During the last ten years an increasing number of government and media reports, scholarly books and journal articles, and other publications have focused our attention on the expanded range of interactions between international organized crime and terrorist networks. A majority of these interactions have been in the form of temporary organizational alliances (or customer-supplier relationships) surrounding a specific type of transaction or resource exchange, like document fraud or smuggling humans, drugs or weapons across a particular border. The environment in which terrorists and criminals operate is also a central theme of this literature.
These research trends suggest the salience of this book which addresses how organized criminal and terrorist networks collaborate, share knowledge and learn from each other in ways that expand their operational capabilities. The book contains broad conceptual pieces, historical analyses, and case studies that highlight different facets of the intersection between crime and terrorism. These chapters collectively help us to identify and appreciate a variety of dynamics at the individual, organizational, and contextual levels. These dynamics, in turn, inform a deeper understanding of the security threat posted by terrorists and criminal networks and how to respond more effectively.
This book was published as a special issue of Terrorism and Political Violence.
1. Criminals and Terrorists: An Introduction James J.F. Forest, University of Massachusetts Lowell and Joint Special Operations University
2. Osama bin Corleone? Vito the Jackal? Framing Threat Convergence through an Examination of Transnational Organized Crime and International Terrorism John T. Picarelli, National Institutes of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice
3. When Politicians Sell Drugs: Examining Why Middle East Ethnopolitical Organizations are Involved in the Drug Trade Victor Asal, State University of New York Albany, Kathleen Deloughery, State University of New York Albany and Brian J. Phillips, University of Pittsburgh
4. The Opium Trade and Patterns of Terrorism in the Provinces of Afghanistan: An Empirical Analysis James Piazza, Pennsylvania State University
5. Surreptitious Lifelines: A Comparative Analysis of the FARC and the PKK Vera Eccarius-Kelly, Siena College
6. The Terrorism Debate Over Mexican Drug Trafficking Violence Phil Williams, University of Pittsburgh
7. Terrorists Next Door? A Comparison of Mexican Drug Cartels and Middle Eastern Terrorist Organizations Shawn Teresa Flanigan, San Diego State University
8. Terrorist and Non-Terrorist Criminal Attacks by Radical Environmental and Animal Rights Groups in the United States, 1970-2007 Jennifer Varriale Carson, University of Central Missouri, Gary LaFree, University of Maryland and Laura Dugan, University of Maryland
9. Fluctuations Between Crime and Terror: The Case of Abu Sayyaf’s Kidnapping Activities McKenzie O’Brien, University of Pittsburgh
10. Exploring the Intersections of Technology, Crime and Terror Thomas J. Holt, Michigan State University
Biography
James J. F. Forest is associate professor at the University of Massachusetts Lowell and senior fellow at Joint Special Operations University. He is the former director of terrorism studies at the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, and has published dozens of books, articles and commentary about terrorism and counterterrorism.
