UMD Tool Predicts Leadership of Terrorist Networks
COLLEGE PARK, Md. – The loss of a terrorist or criminal network's leader—whether through imprisonment, change of allegiance or death—can create a vacuum in which subordinates jockey for position or splinter into factions.
Rather than wait to see how these scenarios play out, U.S. intelligence analysts could soon have a new tool to help predict who might rise to the top of a terrorist or criminal network, and whether the redefined organization has an increased ability to carry out its activities.
A University of Maryland research team developed this analytics tool, known as STONE (Shaping Terrorist Organizational Network Efficacy), “to minimize the impact of these organizations,” says V.S. Subrahmanian, a professor of computer science who is leading the UMD effort.
The UMD team has used open-source data to hypothetically test the software platform on four known terrorist organizations: al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah and Lashkar-e-Taiba, perpetrators of the November 2008 attack on Mumbai, India.
Continue reading “Berto Jongman: UMD Tool Predicts Terrorist Leadership Backfill”
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