Terrorism and the Growing Threat of Weapons of Mass Destruction

Master's Thesis from the year 2012 in the subject Politics - International Politics - Topic: Peace and Conflict Studies, Security, grade: 95, , course: Master's Capstone in Intelligence Studies, language: English, abstract: From 2006 to 2011, al-Shabaab has conducted over 300 attacks and has become Africa's most feared militant group. Because this organization is highly unpredictable, it is crucial to assess the likelihood of al-Shabaab deploying weapons of mass destruction against the U.S. or U.S. interests worldwide. This qualitative case study explores the likelihood of al-Shabaab obtaining or creating weapons of mass destruction and theorizes on which type of WMD it would likely consider deploying. After analyzing the power of chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) materials; al-Shabaab's probability of attainability of these materials; and the complexity of building CBRN weapons, among other factors, it was assessed that al-Shabaab is likely to, and has the resources and support, to deploy chemical weapons of mass destruction.