ABSTRACT
TRADITIONALLY, MOST TERRORIST MOVEMENTS HAVE ORGANIZED along the lines of the predominant hierarchical model of other organizations, whether they were of the legitimate kind, such as governments or corporations, or the illegitimate variety, such as crime syndicates. One leader or a group of leaders occupy the top of the organizational pyramid, while lieutenants and rank-and-file members populate the lower levels. The chain of command here is comparable to that in the military in that decisions are made at the top and communicated to and carried out by those below. The Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), for example, has been described as a “hierarchically-organized authoritarian structure ensuring both operational and non-operational efficiency.”1 Similarly, the Lebanese Hezbollah has been known to be governed “on the national and local level by the supreme politicalreligious leadership, composed of a small and select group of Lebanese ulama [community of learned men expressing the true content of Islam].”2 The oldest among the Palestinian militant groups are perfect examples of hierarchical organizations built around forceful leaders-from Yassir Arafat’s Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and Al Fatah to the Abu Nidal Organization, George Habash’s Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and Abu Abbas’s Palestine Liberation Front. The absolute commitment to the causes of their group displayed by the Black Tigers, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam’s (LTTE)’s suicide brigade in Sri Lanka, and of all Tamil Tigers has been related to the strict hierarchical indoctrination and command system under the control of LTTE’s charismatic founder Vellupillai Prabhakaran. Similarly, under the leadership of Abdullah Ocelan, who was arrested in 1999 and put behind bars in Turkey, the Marxist Kurdistan Workers Party was commanded from the top.
