Purpose

The purpose of this site is to publish the results of a social network analysis project focusing on the reasoning behind the top known terrorist leaders joining their terrorist organizations. This project is an exploratory approach to gain a better understanding of social network analysis, while analyzing the central nodes within a terrorist network based on enlistment reasonings.

Key Findings

Based on a social network analysis of terrorist enlistment reasons, Abderraouf Ben Habib Jdey and Faker Ben Abdelaziz Boussora, both of al-Qaeda, share their enlistment reasons of religious influence and their strength within the network. They are the most powerful terrorists within the social network based on my analysis of the network's centrality measures. Both Abderraouf Ben Habib Jdey and Faker Ben Abdelaziz Boussora had the highest degree and closeness centrality measures, and a medium range of betweenness measures, characterizing them as the most powerful nodes within the social network. While Michael McLaughlin and Roy Paul Willey from the Budweiser Brigage of the IRA and Ralph P. Bock from the New Order have the lowest centrality measures, meaning that they are likely the least powerful members of the principle component of this social network. Michael McLaughlin and Ralph P. Bock joined their terrorist organization as a result of a recruiter, while Roy Paul Willey joined his terrorist organization as a result of religious influence. These three terrorists are the least powerful members of the network because they have the lowest degree and closeness centrality measures and a betweenness centrality measure of zero. However, these findings are based on the network actually being connected through a relationship, instead of an attribute. Social network analysis is a great analytical tool, however this method does not work well with an analysis of attributes. I recommend using this tool to analyze actual relationships between networks, instead of the attributes that make up a group’s members.

This is a visual representation of the central component of the social network. The individual nodes are color coded by their specific terrorist organization and their reason for enlisting with their terrorist organization is represented by the shape of the node.

Detailed Analysis Using Centrality Measures - Degree vs. Closeness

In order to identify the most powerful nodes within the network, I ran the centrality measures, degree, betweenness, closeness and eigenvector. Then graphed the results in excel and looked for any outliers.

The first graph that I created was a scatterplot of the degree centrality measures verses the closeness centrality measures. There is a general upward trend throughout the graph comparing degree and closeness. Abderraouf Ben Habib Jdey and Faker Ben Abdelaziz Boussora both of al-Qaeda have the highest degree and closeness centrality measures, meaning that they have the largest number of connections in the network and they are also the closest to the center of the network. While Carlos Mauricio Garcia Fernandez, from Self-Defense Groups of Cordoba and Uraba (ACCU), has the lowest degree measure within the network and a relatively low closeness measure, meaning that he has the lowest number of connections in the network and is positioned relatively far away from the center of the principle component of the network.

Three members of the network share the lowest closeness measures and relatively low degree measures. These members are Michael McLaughlin and Roy Paul Willey from the Budweiser Brigage of the IRA and Ralph P. Bock from the New Order. They are the farthest members from the center of the principle component of the network and they have relatively few connections to the other nodes in the network.

I then graphed the degree centrality measures separately in a bar graph format to identify and confirm the hierarchy of degree within the network. This graph also shows that Abderraouf Ben Habib Jdey and Faker Ben Abdelaziz Boussora both of al-Qaeda have the highest degree centrality measure, meaning that they have the largest number of connections within the network. While Carlos Mauricio Garcia Fernandez of the Self-Defense Groups of Cordoba and Uraba (ACCU) has the lowest degree centrality measure, meaning that he has the lowest number of connections within the principle component of the network.

The closeness centrality measures were also graphed separately to identify who has the closest proximity to the center of the network and who is located on the outside of the network. Again, reaffirming that Abderraouf Ben Habib Jdey and Faker Ben Abdelaziz Boussora both of al-Qaeda have the highest closeness centrality measure, meaning that they are the closest to the center of the network. While Michael McLaughlin and Roy Paul Willey from the Budweiser Brigage of the IRA and Ralph P. Bock from the New Order has the lowest closeness centrality measure, meaning that they are located at the farthest proximity from the center of the principle component of the network.

Detailed Analysis Using Centrality Measures - Degree vs. Betweenness

The second scatterplot compared the degree centrality measure verses the betweenness centrality measure. This graph, comparing degree and betweenness, shows little consistency, but there are some interesting conclusions to be made. Sheikh Ahmed Yassin of Hamas has the highest betweenness centrality measure in the network and a relatively high degree measure, meaning that he has the most power over the flow of communication in the network, as well as a relatively high number of connections to other nodes in the network. While twenty six members of the network have a betweenness measure of zero, meaning that they have no power over the flow of communication within the social network.