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After recent arrests in Birmingham of people allegedly involved in terrorism, Dr. Dave Sloggett looks at the process by which individuals prepare to commit acts of terrorism.

Snakes and Ladders: Radicalisation as a journey of diverging pathways, opportunities and time delays
Author: Dr. Dave Sloggett

As the 2012 Olympics and Jubilee celebrations approach, the recent spate of arrests by the West Midlands Counter Terrorism Unit of people in connection with Operation Pitsford provides a timely reminder of the enduring threat of terrorism. Reports emanating from Pakistan and Afghanistan further illustrate the threat – in the Waziristan region of Pakistan, two British-citizens have apparently been killed in a drone strike, while three men from Birmingham were captured recently in Afghanistan. It seems that despite the British government’s lowering of the threat level to substantial from severe in July this year, the threat of an act of terrorism persists.

One way of looking at radicalisation is to think of it as a process that can be likened to the game of snakes and ladders. The ladders are points where people become increasingly committed to their cause. The snakes are moral hazards in the way. These need to be overcome to ensure the person involved can carry out an act of murder. For the vast majority of those either involved or on the periphery, the journey from 0 to 100 on the snakes and ladders board is not done in a single step. Neither is it a journey that is often completed quickly. Time delays punctuate the journey.

As far as the United Kingdom’s CONTEST strategy is concerned, efforts to prevent people from becoming involved in terrorism can be thought of as creating snakes on the board. Of the estimated 2,000 people that security sources suggest are currently on the road to committing an act of terrorism, 200 are believed to be in the final stages of planning an attack.

The recent interventions in Birmingham support informal statements that are alleged to have emerged from British security services. Documents profiling would-be suicide bombers that were discovered in Tripoli after the fall of the Gaddafi regime provide an additional corroboration of the overall picture of British-bred terrorism. In the United Kingdom and in other parts of Western Europe, suicide bombers appear come from a broad spectrum of Muslim communities, and cannot be readily stereotyped.

Whilst those in security services seek to interrupt the journeys that a small minority in the Muslim community have embarked upon in the United Kingdom – 2,000 people represents 0.1 percent of an estimated two million Muslims in the UK – this small percent still poses a significant challenge. Although the United Kingdom has not experienced a terrorist attack since the Haymarket and Glasgow Airport events, the numbers of people that security services estimate are involved in terrorist groups remain at a consistent level. It would seem that as people are taken off the snakes and ladders board, others join. This poses a particular challenge for security services, who must detect and monitor those who decide to leave, in addition to monitoring a reservoir of potential recruits who might begin participating. Identifying those who make individual journeys, often referred to as lone wolves, present perhaps the greatest challenge.

The journeys of those who involve themselves in terrorism often start somewhat hesitantly; for instance, by logging into chat rooms and observing the conversations and opinions of participants. For some individuals, the first ladder in the journey involves simply listening to the arguments, which give definition to some of their own feelings and beliefs. The second ladder, which may occur a little while later, is when these individuals decide to post material in the chat room – offering an opinion that perhaps agrees with points others are making. This is a huge point of vulnerability. Those in the chat rooms who are there to shape the trajectories of those participating may sense this opportunity and use language that encourages further participation. In doing so, they need to find ways of keeping people involved – to create ladders to help them become more immersed and less able to be discouraged.

Whilst some ladders emerge from developing a strong line of reasoning, others appear as events that occur around the world. Images in the media can play a significant role in shaping the journeys through the snakes and ladders board. Played out through the prism of the media, one major event can be a tipping point in the journey of radicalisation. This is the point when some will embark upon a trip overseas. After this step, the remainder of the journey is clear. It is just a question of planning when to commit the act that will make them martyrs. For many, this represents a glorious outcome – a single defining moment in their lives.

The case of Roshonara Choudhry provides a good example. Her journey through the snakes and ladders board was motivated entirely by her own actions, coupled with the encouragement and reinforcement that she gained from visiting a number of web sites. In effect, she created her own ladders as she sought justification for the attack that she would eventually make against the Member of Parliament Stephen Timms.

Choudhry’s journey lasted approximately a year, during which she went from a student at Kings College in London to a drop-out who isolated herself from society. By visiting a range of web sites that offered material that encouraged her radicalisation, she shaped her own trajectory though the snakes and ladders board – avoiding the obvious pitfalls (or snakes) that might have given her pause to think about the course of action on which she had embarked. Other high profile cases are similar in nature. Take, for instance, the Nigerian man who tried to blow himself up on a plane over Detroit in the United States on Christmas in 2009. His journey was similarly undertaken over a period of time and comprised several ‘distinct’ stages or ladders.

In the case of Nicky Reilly, however, the journey was mediated by external actors who used chat room conversations to shape his opinion – not unlike the process by which paedophiles encourage young people to meet them. The people that groomed Nicky Reilly helped him discover the ladders that moved him through the game. Again, this took time. The people doing the grooming tend to be prepared to take time to persuade someone to get ready to die.

External events can also create ladders, as images broadcast by the media can have a timely impact upon people whose journeys might otherwise be uncertain. Some of these individuals take breaks from the game, choosing to halt on a particular square, fearful of the implications if they continue. Others have slightly faster journeys.

The nature of these journeys into radicalisation seems to be able to be divided into a number of broad pathways. In the case of Siddique Khan and the other bombers who attacked London in 2005, a form of group behaviour developed. Khan and his closest ally Shahzad Tanweer were the pace-setters in the group. They journeyed to Pakistan to learn bomb making and to prepare their martyrdom videos. By making these journeys, they moved through the snakes and ladders board to a point from which they could then reach down to two other colleagues, expediting their journey through radicalisation.

Khan and Tanweer created the ladders that allowed Lindsay and Hussein to avoid pitfalls that might have stopped them from becoming more radicalised. Khan’s journey into radicalisation took a little longer than a year – he spent a lot of time in the lower part of the board as his sense of grievance developed. Once he decided to visit Pakistan, however, his fate was sealed.

If the snakes and ladders metaphor has a weakness, it is that on the traditional board, the numbers of snakes that can be encountered on the final stages of the journey are high. This does not take into account cognitive dissonance, a psychological phenomenon that helps shape individuals’ journeys into radicalisation. Cognitive dissonance is the inability to listen to counter-arguments, no matter how rational, when we have made up our minds. Cognitive dissonance often plays a key role in shaping the final part of the trajectory into radicalisation. In society, we need a higher density of snakes at the start of the journey – when opinions are still able to be moulded and people will listen to counter-arguments.

The use of a relatively simply and internationally well-known board game to describe what many believe to be a complex sociological and psychological phenomenon helps people in the law enforcement sector and wider emergency services grasp the essentials of what otherwise may appear to be an impossibly complicated problem.

The time delays associated with the parts of the journeys, the number of ladders it takes for a specific individual to become radicalised, their appearance and their height are all things that can be modelled using mathematical constructs. Instead of seeing each journey as a unique set of circumstances, the model provides a way of aggregating behaviour and of looking at potential interventions in a more structured way. Given the apparent enduring nature of terrorism in all its forms, this may be a helpful way of thinking about the problem.

Since the demise of Osama Bin Laden at the hands of United States Special Forces, it is possible that some people would have felt compelled to avenge his death. The time delay between his death and the Birmingham arrests may provide a causal link in the radicalisation of those apprehended. Had security forces not intervened, his death may have created a ladder that would have resulted in an atrocity being committed in the United Kingdom. That security services managed to avert disaster in this case is a tribute to their diligence. But in the complex world of counter-terrorism, there remains a well-known axiom: they only have to fail once.

Dr. Dave Sloggett is currently undertaking his second Ph.D. at the University of Reading’s Centre for the Mathematics of Human Behaviour, where he is building a mathematical model of radicalisation. He is a regular contributor to a wide range of publications in the field of defence and security. Dr. Sloggett is also involved in a range of training programmes to help governments develop emergency services for dealing with terrorism.