Terrorist Efficiency

Associated Press via ABCNews: U.N.: Most Terror Attacks Cost Under $50G

The Al-Qaida terror network spent less than $50,000 on each of its major attacks except the Sept. 11 suicide hijackings and one of its hallmarks is using readily available items like cell phones and knives as weapons, a U.N. report says.

[...]

For example, the report said the March attacks in the Spanish capital, Madrid, in which nearly 10 simultaneous bombs exploded on four commuter trains, used mining explosives and cell phones as detonators and cost about $10,000 to carry out. The blasts killed 191 people, Spain's worst terror attack.

Only the sophisticated attacks in the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, using four hijacked aircraft "required significant funding of over six figures," the report said. Nearly 3,000 people died in the attacks, the vast majority in the collapse of the twin towers of New York's World Trade Center.

[...]

The twin nightclub bombings in Bali, Indonesia, in October 2002 killed 202 people and cost less than $50,000. So did the twin truck bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998, which killed 231 people, including 12 Americans, the report said. And the November 2003 attacks in Istanbul, Turkey four suicide truck bombings that killed 62 people cost less than $40,000.

Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Why such efficiency? What is so special about the al Qaeda structure that permits this?

My first impressions are the obvious ones:

• They are acutely aware of their limited resources and their limited ability to earn revenue.
  
• Therefore, they choose to make the best use of them to accomplish their goals.
  
• Killing some people and causing localized damage isn't difficult in today's world when you are actually seeking to cause collateral damage.
  
• Therefore, they don't have to invest as heavily as government militaries do to get what they want done.

Having spent just under half my life living on Army bases, I've had my experience with the military logistical system. My father worked on REFORGER and helped run a few hospitals. I doubt the Department of Defense could ship a squad of regular infantry across the border to Canada before burning through $50,000. Militaries are attachments to governments and governments raise money through taxes. Hardly an efficient business-customer relationship.

Posted by Drizzten at August 27, 2004 09:29 AM