Terrorism Success Depends On Number Of Plotters 

The likelihood of a successful full-scale terrorist attack is directly correlated with the number of operatives involved in the planning, a catastrophe modeler said.

According to the Risk Management Solutions’ U.S. Terrorism Model, the probability of a planned attack being intercepted is twice as high if three terrorists are involved compared to just a single terrorist.

If there are 10 operatives, the probability of interception is as high as 95 percent, according to the model.

As an example, RMS said that in the summer of 2007, two terrorists attempted to detonate a car bomb outside a club in London. Although the bomb failed to detonate, the plot was not interdicted.

RMS said that is has long believed that terrorism risk is cyclical, noting that as terrorist activity increases, authorities respond with security crackdowns until equilibrium is reached.

The attempted Times Square car bombing in New York City in May indicates that individuals inspired by Al Qaeda’s ideology remain a threat and are capable of causing major losses to insurers, RMS said.

“The price of terrorism insurance reflects the infrequency of major successful attacks, primarily because of the authorities’ ability to interdict operations of larger terrorist calls,” said RMS catastrophist Gordon Woo in a statement.

He added that the take-up rate for terrorism insurance is higher today than it was in the first few years after 9/11.

RMS noted that there have been 33 known terrorist threats since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, with an increased number of plots in 2009.

RMS said that Mr. Woo will present new topics and developments on terrorism modeling during RMS’ annual terrorism seminar, “The Changing Face of Terrorism.” The seminar will be held in New York City on July 14.

• • 7/14/2010 1:13:25 PM
  • Bur
  • terrorism success story
  • Are you nuts? Typical academic discussion that is done to show how smart the authors are without thought for the consequences. You just do not know in advance how many plotters there will be - so you really cannot do much to evaluate risk from an underwriting or risk management standpoint. But publishing your hypothesis will inspire the wrong kind of people. Way to go.

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