Do Mass Killings Breed Transnational Terrorism?

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Abstract/Contents

Abstract: On September 11th, 2001, the world witnessed the deadliest terrorist attacks in history. At the hands of nineteen terrorists, nearly three-thousand people were killed and over six-thousand more were injured. Only six years earlier, at least two of these hijackers were fighting in the Bosnian genocide alongside other Al Qaeda operatives. But why had Al Qaeda decided to set up operations in Bosnia during the genocide? What were their specific goals? And how did they use post-genocide Bosnia to realize those goals? Utilizing a large-n quantitative analysis on all mass killings and terrorist attacks from 1970 to 2006 in addition to a historical case study on the relationship between the Bosnian genocide of 1992-1995 and Al Qaeda, this thesis attempts to answer the question – do mass killings breed transnational terrorism? – more generally. To do so, terrorist groups that emerge from or claim to represent the victims of mass killings are identified and their attacks are analyzed compared to the attacks of other terrorist groups. In conclusion, this thesis argues that mass killings breed transnational terrorism by prompting the formation of new terrorist groups and by fostering an aggrieved population susceptible to the recruitment mechanisms of preexisting terrorist groups.

Type of resource	text
Date created	May 15, 2019

Author	Lund, Elena
Advisor	Schultz, Kenneth
Degree granting institution	Stanford University, Department of International Relations

Subject	transnational terrorism
Subject	mass killings
Subject	Bosnian genocide
Subject	Al Qaeda
Subject	Stanford Honors Program in International Relations
Genre	Thesis

Location	https://purl.stanford.edu/bq017qx2118

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License: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (CC BY).

Preferred Citation: Lund, Elena. (2019). Do Mass Killings Breed Transnational Terrorism?. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at: https://purl.stanford.edu/bq017qx2118

Stanford University, Program in International Relations, Honors Theses

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