit’s Journey to Jihad in Iraq,” The International Herald Tribune, Nov. 3, 2004 [37] Matthew Mcallester, “Iraqi Beheading Now Fueling New Global ‘Snuff’ Film Market,” Newsday, October 17, 2004, http://www.SundayTribune.com [38] Eric Louw, The Media and the Political Process (London: Sage, 2005), p. 242


3. The Struggle Between Governments and Terrorist Organisations for International and Domestic Public Opinion



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Television News and Terrorism Prof. Dr Bülent ÇAPLI Ankara University, Turkey “For the most part we do not first see, and then define; we define first and then see”1

Abstract. Terrorism is designed by its perpetrators to disturb social order and the media are implicated with these aims, whether wittingly or unwittingly. Much of the media coverage both in national and international media appears to lack objectivity. News coverage of the terrorist acts taking place in other nations is especially influenced by existing national foreign policies. Therefore, international news media have a tendency to define terrorism by who commits acts of violence rather than what acts are committed. As a result, the definition of terrorism and terrorist becomes problematic. If the groups or organizations which commit the violent acts are sympathized with, then the acts are regarded as legitimate violence and the people are not labelled as terrorists. Consequently in the news, important facts are either omitted or distorted. Generally, the lack of balance in such news coverage is not regarded as unethical.

Introduction There are significant problems and contradictions in the ways in which “terrorism” as a concept is commonly used. It is used as if there is a consensus on the definition. This is in fact not the case. In different contexts, one could easily realize that terrorism has more than a single definition and an underlying meaning. If the groups or organizations, which commit violent acts, are sympathized with, then these acts are regarded as “legitimate violence” and the people involved are not labelled as terrorists.

1. Television News and Terror Terrorist acts have always made the television news bulletins. Because, they have the features that television needs, such as violence, powerful and shocking images and suspense. Hence, there emerged a problematic and dangerous relationship between the two, i.e. terrorism and television. It is an edged sword that can cut both. 1.1. 1970s In the early days of television, we witnessed the first attempts to use television. In the seventies and eighties the terrorists explored the power and potential of television. In 1970, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation hijacked three planes to Jordan. It was the television that was targeted. They made sure that television newsmen were there. English ITN’s correspondent Nicholson, who was working with a local cameraman, was also there. After all the hostages were released the ITN’s crew was about to leave

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the scene, but the cameraman insisted that they stay. There was nobody left except them and three planes on the runway. All of a sudden, the cameraman started rolling his camera and within ten seconds the planes exploded. Nicholson was used to work with cameramen who turned off their cameras when needed, but to his surprise, this time, his cameraman was different. The cameraman switched on the camera before the explosion happened. He was exactly on time. Nicholson asked how he managed to do that. The cameraman replied: ‘I am one of them’. The local cameraman was actually a PLO member. During the 1972 Munich Olympics, the terrorists took a golden opportunity. Olympic events were aired live on television to billions of people all over the world. Terrorists took advantage of the powerful impact of television. Then again in the 1970s, a German politician, Peter Lorenz, was kidnapped by terrorists. Within 72 hours television became the hostage. Once everything was over, one of the newsmen admitted that it was the terrorists who controlled the newsrooms. Television faced a dilemma. On the one hand it was necessary to inform the public of the devastating effects of terrorism, but on the other, television could fall into the trap of giving publicity to terrorism. 1.2. 1990s Until the nineties, in Europe, the predominant television system was public service broadcasting. In that system there were strict guidelines for news reporting. With the introduction of commercial channels, competition emerged, even in news broadcasting. Consequently, ethics was not the number one priority for the news. At the same time, a series of terrorist acts indicated upcoming new trends. Terrorism became more violent, sophisticated and complicated. Terrorism with its shocking elements turned into favourite news item for commercial broadcasters. Then television was partly seen as responsible for facilitating terrorism or amplifying its effects. As a result, television news coverage of terrorism has started to be criticized. This criticism was based on several assumptions on terrorism and about its relationship to media. Even though terrorism is designed to disturb social order by its perpetrators, television started to be associated with these aims, whether wittingly or unwittingly. In the news bulletins, important facts were either omitted or distorted. Ethical issues arose in news reporting. In the news on terrorist activities, accuracy and objectivity were almost absent. This issue became more complicated in an international context.

2. The International Context Today, much of the international news coverage appears to lack objectivity, accuracy and balance. Additionally, the news coverage on terrorist acts taking place in other countries is influenced by domestic foreign policies and prejudices. Therefore, international news media have the tendency to define terrorism by who commits acts of violence rather than what acts are committed. Since television serves as the primary source of information about the world that surrounds us, most people’s scope of experience is naturally limited and their knowledge on complex social process in foreign countries comes mainly from the media. Michael Kunczik who points out the danger of manipulation, argues that

B. Çapli / Television News and Terrorism

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reporting can “create reality”, an image, of its own, and there can be huge differences between media reality and the reality itself2. As most people depend on mediated experiences or information regarding what they know or want to know about the other countries, the need for accurate and objective international news reporting becomes crucial. If that country is distant, far away, then the public opinion has either no idea or has slanted information on what is going on. This is because people are not sufficiently informed or they are intentionally misinformed. Since there is no consensus on the definition of terrorism, societies under threat struggle to explain to the rest of the world that what they are facing is terrorism.

Conclusion In order to overcome the problem of terrorism we have to find middle ground to define what the term terrorism means. In the international arena, the nations who have the power to set the rules of the game are also in a position to define what terrorism is and is not. Bethami Dobkin explains how television increasingly mediates foreign conflicts and argues that “television functions politically, structuring reality for both the viewing public and political leaders.”3 Dobkin goes on to say that the role of journalists in crafting political discourse becomes pivotal in the process of orchestrating public opinion about crises and formulating policies to respond them. Media, particularly television, play a very important role in shaping the world’s public opinion against terrorism regardless of who commits it. References 1 2 3

Lippmann, W. (1922) Public Opinion, New York, p. 81. Kunczik, M. (1990) Images of Nations and International Public Relations, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Bonn. Dobkin, B. A. (1992) Tales of Terror, Television News and The Construction of the Terrorist Threat, Praeger, New York.

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Creating a Citizenry Prepared for Terrorism: Education, Media and Public Awareness Yael PRIES-SHIMSHI Institute for Counter-Terrorism, Interdisciplinary Centre, Herzliya, Israel

Abstract. Modern terrorism strives to achieve political goals. In order to do that, terrorists must first create an irrational and prolonged sense of anxiety amongst a target population. Through that action, terrorists aim to pressure governments to surrender to their political demands. The disruption of daily life results in severe damage to the foundations of the state, causing public opinion to pressure decision-makers to surrender to terrorists’ demands. Playing a substantial role in modern democratic societies, the media serve as a central layer in the strategy of modern terrorism. By influencing and shaping public opinion, the media can affect government decisions. Terrorist organizations use the media to attract local and global attention to their problems, and as a platform to convey messages and present their ideologies and objectives. While media coverage can, on one hand, amplify the public’s fear and anxiety, on the other hand it can also increase public awareness of the topic and draw decision-makers’ attention. Understanding modern terrorism strategy and the media’s central role in it raises the need to find means to strengthen the public’s fortitude in dealing with the psychological damage of terrorism, and to diminish the irrational anxiety of terrorism. Those means, such as dealing with education and advocacy of the public, changing the way the media cover terrorism, etc., will be elaborated upon and discussed along with the central role of the media with regard to modern terrorism strategy.

1. Theoretical Background - Modern Terrorism Modern terrorism has political, national, ideological, religious, social and economical motivations. These goals lead to the tactics of indiscriminate murder, as well as extortion, kidnapping, etc. to accomplish certain aims. In order to achieve the desired political goal the terrorist must first achieve a vital intermediate goal, which is the creation of an irrational and prolonged sense of anxiety among the target population. In most cases the terrorists are not after the death of any particular person, but merely wish to create fear and demoralization in a much broader population than among those targeted in an attack. Through the target population, terrorists strive to pressure governments to surrender to their political demands (See figure 1).[1] Terrorist organizations choose their objectives randomly and indiscriminately in order to amplify the feeling of anxiety of terror. Thus, the message conveyed to the public is that anyone, at any given time, at any given place, might be a casualty of a terrorist attack. This form of threat undermines the sense of stability and security needed to maintain normal civilian life. Routine daily activities, such as going out to eat, using public transportation, etc., become fraught with complexity. One must first take into consideration the danger of being attacked and estimate what needs to be

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Terror Organizations

Use of Media

Creating irrational anxiety amongst target population

Goal: Pressure governments to give in to their political demands

Figure 1: The Process of Modern Terrorism’s Strategy

done in order to avoid a possible terrorist attack scene. The daily routine is undoubtedly mixed with an insurmountable measure of anxiety.[2] This disruption of daily life, results in severe damage to the foundations of the state, with the result that public opinion can be expected to pressure decision-makers to surrender to the terrorists’ demands. This, of course, ultimately advances the terrorists’ political objective.[3] It is only after understanding these components of terrorism that one can begin to mitigate the effects of terrorism. Terrorism thrives on (substantiated or unsubstantiated) fear within the target population. In order to connect the target population to the terror attacks, terrorists have successfully used various means to disseminate their messages, as well as the effects of their actions to a population much larger than that directly impacted. The media is the most utilized entity for this purpose. Without the media, terrorist could only immediately impact a limited number of the target population.[4] The media has the capacity to multiply the impact of terrorists and further their message in a way that terrorists are themselves incapable of projecting. Therefore, it is essential that further investigation occur to explore how the media interacts in the realm of terrorism.

2. Terrorism and the Media In modern democratic societies, mass media play several different roles, they convey information to the public, interpret events, and bring (or remove) issues to the public agenda. Under these circumstances, the media play a substantial role in influencing and shaping public opinion, and hence governments’ decisions. The media also serve as a

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mediator between the public and the leadership. In democratic societies, this link is crucial in creating essential oversight of the leadership by including more public input in decision-making. Thus, the media can be central layer in the strategy of modern terrorism.[5] Terror groups seek to attract local and global attention to their problems, as well as establish a platform to convey messages and present their ideologies and objectives. According to Bruce Hoffman, in some cases terrorist organizations attempting to perpetuate an ideology and a following can only remain relevant in so long as they remain a news story.[6] For their part, terrorist organizations use the media in three different capacities to attain distinct yet intertwined objectives. First, the dissemination of pre-recorded material, specifically video testaments of suicide terrorists, glorifying the terrorists in their support communities, thereby elevating their prestige and societal appeal. Organizations can use the terrorists’ last will and testament as recruitment tools to enlist other suicide bombers. Furthermore, such videos also instil fear and intimidate the target population by making them plainly aware of the perpetrators of violence, and the inability of the security services to prevent their actions. Video declarations or messages by terrorist leaders also serve to intimidate the target population since they generally carry threats or propose generally conflated, ultimatums about future attacks.[7] As a strategy, terror organizations also participate in interviews with media organizations. When the media interview representatives from terrorist organizations, they provide a platform for them to convey their message simply and directly, which can soften or spin their actions or objectives to an uncritical public. When this option is not available, terrorists also fax in or publish manifestos or communiqués which attempt to heighten their visibility and notoriety. Finally, coverage of public demonstrations, such as parades and funerals, raise the spectre of terrorist organizations through the media. Public demonstrations serve to simultaneously strengthen a terror organization’s base of support and increase the anxiety among the target population. This greater public visibility gives the terror organization further attention to convey their ideas. As noted, each of these tactics is designed to reach different audiences. On the other side of this discussion, the media has its own interests. The media consider terror attacks good news segments that sell well – they have drama, blood, tears, heroes and human-interest stories. Therefore efforts are made to cover attacks as quickly, and in as much detail as possible, often broadcasting live footage from the scene of the incident. Likewise, the proliferation of media outlets and the diversity of channels and newspapers create competition over the audience that fosters a tendency to set aside all considerations, whether psychological, moral, or ethical.[8] To this end, terror attacks mean ratings, or as Yaakov Peri claims: “TV channels, as did the newspapers, sensed that blood is ratings.”[9] Consequently, the mass media and terrorism are intertwined with each other and their interests often correspond. This assertion is in no way intended to imply collusion between the media and terror organizations, rather that they have a symbiotic relationship regarding terror attacks. Hoffman even likens the medium of television to a vacuum “waiting to be filled… [and] susceptible to terrorist exploitation and manipulation.”[10] Both the media and terrorist organizations are interested in as many spectators as possible; the first are after the ratings, the second are after the exposure of their actions and aims, for the purpose of gaining support and sympathy among the audience (though, not necessarily the same audience). Therefore, the media often play right into the hands of terrorist organizations. The human-interest value of the attack, where the media explore the “background” of the victims, creates further viewer


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interest. The media’s disproportionate reportage of attacks (relative to the attack’s actual physical impact) amplifies the attack’s dimensions and hence the image of the perpetrating organization and its activists. Repeated broadcasting of the horrific footage from the scene, accompanied by interviews with witnesses, emergency teams, and wounded, supplemented by phrases such as, “It looks like a severe attack…” “on a large scale…” “of unprecedented calibre…” equates to a kind of re-enactment of the trauma, further amplifying the psychological and emotional impact of the attack. This hyperbole amplifies the effectiveness of the terrorists’ campaign of psychological warfare, an essential component to further their goals. Terror attack coverage can create a tunnel vision scenario, where viewers only see the repeated coverage of terror attacks, thereby losing perspective about other news and focusing only on the singular event.[11] Gabriel Weimann goes as far as to note that terrorism is growing in its sophistication by adopting common psychological warfare techniques once only used by governments.[12] Instead of using their own apparatus to further their goals, terror organizations have successfully manipulated mass media outlets.[13] As a result, media coverage has a central role in the intensification of fear and anxiety that further undermines a sense of personal security amongst the public.[14]

3. Positive Aspects of Terrorism Coverage While media coverage can amplify the target public’s fear and anxiety, conversely it can also contribute to the public good depending on the manner that it addresses terrorism. Within this framework, the media have a clear opportunity to utilize their resources to mitigate the effectiveness of terrorism by creating hostility towards terrorist organizations, compelling decision-makers’ attention to the topic of terrorism, and raising public awareness about terrorism. The emergence of this “media-oriented terrorism” has forced the media to re-evaluate their editorial and reporting principles to “minimize” terrorists’ capacity for media manipulation.[15] Finally, the latter option, increasing the public’s attention to the realities of terrorism, helps diminish the success of the terrorists’ psychological warfare against the target population. “A Nation on the Road” Project When the media constructively engage in educating the public on terrorism, the results can improve societal understanding of terrorism. One project that demonstrates the effectiveness of the media on public awareness occurred in January 2005 in Israel. Through a program entitled, “A Nation on the Road,” an Israeli news channel decided to broadcast car accidents exactly like terror attacks. The project originated from a decision to bring the subject of traffic accidents to the top of the public agenda in order to diminish them and prevent them. The project documented traffic accidents shortly after they occurred and included breaking news of accidents live from the scene and the broadcasting of gruesome wreckage. The interviews with eyewitnesses, rescue teams, casualties and their families in the hospitals complemented the footage. All of these actions mimicked media coverage immediately after a terror attack. The basic assumption of the producers of “A Nation on the Road” was at the moment of a terror attack, life comes to a standstill: the nation holds its breath, grasps onto every bit of information, and awaits the dreaded news of casualties. The entire media enterprise focuses solely on the attack. Everyone joins in an atmosphere of

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national reflection and mourning. On the other hand, car accidents occur every day, sometimes several times a day, and have a yearly death toll far higher than terror attacks; yet, do not receive nearly the same level of public attention that terror attacks garner. On the contrary, the public accepts road fatalities with an attitude of complacency.[16] By using similar media coverage of car accidents as is used during terror attacks, the project hopes to raise the public awareness to traffic accidents, their causes and severe consequences. The project aims to lessen public apathy about this more deadly phenomenon. From the public safety perspective, the public becomes more aware about the risks of traffic accidents, triggering a desire to reduce them. Secondly, by treating traffic accidents with the same level of attention as terror attacks, the media are able to establish a degree of situational relativity that the terrorists seek to eradicate. The media can therefore frame terror attacks as a (rather unfortunate) element of everyday life, rather than a life-stopping event for the target population. This can weaken the terrorists’ goals further by mitigating the spreading of fear to the target population. Understanding modern terrorism strategy and the media’s central role in it raises the need to find means to strengthen the public’s fortitude to addressing the psychological damage of terrorism, and to diminish the irrational anxiety of terrorism. For this purpose, several suggestions are presented herein to highlight possible methods for educating the public against terrorism.

4. Strengthening Public Fortitude in Coping with Terrorism 4.1. Education and Advocacy A program aiming at helping the public cope psychologically with terrorism should focus primarily on a comprehensive explanatory and educational policy to change the public’s attitude towards terrorism, diminish the level of irrational anxiety, and work towards strengthening the morale and sense of personal safety in light of the substantiated threat. This policy will help to prevent terrorists from disrupting the nation’s daily life, and will lessen the impact of terrorism on political stances and processes.[17] Knowledge is power, and this tenet is at the core of this educational policy. It can be presumed that the anxiety of terrorism can be diminished by providing knowledge and means of treatment to the target population. The public must understand that terrorism is psychological warfare, and that the public’s steadfastness is the key to winning the battle. Modern terrorist strategy places the civilians on the front of the war against terror – armed forces may do a great job, but if the public is afraid of terrorism, we can win the battle but lose the war. One example of such a program is the Institute for Counter Terrorism (ICT) Education Project, which consolidates a plethora of explanatory activity aimed at neutralizing the “terrorism strategy” and diminishing the anxiety and psychological affect of terror.[18] This project includes the following components: development of lectures, seminars courses and continuing education programs for various target audiences in Israel, aiming to teach the facts about terrorism. Example curricula include: an introduction to terrorist organizations and their methods; the real extent of the threat of terror in comparison with other causes of death (car accidents, for example); manipulation of the


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media and public opinion by terrorist organization; the civilian’s role in the war against terror, and more. The contents of this activity and its adaptation to various audiences is the subject of a special “terrorism and education” forum comprised of former armed forces personnel, academic staff, education specialists and psychologists. The program also includes educational activity, lectures, seminars, courses, and continuing education programmes for various target audiences, including high schools (students and staff); police units; armed forces; soldiers and high ranking officers in the IDF and the Border Police.[19] 4.2. Changing the Way the Media Cover Terrorism In a democratic society, the media must continue to be a reliable real-time source of information. Nonetheless, they must be aware of the natural tendency to amplify the anxiety of terrorism, thus becoming an asset for terrorists. The media should take an active role in neutralizing the psychological damage caused by terrorism by adhering to a set of pre-determined guiding principles on how terrorist attacks should be covered. The media have routinely refined their editorial standards to cope with changing realities to prevent “terrorist exploitation.”[20] This self-policing should be understood as an intra-industry initiative rather than an external imposition which could be misconstrued as a latent form of censorship. The media should refrain from close-ups of terrorist victims, and diminish the coverage of extreme anxiety and expressions of panic. They should also avoid broadcasting tapes edited by the terrorist organizations and limit interviews with terrorist activists. In order to prevent the recycling of trauma, repeat broadcasts of the dreadful footage from the scene of the attack should be avoided, and the manner of reporting by news anchors should be altered to minimize public panic. On a broader level, the media should maintain a balance between the coverage of a terror attack and its resultant damage and the coverage of other events taking place on the same day. Coverage of terror attacks should be as short as possible, and the live broadcasts should be terminated as soon as the exact and detailed information of the attack is delivered. A society that suffers frequent terrorist attacks should aspire to resume routine life as soon as possible, and by doing so to diminish as much as possible the psychological damage that the terrorist organizations aim to achieve by the attack.[21] 4.3. Changing the Manner of Public Warning As mentioned, one of the ways to deal with terror psychologically is by reducing irrational anxiety among the public. Whereas the suggestions put forth thus far are reactive in nature to terrorist attacks, proactive approaches are also available to prevent those attacks. The circulation of information, specifically warnings of impending terrorist attacks can help the target citizenry to prevent or prepare for such attacks. However, then arises the question of the effectiveness of terrorist alerts in a low anxiety-level atmosphere? For instance, Israel has moved from a state of publishing hardly any terrorist attack warnings to sometimes publishing 30 per day. Too many warnings can cause apathy and a disregard for the warnings among the public. Such widespread indifference occurred with the Israeli public, leading up to the terrorist attacks in October 2004 in Taba, Egypt, on the Sinai Peninsula, a popular tourist destination for Israelis during the fall holiday season. After receiving a flurry of

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warnings, many Israelis ignored them, with deadly consequences. The Israelis had been warned repeatedly about impending attacks that never materialized. Therefore, when the Taba attacks occurred, many Israelis were caught off-guard, despite the numerous warnings.[22] To reconcile the poles of extreme apathy and anxiety, a need exists to find the proper balance between a constant state of fear among the public and adequately preparing the public to prevent the next terrorist attack (or at least diminish its damages) by delivering the relevant information. One concrete suggestion is to reduce the frequency of warnings issued to the public. Aside from the frequency of terror attack warnings, the nature of the warnings themselves should be taken into account. Publishing a vague and non-specific attack warning can be counterproductive. For instance, an alert signalling an impending suicide attack in central Israel, with no indication of exact location and no information of the time of the attack, is not effective and only generates unnecessary fear among the public. The system of colour-coding in the U.S. suffers the same problems. Other than the fact that when the colour changes from yellow to orange the civilians know that the level of alertness has risen and they should worry, it provides very little focused information on the nature of the warning and its meaning. This sort of warning only creates concern and anxiety without properly defining the problem (what, when and where), and will only make the next warning less effective.[23] A more appropriate scale to gauge and convey threats is imperative to better educate and inform the public. A warning should be focused in terms of time, location, possible outcome, and should be accompanied by practical instructions as to how the public should react. The broader and more vague the warning, the greater the chance that the public will ignore it. Additionally, such warnings create more unsubstantiated, general fear among the population. By lacking specificity, the warnings become a paralyzing mechanism rather than an educational tool. Also, warnings and statements of a threatening nature on behalf of terror leaders should be given to the public in a clear and reassuring manner in order to avoid false panic. The media’s tendency for sensationalism in these instances should be moderated. A demonstrated need exists for the media to report such developments, however this coverage should be measured with a degree of editorial caution. 4.4. Public Campaigns A few nations around the world run campaigns calling for increased alertness of the threat of terror while maintaining a daily routine and have established special hotlines. Civilians are given a number to call in order to report suspected objects or behaviour. These campaigns run on television, radio, written press, subway billboards, and street billboards. Such efforts integrate the public constructively in the fight against terrorism by empowering them to recognize potential threats. In Australia, the government distributed a special booklet, written in 31 languages to all households across the continent explaining terrorism in order to bring it up on the public agenda.[24] The expansive Australian program underscored the reality that terrorism affects everyone and that everyone can help prevent it. In London, a similar campaign used the slogan “If you suspect it, report it”.[25] The London Metropolitan Police launched the aggressive campaign to more vigorously educate the citizenry


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about maintaining their vigilance about suspicious activities or objects not only in public areas, but also in their neighbourhoods. These campaigns encourage public awareness of terrorism, supply the public with much-needed information to understand the phenomenon, and since knowledge is power, they actually provide the public with the means to cope with the threat-induced irrational anxiety. 4.5. Exercises and Simulations Another way for the public to deal with the threat of terrorism is through exercises and simulations held by local authorities, in cooperation with emergency and rescue units, as well as nationwide exercises held by the military and police. In June 2004 a large scale exercise was held in Israel simulating a suicide bombing in a soccer stadium, and included the evacuation of casualties and further treatment in hospitals. The simulation included the participation of police, M.D.A. (the Israeli ambulance corps), and a hospital in central Israel.[26] These exercises tested the organizational level, readiness, and professional ability of the security forces to handle a mass-casualty terror attack. These drills and their publicity have the added value of calming the public by showing that effective and well-prepared mechanisms have been developed for handling these situations if needed, a fact that in itself has a psychological effect that diminishes anxiety in the public. The participation of the media in these simulations allowed the public to see the efforts at work to prepare for possible terror attacks.

Conclusion This paper addresses two main subjects relating to public awareness and terrorism. The first deals with the post modern terrorism's strategy and the primary role of the media in the strategy. As was illustrated, in many cases, media coverage can intensify fear and anxiety, and further undermine the sense of personal security of the public. This sense of irrational anxiety among the target population can facilitate terrorist organizations in achieving their ultimate political goals. As a result, a state can use a number of means to prepare the public to deal with the psychological ramifications of terrorism, as was suggested in the second part of the paper. The first initiative involves education and advocacy. This track is based on the rationale that once civilians learn about terrorism, its characteristics and methods, they will be better prepared to cope with the fear and anxiety of terrorism, and will not be a tool in the hands of terrorists. Two other means presented involve changing the media’s coverage of terrorism and the system of terror alerts. The solution is for the media to exercise greater restraint, in order to avoid overtly aiding terrorism. With regard to terrorism alerts, it is important that these be more specific, and that they do not contribute to anxiety among civilians, but rather help to diminish it. Public information campaigns are another method of increasing alertness and raising the public awareness of terror. The last suggestion involves conducting drills and simulations of all agencies responsible for public safety. These drills have an important reassuring effect by diminishing and neutralizing fear and anxiety of terrorism among the general population.

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Empowerment of the citizenry, through educational initiatives and campaigns, creates a powerful counterterrorism tool by furthering public understanding of terrorism and mitigating the effectiveness of terrorism. A nation facing the threat of terrorism should not stop at training its soldiers, but should also guarantee its citizens’ preparedness to deal with terrorism and its psychological ramifications. In this way, it may not only win the battle against terror, but also the war against it.

References [1]

Ganor, Boaz, The Counter-Terrorism Puzzle: A Guide for Decision Makers, (Hebrew) Mifalot Publications, The Interdisciplinary Centre, Herzliya, 2003, p. 225. [2] A Phenomenon which Dr. Ganor entitles as "Personalization of terror attack". More about this in: Ganor, Boaz, The Counter-Terrorism Puzzle: A Guide for Decision Makers, (Hebrew), p. 230. [3] Ganor, Boaz, "Terror as a Strategy of Psychological Warfare", www.ict.org.il [4] Hoffman, Bruce. Inside Terrorism. Columbia University Press: New York, 2006, p. 174 [5] Ganor, Boaz, "The Media's Role in the Terror Strategy", www.ict.org.il [6] Hoffman qtd in Weinmann, Gabriel. Terrorism on the Internet: The New Arena, the New Challenge. United States Institute of Peace: Washington, 2006. p. 47 [7] Ganor, Boaz. The Counter-Terrorism Puzzle: A Guide for Decision Makers , p. 242 [8] Ibid. p. 26 [9] Yaakov Peri, "Coping with Terror in the Era of Open Media" (Hebrew) Zevet, p. 22 [10] Hoffman, Bruce. Inside Terrorism. Columbia University Press: New York, 2006, p. 179 [11] Ibid. p. 175 [12] Weinmann, Gabriel, Terrorism on the Internet: The New Arena, the New Challenge. United States Institute of Peace: Washington, 2006. pp. 35-8 [13] Ibid. pp. 37-8 [14] Ganor, Boaz, "The Media's Role in the Terror Strategy", www.ict.org.il [15] Weinmann, Gabriel, Terrorism on the Internet: The New Arena, the New Challenge. United States Institute of Peace: Washington, 2006. p. 42-3 [16] "Medina al Hakvish" (Hebrew), 11.1.05, http://www.ynet.co.il/Ext/Comp/ArticleLayout/CdaArticlePrintPreview/1,2506,L-3031417,00.html [17] Ganor, Boaz, The Counter-Terrorism Puzzle: A Guide for Decision Makers (Hebrew), p. 243 [18] In the following article the author recommends that the United States should adopt an education program similar to that organized by ICT: Jonathan B. Tucker, " Strategies for Countering Terrorism: Lessons from the Israeli Experience", Journal of Homeland Security, March 2003, pp. 18-19 http://www.homelandsecurity.org/journal/Articles/tucker-israel.html [19] “The Educational Project of the International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism, ICT” [20] Hoffman, Bruce. Inside Terrorism. Columbia University Press: New York, 2006, p. 200 [21] For additional information, see Ganor, Boaz, The Counter-Terrorism Puzzle: A Guide for Decision Makers (Hebrew), p. 217 and pp. 301-303 [22] http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=485939&contrassID=13 [23] Ludman, Batya L., “Israel Leads in Making Terror Warnings Effectives”, http://www.israelnewsagency.com/israelterrorismwarnings29931.html. J. B. Tucker, “Strategies for Countering Terrorism: Lessons from the Israeli Experience”, Journal of Homeland Security, Mar. 2003. [24]http://www.nationalsecurity.gov.au/agd/WWW/nationalsecurityHome.nsf/0/B9EEB8CDC416290FCA25 6C9800183813?OpenDocument. [25] http://www.met.police.uk/counter_terrorism/campaign28_02_05.htm [26] http://nfc.msn.co.il/archive/001-D-48708-00.html?tag=10-43-49&au=True (Israeli source) &: http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/news/2002/06jun/060502berkeleyalert.html. & http://www.college.ucla.edu/webproject/micro12/ABCNEWSterrorismseries/terrorism_simulation.html & http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/09/08/1062901952582.html?oneclick=true

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The Struggle for Public Opinion within the Media and Information War on Terror Emma L. BRIANT University of Glasgow

Abstract. The media’s increasingly global reach, and its strong democratic potential for social and political engagement, have led to some academic and governmental concern that terrorist groups may also employ this useful tool to distribute information, promote ideas and organise their activities. This paper will concentrate on the struggle that the British and American governments have engaged in during the course of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq to successfully harness the potential of information and the media in order to counter the perceived rise in global terrorism. The paper will firstly present a brief discussion of terrorist attempts to harness this media potential, and how effectively they employ their methods to influence public opinion. It will follow this with an analysis of the British government’s efforts to create an effective opposition to the perceived terrorist attempts influence media content, placing this within the context of its relations with Europe and America during the global War on Terrorism. The paper will stress the need to maintain the delicate balance between security and liberty in the media realm and will highlight some possible areas for concern in recent government media and information policy. Keywords. Public Counterterrorism.

Opinion,

Media,

Information,

War

on

Terrorism,

Introduction During times of war the media becomes a battleground over the perceptions of the audience at home and other potential allies or enemies, which are of key importance to the success and failure of the conflict being fought. Today, the media are the major conduit through which audiences receive information on a conflict and bring us closer to the unfolding events. They have the means to present government actions in a questioning or supportive way, expose atrocities on either side and raise issues to the public agenda. The media’s increasingly global reach means that they are also a resource that has a strong democratic potential for social and political engagement. Revolutions in digital technology have brought a new era of 24/7 news provision and breadth in the information and opinion instantly and easily available to a wide audience. This global reach and the very noble potential for political engagement, however, has led to a concern that terrorist groups can also employ this useful tool to distribute information, promote ideas and organize their activities. There has been a subsequent heightened government interest and investment in influencing public opinion through political communication and media content. While mainstream media can increase awareness of terrorist groups, their presentation of terrorist activities does not generally support the interests of these groups. However, the need to maintain legitimate channels for information flow mean

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E.L. Briant / The Struggle for Public Opinion Within the Media and Information War on Terror

there is some potential for, particularly the new media such as the Internet, to be a useful resource for both legitimate and illegitimate activities. The increasing prominence of terrorism within contemporary foreign policy has led to an increasing emphasis in defence on asymmetric warfare[1]. The often elusive and ideological nature of such an enemy and the increasing importance of soft power in the international system[2] mean that the field of information, media and communications in general have become an important battleground in the struggle between governments and terrorists over public opinion. The paper will draw on empirical analysis of both documentary evidence and interviews conducted at 15th UK PSYOPS group, (the UK’s psychological operations capability), several journalists, Ministry of Defence (MoD) media operations officials and members of the public. It will provide an analysis of the British government’s efforts to create an effective opposition to the perceived terrorist attempts to influence media content, placing this within the context of increased interconnectivity in its relations with Europe and America. The paper will emphasize the importance of this struggle within contemporary defence policy and ideas of security in the changing global context. It will, further, stress the need to maintain the delicate balance between security and liberty in the media realm and will highlight some possible areas for concern in recent government media and information policy.

1. Terrorist Attempts to Influence Media Terrorism falls within asymmetric warfare or “how the weak win wars”[3]. Thachuck considers the three pillars of support terrorist groups rely on to be finances, impunity and citizen support or passive acceptance of their activities[4]. It has been suggested that propaganda is an essential weapon of terrorist groups, which may lack infrastructure, organization and resources[5]. Hoffman for instance considers terrorism to be “a violent act that is conceived specifically to attract attention and then, through the publicity it generates, to communicate a message”[6]. Terrorism itself has been likened to propaganda due to its tendency to cause emotional responses in its target audience[7]. This first section of the paper will briefly examine two ways in which the Islamic extremist terrorist groups that have been the main focus of the War on Terror appear to attempt to harness media power. Firstly the paper will examine closed/internal methods of information distribution/organization - religious statements/fatwa, publications, large and small scale gatherings, creation of forums to share information within fairly closed networks with other Muslims etc., focusing on the newly emergent debate surrounding the potential of the Internet in this area. Secondly such groups attempt to harness media and therefore public attention through different means of attention-grabbing in mainstream media, for example hostage-taking, suicide bombings, other attacks, and political or religious statements. The kinds of asymmetric warfare adopted by terrorists share some parallels with the principles of guerrilla warfare. With guerrilla warfare strategy the goal is to destroy the will of the attacker not its capacity, it is effective in opposition to a strong democratic adversary when it does not have the destruction of the other as its political objective thus, guerrilla warfare relies on the opponent seeking to use coercion[3]. Democracies like the United States and the United Kingdom, for political reasons, seek to gain their will using minimum of force, thus are not seeking to destroy all potential enemies[42]. Terrorists capitalize on this in order to sustain their existence and are able to use the freedoms and technological advantages that democratic western powers


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enjoy against them through small-scale attacks inflicted on points of weakness in order to weaken and ultimately exhaust the enemy[3]. The underground nature of terrorist groups’ organization is a clear asset in a propaganda war. Comparison can be drawn between Al Qaeda and the Taliban regime’s attempts to influence opinion and the propaganda strategy utilized in the development of the Khomeini regime in Iran. In Iran, the word of the Ayatollah was spread through rousing speeches, the network of mosques, through an underground network of guerrilla movements and neighbourhood communities as well as appealing to the Shah’s armed forces[8]. This kind of bottom-up action is hard to combat and draws on networks of trust and contacts that already exist to disseminate information. In a largely illiterate society it is a highly significant form of communication. This underground communication has been translated into wider attempts to spread knowledge of terrorist agendas via the international media. Methods of asymmetric warfare are changing. Information technology is enabling different forms of terrorist structures and command, control and communications. The networked formations of terrorism in today’s information dominated world enable greater flexibility, adaptability and draw on a wide range of abilities. Individual groups are self-contained and self-managing, yet form a part of networks that can evolve according to necessity, are widely dispersed, draw on many different relationships on an ad hoc basis and are thus less vulnerable to attack[9]. 1.1. Terrorism, Asymmetric Warfare and the Internet Although concerns about the use of the Internet for terrorist purposes include a spectrum of methods encompassed by the new concept of information warfare (such as cyber-terrorism), yet focus here will be on the organizational and promotional uses of the medium. Focusing on Jihadist Terrorist groups, Atram considers the lack of a territorial basis of such groups the most important post-9/11 development[10]. This renders it difficult for such movements to find a territorial home within a friendly state. Former Al Qaeda offshoots and newly emerging groups are widely dispersed and have largely formed from the Diaspora[10]. Over 80% of known activists live in these Diaspora communities[11]. The closed Jihadist cells are often formed from friends and it generally for these to radicalize there is normally some outside interaction with the wider Jihadist community. This radicalization has been linked by some to the growth of the Internet and in the last 5 years the number of Jihadist websites on the Internet is said to have increased from 14 to over 4000[10]. Websites make tools available to potential cyber-terrorists who support their cause and enable statistics to be compiled to track the activity on the website. This can allow the website administrator to adjust the content of the site in order to enhance their ability to attract particular audiences[9]. In addition to these online forums and chat rooms allow more interaction for possible promotion and recruitment[9]. Altran has observed how quickly close bonds and reputations are formed through these mediums[10]. However, besides some speculation about the poor integration of immigrants into European society, such discussion fails to explain and justify how this radicalization occurs; turning small groups of friends into potential Madrid bombers[10]. The Internet is clearly an important tool for widely dispersed immigrant communities such as this, to negotiate their lives within the context of a society whose values and practices may not fall within the explanations offered by religious teachings

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or relatives. Schwerzel suggests that members of such communities need a means to engage with others and find ways to adapt and cope with the challenges faced by Muslims living within a predominantly non-Muslim society[12]. Internet has the potential to engage such groups who may feel misrepresented or overlooked by the conventional media and can thus be an essential resource to ease feelings of exclusion, increase feelings of empowerment and further enable successful integration[12]. 1.2. Terrorism in Mainstream Media Those in government often echo the notion that the conventional media are a tool manipulated by terrorists in order to communicate a message and affect wider public opinion. On 21st March 2006 Tony Blair defended his war against ‘Islamic Extremism’ in a key foreign policy statement. It underscored the importance of the information war and he expressed concern that “They [terrorists] play our own media with a shrewdness that would be the envy of many a political party”[13]. Liebes & Kampf have said “there has been a gradual shift whereby terrorists have become regular, sought after sources, achieving a status in which they speak for themselves, explain their motives, and, to some extent, set the news agenda.”[14] However, this power given to the terrorists by the media is partly at the hands of the US government. In their personalizing the face of terror they sought to create public opinion receptive to far reaching post-9/11 policy changes and continuing intervention in the Middle East, yet this elevated the status of Osama bin Laden in the world media. Where prior to 9/11 he was virtually unheard in Western media, following the attacks on the World Trade Centre, video footage of Osama bin Laden became highly newsworthy. Due to the time difference and the limited access that Western journalists were able to gain, Al Jazeera was an important source of information on Western news and was showing the Afghans’ suffering to the world[5]. Within hours of the attack bin Laden’s name and al Qaeda became common currency throughout Britain and America. Confusion became apparent from the public interviews and one man interviewed said “Osama should never have had power”[15]. This error is indicative of his significance in the international scene, which became similar to that of a world leader. Bin Laden is considered by some to be a master at appealing to deep-rooted prejudices and cultural beliefs[16]. In August 1996 he declared war on the US calling acts of terrorism a “legitimate and morally demanded duty”, seeking to rid Saudi Arabia of American influence[17]. Bin Laden also made a statement of jihad in February 1998, in collaboration with a number of other religious leaders[18]. Religious leaders are often charismatic and are accorded a great amount of trust and respect by their followers adding legitimacy and authority to their words[19]. This second statement broadens bin Laden’s aims to include the Israeli question and that of the economic sanctions plaguing Iraq at the time[18]. These endeavours to gain publicity for terrorists beliefs and activities latch onto the frustrations of people who feel they are subjected to oppression by the US or by a pro-US regime and who feel their culture and religion is being attacked. Islamic extremist groups are able to draw on elements of the existing religious beliefs of their audience. Indeed, militant Islam offers an ideology that is well suited to a propaganda campaign; it is all-encompassing and followers can become swept up with the desire to follow Islamic laws closely and ensure they do not stray from the path dictated by their faith. Afghanistan under the Taliban regime also operated heavy censorship, which meant they were able to exercise some control over public information[20]. Again the Internet can play a role here as following a terrorist


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attack it is possible for the organization responsible to quickly send out a press release to the mainstream media to claim responsibility. This allows some scope for shaping the presentation and delivery of the message. The news media are also able to draw on a far greater range of information available about the organization to build their story and distribute this far more quickly[9]. The duration and saturation of propaganda are vital and most effective when it appeals to certain values or characteristics already present, such as religious ideology[19]. Bin Laden claims that his fight is for Islam and all Muslims must follow him if they value their faith[16]. Ellul contends that the more an ideology and propaganda campaign is integrated into an individual’s life, the more effective it will be[19]. For these reasons, attempts to capture public opinion through terrorist activity itself or through statements of terrorist organizations, though they may raise awareness are unlikely to be effective in communicating the message the terrorists wish to convey in the Western context. However, though terrorists may struggle to capture Western public opinion in this sense, they may be able to cause difficulty to their enemies through other means. It is suggested for example, that representations of terrorist violence or political statements might reduce morale particularly for troops in theatre if families see continued desperate attacks on TV. They might reduce the support of public opinion for continued involvement in Middle Eastern affairs or increase the perception that the government is not doing its job. Whether depictions of terrorist violence are actually able to do this however, is more complex. For example does media coverage of terrorist attacks raise debate and lead people to think critically about British and American foreign policy, military conduct and whether the reasons for war were justifiable? This last question was particularly relevant to war in Iraq, which was greeted with greater hostility due to the questions of legitimacy that hung over it and lack of international support. There was also considerable public sympathy for the action in Afghanistan, and with the wider American cause, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11[34]. Knowledge and images of the War on Terror have certainly prompted many to adopt an anti-war stance. The anti-war movement has produced much pressure during the War on Terror, which presented a significant challenge to the UK and, to a lesser extent, the US (where fear created by attacks in the heart of the country lessened anti-war sentiment). Often British critics argued that Blair did not have enough autonomy and was fighting an American war[21]. Images of the Afghan people’s suffering were often presented in the context of such coverage and the reasons for the war that were emphasized were often economic/imperialist in nature. This was intended to damage the credibility of the British government’s line on the reasons for war, its conduct during the war including support for American foreign policy and wider claims of legitimacy as well as generating wider support for the movement. It has been suggested by some including US Secretary of Defence Rumsfeld that the support or even coverage of anti-war sentiment feeds the hostility of the Arab world towards the US and thus provides support to the terrorist threat[22]. He has argued that further investment and government action should be focused on the media war[22]. Fears such as this have shaped some of the British government’s policies towards the media during the course of the War on Terror, which will be examined in due course.

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1.3. Public Opinion on Terrorist Coverage A series of 24 interviews with male and female members of the public, conducted during May 2006, when Britain suffered its largest losses since the War in Iraq, revealed a clear lack of trust in government directly related to the War on Terror[23]. This was reflected in statements such as “it has confirmed my opinions that they are not going about things in the right way and are too scared to go against the Americans” and “they blatantly lied, so they may lie again”[15]. This supports the recent opinion poll by YouGov which showed that only 26% of people are satisfied with Blair’s performance; similarly, a Populous Poll put the Labour Party at its lowest point for 14 years and adds some qualitative depth to such statistics[24]. When asked about their perceptions of the War on Terror, 13 out of the 24 people sampled had strongly held views against the War on Terror in general or aspects of British involvement in one or both of the conflicts[15]. Of these 5 had been involved in some lobbying, demonstration or other anti-war activities. Only two people were in complete agreement with British conduct and 7 held no strong opinions in this area[15]. However, anti-war activities have been in decline. In February 2003 for instance police reported that 750,000 protesters in London voiced their opposition to military action towards Iraq but the recent demonstration to bring the troops home drew only 15,000 according to police[25 & 26]. Far from acting to bolster the terrorist cause, this recent march had such a low turnout that it received poor coverage by the BBC TV News and thus activists launched another, small scale protest now against the BBC for progovernment bias[27]. Though many saw the situation as worsening or were critical of coalition conduct in Iraq so far, far from pointing to a desire to bring British troops home, the interviews above indicated that public opinion saw continued involvement in Iraq as justified by the need to resolve the ongoing situation[15]. This supports research of public opinion, by Mike Berry from Glasgow Media Group who commented, “Research carried out in June 2005 showed that insurgents’ attacks in Iraq did not necessarily lead members of the public to support withdrawal of British troops. For some people insurgent attacks actually had the opposite effect of strengthening their conviction that troops should remain until stability was achieved.” He went on to say that “The relationship here was complex and it is not possible to say that reports of atrocities carried out by insurgents would necessarily erode support for the occupation forces”[28]. Although many people do hold strong views regarding the War of Terror, it seems unlikely that this is due to the “publicity” given to terrorists in the mainstream media. Their reactions to the terrorist acts presented in the mainstream media were overwhelmingly negative, many describing their reaction as “disgusted” or “angry”[15]. Coverage of hostage-taking, threats and direct statements by terrorists such as bin Laden’s tapes was greeted with much scepticism and some considered this just “propaganda”[15]. Many of those interviewed felt a lack of knowledge and comprehension of the reasons for the actions of terrorists and their political motivations[15]. This is significant since the media frequently do not include the political or historical context and reasons for conflict in general, and also acts of terrorism[29 & 30]. These are generally portrayed as mindless irrational violence detached from meaning. This lack of context has been observed in other news coverage and contributes to much confusion amongst audiences over the nature of the events they see unfolding[29 & 30]. While the mainstream media can increase awareness of terrorist groups, it seems unlikely that their presentation of such groups’ activities supports the


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interests of these groups. Though a small number of interviewees felt some empathy with people they saw as acting from desperation, others found the sentiments too hard to comprehend and one male architect responded “it’s so detached from my cultural reality that although I understand the reasons, it seems alien. I find it very disturbing as I don’t think life is that cheap”[15].

2. Contemporary British Defence Policy and Attempts to Influence Public Opinion British and American defence policy and wartime information strategies have been evolving since 9/11 to adapt to a changing international environment. Much debate has ensued in the field of security studies and international relations over the changing international system, the challenges it poses and the best defence strategy to meet these challenges. The movement towards an increased importance of international terrorism and the wider techniques of asymmetric warfare that such actors utilize has been identified by policymakers and defence planners. Though not absent from military history, asymmetric warfare was only explicitly incorporated into US Joint Doctrine in 1995 and in that years National Military Strategy it was broadly defined to include terrorism[1]. Emergent policies reflect a need to respond to these rising challenges. Some have suggested that there has been a new ‘Revolution in Military Affairs’ (RMA) and these ideas have influenced the shape of British and American Defence Policy as well as that of NATO[31]. The RMA is characterized by exploitation of information advantage and though it emerges from technology and innovation such as ‘smart missiles’, it goes beyond this to ‘network centric warfare’ and the new more holistic effects-based approaches of the US and the UK[32]. This approach is reflected in the MoD White Paper “Delivering Security…” which calls for an updated defence strategy in the light of the changes to the international environment[33]. A further debate has emerged from the US Marine Corps around the idea of “4th Generation Warfare”; this challenges strict realist accounts of the international system by focusing on the assumption that the post-cold war era has brought a radical change in international politics, ushering in a system where states are no longer the only actors[32]. It points to an emergent form of warfare that moves beyond traditional warfare and is exemplified by the centrality of asymmetric warfare in Afghanistan and Iraq. Benbow argues that the new, modern approach to warfare offered by RMA is still largely suited to traditional inter-state warfare and does not directly address the challenges posed by terrorism and asymmetric warfare[32]. It enabled the US to win a swift military victory in Iraq, but due to the asymmetric nature of the conflict it has struggled to extricate itself from the country. The ability to address more traditional challenges is clearly still important and the changes prompted by RMA are not incompatible with asymmetric warfare; capabilities exist therein to address many of the new challenges posed. Although the approach is centred around a desire to focus on ‘what we do best’, rather than seek out new ways of addressing asymmetric warfare it does try to address many of the new challenges raised by the 4th Generation debate, for example WMD proliferation, global terrorism and a need for global projection[32]. As Arreguin-Toft argues, terrorists and insurgents due to their use of asymmetric warfare are difficult to defeat and he stresses the importance of political and diplomatic methods in this struggle[3]. He claims that “where strong actors have succeeded, they

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have done so most dramatically by preceding discriminate military attacks with meaningful political and economic reforms, reforms that effectively isolated guerrillas or terrorists from their base of social support”[3]. The highly fragmented and global nature of the threat posed means that, this base of social support is increasingly global thus diplomacy, political and economic responses must also be global. This is where government media and information operations come into the global War on Terror. The Internet has emerged as a relatively recent propaganda tool of terrorist organizations and some fundamentalist Islamic websites have been closed down in an attempt to halt its use[5]. As it is such a new phenomenon this is still in the early stages of being incorporated into a systematic and effective information campaign. Doctrinally, the UK’s information campaign operates across the British government and includes diplomatic activity, economic activity and security/military activity as well as other information activities. Many activities have been engaged in within the realm of public diplomacy and this is extended internationally seeking to promote the principles of democracy, human rights as well as liberal economics as well as providing a positive image of the West[34]. This is significant as it is an attempt to address wider perceptions of western powers and one element of its purpose is to address international public opinion where complicity with or apathy towards terrorist activity might contribute to the perceived security threat. One example of this is the “100 Days, 100 Ways” report, which was produced to support the continuing war on terrorism and was targeted to world media[35]. It lists among other things, 10 views of key critics which it claims “have been proved wrong” including that of Seamus Milne of The Guardian who is quoted as saying that “…any glimmer of why people might have been driven to carry out such atrocities, sacrificing their own lives in the process – or why the United States is hated with such bitterness, not only in Arab and Muslim countries, but across the developing world – seems almost entirely absent”[35]. It goes on to list 10 reasons to be more optimistic, the last of which reads, “As a result of the action taken by the international coalition against terrorism, you and your family live in a safer world”[35]. In times of war, on which we are focusing here, the information campaign includes both Psychological Operations (PSYOPS, discussed more below), which it is able to directly control, and media operations, which it tries to indirectly influence[36]. The MoD’s information campaign is co-ordinated through the News Release Group, which determines the messages and themes that are to be sought for the foreseeable future and how these will best be achieved[37]. Here a brief overview of both of these information activities will be presented with reference to the War on Terror. The paper will brush on firstly the use of mainstream media, what the MoD refers to as “media operations”. 2.1. Media Operations The MoD defines this as “That line of activity developed to ensure timely, accurate, and effective provision of Public Information (P Info) and implementation of Public Relations (PR) policy within the operational environment, whilst maintaining Operational Security (OPSEC)”[37]. Media Operations activities range across a spectrum from more overt or interventionist methods such as embedding, direct censorship and pressure on independent media through to less interventionist methods such as creation of press releases and other publications, and the negotiated timed release of information to ensure best effect. The techniques range in their visibility and subtlety and, though it is often the case that those techniques that involve the most


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interventionist ‘meddling’ in reporting and direct influence of media content are often the more overt, these can be more subtle than less obviously interventionist techniques; one such example might be the unsourced ‘trailing’ of news through the press[38]. One example of where the MoD have employed these methods to turn the publicity of terrorism created in the mainstream media to their advantage was during the release of the hostages in Sierra Leone in 2000, when they organized an exclusive interview on “Breakfast with Frost” with General Sir Charles Guthrie[39]. However the sudden nature of the Afghanistan campaign meant neither the UK nor the US was adequately prepared given the rapid pace of events. Steps were subsequently taken to ensure this did not recur in Iraq[36]. Thus, the War on Terror has brought expansion of media operations under New Labour[38]. The British domestic presentation of the War in Afghanistan was assisted through the Downing Street Press Office. The role of Alistair Campbell, particularly prior to the “dodgy dossier” scandal and the Hutton Report, was crucial[38]. Former BBC journalist Nicholas Jones in an email to Richard Sambrook (former BBC Director of News), detailed his concerns about Downing Street’s media handling in Afghanistan[40]. He said “Alistair Campbell and Downing Street machine have been more effective and better co-ordinated than during the Kosovo crisis.” He goes on to say that “Campbell has been on his best behaviour, indeed one could say on a bit of a charm offensive with the foreign media” … “the Downing Street machine, behind the scenes is proving very efficient”[40]. Campbell’s role and the important contribution of the Coalition Information Centres (CIC’s) will be discussed more in Section 3, below. As for the media handling in theatre, very little protection or assistance is offered to unilateral correspondents[41]. This is significant in the Afghan context due to the high proportion of Special Forces used and reliance on the Northern Alliance. There was no embedding of British reporters. For the MoD Media Operations in Iraq were considered to be significantly improved and the resulting coverage was viewed to be “generally well-informed and usually factually accurate”[29]. This positive attitude towards the media coverage in Iraq by the MoD reflects the fact that around 700 journalists were embedded with coalition forces, 153 of whom were war correspondents assigned to British Units[29]. This controversial practice had not been used systematically in this way prior to Iraq and 90% of “embeds” reporting of the conflict was either positive or neutral[29]. However, their reporting lacked the overall context of the operation, a factor which has been found to lead to much confusion amongst audiences over the nature of the events they see unfolding, such as that demonstrated in the public interviews above[29 & 30]. The practice of embedding has also been criticized for leading to bias in reporting. The fact that their lives are in the hands of the troops is said to lead to a sense of ‘us’ and ‘them’ and identification with the soldiers. Though many of the most extreme claims about bias in reporting by embeds have not been supported by research in this area by Lewis et al. some journalists considered the mere restriction of movement to travelling with the troops to be censorship as it meant they could not follow other stories[42]. It meant that there was comparatively little footage of ordinary Iraqis and more of “our boys” on the front line. Many embeds have reported back positively about the interference being less than they thought it would be[43]. However, Lewis has commented that the system was accompanied by “an apparent disregard for the welfare of independent journalists” and “the fact that so many unilaterals were killed… may make embedding the only option for broadcasters…” despite the fact that there is broad agreement that independent reporting is more important than ever[42]. He also observes

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that the tendency of embedded reporting to take viewers right to the action yet show none of the violence and horror makes a sanitized version of war which detracts from the reality, though restrictions on grounds of taste and decency make this inevitable[42]. Far from being a mouthpiece of terrorists, an over-reliance on government sources in media coverage is increasingly occurring with the recent emphasis on embedding. Part of this is the tendency for them to be respected as “official” sources. Inevitably, they have the most up-to-date information and are after all the political focal point of the country. Lewis has observed that the “War on Terror” depicted in the media bore no relation to the reality of the scale of the threat. A massive increase in coverage occurred during a period when despite occasional peaks the number of terrorist attacks is the lowest in 20 years, implying that the media are responding to an increase in the rhetoric of politicians following the attack rather than reflecting reality[42]. 2.2. PSYOPS The second dimension to the information campaign is the use of PSYOPS, which are designed to support military action in the theatre of war. This is defined as “Planned psychological activities designed to influence attitudes and behaviour affecting the achievement of political and military objectives” within British military doctrine[44]. It can include deception but, for Britain, it cannot be legitimately extended to the domestic context[36]. Unlike media operations direct control is maintained over the content and presentation of what is received by the audience. Methods of presentation used include print, radio, television, loudspeakers for localized projection, face to face communication and new media such as the Internet[44]. PSYOPS, like media operations should be seen as part of a wider strategy. The “Delivering Security…” White Paper identifies a need for a strategy for dealing with the causes of problems like global terrorism through non-operational international activities intended to stabilize a region and prevent the conditions for terrorist activity from arising[33]. This greater primacy given to peace support, counter-terrorism and stabilization has implications for information warfare since these are conditions in which PSYOPS can readily be applied. A substantial reinvestment in PSYOPS since 9/11 is evidenced by the growth in the number of British PSYOPS personnel. During Afghanistan, the UK had only 8 Regulars and 24 Reservists and the expansion has increased the number of Regulars to 27[45]. There is now a need to have the ability to fight 2 medium scale operations; however, Britain only has one PSYOPS group. Following Operation TELIC therefore the group concluded that it needed much more investment[45]. There was a review of PSYOPS after the War in Iraq, which included “Organic Tactical PSYOPS” (Loudspeaker Operations, Products & Testing) and the Psychological Support Element. A second PSYOPS group is being considered which would substantially increase Britain’s PSYOPS capabilities[45]. In Iraq, although at the working level a well-coordinated campaign accompanied the combat phase, this suffered a post-conflict decline[29]. The MoD also concluded that counter-information should have been used far more extensively from the outset. This involves attempts to destroy enemy credibility through exposing lies and distortion and includes defence against enemy propaganda including its pre-emption. For instance the MoD could have exploited the extent of coalition forces advancement in order to counter Iraqi Ministry of Information statements[29]. The MoD learnt from its experience in Iraq that the information campaign must begin as soon as possible and


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continue post-conflict in order to be successful, a point often made in general terms by propaganda theorists and propagandists alike [29 & 19]. Predictably this was noted to have had an impact on effectiveness and coherence, at a time when the importance of maintaining the consent of the Iraqi people was considered paramount[29].

3. Moves towards Interconnectivity within the Context of the Information War It is generally accepted that international terrorist networks and other global non-state actors that pose a threat to the security of the international system and individual countries within it, can only be addressed through co-operative global strategies. Thus, strategies for dealing with terrorism and government originated responses in the struggle for public opinion, have thus been moving towards greater coordination and interconnectivity with an emphasis on remaining “on message”. Cordesman for example identified the battle for hearts and minds in Afghanistan as the “critical first step” and called for a “coordinated outreach and media programme” involving contributions from the British BBC and other governments broadcasting efforts[46]. Although the ideas of 4th Generation Warfare and RMA mentioned above, at first might seem incompatible extremes, both offer important insights and lessons for contemporary warfare. The MoD are focused on ways of gaining greater global projection of forces, responsiveness and flexibility to deal with such problems as terrorism and the growth in small and medium scale international operations[33]. Today’s UK (and even the US) does not have the capability to respond to all international crises in which it has an interest and therefore diplomatic links are of greater importance[33]. British defence policy clearly implies a move towards further integration between the British and US military and concurrently their respective foreign policies[33]. This can be seen as part of a wider movement to ensure European defence capabilities are complimentary and efficient, providing a force that will reduce the capability gap between the US and Europe. The US has pioneered a move towards network-centric warfare and the UK has been first to follow of all the NATO allies[47]. Significantly, the theme of the aforementioned white paper is the requirement for interconnectivity at all levels, a lesson that was underscored by the MoD experience in Iraq[33 & 29]. It stresses a cross-governmental strategy with links particularly to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Department for International Development to ensure MoD “effects-based planning 1 compliments wider strategic planning”[33]. Effects-based operations will mean an enhanced emphasis is placed on media and information operations improving the effectiveness of operations and is hoped to give greater understanding of the information campaign[29]. However, crucially, the white paper also stresses international interconnectivity through Network Enabled Capacity (NEC), which is seen as essential to counter terrorism abroad[33]. The NEC internationally links decision-makers and weapons systems/forces to give increased effects with reduced forces by increasing control, awareness and thus responsiveness while harnessing the expertise of Britain’s allies[33]. Though it is most obviously applied to conventional forms of military action, there is a recognized need to address unconventional 1

Effects based planning is a new form of military planning which focuses upon strategic and political ends and opens up the possibility for choice of various means not just conventional military solutions, e.g. diplomacy.

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adversaries with unconventional, asymmetrical and innovative responses; an ‘agility’ that forms the cornerstone of the MoD’s new doctrine and ensures that information will be a crucial tool, to harnessed to British advantage[33 & 29]. Though this international interconnectivity applies to all the UK’s key allies, emphasis is placed on Britain’s relationship with the US in the document. A move towards interoperability has been identified as a requirement by NATO and is part of the bid to secure the ongoing relevance of NATO within a post-Cold War international context. It is hoped to increase the efficiency of European defence spending and avoid unnecessary duplication of forces[47]. One of the most fundamental UK defence policy aims is “maintenance of the transatlantic relationship”[33]. It indicates that Europe is still of great strategic importance but, as with British interest in other regions, this is in the context of the global threats to British and “wider Western interests”[33]. This primacy given to the importance of the US in Britain’s future is also reflected elsewhere[29]. For British PSYOPS Personnel, the UK’s relationship with the US is seen as important and dependent on compliance in Iraq, which was regarded a key source of a credibility with the US[45]. The key nexus in British defence policy seems to be the desire to influence in the planning/decision-making in operations entered into with the US. A significant military contribution is seen as the way to secure this influence and in order to maximize Britain’s usefulness it is necessary for its expertise to compliment US expertise and for its forces to be interoperable with US as well as NATO, European and UN forces in command and control as well as operationally[33]. Britain’s military will “provide those capabilities that deliver the greatest impact when operating alongside the US”[33]. Iraq was the first example in which network centric warfare was used and British expeditionary forces were permitted access to American networks. British experiences in Iraq raised concerns about the level of interoperability between US and British forces resulting in wide reaching changes[29]. This movement is occurring across all aspects of defence, including the information war. Among these many changes, the MoD is investing heavily in communications personnel and a new “Defence Information Infrastructure Programme” both of which will be at the heart of the network being created to integrate the UK and its allies[33]. 3.1. Media Operations Returning to the operation of the Downing Street Press Office and the role of Alistair Campbell in the presentation of the conflict, it is important to note that an instrumental role was played by co-ordination and planning between Campbell and his American counterparts, Karen Hughes and Tucker Eskew. During October 2001 Campbell, who had recently become Blair’s new Director of Strategy and Communications visited Washington where he publicized the government arguments against Osama bin Laden and emphasized international support for the action in Afghanistan[48]. Whilst there he sat in on meetings with Condoleezza Rice, the National Security Advisor, Vice President Cheney and met with Hughes[48]. During Campbell’s trip he was shown a copy of one of Bush’s speeches to Congress[49]. Likewise, an article in the Independent during the visit reported that “Eskew was shown the Prime Minister’s statement to the Commons after the Taliban lines had finally been breeched; after consulting Washington he succeeded in having a few of the more triumphalist lines toned down, and Blair referred to the Taliban “collapse” rather than to an allied “victory”[49].


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In the media operation of both conflicts the establishment of a “Coalition Information Service”, what would later become the “Coalition Information Centres” early on was instrumental[38]. This helped to co-ordinate the message and they acted as “rebuttal centres” combined with the time difference from Afghanistan and Pakistan, journalists found that stories “were running in London and Washington, without any qualification/rebuttal”… “the coalition now gets its retaliation in first (in Islamabad)”[40]. During March 2002 a team of analysts, experts, civil servants, speech writers and political advisors from No 10, The State Department, White House, both US and British Military and Defence establishments were brought together at CENTCOM in Qatar[50]. This team worked together as a press room to counter negative stories in the media and maintain a dialogue with journalists, issue statements, anticipate negative coverage and generally manage media operations[50]. It is notable that journalists interviewed who were present were unaware of this level of coordination occurring[51 & 52]. The MoD maintains that during a military operation conducted within an alliance, it is imperative to “maintain a common media line” to its domestic media and “present a unified international front” thus it seeks to “harmonise key media messages and themes to counter the media’s tendency to expose differences and exploit these for news purposes”[37]. A key element of the coalition-building process is gaining access to the region and this is not always forthcoming, therefore the United Kigdom will increasingly be cultivating relationships in “emerging trouble spots” to ensure success, should military operations become necessary and is preparing to work with these less familiar partners in future[29]. It appears likely that this courtship of host nations would involve an extensive international targeted public diplomacy effort[29]. In the light of this co-ordination it is important to note that US media operations have been called into question on ethical grounds. Very little protection or assistance was offered to any correspondent who travelled as a unilateral, particularly following the introduction of systematic embedding in Iraq. One controversial counterpropaganda measure used during both conflicts was the disabling and destruction of the domestic media infrastructure, an important part of the information campaign, which raised additional questions of safety for journalists[36]. It has been claimed that during the War in Afghanistan, independent media were also targeted. A warning was issued for all journalists to leave Afghanistan and, the day that the Taliban were leaving, the Al Jazeera offices were hit by a US missile, News 24 were also nearly hit and many accused the Coalition of deliberate attempts to silence the media through force and the use of intimidation[53] . The BBC foreign correspondent, William Reeve, observed that “if you're not embedded you are in trouble.” He went on to note, that “when the American tanks came rolling into Baghdad, they actually lined up their guns and aimed at the hotel where Rageh Omar and Reuters were operating from. They certainly knew very well that this hotel was full of journalists ... and they also aimed at the offices of two Arabic television stations, one of them being Al-Jazeera.”[20] In accordance with international law the domestic Iraqi media was targeted once there was sufficient evidence of its being used for command and control purposes. However, this method of silencing the Iraqi administration was to some extent counterproductive as it created significant difficulties in transmitting coalition broadcasts designed to stabilize the Iraqi population and combat counter-propaganda by Iraq and its sympathetic neighbours. More future consideration is thus to be given to the competing interests of successful propaganda transmission and other military objectives in circumstances such as these[29]. This is a highly sensitive form of attack

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and raises clear ethical issues. Again, some have accused coalition forces of targeting non-Iraqi media, a serious breach of international law. For example, Labour MPs Tony Clarke and Peter Kilfoyle breached the official secrets Act in order to leak the transcript of a conversation in April 2004 with Tony Blair in which President Bush professed a desire to bomb the Arabic TV Station Al Jazeera. The Prime Minister was expressing concern over some of the tactics used in Iraq. Ultimately the proposal to bomb the station was diffused by US Secretary of State Colin Powell and Tony Blair. Serious discussion of these tactics at such a high level has raised concern within the media[53]. This differential in approach is important when we recognize the power imbalance between these two countries, which appears to have resulted in American co-option of some initiatives. For example, in the context of Afghan public information campaigns, a Western official noted that “they ... [the American Government]...wait until some project is seen to be working...whether it is to do with public information or whatever...and they then pour in consultants and promises of a lot of money for the Afghan Government...they basically want to take over the project. They want to control public information programmes.”[54] US dominance means it may be difficult for the UK to maintain influence and power in such a partnership. 3.2. PSYOPS: This area has been the subject of little academic debate and investigation, comparative to media operations. Here too, integration of US and British defence policy has begun to occur with a view to harmonizing the War on Terror, and this can be considered of great potential significance with respect to the final outcome of a conflict. The US PSYOPS group in Afghanistan were attached with the British troops for the duration of the combat tactical campaign assisting where their skills and capabilities were needed. The British military did not have a tactical PSYOPS group at this time and therefore its creation is seen as a lesson learnt from working with the US in the context of Afghanistan[45]. Since 9/11 significant shifts have occurred in the area of PSYOPS with a substantial increase in dialogue between British PSYOPS and their US equivalent[45]. Joint planning and activities occur at every level of PSYOPS. Direct links are always present and compliment the move towards interoperability. Collective training in PSYOPS occurs within the auspices of NATO (governed by doctrine AJP347), but further collective training is being considered for the future[45 & 33] . The exchange of personnel between the UK and the US stopped whilst both were engaged in theatre; however, the UK has now received US personnel and will reciprocate in due course. Such exchanges facilitate understanding and the dialogue that ensures each operation is carried out effectively[45]. At the end of 2002, with the Iraq operation in the planning stages, Britain and the US engaged in the long-planned US CENTCOM exercise “Internal Look 02” which served as a rehearsal for Iraq[45]. It enabled the UK to influence mission planning in Iraq and helped ensure they were ready to work with the US, in Iraq Anglo-American relations were instrumental to the success of the Iraq war. In particular this was due to a close professional relationship, prior experience of working together, joint training, various bilateral and institutional contacts and also their roles as leading members of NATO[45]. Joint training enabled British personnel to develop an understanding of the way the US operate, including their military culture and ethos, training, doctrine and equipment[29].


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PSYOPS personnel felt that the UK was losing its attractiveness as a uniquely experienced and skilled resource as the US becomes more experienced in this area. Though a great respect was considered to be a permanent physical entity in the relations between the two military establishments, the US need is considered not as great as it was[45]. Nonetheless, British influence was considered still to be strong with clear dialogue at all levels and British PSYOPS personnel felt US Captains listened to them more than they would to another US Captain[45]. Positive interactions such as these are considered likely to build mutual respect and a working relationship that will facilitate future strategy development (which occurs at all levels), co-ordination and joint operations[45]. British PSYOPS work closely with the US forces and when it is possible to use US ‘products’ (leaflets, posters etc) they do so rather than invest resources repeating the exercise. However, some products produced by the US PSYOPS are considered ‘inappropriate’ for British use due to regional differences (e.g. It is unnecessary to distributing propaganda relating to poppies when it is winter in the British part of Afghanistan) and also due to the problems with US PSYOPS mentioned above[45]. The British PSYOPS personnel alluded to the different less rigid guidelines regarding PSYOPS that the US works to, enabling them to do things the British government does not permit, a policy which the PSYOPS personnel interviewed supported[45]. This illustrates the current boundaries to the extent of the integration in the field of PSYOPS that the US and British military have moved towards. British PSYOPS personnel criticized the expertise and care taken in the production of American products, which were often re-used in a different context thus impinging on their cultural appropriateness and effectiveness. This was a lesson learnt by the UK in the Balkans and the policy is a product of the new move towards “effects-based” campaigns[45]. The British approach was contrasted with the production cycle of US products. Often these are manufactured using computer translators, which do not recognize the cultural significance of particular phraseology and are not able to take dialect and other subtle variations in the meaning of language and other communication forms and have been tested on the wrong people[45]. Another tool utilized by Britain’s PSYOPS team in the field is “Key Leader Engagement”; this entails officers engaging with respected members of communities in order to reach the population[45]. This is designed to soften dissent and create a receptive environment. It is important to note the contrast here with American approaches to propaganda, which are very different; generally concerned with massproduced, large-scale campaigns. The British efforts to win over Imams, Tribal leaders etc… and “softer”, more subtle methods of PSYOPS (e.g. the use of soft berets in theatre) can be seen as complementing the US efforts. In fact, the US approach was often seen as too “heavy handed” and too technology driven; there is no point concentrating efforts into television when there is only power for 3 hours in 12. Although key leader engagement also varied in its effectiveness (bribes for example were problematic as they sometimes enabled the purchase of weapons) it is a significant element of their campaigns[45].

Conclusion From the analysis presented here it is clear that as part of a wider strategy to address the global problem of terrorism, defence planning is taking us further towards the goals

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of interoperability, global interconnectedness and network centric warfare. This global War on Terror is also taking place in the information context, through both media and public diplomacy operations and the use of PSYOPS in the theatre of war. Consistency is of such importance to a campaign that the MoD has concluded that their mechanisms for coordinating information operations with potential coalition partners be reviewed[29]. Although this paper seeks to demonstrate an increasingly complimentary and cooperative approach in propaganda strategy between the United Kingdom and the United States it is fundamental to this analysis that there are, and have traditionally been, key differences between the two countries’ approach to the information campaign. US practices in the area of PSYOPS and other areas of information warfare have been reported to be heavy handed, reflecting an approach to warfare in general that can at times be at odds with the British approach[45 & 36]. The US public can be targeted through “public affairs” to counter foreign propaganda, though care must be taken not to “manipulate” or “slant”[55]. Doctrine allows for the use of deception in targeting foreign audiences and it is notable that public affairs channels are considered a means to disseminate international information[55]. Interviews with British PSYOPS personnel suggest that many of the practices that are routinely carried out by US personnel would violate the principles under which British troops must operate. These guidelines are considered by British personnel to be of great importance to the maintenance of ‘ethical’ PSYOPS practices[45]. British PSYOPS troops also considered their softer and less technologically based approach to PSYOPS to be more appropriate in some circumstances[45]. Although these important differences in approach have been maintained thus far, increasingly systematic attempts are being made as part of a wider defence policy to bring British practices including PSYOPS closer to that of the US, encouraging integration in some circumstances or at the very least to ensure complimentary practices are followed. The increasing integration in the light of the perceived problems and differences in the American approaches to Media Operations and PSYOPS are an area for possible concern due to the unequal balance of the partnership. British and American capabilities in PSYOPS are determined in no small part by economy. As a superpower with global reach the US maintains 200/300 PSYOPS personnel, which compares with 34 UK personnel and provides the driving force behind the campaign due to its financial superiority and global dominance[45]. It is clear that the government efforts to influence public opinion on terrorism provide an increasingly integrated and systematic international campaign in support of defence objectives. Although terrorists are able to gain some coverage for their activities in the mainstream media, the ease at which the government and MoD are able to create publicity to counter this, for instance in the case of General Guthrie’s “Breakfast with Frost” exclusive, CIC’s and high profile international visits draws power away from the terrorists. Public perception of terrorist activities is heavily cynical and tinged with the lack of comprehension of the terrorists’ motives that the uncontextualised media coverage creates. Although there is a genuine risk posed by the utilization of media for the dissemination of information by terrorist organizations, media channels concurrently provide a much-needed platform for debate during times of crisis. The Internet is an example in point. This is an area that has attracted concern as hacking and cracking pose security risks, particularly in the light of increasing network size and reliance on information technologies[46 & 56]. Information warfare and the constant struggle for information dominance mean the Internet poses a regulatory challenge[57].


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Although activity is still limited, following 9/11 there was an unprecedented surge in all kinds of media activity as people sought to obtain reliable news and information, as well as communicating with others regarding the unfolding events. The Internet thus became a platform for an awakening of political engagement and genuine debate at a time when mainstream media, particularly in the US, was characterized by limited discussion of the context of the attacks, little debate over the range of possible responses and was often dominated by emotional appeals to patriotism[58]. It provides a potentially more democratic arena for debate encouraging active participation and allowing access to a larger audience from a multitude of backgrounds. It also allows for collective interrogation of mainstream media sources and allows development of a more considered, knowledgeable and therefore defensible basis for public opinion. Prior has indicated that this increased interest was due to the presence of an increased sense of threat and self-interest rather than heightened democratic engagement[59]. However, it does imply a sense of public dissatisfaction with the range of debate within the mainstream media. Williams suggests that as debate in the mainstream media closes down, informal or underground Internet-based channels widen their range of debate, opening up the possibilities for critical discourse[58]. It has been noted that such civic engagement may be fragile and this and trust in government may be affected in the long term by further restrictions[60]. Graber concludes that the public, conflicted over ethical and security issues themselves, often lean towards the government viewpoint in a climate of fear[61]. An informed public is an essential requirement of the democratic ideals that are being held up and thus supports the freedom of the media over and above government arguments of security[61]. Stricter controls and restrictions of freedoms that would not otherwise be tolerated can be traded off when the sense of threat is high[62]. This raises important implications in the light of the evidence presented in this paper. 9/11 was a turning point that tested the populations of the West’s commitment to the values it promotes and holds as sacred against pressing concerns for safety and security. Research has indicated that during times of crisis the fear created in the population weakens their commitment to the primacy of civil liberties over security[62]. However, this is mediated also by the level of trust in the government, which fell during the course of the War on Terror in part due to the perception of government ‘spin-doctoring’, which damaged their credibility[45 & 38]. It is important to acknowledge the role of the credibility of the source of information when we consider the struggle for public opinion. The presence of terrorism in the media or even communication of the motives of the terrorists is unlikely to lead to positive responses from a Western audience and may be counterproductive, due to the violence of the terrorist groups particularly as their positions are often not articulated.

References [1] [2] [3]

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[35] 13/09/01 “100 Days …100 Ways”, Press Release (2001) pp15-19. Obtained at interview, Jones, Nicholas. Author and former BBC Correspondent (14th March 2006) London. [36] Interview: Taverner, Angus. Media Operations, MoD (18th July 04) London. [37] MoD (2001) Media Operations Joint Warfare Publication 3-45, Swindon, Wilts: Joint Doctrine and Concepts Centre, pp1-2, 1-1. [38] Interview: Jones, Nicholas. Author and former BBC Correspondent (14th March 2006) London. [39] BBC (10/09/00) Breakfast with Frost Available From: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/breakfast_with_frost/931801.stm, Accessed on 26/05/06 [40] Jones, N. (30/11/01) Memo by email from Nicholas Jones to Richard Sambrook “Afghanistan: Downing Street”, obtained at Interview: Jones, Nicholas. Author and former BBC Correspondent (14th March 2006) London. [41] MoD, (2002) The Green Book, From ‘UK Defence Today’ Website, Available from: http://www.mod.uk/news/green_book, Accessed on: 07/07/04. [42] Lewis et al. (2004) The role of embedded reporting during the 2003 Iraq War: Summary Report. [43] Interview: Wood, Paul. BBC Defence Correspondent (22nd March 06) BBC TV Centre, London. [44] MoD (2002) Information Operations: Joint Warfare Publication 3-80, pp2A-1, 1-4 & Glossary 5, Available from: http://ics.leeds.ac.uk/papers/pmt/exhibits/2270/jwp3_80.pdf, Accessed on: 24/05/06. [45] Interviews: 15th Army PSYOPS Group (22nd November 2005) Chicksands, Bedfordshire. [46] Cordesman, A. (2001) “The Lasting Challenge: A strategy for Counterterrorism and Asymmetric Warfare” in Centre for Strategic and International Studies Website, Available From: http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/homelandspeech113001[1].pdf, Accessed on: 17/05/06. [47] Nolin, P. C. (2006) “071 STC 06 E – Pursuing Interoperability: The Need for Transatlantic Technological Cohesion” NATO Parliamentary Assembly Committee Report. [48] Watson, R. & Webster, P. (27/10/01) “Campbell helps to bolster Alliance Support” in The Times, p6. [49] MacIntire, D. (19/03/02) “American Spin Doctor in London” in The Independent, p8. [50] Interview: McFadden, Pat. Former Political Advisor - CENTCOM Qatar and MP Wolverhampton North (20th April 06) London. [51] Interview: Marcus, Jonathan. BBC World Service (13th March 06) Bush House, London. [52] Interview: Adams, Paul. BBC Chief Diplomatic Correspondent (22 Mar. 06) BBC TV Centre, London. [53] Leigh, D & Norton-Taylor, R. (09/01/06) ‘MPs leaked Bush plan to hit Al-Jazeera’ in The Guardian, Available from: http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,14173,1682257,00.html [54] Interview: Western Diplomatic Official in Afghanistan. (20th April 06) London. [55] Joint Chiefs of Staff, (1996) ‘Doctrine for Joint Psychological Operations’ From The Information Warfare Website, pp7-8, Available from: http://www.iwar.org.uk/PSYOPS/resources/us/jp3_53.pdf [56] Ehlers, V. J. (1999) “Information Warfare and International Security” in NATO Parliamentary Assembly Committee Report: Science and Technology Committee, Available From: http://www.naa.be/archivedpub/comrep/1999/as285stc-e.asp [57] Graber, D. (1996) “The ‘New’ Media and Politics: What does the future hold?” in Political Science and Politics, Vol. 29, No. 1, pp33-36. [58] Williams, B. A. (2003) “The New Media Environment, Internet Chatrooms, and Public Discourse after 9/11” in Thussu, D. K. & Freedman, D. Eds. (2003) War and the Media, London: Sage, pp176-189. [59] Prior, M (2002) “Political Knowledge after September 11” in Political Science and Politics, Vol. 35. No. 3, pp523-529. [60] Gould, J. B. (2002) “Playing with Fire: The Civil Liberties Implications of September 11th” in Public Administration Review, Special Issue, No 62, pp74-79. [61] Graber, D. (2003). “Styles of image management during crises: justifying press censorship”, in. Discourse & Society, Vol. 14, No.5, pp539-557. [62] Davis, D. & Silver, B. S. (Jan 2004) “Civil Liberties vs. Security: Public Opinion in the Context of the Terrorist Attacks on America” in American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 48, No. 1, pp28-46.


4. The Security Challenge to the Media Dealing with Terrorism



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Security of Media Personnel whilst Reporting on Terrorism Maj. Viorel MIHAILA Public Relation Directorate, Ministry of Defence, Romania

Abstract. The War on Terrorism is not a war in the traditional sense, but a mixture of kinetic warfare and a war of and about ideas and ideals. In this respect the relationship between government and media is more symbiotic, in particular circumstances we may even see a symbiotic relationship existing between media and military. However, in a democracy, the tools of communication are democratically distributed and democratically controlled. In this war on terrorism, the media are playing a vital role, both for governments and terrorist organizations, not to mention public opinion. The mass effects of terrorist actions will capture the media’s attention, governments and terrorist groups will use the media’s ability to transmit their messages. There are competing narratives in the coverage of the war on terrorism. These differences raise vexing questions about the responsibilities of the press in wartime, journalistic values such as objectivity, and the relationships between the press, the public and governments. What is the media’s role in this picture? Being a war, journalists should obey the military war coverage requirements/limitations; but to what extent? As an important part of the process, both for governments and terrorist organizations, who will provide protection and how much?

Introduction The War on Terrorism (or Global War on Terrorism) is not a war in the traditional sense, but a mixture of kinetic warfare and a war of and about ideas and ideals. Contemporary terrorism is a complex phenomenon involving a range of non-state actors linked in networked organizations. These organizations (probably the bestknown example is al-Qaeda) are complex non-state actors operating as trans-national networks within a galaxy of like-minded networks. All these entities pose security threats to nation-states and collective global security. Within the frame of the democratic way of life, we have had to pass from securing territory to securing values, of course with all the deriving implications. This paper takes up the issue of the security of media personnel whilst reporting on terrorism, mainly in the context of the War on Terrorism, from the military perspective. I argue that the relationship between military and media, within this particular framework, is increasingly intertwined. In this respect the issue of the security of media personnel should be discussed. The paper falls into four main parts. I begin by outlining NATO’s Concept for Defence against Terrorism and some of the current media’s particularities. I then examine some of the ways in which the changing social and technological environment over the past decades has affected the relationship between media and public. The third part of the paper analyzes the complex relationship between media and terrorism.

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V. Mihaila / Security of Media Personnel Whilst Reporting on Terrorism

Finally, the last part is focused on the security of media personnel while reporting on terrorism, journalists embedded during military operations or independent journalists.

1. NATO’s Concept for Defence against Terrorism After the end of the cold war, as no nation-state was threatening the NATO countries, NATO’s new objective dealt mainly with the spread of such key values as liberty, freedom and democracy (for instance, missions such as the Balkans). The fight against terrorism became the corner stone of nearly all NATO activities, ranging from intelligence cooperation to civil emergency planning. At the NATO Prague Summit in 2002, the Alliance agreed on the Military Concept for Defence against Terrorism. The main elements of NATO’s fight against terrorism are antiterrorist operations, military reform and strengthening capabilities, strengthening cooperation between NATO Members, with Partner and Dialogue countries, and working together with other international organizations such as the EU, the UN and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. War on terror has become a meta-narrative for a large number of national security related issues, whatever the country may be. Governments, media and independent players started to sometimes link very different themes in this generic and handful frame. Public opinion, on the other hand, started to understand and to operate with new terminologies and categories in order to deal with day-to-day challenges. In this respect, today, on some specific issues, the relationship between government and media is more symbiotic, even synergistic one might say. When we are addressing the issue of the “security of media personnel whilst reporting on terrorism” we should, firstly, broaden the perspective, or the context to be analyzed. In this war on terrorism, media is playing a vital role, both for governments and terrorist organizations, not to mention public opinion. Mass effects of terrorist actions will capture the media’s attention, governments and terrorist groups will use the media’s ability to transmit their messages and will look for the populace that listens and supports their messages. In fact, there are at least two different approaches of the journalists while reporting on terrorism: the first one is to be accredited, in different theatre of operations at respective HQ’s (and to be embedded or not) with military formations and to directly participate in operations and fights, under military protection; the other one is to act as an independent journalist, with very limited protection. I think it is worthwhile having a closer look at some different but interrelated areas: the media’s generic role in a democracy, the media-military relationship both in peace and during major crises, media patterns used by terrorist organizations, government and media positions on reporting terrorism within the framework of the Global War on Terrorism. It is vital that the military understand how media methods drive public opinion so that these methods can be taken into account properly in planning military operations. From a military perspective, during an operation, the aim is to provide the media with a range of facilities to enable reporting on operational and tactical military and defence-related activities.


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2. Changes in the Relationship between Media and Public In a democracy, the tools of communication are democratically distributed and democratically controlled. The Western public relies on mass media to keep them informed of important events and developments at home and abroad. Often, media stories are the only source of information the public has on a subject, and thus are the basis of opinions and views on issues and world events. Through story selection and reporting practices, the media have great influence over public opinion, which in turn drives government policy in some areas. The history of political life in the West is closely bound up with communication and its media, both traditional and new. Radio, television and newspapers have always played a role in bringing politics to the people and facilitating access to political debate, which they help to broaden and clarify. Nowadays, the nation-states of the world are being subjected to the direct shock of new technologies, global networks and globalization. Such huge transformations are without precedent in human history, and change power relationships on an international scale, eluding completely the ability of governments to understand and control them. They inspire confusion in most politicians and doubt in many observers. In truth, they have the ability to create large-scale exclusion and to generate constraints, which interfere with democratic processes. They also mobilize other resources for better servicing civic life, collective solidarity and for a feeling of shared knowledge and understanding. The information revolution is changing the extent to which communication can reach audiences and perhaps modify their information, attitudes and behaviours. This changing environment has implications for the media, for citizens and governments. Perhaps most importantly it reduces the ability of national governments to define events for their citizens, which in turn will create many alternate views opposing the state’s one on different topics. In most democracies, the press is perceived as both an outward sign and a guarantee of democracy. Regarded empirically as the fourth estate, it ensures that democracy functions properly, condemns abuses and clarifies the options available. Pursuing these aims, journalists enjoy certain professional rights that are supposed to guarantee their editorial independence vis-à-vis both the public authorities and their employers. The pressures exerted by the political authorities on the media are limited in present-day democracies, and no administrative or regulatory institution appears to have the power to challenge or query freedom of speech. Primarily, journalists are concerned by the curbs placed by many governments upon the free flow of information. Access to public information sources, which is a precondition for ensuring that citizens are kept properly informed is often limited, if not deliberately restricted. In most cases, states still impose strict regulations. For example, press coverage of military conflicts is subject to rigorous control in many countries. There is a growing trend to limit somehow the war correspondent’s autonomy, freedom of movement and access to the front, in order to preserve the security of operations. However, the Munich Declaration emphasizes the right to information by affirming that journalists may claim free access to all information sources and the right freely to investigate all events that affect public life. Nevertheless, such support, often solemnly proclaimed, has not solved all the problems affecting freedom of expression and the free flow of information. However, in situations of armed conflict, the journalist’s job is a difficult and dangerous one. Opposition groups and civil and military authorities alike generally find it in their interest to conceal certain compromising realities. Some do not then hesitate to take appropriate steps in order to curb the activities of reporters. Harassment, threats

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and even murder are unfortunately becoming increasingly common in dealings with journalists who get in the way too much. In such contexts, the public, the target audience of these media, is self-evidently not in a position to forge an enlightened and unbiased opinion of its own. The authorities generally put forward the same reasons: imperatives bound up with issues of national security and public order. Thus, many countries grappling with terrorism and outbreaks of irrational violence have adopted public order measures that have inevitably eroded press freedom severely. Freedom of information may be limited by other entities than governments (terrorist and extremist groups, paramilitary groups, drug cartels). In some countries, extremist groups resort to force in order to prevent families from picking up foreign television channels that spread values alien to their own. Others launch fatwas against intellectuals, artists and journalists. Aside from the extreme cases described above, there exist throughout the world dozens of conflict situations in which the media perform a more traditional but no less essential role as ‘witnesses’. Their supposed mission being to report everything that occurs in these regions and to reveal violations of the fundamental principles of humanity, the media are in a position to keep international public opinion informed and to alert it to the most horrendous situations. 2.1. Cultural Differences The challenge in today’s world, within the framework of cross cultural communications and global media institutions is to bridge cultural differences in communicating the message. Relying heavily on the mass media to get the west’s message out to the most people in the least time, our culture emphasis on communication efficiency. However, in the same time, having a relatively long and trusting relationship with the mass media, we are making the mass media the most efficient and effective medium for communicating also with the domestic public. In the Arab world, meeting people face to face may not be the most efficient means of communicating, but it is seen as being the most effective. Interpersonal channels are not only preferred, but the Arab mass media does not have a stellar history of credibility and trust with its public. Accordingly, relying on the mass media may be ineffective, if not counterproductive. As a bottom line, today a nation can no longer separate its domestic public from foreign publics. What one hears, the other hears almost for sure. During times of conflict, rallying domestic support often means identifying a foreign enemy. If a foreign public identifies with the “foreign enemy,” efforts to demonize the enemy will only further alienate the foreign public. The media are a prime transmitter of information on risks. They play a critical role in setting agendas and in determining outcomes. The media are generally more interested in politics than in risk, more interested in simplicity than in complexity, and more interested in wrongdoing, blame and danger than in safety. The expansion of the number of news outlets over the past 20 years ensures that military action by Western countries is accompanied by massive continuous coverage and commentary. Thus, the relationship between developments in the media and the military should be conceptualized in a more comprehensive way. Such an approach suggests that the impact of media developments on the conduct of military operations is more radical than is normally suggested. The widespread adoption of satellite phone technology allows journalists to report back in real time with eyewitness reports and


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the views of local actors. The result of these information flows is to, potentially at least, change the nature of the political context of the conflict. They reinforce the sense of the world as a single space and encourage a tendency to see isolated events as part of a single pattern. Different cultural styles of communicating often produce opposite and unintended results. There are competing narratives in the coverage of the war on terrorism. We may see an American homeland view, a European one and, of course an Arab one. These differences raise vexing questions about the responsibilities of the press in wartime, journalistic values such as objectivity, and the relationships between the press, the public and the government. In conflict-torn countries, gaining control of the media and their use for partisan purposes constitutes a major objective of the parties in conflict. What is the media role in this picture? Being a war, journalists should obey the military war coverage requirements/limitations, but, to what extent? As an important part of the process, important both for governments and terrorist organizations, who will provide protection and how much? Moreover when we are talking about protection, we address both the physical one and the more subtle one against influence campaigns employed by all parts in conflict. The major area in which there is a clash between the cultures of the military and the news media is over the issue of information security. Maintaining secrets - denying vital knowledge to the enemies - is an essential part of the military’s responsibilities. On the other hand, the press strives to be as informed as possible on as many topics as possible. Concealing information is anathema to a reporter. This divergence of attitudes reaches its greatest intensity during time of crisis/conflict. For this reason, it is particularly important to examine ways in which the news media may properly inform the public on the conduct of wars without assisting foes and jeopardizing the lives of the soldiers on the ground. The military’s concern about information security is greatly magnified during times of war. Commanders also know that few journalists today are knowledgeable about the very complex military profession. Reporting from the battlefield is extremely difficult at best, and because conflict/crises occur with relative infrequency, reporters have little opportunity to gain proficiency in this skill. Furthermore, news organizations have shown little interest recently in covering peacetime military exercises where reporters could gain valuable experience. There is no clear evidence yet that news organizations have made significant efforts to conduct war correspondent training to cope with this situation. As was the case in the past, they heavily rely on whatever training military organizations decide to develop. 2.2. Military Media Operations The military want to present stories that will support their campaign, while on the other hand, journalists are supposed to be critical and objective. The mission of the military is to fight and win whatever conflict they are involved in, preferably on the battlefield, but the battle of the story, specifically in public opinion and in history books, is just as vital. The press can often be seen as working at cross-purposes with the military by discovering and reporting stories that do not help the mission’s objective or do not follow the policies and viewpoints set out by Public Affairs Offices. The military try to avoid these problems by holding periodic press briefings, training public affairs officers, and maintaining a friendly relationship with media representatives. This is

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advantageous in two ways, good relations with the press can prevent the release of stories that are potentially damaging (especially strategically and tactically), also maintaining contacts within the media ensures that the party line will have a voice. In this field, military efforts are the result of decades of attempts at meeting the media's - and hence the public's - need for information, balanced against the government's ability to protect its people and operational plans. The war on terrorism has changed the face of some of the information provided, but has not changed the goals of the military personnel charged with informing the public. A 24-hours news “battle rhythm” will create some very interesting situations. Even where the news outlet is faced with a developing story - like a war - it is faced with the paradox that the coverage is much faster than the action that it covers. It takes only a few moments to report that a bombing raid is taking place but the flight to the target, the return, the planning the evaluation all take hours or days. 24-hour news is confronted with the reality that war is boredom punctuated by fear and that much of what goes on is routine. The result is that the media sphere is filled not with reporting after all, there are limits to how many times a piece of information can be repeated - but with commentary and speculation. As the diversity of media sources grow, managing coverage of war will become more important: Leaders will need to shape coverage to attempt to maintain a consensus regarding the conflict, but the ability to do so seems to decline. In covering the war, a lack of combat operations seems to lead to a degree of frustration both in the government and in the media. The deployment of a Task Force is usually accompanied by extensive media coverage assisted by the respective Ministry of Defence. The commander of the Force will rapidly become a familiar face on television. The rhetoric around the Force emphasizes their capabilities, the dangers of the terrain/mission and the prospects of fighting and casualties. This rhetoric has a priming effect and creates expectations for the media. These expectations have to be met in order to be consistent.

3. The Complex Relationship between Media and Terrorism For terrorists, the most significant technology is not weapons but direct communication with their multiple audiences. Terrorism was originally aimed at the people watching. Victims were threatened or killed to make a point, not only to the terrorists’ foes but also to the terrorists’ own constituents. Technological developments - the ubiquity of television, more portable television cameras, communications satellites, uplinks to remote news crews, global news networks - allow terrorists to reach audiences worldwide almost instantaneously. By carrying out visually dramatic acts of violence, terrorists can virtually guarantee coverage, intensifying the terror and inflating their own importance. A principal characteristic of terrorism, distinguishing it from many other forms of violence, is its ability to strike directly at perceptions of personal security. The potential for nuclear war or cross-border aggression by states may inspire a sense of fear among individuals, but the sense of vulnerability is collective and therefore abstract. Individuals will certainly be the victims of conflict between states, but leaderships and military establishments are most often seen as the real targets. By contrast, terrorism may be indiscriminate or precisely targeted, but in either instance, the victims are individuals within society, and the perception of being a target is very real.


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The media are pervasive in the world of modern counterterrorist operations. Their reporting, in content and character, will shape the thinking and perceptions of most people and the security forces need to have a professional and skilled team to handle the press. In addition, all personnel within the forces must be fully aware of their individual role in presenting the desired impression. Apparently, minor, tactical-level events may have strategic impact in the world of 24-hour news. A significant accelerating factor is the media’s exposure of real and perceived grievances and extensive coverage of protests and violence. Such coverage, which can often be biased and without context, can inform, but it can also inflame animosity and polarization. Attitudes drive both terrorism and the world’s response to terrorism. How do attitudes affect political decisions and sentiments in countries to contain and defeat terrorism, or to support it? How long can democratic governments pursue policies that pressure terrorists if such policies are seen as bringing on terrorist retaliation? Similarly, how much increase in economic costs and reduction in civil liberties will public opinion tolerate? Shaping attitudes to break or weaken the political will to combat terrorism is a central terrorist goal and an important indicator of success or failure. They may see public opinion concerning anti-terrorism policies as an Achilles heel, counting on protracted reaction of protest. Other attitudinal criteria may include: Negative psychological or behavioural impact of terrorism on a society; loss of public confidence in governments, or in their security measures; the degree to which terrorists are able to radicalize and polarize Islam against the West and vice versa; the level of anti-American or anti-Western sentiments, and the level of religious bigotry in countries which are breeding grounds for terrorists. 3.1. Anti-Terrorism Strategy in the Media How one perceives and measures progress is central to formulating and implementing anti-terror strategy. The perception of progress has a major impact on establishing priorities and allocating resources. In attempting to measure incidents, some of us tend to define success in familiar ways: body counts and numbers. In a western, science and technology oriented society, many feel that if a problem can be quantified, it can be solved. A common pitfall is over-reliance on quantitative data at the expense of its qualitative significance. Western policymakers and, consequently some media representatives, often tend to define success by the absence of attacks. When the shooting or bombing stops, for example, that is viewed as success. On the other hand, some research conducted on the effects of retaliation on terrorist behaviour, demonstrated that the major goal of retaliation against terrorism was solipsistic - meant to convey to the public that the government was strongly defending them. Today, security perceptions are increasingly driven by concerns about personal security. In determining the success or failure of the current War against Terrorism, new definitions are urgently needed so that politicians, the public, and the counterterrorism community can make more informed judgments about actual successes and genuine failures. It is also necessary to understand better how the terrorists themselves define the success or failure of their campaign. Governments and media are to often sucked into a “body count” mentality, when defining the success of counterterrorist operations. While some of the media struggle to maintain objectivity, they are occasionally manipulated into the role of mediator and often that of publicist of terrorist goals.

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Notably, there have been attempts by the media to impose their own rules when covering terrorist incidents. Standards established by the Chicago Sun-Times and Daily News include: paraphrasing terrorist demands to avoid unbridled propaganda; banning participation of reporters in negotiations with terrorists; coordinating coverage through supervising editors who are in contact with authorities; providing thoughtful, restrained, and credible coverage of stories; allowing only senior supervisory editors to determine what, if any, information should be withheld or deferred. Such standards are far from uniformly accepted. In an intensely competitive profession consisting of a multinational worldwide press corps, someone is likely to break the story. Both bans were attempts to deny the terrorists what former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher called the “oxygen of publicity.” News editors, rather than the terrorists themselves, determine what will be covered on television. Images considered too gruesome may not be shown; and except for a sound bite, terrorists’ messages may be omitted. Videotapes permit terrorists to substitute motion pictures for still shots, so that they and their hostages could speak directly into the camera, but access to the media was still controlled by others. Not until the development of the Internet did the terrorists have unmediated access to their audiences. There is also hard evidence that the media sometimes has (unwittingly) been manipulated in order to provide media coverage of terrorist incidents. For example, the IRA used to instigate a minor terrorist event in order to draw the media into an area ahead of a major terrorist operation. Terrorist organizations have also produced their own media “content” which they have released to media networks or have shown to their own supporters. 3.2. Media Terrorist’s Strategy Most terrorists know that they can hardly hope to militarily defeat their adversary. They recognize that their best chance of victory is to promote feelings of fear, anxiety, stress, and frustration, which may ultimately undermine military morale, public confidence, and political resolve. They also know that the revulsion, anger, and desire for retribution that violence provokes also serve their purpose, as it can encourage a disproportionate response by the authorities. To achieve these effects it is necessary to gain the widest media coverage for their atrocities and their messages. All successful terrorist groups therefore devote considerable energy to controlling the news agenda, manipulating the media, and crafting and disseminating effective propaganda. They have shown the capability to develop and manage a complex information campaign that produces sophisticated messages aimed at diverse audiences via multiple media channels. Terrorists have organized an increasingly sophisticated campaign intended to convey messages, at different times, to a wide variety of audiences: its own constituency and its supporters in developed countries; the western electorate and governments; business leaders; religious communities. Messages to supporters have sought to inspire and intensify allegiance, discredit the authorities, highlight security force overreaction, provoke hatred and violence, justify actions, explain changes in policy, encourage funding and recruitment, and also to repair damage resulting from the terrorists’ own mistakes and excesses. Similarly, messages to the governments and populace have variously been designed to intimidate and spread fear, to provoke indignation and anger, to justify atrocities, to improve image, sometimes even promote


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dialogue. The terrorist organizations have also long recognized that the impact of a terrorist attack is magnified significantly if the act or its aftermath is widely reported by the media. Therefore, they have sought to manipulate the media to gain the widest coverage of their actions. Freed from the necessity of having to be accurate or honest, and knowing the timing of most events, the terrorist leadership has all too often managed to grab headlines and control the media agenda, not least because the security forces and western politicians will usually refuse to comment on an attack until all details have been confirmed. Notwithstanding the fact that a full answer may be given by the authorities on a subsequent news broadcast, the moment is usually lost to the terrorists as it is their point that has struck home first. The media itself were slow to realize how they were being used. 3.3. Role of the Media Media agenda setting plays an important role in audience learning. People tend to accept guidance from the media in determining what information is most important and therefore worthy of attention. Agenda setting uses media cues such as the frequency of coverage and prominent display of important stories, to draw attention to certain issues and cause the audience to take them seriously. Most of the time the public is willing to follow the media’s lead and adopt the views presented because it is the easiest way to make judgments, especially when the audience does not have the background required to fully process issues like foreign policy decisions. The public is likely however, to ignore media cues when their minds are already made up on an issue. This will happen when the audience member has a personal stake in the story, considers themselves an expert on the subjects, or can personally contradict the presented views. Stories presented by the media are subject to pre-processing before they ever reach the public. To meet the time and space demands of newspapers and television broadcasts, details are lost and the stories themselves become more abstract as a single theme or meaning is brought out by the journalist. By choosing what to emphasize, the media frame the news without even knowing it. Focusing on a single issue gives the story a slant, leading to an overall meaning and inferences that the audience will draw from the story and retain even after the particulars of the specific story are forgotten. Remembering only the main ideas and themes of a piece helps the public to deal with information overload, but it also makes it more difficult for people to think critically about issues, since so many details and background information are lost or never presented. Audience members, instead, usually look at big picture ideas when watching the news and selecting stories for their personal attention. When a story is selected, it becomes part of their mindset and may be used to select additional stories in the future. The public relies on the media to track events, thus creating a context for future actions and judgments, trusting them to provide a complete picture when that is not possible. Media goals of speed and scooping other outlets are in direct conflict with public use. What results from media organization and format styles is story shortening, simplification, and the use of attention grabbing techniques to draw and retain audience interest. Newspapers and television do not necessarily tell the public what to think, but they do set an agenda of issues, determine their relative importance, and tell the public how to think about them. The media does not tell the people what to think, just what to think about. Mass media rarely start a movement, but they can pick up an idea that originated elsewhere and accelerate its development or magnify its impact.

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The trustworthiness of the source, namely the anchor, the network, or the publisher causes the audience to accept the story in its given format without questioning the motives that may have been behind its slant. There is also the fact that the majority of the public only exposes themselves to a limited number of news sources (usually one newspaper and one evening news broadcast), which narrows even further the scope of information they will be exposed to and then later have access to when forming their own views of an issue. Beyond that, there are certain characteristics of the news media that further guide the positions and viewpoints taken by their audiences. Terrorists cannot be allowed to dominate the news agenda. We have to develop an effective information strategy that is proactive rather than reactive. If an incident occurs, media teams must be the first on the ground and the first out with a factual story, even if that story means admitting that mistakes have been made. We should remember that, in World War Two, the Allies learned that the best way to counter German propaganda was to be the first out with the bad news but to then set that bad news into context. Issuing statements such as the “matter is under investigation” simply allows the news headlines to be dominated by the terrorists’ version of events, by inevitably inaccurate and often biased eyewitness reporting, or by media comments based on interviews conducted in the chaotic first minutes after an event has occurred. By the time the “real story” is finally released, the perception battle has already been lost. This requires significant authority to be delegated to commanders and/or public relations officers because the “Observe, Orientate, Decide and Act” (OODA) loop in the 24-hour media age is counted in minutes, not hours. Seizing and maintaining the initiative is a fundamental principle of warfare. Often, however, the terrorists have been able to deliver their message first, either through their actions and/or their spokesperson, long before an official counter statement has been drafted, approved, and authorized. The initial official response to an incident usually begins with a flood of unconfirmed and uncoordinated assessments and comments (often wildly inaccurate) from deployed forces. It is then followed by high-level public condemnation of the atrocity and then by an information vacuum until such time as the “official investigation” is complete. Unfortunately, by the time a detailed statement is actually issued it is usually too late. The terrorists’ message has already grabbed the headlines and the news focus has moved on. It is invariably better to be the first out with the bad news. It is then possible to provide an explanation that will place a failure or accident into context, thereby avoiding an information vacuum that the terrorists will inevitably fill. The terrorist assumes that the target group he seeks to coerce will always fall victim to intimidation if his threatened or actual violence is sufficiently severe. There are, in a democracy, a number of important ways in which media may serve to frustrate the aims of terrorists. Terrorists like to present themselves as noble Robin Hoods, champions of the oppressed and downtrodden. For instance, by showing the savage cruelty of terrorists’ violence and the way in which they violate the rights of the innocent, the media can help to shatter this myth. It is quite easy to show, by plain photographic evidence, how terrorists have failed to observe any laws or rules of war, how they have murdered women and children, the old and the sick, without compunction. For in terrorist practice no one is innocent, no one can be neutral, for all are potentially expendable for the transcendental ends of terrorist cause. At the practical level the media might carry warnings to the public from the police, and instructions as to how they should react to an emergency.


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Frequently the media with international coverage can provide valuable data and leads concerning foreign movements, links between individuals, different terrorist personalities, different terrorist organisations, new types of weaponry, possible future threats, such as the planning of an international terrorist “spectacular”, or warning signs of a new threat. Finally, the media also provide an indispensable forum for informed discussion concerning the social and political implications of terrorism and the development of adequate policies and counter-measures. In addition, media which place a high value on democratic freedoms will, rightly and necessarily, continually remind the authorities of their broader responsibilities to ensure that the response to terrorism is consistent with the rule of law, respect for basic rights and the demands of social justice. 3.4. Responsibilities of the Media We have also noted that although the mass media in an open society are highly vulnerable to manipulation and exploitation by terrorists, they can also make an invaluable contribution to the defeat of terrorism. The dangers of approach are fairly obvious: sophisticated and media-wise terror organisations will exploit the enormous power of the media to enhance their ability to create a climate of fear and disruption, to amplify their propaganda of the deed, to publicise their cause or to force concessions or ransoms out of governments or companies or wealthy individuals. When faced with severe terrorist campaigns, several democratic countries have sought to deny the terrorists direct access to the important platform of the broadcast media. In general, however, even those democratic states most plagued by terrorism have been reluctant to take the route of comprehensive censorship of the media's coverage of terrorism, because, in the long run this may turn out as counter productive. It is widely recognised that it is important to avoid the mass media being hijacked and manipulated by terrorists, but if the freedom of the media is sacrificed in the name of combating terrorism one has allowed small groups of terrorists to destroy one of the key foundations of a democratic society. Censorship, in whatever guise, plays into the hands of the enemies of democracy. One of the media policies on terrorism coverage, and the approach most favoured by the more responsible mass media organisations, is voluntary self-restraint to try to avoid the dangers of manipulation and exploitation by terrorist groups. Many major media organisations have adopted guidelines for their staff with the aim of helping to prevent the more obvious pitfalls. However, one needs to bear in mind that many of those who work in mass media organisations appear blissfully unaware of any guidelines on terrorism news coverage. There is very little evidence of the necessary briefing and training of editors and journalists in this sensitive area, and no evidence of any serious effort by media organisations to enforce their own guidelines. In the meantime, within the respective governments, frustration over the apparent inadequacy of media self-restraints, leads sometime to advocate statutory regulation. If the mass media genuinely wish to exercise due care and responsibility in covering the exceedingly sensitive subject of terrorism, in situations where lives may well be at grave risk, they will need to work harder at devising measures of self-restraint that are both appropriate and effective. Making international terrorism more transparent has been effective in building a strong case for coordinated, international responses to terrorist networks or to state sponsors. By doing this in a coherent and responsible manner, media will succeed in

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preserving their status and better help governments in fighting against terrorism, without jeopardizing their mission. As it was presented so far, in democratic societies, the relationship between the media and governments/military in the war against terrorism is very complex and multifaceted. On the other hand, terrorist organizations tried, and will continue to try in the future, to use media in pursuing their objectives. Another issue worthwhile mentioning here, usually, war correspondents were professionally prepared to deal with the military and, consequently, war businesses. In other word, not every reporter was entitled (and even permitted by his editors) to transmit war related issues from the front. With terrorist attacks, we have a very different perspective. I would say we witness a “democratization” of the access of reporters to report terrorist activities and attacks. Without a sound knowledge of the terrorism issue, many approaches are mainly emotional rather than “objective”. Just think about how news regarding an ambush is presented in the framework of the Global War on Terrorism, and within the framework of a “classic” military operation. From this perspective, how much credit can we put on a “neutral reporting” theory? It is difficult to address the media’s role in combating terrorism without being suspected of building up a kind of censorship model, or intending to manipulate the media. Firstly, I think we should acknowledge that we are – both authorities/military and media – on the same side of the barricade. The media are not a problem in this war, they are rather part of the solution. By acknowledging that terrorists will always try to use the well-defined role of the media in a democracy, to serve their purposes, we are already one-step closer to find a solution.

4. The Security of Media Personnel while Reporting on Terrorism The military establishment recognizes and understands the concerns of correspondents working in operational areas regarding their own safety and protection. All correspondents on operational media assignments with military forces should require accreditation. Usually, there are three types of assignments: embedded (correspondents attached to specific units/sub-units; living and working alongside the troops); the so called “Centralized Assignments” (correspondents assigned to Press Information Centres, at centralized locations; pooling arrangements may be applied); individual assignments (correspondents working independently but participating in dedicated military facilities). The media facilities thus provided may include: press conferences, briefings, visits, interviews or unit attachments. By doing that, the best possible level of protection shall be provided to media representatives. Both authorities and terrorist organizations are trying to use the media in their operations, this is obvious, but who will provide the security to the media personnel whilst reporting on terrorism? So far, what was done, was to try to assure the same level of protection provided to war correspondents. Nevertheless, the Global War on Terrorism is different from “normal” war in too many aspects to have the same pattern of reporting on respective military actions. I would say that we should address at least two different levels or kind of protection for media personnel: The first one is to protect them in the traditional meaning of the term, which is physical security; the other one, is to protect them against manipulation, against being used either by terrorist organizations or government/military, in this war. It is equally important to acknowledge and to provide the proper tools to cope with these challenges.


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The agreement on the necessity for all media personnel to be trained as war correspondent before being deployed to report on different military operations is unlikely. Although this should be done and is what I would call “professional common sense”. Providing protection against manipulation, is a tricky issue. It is possible to have, during the training session, the involved governmental agency or military representative accused by the media of…attempting to manipulate them, but this is more or less normal. That is simply the way it is. However, this has nothing to do with manipulation. What should be done is to provide all the needed information for the media to understand the new security environment, the new threats, the terrorist phenomenon and their action patterns. To understand how terrorist organizations are trying to use the media for their actions. By doing this, media will be granted all the support needed to do a professional job whilst reporting on terrorism.

Conclusion I think that nowadays, for journalists, having a sound knowledge of the social influence theories or perception management is a must. In too many respects, the relationship between the authorities/military and the media, during crises or combat operations is managed through this framework. Moreover, the terrorists started to use the same conceptual framework. It is not about manipulation, it is just professional development for journalists. In order to have a balanced and professional reporting, the training of reporters should be enhanced by providing this type of information. There is warfare within the media too, as media companies battle each other for scoops, exclusives, branding and positioning. They fight for market share, “mindshare” and ad-spend shares. Within the trenches of the industry, and sometimes within the companies themselves, journalists and program producers wrestle with their colleagues and counterparts for guests and a competitive advantage. For many reporters, war is where the action is. It is also a career builder. Covering war has always been a way for journalists to prove their bona fides, win bragging rights and, of course, move up the ladder in the corporate news world. War represents the highest form of professional calling and appeals to their sense of patriotism and pride. Many promote the mission of those they cover as their own. The seduction is subtle. Often they clone each other’s looks, formulas, formatting and “enhancement” techniques. They often look and sound more alike than they think. This media war promoted the war it covered. In summary, we should acknowledge the media’s vital role in the Global War on Terrorism, both for governments and terrorist organizations. From the military point of view, for military operations mainly, there has been already developed and in force a kind of “tool kit”: Influence operations as the broadest category. Alternatively, if we prefer, we may name it like this: INFO OPS, MEDIA OPS, and PSYOPS. Terrorist organizations also develop different strategies to use the media in order to reach their objectives.

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Bibliography Arquilla, John, and Ronfeldt, David , eds., In Athena’s Camp: Preparing for Conflict in the Information Age, Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, MR-880-OSD/RC, 1997. Bremer, Paul L. III, et al., Countering the Changing Threat of International Terrorism, Washington, D.C.: National Commission on Terrorism, 2000, www.fas.org/irp/threat/commission.html (August 28, 2000). Brent, L., Bozell III, No Time For Moral Equivalence, Media Research Centre, September 27, 2001. Country Reports on Terrorism 2005, United States Department of State Publication 11324, Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Released April 2006. Nacos, Brigitte, Terrorism and the Media, New York: Columbia University, Press, 1994. Perl, Raphael, Combating Terrorism: The Challenge of Measuring Effectiveness, Congressional Research Service/The Library of Congress, November 23, 2005. Press Release “Terrorism” is a Term that Requires Consistency. Newspaper and its Critics both Show a Double Standard on “Terror”, FAIR, April, 4th, 2002.


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Reporting from War Zones and its Challenges Nevin SUNGUR Reporter, NTV, Turkey

Introduction The fatalities in Iraq show us the vulnerability of war reporters. They are killed, abducted and attacked. The risk is not only for their lives but also for their work. They can stay alive but it is now almost impossible to work in many places. Today (June 2006) the number of journalists killed on duty in Iraq is 73, in four years. This is the largest number so far in the history of war journalism. Apart from the adrenalin addiction, (which is true for so many of them) the basic reason for a war reporter to be there in the middle of every possible threat is simply to report. To report on what is actually happening in the field, what people are thinking and what the conditions are. First of all, he or she is seeking a well balanced story. To do that he or she has to talk to all sides. There are so many challenges for a war reporter to deal with while working in the field; apart from being exposed to difficult physical conditions or deadly threats, he or she has to find the right and the reliable sources to get the information at first hand. This is a mission, if not impossible, then really challenging, because the clarity of information is often the first casualty in war times, as information is part of the war effort. Then comes the most delicate issue of handling the information. In this phase, the question to answer is “Is it true or false?” And the answer may not be found so easily. To be able to answer this question, reporters should talk to all sides of the story. The story of one side is not news, it is pure propaganda. As I said at the beginning, the responsibility of a reporter is to cover the truth on the ground. This is a different mission, a different role and mentality, than all of the other parties in the field; military, ordinary people or the “other armed groups”; you may call them “terrorists”, “insurgents” or other may call them “resistance”. There stands the reporter; in the middle of all these different groups and that is where their story begins or where things get more complicated.

1. Becoming Targets Reporters in Uniforms: Combatants or Reporters? Of course we cannot say that war reporting was not a dangerous thing to do in the past and that it changed all of a sudden. This is not true. What has changed is that the reporters are killed, abducted, attacked simply because they are reporters, because they are out there asking questions or taking pictures. Rules have changed. Old rules meant that warring factions, in even the most dangerous conflicts, saw reporters as valuable

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messengers through which they could transmit their views or send their messages. But now we are seen as either political hostages or enemies. Reporters were used to risking their lives but they were rarely deliberate targets. They were impartial witnesses to conflicts, often the only witnesses, and the first writers of history. Nowadays, we hide in our hotel rooms or in houses and try to report from these so called “secured” places. The stickers on the cars or on the flak jackets were enough to protect them but that is not the case anymore. Now reporters are trying to go undercover, trying to look like the locals although it is hard to figure out if that is the correct way to do it or what is safe now. In the past we were the neutral observers now we are perceived as spies. What happened? Why are we in such a position that we cannot fulfil our duties anymore? Why can’t we do what we are supposed to do; report from the field? Here the first blame goes to the media itself. The odd habit of journalists wanting to be part of the story, to play an almost theatrical role in wars slowly took hold through time. We started enjoying the military outfit more and more. We started wearing the Palestinian scarves or Pushtun hats or military camouflage uniforms. Some of us even enjoyed being armed. Then the neutral position of the reporter slowly started to change. When Geraldo Rivera of Fox News was in the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan with a gun to look for Osama Bin Laden, he was breaking the first rule of journalism. Another example, from Turkey; during the Balkan war, a Turkish journalist wrote that “he killed a Serb” and the paper he was working for did not hesitate to put this on the first page. They were putting all the reporters in danger. All these acts done by the journalists have actually hit back at us very badly. Day by day, we have lost our neutrality and reliability. We were not reporters anymore we have become combatants. The Embedding Project of the Pentagon has also strengthened this image. It was a brilliant idea by the American Defence Ministry, and the media were a very enthusiast about it. It was an irresistible opportunity for the media: free transportation to the front line of war, dramatic pictures, dramatic sounds, great quotes. Who could pass that up? On the other hand, it was also the end of independent journalism for those who were signed up to move with the troops. Once they were “embeds”, it was clear that they were going to see what the military wanted them to see, report what they wanted them to report or go where they wanted them to go. Yes, it was necessary to have embedded staff on the ground but, the media did not consider the position that they would end up in. We should have recognised it for what it was, and we should not have allowed that to become our picture of the war. Now we have to deal with the consequences of these acts and decisions. The need for a story and for protection have resulted in the lack of security. And if we still want to go outside, then we or our companies hire armed guards which actually only increases the risk because it makes us look more like combatants than the neutral observers that we are supposed to be.

2. “West versus Islam” The new trends in the political structure of the world, the polarisation between west and Islam, created another atmosphere in the field. The perception of westerners by locals has changed. Now, foreign reporters are perceived as either spies or enemies and they are the ones who should also be defeated. As a result, 41 journalists have been kidnapped and 7 of them were killed.


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3. Lack of Military Investigation It is not only the insurgents who perceive the reporters in a different way. Sometimes, the military also look at the reporters with great suspicion. Troops physically attack or mistreat journalists in the field. As I said, we are caught in the middle and that position can sometimes cause deadly situations. On the 8th of April, the day before Baghdad fell, two journalists who were staying at the Palestine Hotel were killed by an American attack. On the same day, Tareq Ayyoub, a journalist, was killed during a US air strike on the offices of Al Jazeera in Baghdad; in total 14 journalists have been killed by US fire. There was no evidence to conclude that they were targeted but there was no proper investigation into these cases either. The impact of this attitude by the military also sends out appalling signals to governments elsewhere; that the legitimate right to report freely can be set aside to suit political and military convenience.

4. Speed or Accuracy? The companies we work for want the story when others have it and no excuse is acceptable when you do not have it. Therefore, competition to get the exclusive story in the field has become more brutal. That is a big pressure for all the reporters. As the competition increases, the amount of accurate information decreases. Everyone wants to be the first one, therefore they report without confirming their data from different sources. The number of reporters in the field has increased enormously, most are free lancers and many lack experience. They think it is a kind of “reality show” and make so many mistakes that it puts them, as well as the others, in danger. Also the technology we have is different from what it was in the old days. It is a blessing to be able to work with this new technology as it gives us a lot of comfort as well as safety. We have satellite phones which we can carry everywhere and report back to the news room or use in case of emergency. We have portable satellite transmitters we can take even into the battle fields to broadcast all the activity on the ground live. Unfortunately, there we have the same problem again. Overuse or misuse of the technology has shadowed the fundamental questions about the war. The footage that comes from the battle field has become more interesting than the reasons behind the war. Or it is a risk to military operations and puts the troops in danger. For all these reasons, the reliability of the media has been damaged.

5. Being or Not Being Part of the Propaganda Information is part of the war efforts; probably this is the most difficult part of the job. As I said before, a reporter, to produce a well-balanced story, should get all sides, but be aware of the dangers of being used by them. As reporters, we have to find our way out of being part of the propaganda. The military want us to be on their side. What we report and the way we report it is a key part of the military campaign. They call it “information operational effect”. For

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example, one of the things that happens in war time is that we adopt the language of the military, like “Countdown to Iraq”, “Shock and Awe”, “Operation Iraqi Freedom”. I don’t agree that there should be a prohibition on using government and military speak. The trouble comes when journalists adopt the language, take it out of quotation marks, remove the modifiers that tell viewers and listeners that this is someone else’s language. The other side also looks for opportunities to send their messages out via the media channels. They send videotapes of statements or attacks to be broadcasted or they give interviews, taking the reporters into their territory to film them and to be able to show their power or prove their existence.

Conclusion Lessons to be learned: x The first responsibility of the media is to get back to being a neutral observer as it was before. There are certain ways to do this and certain rules should be applied. Media Organisations should maintain the distance from military or the “other side”. They should not allow any of its staff to wear military outfit or carry weapons. x More experienced and knowledgeable reporters should be sent in the field and the information should be handled more carefully. Media’s vulnerability to manipulations should be better understood. x Unnecessary competition should not be encouraged and the facilities that are provided by the security companies should not be overused. x The military also has responsibility to protect media members in the war zones. Therefore, the right of media to report freely and accurately should be respected. x Thorough investigations into cases where reporters have been wounded or killed have to be conducted. And finally military staff should have a better understanding of reporters and their work.

5. Focus on the Threat of Terrorism to the Caucasus and the Media’s Coverage of this Danger



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Terrorism in the Caucasus: A Western Perspective Dr Tracey GERMAN Lecturer in Defence Studies King’s College London at the Joint Services Command and Staff College

Abstract. The international significance of the Caucasus region, both North and South, has increased greatly in the wake of September 11 2001 and the initiation of the global war on terror. Already on the map thanks to its position on a key transit route for oil and gas from the Caspian region, the region’s alleged links with international terrorism have propelled it further into the spotlight. The ongoing conflict in Chechnya, in the Russian North Caucasus, continues to destabilise the entire region and provides a focus for radicalised Muslims around the world who perceive it to be another example of the repression of the Muslim people. Russia has continued to propagate the notion that Chechnya and terrorism are inextricably linked, and that international terrorism poses a critical threat to the security of its southern borders, where the complex level of ethnic diversity and myriad peoples of the Caucasus represent a significant security threat. How true is the Russian claim that the Caucasus is a “bridgehead” for international terrorism? And how far is terrorism in the region merely an “ideological scarecrow”? This paper will examine the veracity of such claims, the role of the media in promulgating both the terrorist threat and cause, and tensions between attempts to impose media controls and the ferocity of subsequent attacks. What impact have extreme attacks, such as the Beslan hostage-taking and the rising number of suicide bombings, had upon public support for the terrorist cause?

Introduction The international significance of the Caucasus region, both North and South, has increased greatly in the wake of September 11 2001 and the initiation of the global war on terror. Already on the map thanks to its position on a key transit route for oil and gas from the Caspian region, the region’s alleged links with international terrorism have propelled it further into the spotlight. In May 2003, outgoing NATO General-Secretary Lord Robertson described the Caucasus as an “area of crucial importance to [NATO’s] common security”, describing the countries of the Caucasus as front-line states in the battle against threats such as terrorism, proliferation and regional instability.1 In the Caucasus, so-called “international terrorism” is closely associated with the North Caucasus and, more specifically, the situation in the war-torn republic of Chechnya. From the beginning of its second Chechen operation (1999), Russia has claimed that it is fighting international terrorism in the North Caucasus, arguing that it poses a critical threat to the security of its southern borders, where the complex level of ethnic diversity and myriad peoples of the Caucasus represent a significant security threat.2 During this second campaign, the scope of the conflict, which initially began in

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December 1994 as an operation to quash the Chechen separatist movement and “restore constitutional legality”, has been widened to become part of Russia’s war against international terrorism and has frequently threatened to spill over into neighbouring Georgia, impacting upon regional stability. The ongoing conflict in Chechnya continues to destabilise the entire region and provides a focus for radicalised Muslims around the world who perceive it to be another example of the repression of the Muslim people. The war has proven to be a catalyst for violence across the Caucasus region and is used in external propaganda by jihadist groups to foster support for their cause and attract new recruits. It has also been a proving ground for terrorist activities: many of the tactics currently being used to great effect by groups in Iraq, such as propaganda videos, “commercial” hostagetakings and beheadings, were seen in Chechnya a long time before US President George W. Bush ever uttered the phrase “global war on terror”. However, how true is the Russian claim that the Caucasus is a “bridgehead” for international terrorism? And how far is terrorism in the region merely an “ideological scarecrow”? This paper will examine the veracity of such claims, the role of the media in promulgating both the terrorist threat and cause, and tensions between attempts to impose media controls and the ferocity of subsequent attacks. What impact have extreme attacks, such as the Beslan hostage-taking and the rising number of suicide bombings, had upon public support for the terrorist cause? This paper will focus on the threat from the North Caucasus and the impact this is having on the wider region, analysing the apparent internationalisation of what began as a separatist conflict.

1. The Troubled North Caucasus Over the past year, there has been a conspicuous escalation in militancy and Islamist radicalism across the North Caucasus, with terrorist attacks occurring from KarachaiCherkessia in the west to Dagestan in the east. In May 2005 Dmitry Kozak, President Putin’s Personal Representative to the Southern Federal Okrug, delivered a grim report on the situation in the region and the prospect for future Russian presence and power there, describing “a sharp growth in radicalism and extremism”.3 There have been raids in Nalchik, assassinations in Ingushetia, but it is worst in Dagestan. The situation in Dagestan is spiralling rapidly out of control and the republic is sliding into a lawlessness rivalling Chechnya, with a continuous campaign of assassination targeted against local officials and a string of terrorist attacks against economic targets such as railway lines, gas pipelines and other strategic infrastructure. Last year the new Chechen rebel “president” Abdul-Karim Sadulayev ordered the establishment of a “Caucasus Front” as an umbrella structure to unite militant groups and launch operations across the North Caucasus. This highlighted his determination to broaden the conflict, seeing it not so much as a struggle for self-determination as a wider bid to create an Islamic state across the Caucasus, raising fears that the instability and violence were perhaps part of Al Qaeda’s global strategy to establish an Islamic caliphate. In an interview published on the Chechen propaganda website, Kavkazcenter.com, the “commander of jihadis” in Ingushetia claimed that the North Caucasian republics had been united by “their faith in Allah, Jihad and the mojahedin”.4 Is the radicalisation of the region the result of infection from foreign fundamentalist groups or does the answer lie closer to home? The Chechens like to


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give the impression that they are controlling the escalation of violence across the North Caucasus, enabling them to put pressure on the Kremlin, although this is not necessarily true. While the situation in Chechnya has provided the inspiration for growing radicalism across the North Caucasus5, recent violence in the region has been fuelled by corrupt local government, intense poverty and the Kremlin’s policy of seeking to exert direct control over republics, for example, appointing regional leaders instead of allowing them to be elected locally, as was the case previously. Last month (May 2006) Ingushetia’s deputy interior minister Dzhabrail Kostoyev, described by extremist propaganda as a “puppet”, was assassinated by a roadside bomb. Perceived attacks on Islam by authorities across the region and federal actions in Chechnya reinforce the belief that the Russian state and its local allies are anti-Islamic, exacerbating the alienation of the local population and fuelling support for extremist groups and their terrorist methods.6 The region is stuck in a vicious circle of violence: Russia argues that because Chechnya is a hotbed of extremism that threatens the security of the entire region it needs to eliminate “terrorists” and restore order. But this approach bolsters support for extremist groups and increases the pool of recruits militants can draw on throughout the North Caucasus. The longer the war in Chechnya continues, the harder it will become to control the spread of extremism. The brutal military operation shows little sign of abating and the Russians are no closer to achieving any kind of victory, despite proclamations to the contrary by President Vladimir Putin. Moscow believes that the conflict has provided an arena for Chechen separatists to join forces with radical Islamists from abroad and the involvement of foreign groups in the conflict is a recurrent theme in Putin's rhetoric. To some extent, the Chechen cause has been hijacked by Islamist extremists. For some time now, there has been an ideological split between the nationalist-separatist cause and that of the Islamists.7 Increasingly extremist methods, such as suicide bombings and the mass hostage-taking at Beslan, suggest that Islamists now hold the upper hand. This growing radicalisation, together with the presence of a small number of foreign (predominantly Arab) fighters, has enabled the Kremlin to justify its campaign in Chechnya on the grounds that the country is defending itself against the threat from extreme Islamist terrorists, comparing it to the campaign against the Taliban.8 Putin has issued repeated warnings about the threat that Russia (and the rest of the world) faces from global terrorist networks funded by extreme Islamist groups and events since 11 September 2001 have provided him with the ideal environment in which to justify his claims. By labelling the separatists as “Islamic terrorists”, the Russian leadership is seeking to deflect international criticism of its actions by suggesting that the Chechens are part of a broader Islamist challenge to the West, as opposed to a separatist group that manipulates its religious credentials in order to gain funding from abroad. Certainly, the situation has changed since the early 1990s, with the appearance of political Islam and international jihadist networks. Although criticism of the Russian operation in Chechnya became more muted post-911, the international community has continued to urge Moscow to find a political solution to the conflict and the Russian leadership took tentative steps towards a negotiated settlement.

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2. A Haven for Terrorists? Moscow has accused Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban of assisting Chechen rebels, providing them with arms and training separatist fighters at camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan. These claims were apparently corroborated when many Chechens were found to be amongst the Taliban fighters during the US military operation in Afghanistan in 2001. But what evidence is there of the presence of foreign fighters in the Caucasus region and what evidence is there that their presence is part of a global strategy by extremist groups as opposed to individual volition? Undoubtedly links exist between international groups and Chechen factions, however tenuous, and foreign mercenaries have regularly been discovered amongst the separatist fighters.9 In 2002, US Treasury Department listed Shamil Basayev as an international terrorist, while the Patterns of Global Terrorism report 2002 issued by the US State Department identified connections between at least three Chechen groups and international terrorists: the Riyadus-Salikhin Reconnaissance and Sabotage battalion of Chechen Martyrs, the Special Purpose Islamic Regiment and the Islamic International Brigade. All of them apparently contain dozens of foreign, mainly Arab, jihadis. While the Russian government tends to exaggerate the role of international terrorist groups in Chechnya, it is a lawless area, a black hole, which provides an ideal location for various groups to train and gain experience in terrorist activities. Terrorist groups seek out weak states where they will have the freedom to do what they want without the fear of serious countermeasures. In areas such as Chechnya and, previously, Georgia’s Pankisi Gorge the legitimacy of state authority has been either lax or non-existent. Federal forces have failed to liquidate rebel strongholds in the Caucasus mountains and military assistance for the separatists continues to find its way through the country's porous borders, which enable mercenaries and arms to find their way in and out easily. This has helped the conflict to become internationalised and, according to the Russians, a key training ground for terrorists who receive plenty of experience in guerrilla warfare within the republic. A key lesson of September 11 for the West (and the US in particular) was that it must not allow countries to become breeding grounds for extremism and terrorism, that it must engage to promote long-term stability and prevent a security vacuum that could lead to extremism and external intervention. In November 2001 Putin said that Georgia was home to “international terrorist camps”, while in 2004 there were reports on American television that Al Qaeda operatives had been training in Georgia, an allegation denied by the Georgian authorities.10 Nevertheless, Georgia has never hidden its fears about the presence of both Chechen fighters and international terrorists in Pankisi.11 The situation in Pankisi and possible links with Islamist militants triggered the US decision to help Georgia secure the region, leading to the US$64m “Train and Equip” programme (GTEP) to train Georgian troops in anti-terrorist techniques and assist in bringing the lawless area under control.

3. Attracting Global Interest Chechnya serves as an important recruiting tool for international terrorist groups who depict the conflict as a clash between Islam and the West, attracting the attention of the Muslim world. In addition to Arab nations, Turkey is frequently identified by Russia as a source of foreign fighters in Chechnya (according to current estimates there are a


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total of 100-200 foreign “jihadis” in the republic). These claims, corroborated on websites such as Kavkazcentre.com, are not refuted by either Chechen or Turkish jihadi sources. What motivates citizens of foreign countries to take up arms in the Caucasus? The fact that there are foreign fighters in Chechnya should not been taken as evidence of the presence of international terrorist groups. Many jihadis volunteer because they have ethnic roots in the Caucasus. There is an extensive Chechen diaspora, particularly in Turkey and Jordan, the descendants of those who fled Russia’s brutal assimilation of Chechnya during the 19th century. Grozny’s Islamic University contained teachers from Chechnya’s diaspora communities across the Middle East, particularly Syria and Jordan, and the republic’s first “foreign minister”, Shamil Beno, was a Jordanian-born 12 Chechen. The media, particularly the rapid expansion of the Internet, has a significant impact on the decision of foreigners to fight in the North Caucasus. They are confronted with horrifying images from the Balkans and Caucasus showing Chechen refugees in Russia, rape camps in Bosnia, attacks against Kosovar Albanians in Kosovo, images which provoke fears that the Muslim people as a whole is being attacked. Many Muslims have been enraged by gruesome images of mutilated Chechen women and children, mass graves, vandalised mosques, and are stirred to fight in defence of their faith. Media coverage of instances of unprofessional conduct by Russian forces in Chechnya actively contributes to the terrorist cause – the security forces thus become part of the problem, rather than the solution. Militants in Chechnya have made good use of the media to promulgate their message and justify their actions since the beginning of the first Russian military operation in 1994.

4. Media Clampdown Moscow has sought to control the flow of information coming out of the conflict zone. While Russia has a nominally free press the government exerts considerable pressure on journalists and media organisations not to criticise or challenge policy.13 The Russian authorities learnt a lesson from its earlier war with Chechnya: the crucial role of the media in modern warfare. The new Ministry for the Press, Television and Radio Broadcasting issued a formal warning to all national radio and television networks against broadcasting any interviews with “Islamic rebel leaders” during the on-going military conflict. The authorities argued that such interviews were in effect helping the militants to wage a “massive propaganda war” to incite ethnic and religious intolerance, and to promote a change in Russia’s borders. At the beginning of the 1994 military operation the Russian media retained a substantial amount of independence and were often openly critical of the federal leadership’s actions. However the authorities had seen their position undermined by media coverage in Moscow, which frequently contradicted official claims that sought to minimise the extent of the casualties and scale of the war. This played a major role in shifting public opinion against the invasion. Having gained an insight into the crucial role of the media (as demonstrated during the NATO operation in Kosovo), the Russian leadership took resolute measures to ensure that the situation was not repeated and consequently the flow of information was rigorously controlled by official sources.14 Most recently, the Kremlin briefed Russian television heads on the “right” and “wrong” terms to be used in broadcasts about Chechnya. In an effort to highlight the international nature of the

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conflict, the term “Chechen terrorism” is to be replaced with “international terrorism”, while the word “jamaat” (local Muslim community) is to be replaced with “terrorist organisation or gang”.15 This strict control of all information has been counter-productive. The absence of any independent media has bred a culture of impunity amongst federal troops and militants, encouraging well-documented violations of human rights to be committed by both sides. This in turn has bolstered support for extremist groups amongst the local population who feel let down by the official authorities. Prior to launching its counterterrorist operation in October 1999, the Russian authorities sought to gain unanimous support for a renewed military operation in Chechnya from both the political elites and the general public in a shrewd propaganda campaign. The Chechen people were vilified, repeatedly referred to as “bandits” and “criminals” who threatened the stability of the Russian Federation. This demonisation of an entire nation was conducted in order to win popular support for an invasion by depriving the Chechens and their cause of legitimacy, although it ultimately served to unify the hitherto divided Chechen nation and heighten support for terrorist activities (and if not support, then certainly not opposition). Public confidence in the media in Russia plummeted as a result of the coverage of the Beslan school siege in September 2004. According to one opinion poll conducted in the immediate aftermath, only 13% of those questioned said that they trusted media reports about the siege, with 85% expressing scepticism of the reports.16 The Russian public expressed a particular lack of confidence in television reporting. Televisions stations, the majority of which are under state control and have been accused of being a government mouthpiece, stuck to the official line that only 350 people had been taken hostage, far below the actual number. Furthermore, two of the country’s three main TV channels took an hour to go live to Beslan. Nonetheless, it should be noted that in the wake of the October 2002 Moscow theatre siege, Russian TV stations were criticised by Putin for abusing media freedom and compromising the safety of the hostages with their coverage. This condemnation undoubtedly led them to take a far more cautious line in 2004. The print media were far more critical of the government’s handling of the crisis and its failure to prevent another mass-casualty terrorist attack on Russian territory. Liberal broadsheet Izvestiya was particularly outspoken in its criticism, with columnist Irina Petrovskaya accusing state television channels of “[taking] fright and [losing] their heads”. Izvestiya’s chief editor, Raf Shakirov, became a victim of his paper’s uncompromising coverage of the siege, when he was sacked for producing an edition that was considered by the paper’s owners to be “too emotional and too graphic”. The format of the September 4th edition was drastically altered to include large photographs of victims on the first and last pages, and several large photographs of dead and wounded children on the inside pages, echoing the style used by many newspapers around the world to report the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The row over Shakirov’s dismissal raised the question of whether publishing photographs of terrorist victims promoted terrorist goals by heightening fears amongst the population.17 The Beslan atrocity and the government response also raise the issue of whether it is possible to write an “unbiased” article on terrorism, one which does not serve only the goals of the government or the terrorists or the journalist. In the wake of the attack, Putin called on the media to become an “effective tool” in the fight against terrorism in such a way as to avoid promoting terrorist aims, stating his belief that “in a situation where there is an international terrorist threat… the media cannot simply be


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observers”.18 The Russian president was highly critical of media sources who described the hostage-taking as a “siege”, rather than an atrocity, and those who committed it as “rebels” (povstantsy): “If a person pursues political goals using these methods, all of us should have just one definition: a murderer and a terrorist”.19 He was also highly critical of international media coverage of the terrorist attacks, condemnation echoed by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov who accused foreign media of having “double standards”, stating that the “press often spins the subject for ugly purposes”.20 Does freedom of the press mean allowing the media to broadcast information that may be perceived by some to “promote” terrorism? Did the coverage of the Beslan siege and the publication of photographs of victims serve the objectives of those who masterminded the attack, or did it actually undermine their cause, demonstrating their willingness to commit any atrocity under the guise of Chechen independence? Media reporting of events such as Beslan can help to turn public opinion against terrorism – it certainly undermined support for terrorist action amongst the Chechen people themselves many of whom considered the deliberate attack against children a step too far. It could be argued that strict control of media may possibly lead to ever more extreme terrorist attacks, as groups seek to bring their cause to public attention. Like the Moscow theatre siege before it, the attack in Beslan struck at the heart of Russia, once more taking the war to the wider Russian population, which has been largely unaffected by the protracted conflict, thereby ensuring that the Chechen crisis remains at the forefront of public consciousness. The Kremlin had been seeking to convince the nation that it is in control of the situation in Chechnya. However, the audacious attack served as a further reminder that, despite losses, the rebels still held the upper hand.21 The mass hostage-takings could also be taken as a sign of increasing desperation on the part of the Chechens. They had been losing ground in their military battle with Russia and since 11 September 2001 the international community appeared to have washed its hands of the conflict. The Chechen propaganda website, Kavkazcenter.com, recently ran an article criticising the Western media for its lack of interest in the ongoing conflict, stating that reports were only published when “Islamic fighters” attack towns outside of Chechnya.22 Thus, it could be argued that rigorous control of media information sends out the message to militants that large-scale, devastating attacks are the only way to get any attention for their cause. Perhaps giving terrorist groups limited access to the media would actually strengthen a government’s counter-terrorist campaign, as the public could see with their own eyes precisely what they were facing and it would facilitate an informed, more critical debate. A good example of this was the controversial interview with Shamil Basayev aired on the UK’s Channel 4 news programme in February 2005. The fact that the interview was shown on television understandably greatly angered the Russian authorities, who argued that it promoted terrorism. However, as Basayev’s rhetoric deteriorated into a hate-filled, vitriolic rant he merely undermined his cause by revealing the extent of his radicalism. At times, the Russian approach to information management is in some ways reminiscent of the Soviet era, whereas the terrorist approach demonstrates an appreciation for modern media and, in particular, the power of the Internet. Militant groups have turned to the Internet to circumvent mainstream media, which they are denied access to. The technology of the Internet has played a key role in the information warfare being waged by groups in the North Caucasus. There are reports that the tactics adopted by the Chechens have been circulating on the Internet.23 The

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Kavkazcentre website is the mouthpiece for the more extremist groups, promoting global jihad and providing propaganda about attacks against “infidel” forces in conflict zones around the world. Basasyev used the site in September 2004 to claim responsibility for the Beslan school massacre. The website was set up by the ideologist Movladi Udugov, former Chechen “minister” for information and press, and has proven very difficult to control, as soon as one country closes the site down, it moves to another.

Conclusion The threat to both Russian, and potentially international, security emanating from the Caucasus region, particularly Chechnya, is undeniable. However, it is imperative to stress that terrorist attacks in Chechnya and Russia are not Al Qaeda-led operations; rather they are committed by autonomous groups, which are nevertheless synchronised both ideologically and strategically with Al Qaeda. While Chechnya may be a significant element of international Islamist propaganda, there has yet to be any concrete evidence of links between foreign fighters in the republic and Al Qaeda. Although post-1999 the radical element in Chechnya has become stronger and more internationalised, the “scarecrow” of international terrorism is diverting attention away from issues that need to be tackled at the local level. On the whole, the terrorist threat is home-grown and terrorism in the North Caucasus is above all a product of Moscow’s failure to implement coherent, effective policies in the region. The rise of extremism can be ascribed on one level to the political and economic crisis which forces young men deprived of social prospects to seek justice in radical Islam. Religion is being manipulated to attract support for extremist and terrorist causes. In order to tackle the root causes of terrorism in the region, it is imperative that forceful countermeasures to contain the spread of terrorism, religious extremism and radicalism must be accompanied by “soft” measures to tackle corruption, promote investment, sort out social problems and eliminate unemployment. Failure to implement such socio-economic reforms will only serve to further exacerbate the situation and may mean that Russia ultimately loses control of the North Caucasus region altogether. Tight controls on the media are not necessarily the answer and may in fact exacerbate the situation, provoking increasingly spectacular, mass-casualty attacks that are guaranteed to catapult terrorist groups and their cause onto television screens and newspaper front pages around the world. Many terrorist groups, such as the Palestinian Liberation Army (PLO) in the 1960s, grew because only the use of violence could get their message across. Influencing and manipulating the media is a valid counter-terrorist method and one answer may be for the authorities to encourage the media to report more terrorism (subjectively rather than objectively) in order to mobilise public support. The media have the power, depending on the stand they take, to significantly alter the perceptions of the terrorist in the public’s eye and to affect the efficacy of counter-terrorist measures. Events in the North Caucasus continue to demonstrate the power of all forms of the media in terrorist and counter-terrorist activities.


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Speech by Lord Robertson delivered at the French University, Yerevan, Armenia on 15 May 2003, www.nato.int/docu/speech/2003/s030515a.htm. In recent years the US has spent millions of dollars on training to strengthen the Georgian military and boost security in the Azeri sector of the Caspian Sea. The British armed forces are also present in Georgia in small numbers, both as part of the UN peacekeeping mission in Abkhazia and as military trainers. Part of the reason for this incredible ethnic diversity is the fact that the Caucasus Mountains have consistently represented frontier territory, encompassing Russia’s vital southern border with the Islamic empires of modern-day Turkey and Iran, and therefore there have been high levels of migration in the region. In different historical periods, the Caucasus has been ruled by different powers who brought their own religions to the Caucasus Mountains: Zoroastrianism, Christianity and Islam. Aleksandr Khinshteyn, Prodayem Kavkaz’ Moskovskiy Komsomolets 16 June 2005, http://www.mk.ru/numbers/1682/article55887.htm. He went on to state that “We have a single leadership, single Shari'ah law and a single army. Infidels and hypocrites do not fully comprehend what has happened”. Amir Magas: “No-one can stop the jihad”, 17 May 2006, www.kavkazcenter.com. Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachai-Cherkessia have both supplied a steady stream of fighters to the Chechen conflict. Furthermore, while Chechens are routinely blamed for all terrorist atrocities across Russia, Karachais and Balkars are actually prosecuted. A good example of this is the 1999 apartment bombings in Moscow, Buinaksk (Dagestan) and Volgodonsk (Rostov blast) that killed over 300 people and was one of the key triggers for the second Chechen war. Although these attacks were attributed to Chechen rebels, no group has ever claimed responsibility, unusual in itself as Chechen separatists are always keen to gain attention for their cause. According to a report in Russian newspaper Severnyy Kavkaz published on 22 March 2006 the former imam of the mosque in Karachayevsk, Achimez Gochiyayev, is on the international wanted list for charges of masterminding the explosions in Moscow and Volgodonsk. This has been seen most clearly in Kabardino-Balkaria, where the government closed mosques, individuals were arrested for beards and praying outside the home. Islam began to play a far more important role during the 1994-1996 war when it was used to emphasise the difference between Russians and Chechens. The spread of radical, political Islam has allegedly accompanied money from the Middle East, particularly Saudi Arabia, and the second round of fighting has an even more pronounced religious character. By legitimising the war in Islamist terms, the separatists have found it far easier to gain financial support from the outside world, particularly the Middle East. The guerrillas now call their war a “jihad”, and the republic has declared itself an Islamic state, introducing Sharia law in February 1999. The influence of Wahhabism, the type of radical, politicised Sunni Islam practised by the Saudi Royal family, had been growing for several years since the Russian invasion in 1994 and the arrival of foreign mercenaries in the region, although it was probably present in Chechnya prior to 1994, having seeped over the border from Dagestan. For further information regarding the role of Islam see Paul B Henze, Islam in the North Caucasus: the example of Chechnya, Rand Paper P-7935. (Santa Monica: RAND, 1995); Reza Shah-Kazemi, Crisis in Chechnia: Russian imperialism, Chechen nationalism, militant Sufism. (London: Islamic World Report, 1995). In January 2002 a Kremlin spokesman rejected US charges that Russia was using excessive force against civilians in Chechnya, stating “[o]ur experience in Chechnya and the US experience in Afghanistan shows that it is very difficult to reach terrorists without making civilians suffer, but both Russia and the US strive for it.” Agence France Presse, 11.1.02, Moscow. One of the most notorious mercenaries was the Saudi-born Khattab, a Wahhabi who arrived in Chechnya in February 1995 along with a group of mujahideen from the Middle East. Khattab was trained in Afghanistan where he is alleged to have fought for five years, from 1988 to 1993. Together with Shamil Basayev, he led the invasion of Dagestan in August 1999 by Chechen militants that heralded a return to war in the North Caucasus. The FSB claimed to have killed Khattab using a poisoned letter in April 2002, following a long manhunt. Agence France Presse, 30.11.01, Moscow. Putin’s allegations were apparently corroborated at the beginning of 2002, when several mercenaries from Saudi Arabia and Jordan were arrested in Georgia and accused of trying to establish “an illegal guerrilla group in the Pankiski Gorge”. Agence France Presse, 9.2.02, Tbilisi. Georgia is the only foreign country bordering Chechnya and, since the outbreak of hostilities in 1999, over 7,000 Chechens have crossed the border into Georgia, most heading for the northern Akhmeta district, which was already home to a large ethnic Chechen-Kist population (that has

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T. German / Terrorism in the Caucasus: A Western Perspective lived on Georgian territory for centuries), particularly in the Pankisi Gorge adjacent to Russia. The Gorge quickly became a notorious centre of crime that was no longer under the control of the Georgian authorities and Russia claimed that the lawlessness of the Gorge made it an ideal base for rebel fighters to regroup and rearm, as well as allowing international terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda to exploit the chaos. In May 2002 Georgia’s Security Minister Valeria Khaburzanya told state television that around 700 armed rebels, together with dozens of “Arabs” were holed up in the Pankiski Gorge. In January 2003, following the discovery of ricin in the UK, the head of Georgia’s State Security Ministry, Nika Laliashvili, finally admitted that, while there had been training camps for Chechen fighters and Arab mercenaries in Pankiski, these had been disbanded as a result of anti-terrorist operations in February 2002. Worryingly, he said that the fighters had been trained how to use explosives and poison gas, including ricin, and indicated that there had been a link between the suspects arrested in London and those in the Gorge. Rossiskaya Gazeta, 16.1.03, p. 1-3. Georgia released video footage that apparently confirmed the existence of Chechen guerrillas in Pankiski and also proof of extensive links between the guerrillas and international terrorist groups. For a detailed account of the Chechen diaspora see Vanora Bennett, Crying Wolf. The Return of War to Chechnya. (London: Picador, 1998) Television stations that take an independent line of the Kremlin have been subject to strong legal pressures such as criminal or tax investigations that have made it difficult for them to operate as independent stations. Ensuring press freedom is even more difficult in Russia’s regions where media outlets are heavily dependent on authorities for financial subsidies and are particularly vulnerable to harassment and intimidation. Accreditation was introduced, journalists were accompanied to the scenes of events at all times by military personnel and contacts with separatist forces were cut off. For further details, see Olessia Koltsova, News, Media and Power in Russia. (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2006), pp. 205-225. Igor Torbakov, War on terrorism in the Caucasus: Russia breeds jihadists Chechnya Weekly, Volume 6, Issue 42 (November 10, 2005), The Jamestown Foundation, www.jamestown.org. Statistics quoted in The Guardian, 8 September 2004. The Marxist philosopher Sergei Kara-Musa argued that the publication of such photographs should be banned as it merely serves to promote terrorist aims. BBC Monitoring (online version), 24.09.04, RTR Russia TV, Moscow, 1000 GMT, 24.09.04. BBC Monitoring (online version), 24.09.04, RTR Russia TV, Moscow, 1000 GMT, 24.09.04. BBC Monitoring (online version), 25.09.04, RIA news agency, Moscow, 0152GMT, 25.09.04. The 2002 Moscow theatre siege and Beslan attack both reflected tactics used in 1995, when the Russian command failed to capitalize on their advantage and an impending Chechen collapse was reversed by a daring and dramatic raid on the southern Russian town of Budennovsk in Stavropol krai. The article accused the international media of merely transferring the “somnolent information of the Kremlin propagandist liars [sic]” and claimed that journalists who actually travelled to Chechnya were surprised at the level of violence still taking place. Ahmad Ichkeriiskiy, “A surprise of the journalist” [sic], 24 May 2006, www.kavkazcenter.com. It is not just the Western media who have come under attack for a lack of coverage of the conflict. In an interview with a Turkish newspaper in March 2006, Chechen rebel “president” Abdul-Karim Sadulayev criticised the Islamic media for failing to report on events in the Caucasus and called for greater unity amongst Muslims. See Fiona Hill, Kremlin Stage-managing Chechen Parliamentary Elections, Council on Foreign Relations, 22 November 2005, www.cfr.org/publication/9268/hill.html.


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Mass Media and the Internal and External Dimensions of the Terrorist Threats to the Stability of the Caucasus Oktay F. TANRISEVER Department of International Relations, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey

Abstract. This paper seeks to examine the role of media in coping with the actual and potential internal and external terrorist threats to the stability of the Caucasus. The fight against international terrorism is a major priority for the Caucasian states, domestic and regional instability provides a fertile ground for international terrorism which then adds to the region’s instability. The development of independent media is important in fighting terrorism in the Caucasus because the media, by observing international standards, could inform the general public effectively so that terrorists could then be countered with an objective representation of events. In the absence of an independent mass media, terrorists could confuse the general public with their disinformation and subjective propaganda activities. The paper contains an analysis of the mass media’s role in representing terrorist threats to the stability of the Caucasus by exploring the evolution of the Chechen problem in the Russian Federation in the post-Soviet era, and the escalation of the tensions between Russia and Georgia.

1. Representing the Internal Dimension of the Terrorist Threats to the Stability in the Caucasus In order to represent the internal sources of the terrorist threats to the stability in the Caucasus effectively, the independent mass media institutions could inform the general public about the actual and potential institutional, demographic, socio-economic, cultural and ideological bases for terrorism in the Caucasus and fight against the attempts of the terrorists to manipulate ethnic grievances for their terrorist goals. Internal dimension of the terrorist threats to the stability in the Caucasus could be seen better by exploring the evolution of the Chechen problem in the Russian Federation in the post-Soviet era. The Chechen nationalist movement, which came into existence in 1989, composed of three factions. The first group was the official Chechen leaders who were happy with the existing level of relations between Moscow and Chechnya. The second group included Chechen civic nationalists who sought a negotiated settlement to obtain sovereign status for Chechnya within the Russian federal framework. The last group included Chechen ethnic nationalists who urged the unilateral secession of Chechnya from Russia.1 The last group became the hegemonic one among the Chechens when the Chechens declared independence and elected Dzhokhar Dudayev as their President in November 1991.

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O.F. Tanrisever / Mass Media and the Internal and External Dimensions of Terrorist Threats

The process of post-Soviet transition in Russia played a crucial role in the development of Chechen conflict, as it changed the type of political regime in Moscow and the relations between Moscow and the regions. The federal centre reassessed its policy of avoiding direct confrontation with the rebel Chechen authorities in spring 1994. The dominance of the nationalist perspective in Moscow following the storming of the Russian parliament in October 1993, the adoption of a less federalist constitution and the election of a predominantly nationalist Russian parliament in December 1993 2 were crucial in this reassessment. The mass media called for an end to the mistreatment of local Russians by Chechens and Mafia activities in Chechnya. The First Chechen War that started on 11 December 1994 was a failure from military point of view. The Russian military failure in Chechnya can not be explained solely by the unconventional nature of the Chechen war. Russian regular army was ineffective also in conventional warfare. As Anatol Lieven rightly argues, Chechnya can not be portrayed as an ideal place for guerrilla warfare, since only the southern third is mountainous. The rest of Chechnya is open plain territory, which is ideal for conventional forces. Nevertheless the Russian army was unable to defeat Chechen military units operating in the plains of Chechnya. Russian air forces were not doing their jobs well either. As an eyewitness of the war, Lieven reports that combat pilots, who were getting only ten hours flying time a year, missed their targets frequently.3 Consequently, many of the atrocities committed during the war stemmed from Russian reliance on indiscriminate air-bombardment. It is important to note that terrorist activities that took the form of hostage-taking also played an important role in Moscow’s decision to end the First Chechen War. In order to force the Russian side to enter into negotiations, a group of Chechen fighters led by Shamil Basaev took 1500 people hostage in a hospital in the Dagestani town of Budennovsk on 14 June 1995. This hostage crisis, which led to 120 causalities, proved to be the turning point in the course of Chechen war, since Chernomyrdin on his own personal initiative accepted to sign a cease-fire agreement on 3 July 1995. Just six months after Basaev’s hostage-taking, Salman Raduev attacked Kyzylyar and took 2000 hostages from a hospital on 9 January 1996. These developments turned the Russian public opinion not only against the Chechens for their terrorist acts, but also against the federal authorities for their ineffectiveness in putting an end to Russian human and material losses.4 After the signing of the ‘Treaty on Peace and Principles of Mutual Relations between the Russian Federation and the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria’ on 12 May 1997, the Russian and Chechen officials were hoping for a permanent settlement of the conflict on their own terms.5 However, the result was a socio-political instability leading to the resumption of war in 1999. When Russian Security Council Secretary Ivan Rybkin offered associate state status to Chechnya in January 1998, Maskhadov flatly refused the idea that Chechnya would settle for any formula short of full independence. Once the federal leadership realised that Mashkadov would not settle for a power-sharing treaty, Moscow’s policy started to focus both on destabilising Chechnya and preventing its diplomatic recognition. Once the ‘freedom-loving Chechens’ became ‘criminals, kidnappers and bandits’, then the Chechens could be isolated from the world public opinion.6 The Russian decision to leave Chechnya’s status in limbo has been a great hindrance to the reconstruction of Chechnya. Although the 12 May 1997 Accords entitled all Chechens who lost their home to compensation from the Russian government, Moscow has made no start on this reconstruction program, as the Russian


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State Duma made any federal economic aid to Chechnya conditional upon Chechnya remaining within the Federation. On 1 August 1998 Russian Prime Minister Sergei Kirienko offered to declare Chechnya a free economic zone in order to encourage the inflow of investment. However, this would have no real positive impact on Chechen foreign trade, which has already been conducted beyond the reach of federal customs inspectors since 1991.7 Post-War Chechnya suffered also from the lack of social integration in that the clan system played a significant role.a The egalitarian organisation of clans not only helped the Chechens to preserve their Adat (national customs), but also reinforced the internal divisions of Chechen society. The resulting social instability coincided with the politicization of Islam. In the absence of an agreement on Chechnya’s status, the Islamic fundamentalists enhanced their power bases by manipulating Chechnya’s problems with Moscow. Defying the Chechen constitution that adopted secularism as a basic principle of the State, Mavladi Udugov’s Islamic Way Party (Islamskii put’) and Khattab’s (a Jordanian Chechen commander) Wahhabi detachments promoted Islamic fundamentalism.8 In a desperate attempt to impose his authority throughout Chechnya, Maskhadov sought to create a standing army. This was a very demanding task, since Chechnya had been divided into spheres of influence by various field commanders, who also took control of the oil industry through setting up various underground oil companies to produce home-made gasoline. The anti-Mashkhadov field commanders were organised into the Special Purpose Islamic Regiment and the Sharia Guard. These opposition military units even took part in a fight against the government forces on 21 June 1998.9 Although Maskhadov declared Shamil Basaev Prime Minister as an attempt to appease the field commanders in October 1997, Basaev was forced to resign six months later because of his failure ‘to foster economic recovery’. The move led to the radicalization of Basaev’s opposition, since he became free of his government responsibilities. Under the pressure from Basaev and other radical field commanders, Maskhadov introduced a State Council (shura) composed of 20 prominent Chechen leaders on 3 February 1999.10 Developments in Dagestan formed the immediate cause of the resumption of war in 1999. On 8 August 1999, Basayev’s forces invaded Dagestan to the east of Chechnya. On the following day, Vladimir Putin, head of FSB, replaced Sergei Stepashin as prime minister. Russian public opinion was mobilised against the Chechens when four massive bombs exploded in Russia in September: one at a military housing complex at Buinaksk in Dagestan, the next two in south Moscow and the last one in Volgodonsk. It was the wave of anger amongst Russians that gave Putin the backing he needed to invade Chechnya on 1 October 1999. The second war in Chechnya was an effective instrument for the consolidation of post-Soviet Russian regime. The popularity of Chechen war helped Putin’s party Medved (Unity) in getting a significant number of votes during the 1999 Duma elections. Moreover, Putin’s overwhelming success in 26 March 2000 presidential elections is mainly related to his image as the hero of the Chechen War, and Eltsin resignation in favour of him on 31 December 1999 when the Chechen war increased Putin’s popularity.11 a

In Chechnya there are nine Chechen tribes (tukhumy) which are sub-divided into 135 clans (taipy). A clan is composed of two or three villages claiming descent from a common ancestor. The Councils of Elders (Mekhkel) was composed of respected elders of major Chechen clans. M. A. Mamakaev, Chechenskii taip (rod) v period ego razlozheniia, Groznyi: Izd-vo Ch-I Gos. Universtiteta, 1973.

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Unlike the First Chechen War, Moscow succeeded in bringing the urban and rural areas of Chechnya under its military control until 2002. The military defeat of the Chechen separatists motivated them to organize more terrorist actions in the Russian Federation outside Chechnya since 2002. Various bombings in Moscow, hostage taking events in Nord Ost Theatre at the centre of Moscow and in a school in the North Ossetian city of Beslan attracted international attention to the Chechen problem in Russia as well as to the actual and potential terrorist threats to the stability in the Caucasus. Representation of these events by the Russian and international mass media also put the Putin administration in a very difficult position. These events underlined the significance of representing the internal dimensions of terrorist threats to the stability in the Caucasus too. In a nutshell, independent mass media institutions in the Caucasus could draw lessons from the development of the Chechen conflict in representing the internal dimensions of the terrorist. These mass media institutions could inform the general public about the destabilizing effects of ethnic conflicts as well as the potential threats posed by the internal political instability in the region. In this respect, independent mass media institutions should refrain from emphasizing regional ethnic grievances which could be used by terrorists to destabilize the region.

2. Representing the External Dimension of the Terrorist Threats to the Stability in the Caucasus In order to represent the external dimension of the terrorist threats to the stability in the Caucasus effectively, the independent mass media institutions could inform the general public about the actual and potential geopolitical and strategic goals of terrorists in the Caucasus and fight against the attempts of the terrorists to manipulate ethnic conflicts for their terrorist goals and for spreading regional instability. External dimension of the terrorist threats to the stability in the Caucasus could be seen better by exploring the impact of Russia’s fight against the separatists in Chechnya on the escalation of the tensions between Russia and Georgia in the postSoviet era. These developments have been conceived completely differently on the two sides of the Russian-Georgian border. The Russian side keeps accusing Tbilisi for failing to take the necessary security measures against the terrorists who use the Georgian territory to attack Russia. In response, the Georgian side keeps accusing Moscow for manipulating its own security problems to destabilize Georgia with a view of restoring its imperial dominance in the Caucasus. Consequently, the alternative narratives of both sides on the escalation of the tensions in their relations looks like a dialogue of the deaf. The external implications of the Chechen conflict for the Russian-Georgian relations resulted partly from the geopolitical significance of Chechnya. It has been very important for Moscow to keep Chechnya within the Russian Federation, as Chechnya was a key junction for transporting Caspian and Central Asian gas and oil. Two alternative routes for transporting Caspian Sea oil have dominated the geopolitical calculations: one from Baku, across Chechen territory, to Russia’s Black Sea port at Novorossiisk (the northern route), and the other from Baku, through Georgia, to Turkey’s Mediterranean port at Ceyhan (the western route).12 If Chechnya remained under the Russian control, then Russia could maintain its existing influence in the Caucasus and Central Asia.13


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Despite the fact that Moscow has been seen as an ally of both secessionist movements in Georgia, Russia’s post-Soviet policy towards Georgia has been based on the idea that a stable and pro-Russian Georgia was necessary for security along Russia’s southern border. The Russian foreign policy establishment has attempted to justify the Russian position in terms of ‘Near Abroad’ doctrine. According to this doctrine, Georgia, which is a very strategic country in the Caucasus, belongs to the Russian sphere of influence. Accordingly, Moscow has claimed that no state other than the Russian Federation could solve regional problems in the Caucasus, including Georgia.14 The gap between Moscow’s ‘pacifist and defensive rhetoric’ and its more assertive foreign policy line in the region became wider since Vladimir Putin’s rise to the Russian Presidency in 2000. Moscow has escalated its tensions with Georgia by increasing its pressure over the republic through its politics of international terrorism. It could be useful to analyze the issue of international terrorism in detail as it served to escalate the tensions between Russia and Georgia dramatically. The already tense relations between Russia and Georgia escalated dramatically when Moscow has started to accuse the Georgian leadership of permitting the international terrorists to use its territory in order to fight in Chechnya. Moscow has also claimed that Georgia provides a safe heaven to the Chechens for establishing bases in the Pankisi Gorge along the Russian-Georgian border. Moscow bases its claims on the fact that there are approximately 5,000 Chechen refugees from Chechnya as well as 7,000 local ethnic Chechens in the Northeastern part of Georgia. In response, Georgia, which has consistently refused the Russian requests to deploy Russian forces in the Pankisi Gorge, declared that it will bolster the security along its border with Russia. However, Moscow criticized these Georgian moves as cosmetic attempts to delay the massive Russian operation to root out the terrorist bases in the Georgian territory. This showed that Russia was very keen on carrying out a military operation in attacking the Pankisi Gorge.15 The Russian pressure on Tbilisi increased on 11 September 2002 when President Vladimir Putin sent a letter to world leaders outlining Russia’s complaints about Georgia’s inaction and asserting Russia’s right to launch attacks in line with the United Nations Charter enshrining countries’ right to self-defence. In this letter, Putin stated that: “The successful progress of the counter-terror operation has forced the remaining bandits to flee to Georgia, where the Georgian authorities turn a blind eye to the fact that they are living a free and comfortable life there, and continue to receive military, financial and other assistance from abroad. […..] Proceeding from the above, we are talking about glaring violation by Tbilisi of counter-terrorist Resolution 1373 of the UN Security Council, which is obligatory for all states. In this situation we must ensure that Georgia fully complies with its obligations to the international community in this sphere. […..] In this connection Russia may be forced to use the inalienable right to individual or collective defence in accordance with the UN Charter, stipulated in Resolution 1368 of the UN Security Council adopted in the aftermath of the barbarous terrorist acts in the USA in September last year. I want to stress that we are not considering actions that would undermine the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country in question or a change of its political regime.”16 Since the Russian public opinion has generally supported all the hawkish policies of Putin during the Second Chechen War, this ultimatum contributed to Putin’s popularity. Putin needed to shore up his public image as a determined leader when his

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accommodative policies towards the NATO and the United States undermined his credibility in the eyes of the public. Putin might have also expected that the United States could give a carte blanche to Moscow in Georgia in return for the Russian support for the United States during the approaching War in Iraq.17 Nevertheless, as the growing relations between Tbilisi and Washington show Putin’s policies proved to be self-defeating. In order to counterbalance the increasing Russian influence over Georgia, Tbilisi opted for strengthening its relations with the United States. Thus, Tbilisi intensified its cooperation with the U.S. within the framework of the US ‘Train and Equip’ program, which is a $64 million project designed to bolster Georgian border security and modernize its armed forces in April 2002. However, it should be noted here that this ‘Train and Equip’ program cannot be seen as a means of reasserting Georgia’s control over Abkhazia and South Ossetia since this is a rather small military assistance program. In line with the objectives of this program, only 1,600 Georgian soldiers will be trained, which is not adequate for putting the secessionist movements in Abkhazia and South Ossetia under the Georgian control.18 Although these developments in Georgia might have created problems in Washington’s relations with Moscow, whose support was essential for the crisis over Iraq, the United States opposed to Putin’s threats categorically by condemning him for suggesting that he might attack the Chechen rebel bases in Georgia militarily.19 To appreciate the US support for Tbilisi during this crisis, the Georgian Parliament granted the U.S. armed forces conditional access to all Georgian military facilities during the latest war in Iraq. The Georgian Parliament also decided to extend diplomatic immunity to all U.S. personnel posted in Georgia on 21 March 2003. The State Duma reacted harshly to these resolutions of the Georgian Parliament by characterizing it as detrimental to Moscow’s relations with Tbilisi. The analysis of the handling of international terrorism issue by Russia and Georgia shows that both sides could have solved their problems cooperatively better as the existing dialogue of the deaf resulted in mutually disappointing results. To summarise, independent mass media in the Caucasus could pay attention to the lessons from the external implications of the Chechen conflict and the problems between Russia and Georgia concerning the handling of international terrorism issue in representing the external dimensions of the terrorist threats to the stability in the stability in the Caucasus. It is clear that ethnic conflicts could have destabilizing implications at the regional level.

3. Relevance of Independent Mass Media in Fighting against Terrorism In order to explore the relevance of independent mass media for fighting against terrorism effectively, it is essential to clarify the concept of independent mass media in modern democratic societies. Independent mass media develop in societies where there is a consensus on the need that there should be intermediaries between the state and society20 Among these intermediaries, mass media occupy a very special place. This stems from the functions that mass media plays in modern societies. According to Harold Lasswell, mass communication plays three main functions in all modern societies. For Lasswell; first, mass media performs the surveillance of the social environment; secondly, it coordinates the responses of different parts of society to the


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environment: and finally, it serves to transmit the social heritage from the present generation to the future generations.21 In this context, the concept of 'independent mass media' emphasizes the need to maintain an essential autonomy and freedom of action so that the credibility and integrity of the media can be sustained. From this point of view, some problems with reconciling the mass media's role as an independent social agent with that of an instrument of the authorities become apparent. However, it is quite clear that independence can never be absolute. Since the media mediates the realms of the politics and economy, some limitations are also necessary to prevent the political or economic actors from abusing this mediating role for their own advantage. The realisation of this condition is very essential for post-Communist states, such as the Russian Federation and other states in the Caucasus, that have been trying to overcome the legacy of authoritarian rule, because the post-Communist economic elites in these states have exploited the emerging power vacuum since the collapse of the Socialist system .22 It is widely shared in Western democracies that the media's relations with the state should be based on laws and principles that do not influence the structure and content of the media. In principle, the media should be objective. In other words, the media should present information impartially without taking sides. However, this does not mean that the press should be above politics. In fact, as Hedwig de Smaele argues, the extent to which the press endorses the idea that it is above politics serves the needs of those in power. The media should also be financially independent, since political freedom is positively correlated with economic independence.23 It is in this sense that the existence of independent media institutions play a crucial role in fighting against terrorism; only independent mass media could inform the general public effectively so that the disinformation and subjective propaganda activities of the terrorists could be countered with objective representation of events. In the absence of an independent mass media, terrorists could confuse the minds of the general public with their disinformation and subjective propaganda activities. This is , because ordinary people with limited knowledge of the internal and external dimensions of terrorist threats need to be informed about the propaganda activities of the terrorists beforehand for challenging the propaganda activities of terrorists. Another important contribution of the independent media to the fight against terrorist activities lies in its role in monitoring political accountability, transparency and respect for the rule of law in democratic societies. It is basically these functions of independent mass media and the characteristics of modern democratic societies that are quite effective in making propaganda activities of terrorists ineffective and selfdefeating.

4. Independent Mass Media and the Fight against Terrorism in the Post-Soviet Caucasus The development of independent mass media is quite important in fighting international terrorism in the post-Soviet Caucasus. Before exploring the development of independent mass media in the post-Soviet Caucasus, it is important to note that the development of independent mass media in this region has been determined by the developments mainly in the mass media sector of the Russian Federation rather than

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the countries in the South Caucasus. Mass media institutions in the South Caucasus have been influenced by the developments in Russian mass media. In fact, developments in post-Soviet Russian politics and society have had considerable impacts on the nature of socio-political transformations in the Caucasus as a whole. The fall of the Soviet Union and the rise of the Russian Federation in 1991 resulted in far-reaching changes not only in Moscow’s relations with its neighbours in the Caucasus, but also in Russia’s state-society relations including mass media. Despite post-Soviet transformation, it is difficult to say that there are no problems in the development of independent mass media in both post-Soviet Russia and the other parts of the Caucasus. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 marked the end of the strict state control of mass media. Nevertheless, almost all media institutions in the post-Soviet space started to face new problems stemming from the sharp increases in production and distribution costs in the first years of the post-Soviet era. Consequently, given the financial weakness of the Russian media, several businessmen sought to gain economic and political benefits by controlling the media at very low prices. In 1993, Most Bank founder Vladimir Gusinskii and Boris Berezovskii, the Head of the LogoVAZ holding, 24 started to develop their media institutions. Until Vladimir Putin's rise to Russian Presidency in 2000, these 'oligarchs' were the most prominent group among the main non-state owners of the media. The economic crisis of August 1998 considerably shook the Russian economy, state and society. Evidently, media institutions were not immune from the negative impacts of this financial crisis. As a result, in 1998, the tax exemptions granted to media organizations in 1995 were eliminated. This weakened the independent media's financial basis. Furthermore, the flight of foreign capital resulted in a sharp decline in the advertisement revenues of the independent media. The increases in production costs and the difficulties in distribution weakened this media further.25 The Kremlin has exploited the weakness of Russian media in depressing socioeconomic circumstances in order to bring the Russian media under strict state control. On 6 July 1999, Yeltsin has signed a decree for the creation of a Ministry for Press, Television-Radio Broadcasting and Mass Communications. While this move illustrated the determination of the Kremlin to put all independent media under state control, the Kremlin stated that it simply wanted to put an end to the chaotic situation in the media sector. To this purpose, Mikhail Lesin, who was Vice-President of Russian State Television (RTR), was appointed as the Media Minister.26 While the state was trying to gain full control of the media sector, the owners of media institutions entered into a period of infighting after the summer of 1999. These media owners lost their relative power vis-à-vis the Kremlin as a result of their economically-motivated conflict of interests.27 As the political fortunes of oligarchs such as Berezovskii and Gusinskii worsened substantially in the aftermath of Vladimir Putin’s election as Russian President on 26 March 2000, the Kremlin sought to seize the opportunity against the important media outlets owned by Russia's influential business elites.28 In line with Putin's policy of bringing the independent media under state control, Russia's information security doctrine (Doktrina informatsionnoi bezopasnosti Rossiiskoi Federatsii) was signed on 12 September 2000. This doctrine aimed to realise the following objectives: (1) the constitutional rights of citizens to procure and use information; (2) the necessity to provide reliable coverage of state policy; (3) the development of new technologies in media-related areas; and (4) the need to safeguard


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sources of information against illicit access. Although this doctrine had no legal force, its underlying mentality was similar to the Soviet-era attempts to control information. Given that political opposition to the Kremlin weakened after Putin's election, Putin succeeded in getting the doctrine approved. These events have shown that state officials have become less tolerant towards the so-called opposition media outlets and started to adopt a more interventionist approach. The case of NTV and the closure of TV6 clearly illustrate the risks to media institutions when becoming involved in economic business. In such an atmosphere, the strengthening role of the state in the media industry minimized the autonomy of independent media and hindered the development of civil society outside the patronage 29 of Vladimir Putin. Vladimir Putin has subsequently revised his policy towards media institutions in 2002, seeking to improve his image as a staunch supporter of media freedom. He ceased supporting further restrictions on the flow of information. For example, he vetoed amendments to Russian media law regarding the coverage of antiterrorist operations in November 2002, stating that the proposed amendments would 'create preconditions for imposing unjustified restrictions on citizens' rights to information.' He also endorsed a law to extend a discount on the value-added tax rate for the media 30 institutions until 2005. These examples show that Vladimir Putin preferred not to take a hawkish stance towards the media. Instead, he opted for weakening the link between strong economic interest groups and the independent media. This became evident when Putin congratulated the Russian journalists on the Russian Press Day in 2003 as follows: “I congratulate you on the Russian Press Day. […] Not a single state can exist without publicity and openness, which are ensured above all by the mass media, following the strict norms of professional ethics. They maintain a constructive dialogue with the authorities and in many respects exert a decisive influence on public opinion. […] Our common task today is to create the really independent mass media which would rest on a firm economic basis and would be capable to correctly and objectively reflect the complicated processes in our country and abroad.”31 Putin's attempts at promoting his image as a supporter of the independent mass media, however, is not likely to hide his support for increasing state pressure on independent media in Russia. Oleg Panfilov, Chairman of the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations, contradicts Putin and cites the number of legal cases opened against journalists since Vladimir Putin's rise to the Russian presidency. Panfilov stated: '[T]here have been more legal cases opened against journalists in the two and 32 half years of Mr Putin's rule than throughout the 1990s under Boris Yeltsin'. In this way, Putin implied that in order for the state to operate effectively, everyone needed to line up and carry out orders coming from the top. In other words, the Kremlin sought to establish control over the independent mass media by intimidating opposition media with politically-motivated measures. To sum up, Moscow's mass media policies and his policies towards coping with terrorism in the Caucasus do not contribute to the stability of the Caucasus and the effectiveness of the fight against terrorism since there is no guarantee in Russia's postSoviet political system as well as the political systems of other states in the Caucasus preventing the authorities from seeking to leave no significant room for the development of independent mass media. Consequently, the independent media is

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officially tolerated, as opposed to developing into a strong social force based on the strength of media enterprises. This is one of the main weaknesses of Russia’s as well as other states’ strategy of fighting against terrorism in the Caucasus because only independent media observing the international standards of representing events could inform the general public effectively so that the disinformation and subjective propaganda activities of the terrorists could be countered with objective representation of events. The lack of credibility of an independent mass media in these countries, could enable terrorists to confuse the minds of the general public with their disinformation and subjective propaganda activities, because ordinary people with limited knowledge of the internal and external dimensions of terrorist threats tend to be uninformed about the propaganda activities of the terrorists and the ways of challenging their propaganda activities.

Conclusion The findings of this paper demonstrate that international terrorism in the Caucasus could be fought more effectively with the help of independent mass media. Nevertheless, the dependence of 'independent' media institutions in the Caucasus – mainly the Russian Federation- on powerful business groups and some state institutions has limited their autonomy in fighting against terrorism considerably because the weakness of independent mass media observing the international standards of representing events in the Caucasus has made the general public vulnerable to the disinformation and subjective propaganda activities of the terrorists. The lack of credibility on the part of the so-called 'independent' media institutions in the Caucasus plays a crucial role in its inability to inform ordinary people in the Caucasus including the Russian Federation about the internal and external dimensions of terrorist threats to the stability of the Caucasus. What is more worrying is that under the difficult socio-economic and political conditions of the post-Soviet transition, the masses in the Caucasus are not seriously interested in promoting the independence of the mass media observing the international standards of representing events in the Caucasus. There is also a lack of strong demand in the Caucasus region for impartial and objective information from the mass media about the internal and external dimensions of terrorist threats to the stability of the Caucasus. References 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

O. F. Tanrisever, ‘‘The Battle for Chechnia: Russia Confronts Chechen Secessionism’, METU Studies in Development, vol. 27, no.3-4, 2000, pp.321-348. V. D. Solovei, “Voina v Chechne i rossiiskaia oppozitsiia”, Kentabr, 4, 1995, p.41. A. Lieven, Chechnya: Tombstone of Russian Power, Yale University Press, 1998, pp.128-134. B. Kagarlitskii, “Chechniia: predvaritel’nye itogi, Chechenskaia voina i obshchestvennoe mnenie”, Svobodnaia mysl’, no.1, 1997, pp.33-44. I. N. Eremenko and Iu. D. Novikov, Rossiia i Chechnya (1990-1997 gody). Dokumenty svidetel’stvuiut, Moscow: Dukhovnoe nasledie, 1997, p.5. R. Clogg, “Disinformation in Chechnya : An Anatomy of a Deception”, Central Asian Survey, 16 (3), 1997, pp.425-430. Nezavisimaia gazeta, 3 August 1998. A. Ignatenko, “Islamizatsiia po chechenskii”, Nezavisimaia gazeta, 20 November 1997. Nezavisimaia gazeta, 23 June 1998. Nezavisimaia gazeta, 6 February 1999.

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15 16 17 18 19 20 21

22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32

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P. Cockburn, “Russia Planned Chechen War Before Bombings”, The Independent, 29 January 2000. Z. Shakhbiev, Sud’ba Checheno-ingushskogo naroda, Moscow: Rossiia molodaia 1996, pp.170. J. Roberts, Caspian Pipelines, London: Royal Institute of International Affairs 1996. See O. F. Tanrisever, ‘Sovyet-Sonrası Dönemde Rusya’nın Kafkasya Politikası (Russian Foreign Policy towards the Caucasus in the Post-Soviet Era)’, Türkiye ve Komúuları, (eds.) Mustafa Türkeú and ølhan Uzgel, Ankara: ømge Yayınları, 2002, pp.386-391. J. Heintz, ‘Russia Ready to Attack Georgia’, Associated Press, 12 September 2002. RIA Novosti, 12 September 2002. S. Mulvey, ‘Why Russia Threatens Georgia over Pankisi’, BBC, 12 September 2002. E. A. Miller, “Morale of US-Trained Troops in Georgia is High, but US Advisors Concerned about Sustainability,” Eurasia Insight, 5 May 2003. E. Monaghan, ‘U.S. Criticizes Putin for Threatening Georgia’, Reuters, 12 September 2002. Z. T. Golenkova, ‘Civil Society in Russia’, Russian Social Science Review, vol.40, no.1, 1999, pp. 4-18 H. Lasswell, “The Structure and Function of Communication in Society” in W. Schramm and F. R. Donald. (eds.), The Process and Effects of Communication, Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1971, p. 85. K. Rogerson, “The Role of the Media in Transitions from Authoritarian Political Systems: Russia and Poland”, East European Quarterly, vol. 31, no.3, 1997, pp.329-354. H. de Smaele, “The Applicability of western Media Models on the Russian Media System”, European Journal of Communication, vol.14, no.2, 1999, pp. 174–175. L. Belin, ‘Wrestling Political and Financial Repression’, Transition, vol.1, no. 18, 1995, p. 88. L. Belin, ‘Political Bias and Self-censorship in the Russian Media’ in A. Brown. (ed.), Contemporary Russian Politics, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001, pp. 327-328. Ibid., p. 327. Ibid., pp.330-331 Ibid., p. 327. M. Aslamazian, “A Year of Hard Lessons for the Media”, Moscow Times, 21 December 2001. L. Belin, 2002: A Quietly Bad Year for the Russian Media, RFE/RL Russian Political Weekly, vol. 3, no. 2, 2003. RIA Novosti, 13 January 2003. A. Jack, “Fear and Kremlin Hints Turn Reporters into Putin’s Poodles: The Russian Media are Crippled by Self-censorship”, Financial Times, 3 January 2003.

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Reporting on Terrorism Jonathan CHARLES World Affairs Correspondent and presenter, BBC Television and Radio Introduction1 I have been reporting on Terrorism for more than 20 years. When I started in the 1980s it was of course, Irish terrorism, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and Palestinian terrorism; and it was clear, in their own mind if not in everyone else’s, that they fought for some sort of national identity, some sort of homeland. Their aim when they struck, was to strike fear into people. It was not necessary to cause mass casualties. For example, I covered the Brighton bombing in 1984, the IRA struck the Conservative Party Conference, their aim was to wipe out as much as possible of the Conservative party leadership including the Prime Minister. If there were civilian casualties it was a by-product. Normally when the IRA struck in the 1980s they were hitting military targets or targets connected to the military. If they struck bars and pubs it was because they were used by military personnel. They would attack military post offices with letter bombs. They would do all sort of things that were aimed at specific targets. If they were striking a civilian building they would normally issue a coded warning: their aim was to ensure that civilian casualties were minimised. They would allow time for civilians to be moved out of the building. It was the same, in a way, with the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO). I covered many hijackings in the 1980s. On the whole they were not aimed at mass killing, they were aimed at drawing attention to their cause. Occasionally someone would get killed and I will mention the Achille Lauro ship jacking in 1985 when a passenger was killed. There was never any intention by the people who hijacked that ship to blow it up with everyone on board. It never occurred to them that that was a method of publicising their cause. If you talk to terrorists of the 1970s or 80s, and I have done, people like Leila Khaled, and ask how they view al-Qaeda terrorism, she is actually horrified at the thought of taking a plane and running it into a building and killing several thousands of people. It was very far from their mind in the 1970s. They really wanted to achieve the publicity without killing very many people. As a result, I think coverage of terrorism was very different in those days. It was very easy, they were simple times. It was easy for me to go and talk to terrorists. If I wanted to talk to a senior member of the IRA, all I would have to do in Belfast, was put the word around in certain quarters that I would like to go and have an off the record conversation with someone of the IRA, and that would be possible. You would get a phone call, you would get to a meeting point and you would be whisked off somewhere in the back of a car. You could go and meet the head of the IRA terrorist organisation

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in Belfast or Derry for a discussion on their aim and what they were really planning to do. It was also possible to meet leading terrorists from the PLO.

Reporting Today That is a very different situation to the one reporters face today. I cannot go and get a meeting with Zarqawi and get out alive, or a meeting with other leading members of groups that come under the al-Qaeda umbrella. That is a change in the job of reporting. It is very difficult nowadays to get those primary conversations, those primary terrorist sources that we had in those years. They were different times of course, twenty years ago, for television news. Rolling news, 24 hour news channels, did not exist. You might file one piece a day from the scene of a terrorist incident. I remember going to Cyprus in the mid to late 1980s for the hijacking of a Kuwaiti airlines jet. We sat on the runway in Nicosia for a considerable length of time while the hijacking unfolded. In those days we had one satellite feed a day to London. So I would do one piece at the end of the working day for our evening news. Contrast that with the pressure of today where a reporter covering a terrorist incident may have to file-in a piece every hour. That puts greater pressure on reporters. I could take a much more considerate view at the end of each day as to where the story was than you can do if you are covering it hour by hour. So the nature of our job has changed as a result of reporting terrorism. The nature of the way terrorists use our media has changed because they too know that they are not inspiring one story a day, that we are filing every hour. It has changed the nature of the relationship between the media and terrorist organisations and indeed governments. We are now reporting far more terrorism than we were reporting in the 1970s and 80s. I can switch on the television news and the top three or four items might be, in one way or another, connected to terrorism or the insurgency in Iraq. Events that in the 1970s and 80s might have been covered once every six months now dominate the evening news almost every night. That is a massive change in the way we look at the terrorism story. So covering terrorism has become much more complicated for us altogether. It is complicated in the way we assess our information. It is changed. Obviously, the attacks have become much more horrific. If a building got damaged in the 1970-80s by the IRA, that was big news story; they blew up an office block in the City of London, maybe someone got injured. If there was a death, it was an unfortunate accident. Maybe one soldier was shot dead as he was walking in the streets in Germany. They tried to blow up a barracks, a British army barracks, in North Germany. Very rarely were civilians directly involved in these incidents. The spectacular, in those days, was to blow up a building or an aircraft. That was enough. Just the mere destruction was enough to guarantee a place on the evening news. These days of course, the reporters know, and so do the terrorists, that the event must be so spectacular, so devastating, that it stays in the minds of people, remains dominating the headlines for a considerable amount of time. Back in the 1980s, when the IRA or the Palestinians committed some sort of act and they shot dead someone it may be remembered for a week or two. I doubt that any of us can forget some of the spectacular events of the past few years. Whether it is 9/11 or the Beslan school siege or the Moscow Theatre siege. Now the spectacular for the

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terrorists has to involve some immense devastation, not just of property but of human life. Because they know the appetite of the television networks is such that we are dulled to many acts, we have seen it many times. So every act has to be more spectacular, has to be more damaging, has to involve more murder. On the first day of the Russian school year, all the children go to school. They have ceremonies all day, parents go along in every school across Russia on that 1st day of the school year. It is supposed to be a very happy event. Of course, in 2004, what happened on that 1st day of school in Beslan, North Ossetia, which is very close to Chechnya, was that the school, the main school, was taken over by Chechen gunmen and women. They seized about 1200 hostages; they had them penned up in the school gym. It starts on the Wednesday morning. I went down there on the Wednesday afternoon along with most of the reporting press who were in Russia at the time. In the day, this is the age of 24 hour satellite communication, we set up our satellite dish opposite the school. We could report immediately, every hour, live in our news bulletins. We carry live pictures, in a way it would have been impossible 20 years ago. We could constantly update the story. It became a spectacular event, even if no one died. The fact that 1200 people were suddenly held hostage by Chechen gunmen was spectacular, exactly what the terrorists were aiming for. They made sure that around the world their message was being repeated. Their message was, they disliked what Russia was doing inside Chechnya, to Chechens, they wanted Chechen Independence. Suddenly this message, as a result of their spectacular action was relayed 24hour a day on news reports. One satellite truck made it possible to get that message out. They are the centre of attention in a way that would have been impossible 20 years ago. Hour by hour people are watching this unfold, because it involves children. So hour by hour the Chechens are getting their message across to this mass audience, a story that is typical of what reporting terrorism often means these days. But also we are showing victims, we are showing the terrible grief that has come to this town. Yesterday one of our speakers said that it would be better not to dwell on this too much but I think it is very important that reporters do show the grief because, in a way, that is a condemnation enough of the actions of these terrorists, when you see the sufferings that they have brought to people. It would be quite wrong not to report that: this is what these people have done to this town. They may believe in their cause, but there is a high price everyone else had to pay for that cause. Televisions like stories: we have an appetite for terrorism stories. People were saying yesterday we have to have that human interest, that human drama and that includes human sufferings. Sometimes reporting is a bit like intelligence gathering. We are trying to piece together lots of different bits of stories to try to get some complete narrative to try to get a complete picture, and sometimes we stumble on first hand information, material that actually we find before the intelligence authorities or at the same time as the intelligence authorities. We have to analyse that and it gives us some insight. We are always looking as reporters for an insight, for what is in the mind of terrorists, just as intelligence officers are. We are trying to analyse, and to analyse we have to put ourselves in their mind to see what their thought process are. In the winter of 2001, I was with Northern Alliance troops in Afghanistan, during the attack on Taliban positions and the attempt to take Kabul after 9/11. I was with a Northern Alliance unit and some American advisors, when one of the American advisors managed to discover an abandoned al-Qaeda training camp. They just ran on because our troops, Northern Alliance troops, were advancing. We saw this building in


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the distance. It was an al-Qaeda training camp. Now, when the al-Qaeda people left, they left a lot of video material behind they used for training, so all of a sudden we got all these DVDs and DVD sets, which literally would help us to see exactly what they were about and give us an insight into what, at the time, just three months after 9/11 attack, is this phenomenon of al-Qaeda. We are trying to understand; are they trying to do similar attacks to September 11? What is in their mind? Suddenly, as journalists, we discover this material, which is really intelligence material, in effect; and again, in this age of 24 hour news, we have our satellite dish right there on the frontline and we broadcast this material around the world within hours of its discovery, even before the Intelligence officers have had a chance to analyse it. I am sure intelligence officers would have preferred to have it first and analyse it before we broadcast it around the world, but the nature of reporting is such that we can get this kind of material on the air.

Issues for Consideration When to Report? When do we report a terrorist incident? Well obviously, when one has happened. Like the explosion at the British Consulate in Istanbul, we go immediately, we start reporting what we know. Obviously, because it happened at the same time as the HSBC explosion, we also know this is a spectacular, there are two strikes happening simultaneously. The assumption must be it is some group coming under the al-Qaeda umbrella, and because of the dual strike that this is a well planned operation. And we start analysing exactly what is happening immediately. We also make sure when we report immediately that we do not panic viewers. The all idea is to give our account as calmly as possible, trying not to panic people. We do not report rumours, we only go on hard evidence, and sometimes the reporting can actually help the authorities. When 24-hour channels are running then we can also put out what the authorities are saying, including the fact, for example on 7th July, in London, “Yes, you may be seeing people going into tube station wearing protective clothing but there is no suggestion of any sort of biological or chemical attack”. So reporting can also be a help to the authorities as well as reporting the actual event. Which Side? Which side are we on? We are not on anybody’s side. We can all make it clear that what happened is horrendous but the ideal is to give a dispassionate account of events, to try to explain what has happened rather than to take one side and say for example, these terrible al-Qaeda people, look what they have done. What we have to do as reporters is to remain objective. So the audience wants to tune in knowing that they are getting an accurate picture. As soon as you start appearing on one side or the other then you are not giving an accurate picture and the audience does not trust your words. You do not have to attack an organisation like al-Qaeda to make it clear that what has happened is horrific. All you have to do is describe what has happened and use the pictures. They know from your words that you are describing a horrific act. By letting the story speak for itself, you are maintaining an objectivity, which allows to analyse it

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professionally and allows the audience to get a much better picture of what is going on, a picture they can trust. We do not use the word “terrorism” because actually on the BBC there are many words that we can use: “extremist”, and if they are not extremists, then “armed rebels”. Terrorism covers a whole umbrella of things. It is much better to try and use specific terms to describe what to report, terms that are fitted to each individual group, than to use a blanket term like terrorism, and everybody knows that it is terrorism anyway when it is something like 9/11 or the explosions in Istanbul. Coverage of Witness Statements and Suicide Bombers Statements We would often not use the sound, or we will use very limited bits of sounds. We will not allow people to glorify what they have done. That is what these statements, these final testaments are: they are like glorifying the act. Again, in objective reporting we want to report that there has been such statement recorded by a suicide bomber; but we do not want to make them seem glamorous and heroes by showing too much of this sort of thing. We are not seeking to glamorise the act; even on 24-hour news we are seeking to analyse the motives of these people, we try to understand what drove them to do this. When you talk to British Muslims, they are angry about Iraq, they are angry about Afghanistan, they are angry about Chechnya. We seek to reflect this in our analysis of what is going on, we seek to understand the message that is contained in this sort of videos without glorifying the act. That is what reporting is all about. The Risks There are risks in covering terrorism activities. Daniel Pearl lost his life trying to report in Pakistan; Frank Gardner, who should have been with you today, was very badly injured whilst covering a story in Saudi Arabia. In the 1970s and 1980s, we got to talk to terrorists without any problem at all. We cannot do that today as reporters. If you come across a terrorist it is usually pretty bad news. They will see you as a journalist as a legitimate target, especially if you are British or American. There are great risks for journalists in reporting these sorts of acts. Sources In the 70s and 80s I could talk to direct sources, I could talk to terrorists. We cannot do that today. We are relying on intelligence sources we can talk to. We are relying on people that may be close, we think, to terrorist groups. We are also reliant on coming across first class evidence like what we found in Afghanistan. So we are trying for a whole variety of sources, whilst accepting that it is very difficult to go for first hand sources. You cannot go and talk to Osama Ben Laden, you cannot go and interview Zarqawi. It is something to bear in mind when analysing, you have to be very careful about sources.


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Being Objective It is absolutely crucial, if we are to be trusted by the audience, to give a fair picture, one cannot go on one side or the other. Let me give an example, in 2001, I am in Macedonia, covering a battle between the Macedonian government and the Albanian rebels. The Albanian rebels are called terrorists by the Macedonian authorities. They were not what I would regard as terrorists, going about killing civilians. They were people fighting for their cause. They were an armed militant group rather than a terrorist group, but they were regarded as terrorists. I was watching Macedonian television one night. The reporter is doing a story with the Macedonian troops and these are firing shells towards an Albanian village. The reporter does the reporting to the camera, then makes some comments about the Albanian rebels. He then turns around and fires a mortar round towards the Albanian lines. He showed his feelings towards the Albanians. From that moment on you cannot trust a word of what that reporter said about the conflict, because you know he is partial. You cannot do that. Analysis Analysis is the key to all this. There is no point in just reporting events, even in the age of 24 hour news. We are here to report the analysis. What the audience wants to know is what it does mean. And so the key thing we have to do is analyse. That is what reporting on terrorism is about. It is not enough to report the event; it is what it does mean. That is always what we are seeking to show in our reports. What are the consequences of this? How serious is it, not just in term of the violence but also in the long term aims that these people are trying to achieve? What does it mean to our society?


The Media: The Terrorists’ Battlefield Centre of Excellence Defence Against Terrorism, Ankara, Turkey (Ed.) IOS Press, 2007 © 2007 IOS Press. All rights reserved.

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Author Index Al-Marashi, I. Ben-Zedeff, E.H. Briant, E.L. Çapli, B. Charles, J. Çitlioğlu, E. Corcoran, P. German, T.

62 3 89 77 152 39 vii 131

Kanli, Y. Mihaila, V. Pries-Shimshi, Y. Romarheim, A.G. Sungur, N. Tanrisever, O.F. Tatham, S.

21 111 80 43 125 141 29


The Media: The Terrorists' Battlefield - Volume 17 NATO Security through Science Series: Human and Societal Dynamics (Nato Security Through Science Series E: Human and Societal Dynamics)

Understanding and Responding to Terrorism: Volume 19 NATO Security through Science Series: Human and Societal Dynamics (Nato Security Through Science)

Social and Psychological Effects of Radiological Terrorism: Volume 29 NATO Science for Peace and Security Series - Human and Societal Dynamics (Nato Science ... Series: Human and Societal Dynamics)

Invisible Threats: Financial and Information Technology Crimes and National Security, Volume 10 NATO Security through Science Series: Human and Societal Dynamics (Nato Security Through Science)

Promoting the Psych Well Being of Children Following War and Terrorism: Volume 4 NATO Security through Science Series: Human and Societal Dynamics ... Science, Human and Societal Dynamics)

Kondratieff Waves, Warfare and World Security: Volume 5 NATO Security through Science Series: Human and Societal Dynamics (Nato Security Through Science)

Psychological Responses to the New Terrorism: A NATO-Russia Dialogue (Nato Security Through Science Series E: Human Societal Dynamics)

Building Terrorism Resistant Communities: Together Against Terrorism, Volume 55 NATO Science for Peace and Security Series - E: Human and Societal Dynamics ... Security, E: Human and Societal Dynamics)

Tangled Roots: Social and Psychological Factors in the Genesis of Terrorism, Volume 11 NATO Security through Science Series: Human and Societal Dynamics (Nato Security Through Science)

Transportation Security Against Terrorism - Volume 54 NATO Science for Peace and Security Series - E: Human and Societal Dynamics

Modelling Cyber Security: Approaches, Methodology, Strategies - Volume 59 NATO Science for Peace and Security Series - E: Human and Societal Dynamics

Information Assurance and Computer Security, Volume 6 NATO Security through Science Series: Information and Communication Security (Nato Security Through Science)

Security and Embedded Systems: Volume 2 NATO Security through Science Series: Information and Communication Security (Nato Security Through Science)

Science Education: Models and Networking of Student Research Training under 21 - Volume 16 NATO Security t Science Series: Human and Societal Dynamics (Nato Security Throught Science)

Advances in Sensing with Security Applications (NATO Security through Science Series NATO Security through Science Series A: Chemistry and Biology) (NATO ... Security Series A: Chemistry and Biology)

Hypermedia Seduction for Terrorist Recruiting - Volume 25 NATO Science for Peace and Security Series: Human and Societal Dynamics (Nato Science for Peace and Security)

Understanding Terrorism: Analysis of Sociological and Psychological Aspects (NATO Security Through Science Series. E: Human and Societal)

Suicide as a Weapon: Volume 30 NATO Science for Peace and Security Series - Human and Societal Dynamics

Developing Strategies to Deal with Trauma in Children (NATO Security Through Science Series. E: Human and Societal)

Political Violence, Organized Crimes, Terrorism and Youth (NATO Science for Peace and Security Series: Human and Societal Dynamics, Vol 46)

Activating Psychosocial Local Resources in Territories Affected by War and Terrorism: Volume 57 NATO Science for Peace and Security Series - E: Human ... Security, E: Humans and Societal Dynamics)

Quantum Communication and Security (NATO Science for Peace and Security Series: Information and Communication Security) (NATO Security Through Science Series. D: Information and Com)

Complexity and Security (Nato Science for Peace and Series) (Nato Science for Peace and Series)

The Fight Against Terrorism and Crisis Management in the Western Balkans: Volume 32 NATO Science for Peace and Security Series: Human and Societal Dynamics ... Series: Human and Societal Dynamics)

Security Sector Transformation in Southeastern Europe and the Middle East (Nato Science for Peace and Security Series. Human and Societal Dynamics)

Nuclear Security Culture: From National Best Practices to International Standards - Volume 28 NATO Science for Peace and Security Series: Human and Societal Dynamics

Novel Biotechnologies for Biocontrol Agent Enhancement and Management (NATO Security through Science Series NATO Security through Science Series A: Chemistry and Biology)

Harbour Protection Through Data Fusion Technologies (NATO Science for Peace and Security Series C: Environmental Security)

Equidosimetry: Ecological Standardization and Equidosimetry for Radioecology and Environmental Ecology (NATO Security through Science Series NATO Security ... Security Series C: Environmental Security)

Fighting Terrorism in the Liberal State: An Integrated Model of Research, Intelligence (NATO Security Through Science Series. E: Human and Societal)

The Media: The Terrorists' Battlefield - Volume 17 NATO Security through Science Series: Human and Societal Dynamics (Nato Security Through Science Series E: Human and Societal Dynamics)

Understanding and Responding to Terrorism: Volume 19 NATO Security through Science Series: Human and Societal Dynamics (Nato Security Through Science)

Social and Psychological Effects of Radiological Terrorism: Volume 29 NATO Science for Peace and Security Series - Human and Societal Dynamics (Nato Science ... Series: Human and Societal Dynamics)

Invisible Threats: Financial and Information Technology Crimes and National Security, Volume 10 NATO Security through Science Series: Human and Societal Dynamics (Nato Security Through Science)

Promoting the Psych Well Being of Children Following War and Terrorism: Volume 4 NATO Security through Science Series: Human and Societal Dynamics ... Science, Human and Societal Dynamics)

Kondratieff Waves, Warfare and World Security: Volume 5 NATO Security through Science Series: Human and Societal Dynamics (Nato Security Through Science)

Psychological Responses to the New Terrorism: A NATO-Russia Dialogue (Nato Security Through Science Series E: Human Societal Dynamics)

Building Terrorism Resistant Communities: Together Against Terrorism, Volume 55 NATO Science for Peace and Security Series - E: Human and Societal Dynamics ... Security, E: Human and Societal Dynamics)

Tangled Roots: Social and Psychological Factors in the Genesis of Terrorism, Volume 11 NATO Security through Science Series: Human and Societal Dynamics (Nato Security Through Science)

Transportation Security Against Terrorism - Volume 54 NATO Science for Peace and Security Series - E: Human and Societal Dynamics

Modelling Cyber Security: Approaches, Methodology, Strategies - Volume 59 NATO Science for Peace and Security Series - E: Human and Societal Dynamics

Information Assurance and Computer Security, Volume 6 NATO Security through Science Series: Information and Communication Security (Nato Security Through Science)

Security and Embedded Systems: Volume 2 NATO Security through Science Series: Information and Communication Security (Nato Security Through Science)

Science Education: Models and Networking of Student Research Training under 21 - Volume 16 NATO Security t Science Series: Human and Societal Dynamics (Nato Security Throught Science)

Advances in Sensing with Security Applications (NATO Security through Science Series NATO Security through Science Series A: Chemistry and Biology) (NATO ... Security Series A: Chemistry and Biology)

Hypermedia Seduction for Terrorist Recruiting - Volume 25 NATO Science for Peace and Security Series: Human and Societal Dynamics (Nato Science for Peace and Security)

Understanding Terrorism: Analysis of Sociological and Psychological Aspects (NATO Security Through Science Series. E: Human and Societal)

Suicide as a Weapon: Volume 30 NATO Science for Peace and Security Series - Human and Societal Dynamics

Developing Strategies to Deal with Trauma in Children (NATO Security Through Science Series. E: Human and Societal)

Political Violence, Organized Crimes, Terrorism and Youth (NATO Science for Peace and Security Series: Human and Societal Dynamics, Vol 46)

Activating Psychosocial Local Resources in Territories Affected by War and Terrorism: Volume 57 NATO Science for Peace and Security Series - E: Human ... Security, E: Humans and Societal Dynamics)

Quantum Communication and Security (NATO Science for Peace and Security Series: Information and Communication Security) (NATO Security Through Science Series. D: Information and Com)

Complexity and Security (Nato Science for Peace and Series) (Nato Science for Peace and Series)

The Fight Against Terrorism and Crisis Management in the Western Balkans: Volume 32 NATO Science for Peace and Security Series: Human and Societal Dynamics ... Series: Human and Societal Dynamics)

Security Sector Transformation in Southeastern Europe and the Middle East (Nato Science for Peace and Security Series. Human and Societal Dynamics)

Nuclear Security Culture: From National Best Practices to International Standards - Volume 28 NATO Science for Peace and Security Series: Human and Societal Dynamics

Novel Biotechnologies for Biocontrol Agent Enhancement and Management (NATO Security through Science Series NATO Security through Science Series A: Chemistry and Biology)

Harbour Protection Through Data Fusion Technologies (NATO Science for Peace and Security Series C: Environmental Security)

Equidosimetry: Ecological Standardization and Equidosimetry for Radioecology and Environmental Ecology (NATO Security through Science Series NATO Security ... Security Series C: Environmental Security)

Fighting Terrorism in the Liberal State: An Integrated Model of Research, Intelligence (NATO Security Through Science Series. E: Human and Societal)

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