|
6. Terrorism
On September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on American
symbols killed at least 3,031 people and caused economic
losses well in excess of $100 billion. Despite a
major war on terrorism and massive expenditure on
homeland security, the threat of Islamic militants and other
extremist groups remains a palpable threat to the U.S.
Prior to 2001, the U.S. had suffered only minor levels
of terrorist activity, compared to other western countries
like Israel, the United Kingdom, and Spain. The
U.S. had experienced the occasional massive attack, like
the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal building in
Oklahoma City by right wing extremists. But most
domestic terrorism incidents were on a relatively smallscale
using primarily small yield bombs, assassinations,
arson attacks, and other acts that resulted in only moderate
losses.
Since September 11, the idea of more large-scale terror
attacks being perpetrated on American cities has
been a major focus of domestic and foreign policy.
Despite the disruption of its Afghanistan base and the
loss of many of its senior membership, Al Qaeda and its
associated Islamic militant groups have succeeded in carrying
out major terror attacks in many other countries,
including Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Indonesia, and Kenya.
The U.S. has been placed on Orange (High) alert on
average every four months. The FBI claims that there
have been more than 30 planned attacks within the U.S.
that have been interdicted since September 11.
6.1 Modeling Terrorism Risk
Assessing the likelihood of a major terrorist attack is
complex and requires an understanding of the motivation,
psychology, and capabilities of organizations that
are highly secretive by nature. The chances of an attack
are affected by the security levels in place, counterterrorism
actions taken by government agencies, and the
quality of protection at potential targets. RMS has developed
a U.S. terrorism risk model that enables the frequencies
and losses of potential terrorist attacks to be
estimated (1). The model is used to analyze the probability
of losses to life, health, and workers compensation insurance
from a terrorist attack in the U.S. This model is
used by many leading insurance and reinsurance companies
to quantify and manage their terrorism risk. The
RAND Corporation, a leading military think tank, was
involved in developing the model for public policy and
strategy applications and performed an independent
peer review of the model.
Estimates can vary considerably around the probabilities
and severities of a terrorist attack in any given year.
RMS has derived estimates of the likelihood of a terrorist
attack in the U.S. from data on historical attack frequencies,
recent unsuccessful attacks, and insight from
some of the world’s foremost experts on Islamic militant
terrorist groups. The current probability of a significant
U.S. terrorist attack over the next year by Al Qaeda or
associated groups is estimated at less than 25%.
________________________________________________________________
(1) Documentation on the RMS® U.S. Terrorism Risk Model is available from RMS. Public domain literature about the model can be obtained at
http://www.rms.com.
|
