BY CUNEYT ULSEVER
HURRIYET- Columnist Cuneyt Ulsever comments on the concept of transnational terrorism. A summary of his column is as follows:
Here’s what the world requires now:
Efficient production in order to maintain global competitiveness, (b) Local sensitivity in order to be flexible to local demands, Organizational learning able to assimilate constant innovations.
Such developments require a new model of organization, that is, transnational companies. They are dispersed but dependent on each other. Other structures which have been able to keep in step with the differing needs of different countries contribute to these companies’ globally-integrated main structures. In addition, these companies produce information cooperatively which is then shared worldwide.
Since the Sept. 11 attacks, we have seen that terrorist groups are the best at practicing this model. Now the era of national terror (PKK), international terror (ASALA) and even multinational terror (the Red Brigades, Baader Mainhof) has come to an end, ushering in the age of transnational terror. This structure uses global technology and flexibility in line with different national settings, and they produce information and share it worldwide. Each country has its own terrorist organization in this new structure, exemplified by al Qaeda, but orders are given from a single center, and their members are trained in centers where information is produced in cooperation. We saw this in last weekend’s bomb attacks on two synagogues in Istanbul. The perpetrators were Turkish, but they had been trained at a center, they used common world technology, and the main center made the decisions. The information is produced globally, but used appropriate to the general target. Currently this common structure acts together in the Afghan mountains, Chechnya, the Middle East, the US and Turkey. As long as a transnational fight against transnational terror is lacking, there will be no end to the terrorist threat.