Modeling Terrorist Group Behavior: Hamas & Hezbollah

In my day job at the University of Maryland’s Laboratory for Computational Cultural Dynamics I work with a team of computer scientists and socials scientists to build models of terrorist group behavior. As the in-house TerrorWonk my role is to “interpret” the results and see if they yield any useful insights. I’ve co-authored papers on both Hezbollah and Hamas ( only the abstract is posted online).

The models use a system called SOMA (Stochastic Opponent Modeling Agents) that calculates probabilities of a group acting in a given way in a given situation.

Obviously, we hope that our models can achieve a high level of prediction accuracy. But, regardless they can often reveal facets of an organization’s behavior that were not previously evident. Just as military experts say, “Plans are nothing, planning is everything,” I heard one speaker at a conference say, “All models are wrong, but some are useful.”

Following are short summaries of the findings.

Hezbollah: The Model Holds

On hearing the news that rockets had been fired from Lebanon into Israel yesterday morning, I was surprised as the single clearest rule about Hezbollah behavior was that they do not like to target Israeli civilians during election years – and Lebanon has parliamentary elections coming up in April. Hezbollah even kept their rocket attacks down for 1998’s local elections. It turns out the model held, Hezbollah quickly distanced itself from the rocket launch and did not reply to Israeli counter-fire.

Extrapolating, this trend indicates how highly Hezbollah values its legal and political standing in Lebanon and its recognition that this standing is damaged when it is held responsible for provoking Israeli strikes. This provides a working explanation as to why Hezbollah had not renewed hostilities with Israel in the past few years – Lebanon’s presidential selection crisis, while not exactly an election, had some similar dynamics.

Beyond some utility for predicting (on an annual basis) when Hezbollah might launch rocket strikes, it provides real insight into Hezbollah and even a possible counter-strategy. While Hamas’ rhetoric remains stridently anti-Israel, the group is pressed by its need to satisfy its domestic constituency, the Lebanese Shia, who are a bit tired of being the Muslim world’s spearhead against Israel.

Military efforts against Hezbollah have not been effective, but these findings raise two related questions: how popular is Hezbollah really among its constituents and could political efforts against Hezbollah be successful at marginalizing them. It is worth noting that Hezbollah receives something like $100 million annually from Iran and the Lebanese Shia population is only about 1.5 million people, so these resources would buy a great deal of influence. Other Lebanese Shia groups do not possess comparable resources.

Hamas: Anything but Resistance is Futile

The results of our Hamas model were very different. Strategic decisions to reduce violence were not in evidence. The key driver appeared to be capability. First, the likelihood of suicide bombings (the data set does not include rocket attacks) increased after Hamas came into contact with Hezbollah in 1993, and received training in suicide terror. The other factor, which increased the likelihood of suicide attacks was Hamas’ provision of social services (which would seem counter-intuitive – but as Matt Levitt shows, the social services infrastructure is also a critical part of the terror network.)

Interestingly, when Hamas was participating in the Palestinian democratic process they were also very likely to carry out suicide attacks on Israel. However, the sample size was relatively small and capability seemed like a likelier explanation.

Perhaps the most interesting finding was that certain attacks, such as kidnappings and property attacks on Palestinians, tracked with internal Palestinian conflict. Although it occurred after the data was collected, the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit occurred during the Hamas-Fatah civil war. Another round of Hamas-Fatah fighting is likely in the West Bank, so more of these kinds of actions should be expected.

It could be argued that the 2006 war in Lebanon was a relative success – Hezbollah has kept that border quiet since. The likelihood of a similar modus vivendi with Hamas is Gaza seems less likely based on the model and also based on Hamas rhetoric. In an interview given just days before Hamas began launching rockets the deputy chief of Hamas’ Damascus wing stated:

[Your] question implies that the Tahdiah [truce] is a central issue behind [our] decisions, consultations, and mediation attempts. However, the opposite is true… [for us,] resistance is the main [element] in the relations between the Palestinian people and the Zionist occupation.

Reducing Hamas’ desire to commit violence does not seem possible, it is essential that Israeli strategy reduce their capability. In that regard, cutting the Hamas supply lines of the tunnels between Gaza and Egypt (and attacking the broader smuggling network) is critical.

Hitchen's Flawed Vision of New Gaza

In general I am a big fan of Christopher Hitchens and I envy the elegance, force, and clarity of his arguments. I am always impressed, even when I disagree with him, with his uncompromising stands and vast erudition. Often he provides red meat on issues where my own certainty has wavered. But his recent piece on Gaza is off – way off. While unsparing in his criticism of Hamas, but he seems to think that Palestinian elections were a key factor.

…this month is the one where new elections for the Palestinian Authority have to be called by President Mahmoud Abbas, if not actually held. Before the new year, I talked to one or two knowledgeable Palestinians who argued that, under then-present conditions, Hamas had to hope that such elections would not soon take place. Life in Islamic Gaza was not such as to induce ecstatic happiness and prosperity among the populace… It seems improbable that we'll ever know what would have happened in a free vote, but I think it's safe to say that recent events have further postponed the emergence of a democratic and secular alternative among the Palestinians. I even think it's possible that some people in Israel and some other people in Gaza do not want to see the emergence of such a force, but let me not be cynical.

Hitchens was a friend of the late Edaward Said and also of Rashid Khalidi. (The redoubtable Martin Kramer takes on Hitchens overwrought sympathy for Khalidi’s dispossession.)

Said, Khalidi, etc. have long championed the emergence of a secular, progressive Arab movement. But Khalidi has some limitations as a Middle East analyst. For example (see Kramer’s Ivory Towers on Sand: The Failure of Middle East Studies in America - download it here) he predicted the first Gulf War would be long and bloody (it wasn’t) and, after being wrong on that front he nonetheless boldly predicted that Saddam’s generals would remove him from power to save themselves. Here he demonstrated ignorance of both Iraq’s military and political situation. Despite his experience with the PLO, his take on the worldview of Gaza’s inhabitants seems similarly skewed.

Leaving aside the difficulties of conducting real elections in Gaza (without having to invade to ensure the elections fairness) or the dubious merits of Hamas’ rival Fatah, the idea that the people of Gaza would be secular and progressive is not for real. Gaza is a clan-based society, not dissimilar to the rest of the greater Middle East. The lineage segmentation system that shapes these societies places a premium on personal honor and conflict. Consider this insightful essay (written in April 2000), by a (and possible the) Gaza-based psychiatrist Eyad el-Sirraj (no friend of Israel by any measure) on the role of anger in Palestinian society:

What brings a high-ranking official to beat his superior or even his minister to overrule a decision? Why does a student throw stones at his professors, or at students from another university? How can we explain an assault against a member of the Legislative Council? How can the murder of an oppressed woman be explained? And what about the popularity—[only] sometimes—of the death penalty? And, what is the common denominator between all these and the torture in the [PA] prisons?

….Searching for the reason, I do not ignore the depth of rage that was inflicted on our lives because of the [Israeli] occupation; but I do not want to hang everything on this peg, [a complaint] that is like a broken record in which Zionism, or the great imperialism, or even petty bourgeoisie, are blamed [for everything]. I want to be clear: one of the main reasons is within us, the result of the education in our homes. Aren't you, my dear reader, one of those fathers who are filled with happiness when your beloved two year old child pronounces the expression "... [damn] your father?!" Don't you dance with joy when he proves his virility by beating another child?

….Don't be surprised, my dear, if you see a student beating up his professor, an official beating up his minister, a soldier beating up his parliament member, a teenager beating his mother or killing his sister, or university students fighting with stones and clubs.

We teach our children that it is permitted to express anger with muscle; we even encourage them to do so in the belief that it is part of the meaning of courage and honor. By doing so, we forget the best part of our Arab heritage and Islamic religion, as well as all that is in Christianity: forgiveness, self-control, overcoming feelings of rage, patience, restraint, and using the mind….

Of course, on this front Hitchens has an idée fixe that religion is the root of all evil. But the clan-based social structures have proven tremendously resistant to all forms of modernity (see this article by Stanley Kurtz). Islam is the product of Middle Eastern society, and while Islam may “seal in” the clan values that dominate the region, Islam is not necessarily the origin of these values.

Many analysts, academics, pundits, and policy-makers have bet on a the emergence of a "new" Middle East. While I support this, and remain hopeful, one should carefully consider what the barriers to this reform are and how deeply they are entrenched.

Managing Gaza

Israel’s operation in Gaza is reaching a critical point. While talking heads will debate grand strategy, the options are limited. Behind the headlines is the crucial issue of how Israel’s national security process works (or doesn’t – in light of the weaknesses revealed in the 2006 Lebanon war). The next moves will demonstrate whether or not Israel has successfully incorporated the lessons from the failures of the 2006 Lebanon War. This is crucial to re-establishing Israeli deterrence.

Strategic Limitations

A true peace agreement with Hamas is not realistic. A quick scan of clips from Hamas’ al-Aqsa network or of statements by Hamas leaders from the Middle East Media Research Institute - particularly horrible are these scenes from Hamas produced children’s television - should disabuse all but the most useful idiots of any notions of a moderate Hamas.

Fatah is theoretically an alternative to Hamas, but has been eliminated from Gaza and has little credibility or capability.

Military options also do not offer definite solutions. Re-occupying Gaza would require tens of thousands of Israeli troops and likely lead to hundreds of Israeli and thousands of Palestinian casualties. The Israelis do not want to pay this price. It also might not work. Hamas might be able to maintain an ongoing, costly insurgency against the Israelis, which would be perceived as a victory. (Hamas has taken lessons from Hezbollah’s 2006 war with Israel and has prepared and is hoping for an IDF ground campaign.)

Hamas’ supply lines are the tunnels into Egypt. The tunnels themselves are only the endpoint of a vast smuggling network that extends throughout the Sinai and into the heart of Egypt. Egypt is a poor country, the smuggling opportunities are lucrative, and law enforcement is weak. In Kashmir, criminal networks in an impoverished environment have fostered a self-sustaining insurgency. The same situation could occur Gaza.

Ultimately, there are no solutions in Gaza on the immediate horizon. This is a problem Israel will have to manage.

Applying the Lessons of 2006

The Lebanon war of the summer of 2006 revealed shortcomings up and down the Israeli national security system – from inadequately prepared reserve infantry units up to the prime minister’s office. While Hezbollah and its supporters worldwide celebrated the defeat of the vaunted Israeli soldier, the more substantial problems were farther up the line, particularly at the top.

The political and military leadership never defined its goals. Prime Minister Olmert spoke of destroying Hezbollah, but did not consider what it would require to achieve them. The prime minister and the defense minister had limited security experience and the chief of staff was an air force officer who was overly wedded to the efficacy of airpower. The IDF wielded tremendous influence on decision-makers – shutting out Israel’s national security council and other institutions.

There were other problems up and down the chain of command – such as the impact of policing the Palestinians on IDF war-fighting capability and the effects of nouveau military philosophy on the officer corps. But poor decision-making and a lack of clear objectives, combined with Hezbollah’s knack for tactical surprise, created a situation in which Israel appeared to not know what it was doing. This contributed heavily to the image of an Israeli defeat.

In the fighting in Gaza, it is essential that – at the very top – the Israelis establish that they know what they are doing. There are many signs that lessons from Lebanon have been applied. The Gaza operations have been more systematically planned than the Lebanon war, including extensive war-gaming and an effective disinformation effort accompanied by massive intelligence gathering.

This still raises the question of whether or not Israel knows what it is doing. Reportedly, Ehud Barak, the former Chief of Staff and Prime Minister, called Prime Minister Ehud Olmert hours after the Lebanon war began and warned: "It's very important to define how and when you'll end [the war], because the more time goes by, the greater the potential for complications."

Barak is now the Defense Minister and his key statement is that he wishes “to totally change the rules of the game.” That his publicly stated goal is vague does not mean that goals are not established. It likely refers to establishing a framework in which Hamas knows that as rocket fire increases, Israelis will counter with overwhelming force. There will still be some rockets, but they will be a relative few. This would re-establish Israel’s deterrence.

A key part of re-establishing deterrence is showing that Israel can manage its security affairs and not get pulled into disadvantageous situations. This management will be put to the test if, as appears likely, Israel engages in ground operations in Gaza. This ability to manage the national security process (an interest of mine) is essential, as Gaza will not be the last crisis that Israel is forced to manage.

Geopolitics of Gaza

In the coverage of the breach of the Gaza border, the focus has been on the increased threat to Israel. While there is little question that terrorists will acquire new capabilities and use them against Israel, their gaze may turn to a nearby but softer target.

In his memoirs Knights under the Prophet’s Banner: Meditations on the Jihadist Movement, al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri observed:

The problem of finding a secure base for jihad activity in Egypt used to occupy me a lot, in view of the [activity against us] by the security forces and because of Egypt’s flat terrain, which made government control easy, for the River Nile runs in its narrow valley between two deserts that have no vegetation or water. Such a terrain made guerilla warfare in Egypt impossible…

Because of the difficulties in overthrowing the Egyptian government, Zawahiri and many other Egyptian Islamists moved to Afghanistan where they coalesced around Osama bin Laden and his nascent al-Qaeda movement, and helped turn al-Qaeda’s focus to the backer of the corrupt Arab regimes – the United States.

Now, in Gaza, the enemies of the Egyptian regime finally have the secure base they have long sought. There are reports of Palestinian terror cells affiliating with al-Qaeda as well as international “volunteers” filtering in. However, al-Qaeda is not the gravest Gaza-based threat to Egypt. Hamas itself has proven to be a formidable organization. The destruction of the Gaza barrier was a formidable technical achievement that required months of careful preparation. But the political preparation was also carefully managed. Hamas successfully advanced its story of deprivation at the hands of an Israeli blockade (in fact, Israel consistently allowed necessities through and only cut off fuel in response to a barrage of rocket attacks). But Hamas also provoked a border incident with the Egyptian border police earlier in the week. In the incident they used a tactic that they had often used against Israel, fomenting a riot and then shooting from among the mob. The Israelis developed counter-measures (particularly snipers), but as this video shows the Egyptians did not.



These images, broadcast live on al-Jazeera, helped inspire large-scale demonstrations orchestrated by the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, which has close relations with the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza (which is better known as Hamas.)

Although the Egyptian government insists it will restore order on the border, the fact that another section of the wall has been destroyed since, makes this unlikely. Egypt was outmaneuvered by Hamas and does not have the stomach for a real crackdown if it also means confronting its domestic Islamist opposition. Mubarak is paying the price for his long double game of Islamists at home and abroad.

Hamas however is also a key component of the Hezbollah-Iran-Syria-Hamas axis (helpfully dubbed HISH by Barry Rubin). Iran and Hezbollah link with Hamas are deep and extensive. They have trained together; their leaderships are in regular contact and Hezbollah personnel have operated in Gaza for several years. In addition, Iran has established a network of hospitals in the West Bank.

Certainly the terrorist threat to Israel will increase. Imported rockets can reach Ashkelon, an important Israeli port and industrial center. While Gaza has been a poor base for suicide bombs against Israel, Israeli security is now worried about suicide attacks from Gaza entering Israel via the Sinai. However, as serious as these threats are, they can be contained.

However, a new base of operations against Egypt could have vast geopolitical implications. Egypt has a fragile economy, frustrated populace with a large Islamist movement, and an aging leadership. There have already been terror attacks in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula with Gaza links. Even if the regime is not overthrown, HISH will acquire substantial leverage over Egypt, and further the penetration of radical Islam into the largest Arab state, while acquiring a staging ground into the Maghreb, sub-Saharan Africa, and beyond.

Aaron Mannes in the Jewish Week on HLF Trial

The New York Jewish Week ran an article that included my thoughts on the Holy Land Foundation mistrial.

As it happens, years ago I debated Ed Abingdon (a key witness for the defendants) at a pair of events in Las Vegas and Reno on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. After his diplomatic service he was a consultant to the Palestinian Authority. He was always cordial and very smooth. No doubt the jury found him impressive.

No Convictions in Hamas Terror Case
Trial linking U.S. Arabs to terrorists ends with acquittals and mistrial.

by Jonathan Mark
Associate Editor

The Bush administration is losing “the war on terror,” at least in the courtroom.
For the third time in less than two years, the Justice Department couldn’t convince a jury on even one of 197 charges attempting to link radical American Moslems to Hamas, resulting in acquittals and a mistrial last week for leaders of a Texas-based charity that has been openly sympathetic to the Gaza-based terrorists.

The government was attempting to prove that the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development—at one time the largest Islamic charity in the United States — had been funneling $12 million to Hamas-controlled Palestinian agencies. The defense claimed Holy Land was simply supporting humanitarian causes in the face of Israeli “oppression.”

On Monday, in a Dallas court, Holy Land’s former chair, Mohammed El-Mezain was acquitted on 31 counts and the jury stalemated, resulting in a mistrial, on one count – the key charge of whether El-Mezain provided material support to a foreign terrorist organization. After deliberating for 19 days, the divided jury couldn’t reach a verdict for the Holy Land’s former chief executive Shukri Abu Baker, former chair Ghassan Elashi, operatives Abdulrahman Odeh, Mufid Abdulqader and the Holy Land Foundation as its own entity.

The government plans to retry the case.
Mark Briskman, the Dallas-based regional director of the Anti-Defamation League said, “I think the jury was overwhelmed” by the complexity of the government’s case. “I’ve looked at virtually all the evidence” — wiretaps, money transfers, documents — “and at times I was nearly overwhelmed, it was difficult to sort out, and I’ve been following [Holy Land] for ten or twelve years; imagine a jury made up of people who are totally unfamiliar [with Palestinian and international financial, political and military networks].”

Daniel Pipes, of the Middle East Peace Forum, said, “It seems to me that asking jurors to decide on 197 counts — complex counts — may be just too much. At a certain point you can be overwhelming the jury,” a complaint echoed by numerous other observers of this trial and the other recent anti-terror cases that failed to convict.

Adding to the haze in the Holy Land case, said terrorist expert Steven Emerson, was the fact that “some of the documentary evidence was in foreign languages.” He also noted the success by defendants, in this and other trials, to convince American juries that the Palestinian terrorist war against Israel is one of “liberation,” simply a “dispute between only Israelis and Palestinians, rather than seeing it as part of the radical Islamic fundamentalist war against the west.”

Aaron Mannes, a terrorism expert at the University of Maryland, told The Jewish Week that, by and large, juries seem to be more receptive “when the United States itself is directly targeted,” such as cases relating to the two World Trade Center attacks; with juries more reluctant to decipher the ambiguities of the financial trail of a West Bank infirmary or Gaza social center that might also be a terrorist front.

Robert Chesney, a professor at Wake Forest University law school, whose specialty is national security law regarding the threat posed by terrorism, told The Jewish Week that the case did not indicate anything faulty with the basic statute prohibiting financial support for terrorist groups. Rather, the government presented “a mountain of evidence of some kind, but having a huge amount of evidence isn’t always the issue if it doesn’t directly tie into these specific defendants, which I assume was the jury’s sense, from the way the jury was having trouble.”

This mistrial was the third consecutive high-profile terrorist case in which juries seemed to have that same problem. In 2005, after a six-month trial, Florida college professor Sami Al-Arian, Islamic Jihad’s top man in America, pleaded guilty to a lesser terrorist charge, with acquittal or mistrial on the major terrorism charges. He is now being jailed for refusing to testify before a Virginia grand jury investigating Islamic charities, similar to Holy Land. In a second case, in Chicago this February, the government failed to convict two alleged Hamas activists on terrorist charges, convicting them only on obstruction of justice.

Chesney pointed out that the Justice Department is having some success with non-Palestinian cases that are lower profile: “The same day [of the Holy Land verdict] they got a guilty plea from someone accused of supplying material support for a Columbian terrorist organization.”

Ironically, the Holy Land defendants’ best witness for rebutting the government came from the government: Edward Abingdon, U.S. consul general to Jerusalem from 1993 to 1999. Abingdon testified that Holy Land monies did indeed go to humanitarian relief.

The prime witness for the prosecution was an Israeli agent, only identified as “Avi” who testified that many of the Holy Land beneficiaries were Palestinian schools and institutions controlled by Hamas.

But Abingdon told the jury that he found Israeli agents to be unreliable, they had an “agenda” to provide “selective information to try to influence U.S. thinking.” He questioned the legitimacy of evidence linking Holy Land to Hamas that was seized by Israel in West Bank raids in 2002.

Holy Land was founded in California in the 1980s, moved to the Dallas area in 1992, and FBI surveillance began in 1993, when a wiretap revealed the group was supporting Hamas attempts to derail the Oslo accords. It became illegal to financially support Hamas in 1997. Holy Land was shut down by the government in the wake of 9-11.

Although the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land case, has frequently charged that American Muslims are targets of suspicion and even hatred, what is clear from the three recent federal cases is that juries are not automatically siding with the government.