Terrorist Organizations, Terrorist Financing Network Trend Study

Terrorist groups must have adaptive organizational structure and material resources to support terrorist activities and continue to grow and develop. Modern business corporations adopted flatter network structure since the late 20th century. In response to global Anti-Terrorism Campaign and facilitated by information technology, terrorist groups made the same change in their organizations. They have moved to more decentralized network structure from traditional hierarchical structure.Different from traditional centralized and hierarchical groups, networked terrorist organizations have shown themselves to be remarkably flexible and adaptive entities. Since September 11, 2001, the terrorist organizations changed their means of financing. In centralized organizations, a central command provides financial and logistical resources. The distribution of resources such as money is centrally controlled and coordinated. In networked organizations, local terrorist cells are encouraged to be financially self-sufficient and self-reliant. The pattern of terrorist financing has become decentralized and smaller. As outside sponsorship declines and formal financial channels have been strictly monitored, terrorists are more engaged in criminal activities and turn to informal methods of transferring funds.Terrorist financing have already threatened global security. International community has preliminarily established Global Anti-terrorism Mechanism and made some preventive and sanction measures to combating terrorist financing following the September 11 attacks. But the new trends of networked terrorist financing pose particularly difficult challenges for global efforts.It is obvious that mere financial regulatory measures are not enough for coping with these challenges. Dealing with new trends of terrorist financing calls for measures to enhance the leading role of the United Nations and coordinate the multilateral efforts. The international community has to use multiple measures, including combining the Anti-Organized Crime with Anti-Terrorism, bringing underground money services fully into the regulatory system. Only by starving the terrorists with such multi-level collaboration could it be possible to win in the larger war on terrorism.