Issue Brief No. 8 Violent Non-state Actors: Emerging threat to economic infrastructure

A decade ago, terrorists let the world know that economy matters to them. The choice of the World Trade Center (WTC) as a target of the 9/11 attacks was no co-incidence but a carefully crafted decision by the highest ranking echelons of Al Qaeda (AQ). Boastful of the successfully executed operation, Osama Bin Laden declared that while AQ spent only $500,000 on the event, the US lost at least $500 billion, “meaning that every dollar of Al Qaeda defeated a million dollars [of America].” AQ is joined by a range of violent non-state actors (VNSAs) who have put economic targets on their “hit list“.

To read the whole report see the PDF on the right.