ABSTRACT
The traditional method of categorizing terrorist groups and operatives has been to classify them by their philosophy or region of operations. This is an excellent method for academics, but for anyone involved in detecting, responding to, or analyzing terrorism, there is a more exact method: classifying terrorist groups by their relative level of experience and skillfulness in terrorist activities. The reason that terrorist skills levels matter, now more than ever, is their ability to project these skills past the combined resources of the world’s intelligence
and homeland defense agencies. The officer on the street, the soldier on patrol, and the intelligence analyst need to know not just who they are dealing with, but how skillful these people are. Some groups are going to be naturally more adept than others in certain fields, but there is a very clear hierarchy of skills.
