Terrorist Safe Havens: Towards an Understanding of What They Accomplish for Terrorist Organizations

Abstract

How do safe havens help facilitate a militant terrorist organization's activities and operations? This study expects to find that safe havens do matter, that they provide safety, training, rest, etc. The researcher presumes that without safe havens, many of the operations that these organizations conduct would be more difficult, if not next to impossible. This is contrary to the idea that a physical haven is unnecessary. At the nexus of this line of thought is that in a globalized environment, access to the internet or other technologies that negate the need for physical presence, could be utilized from any location worldwide, serving as a safe house to conduct their operations. The hypothesis of this research is that the presence of safe havens will continue to be a factor, as their existence and significance persist, facilitating dissidents' ability to conduct operations, and continues to be a salient policy issue for states in their continued efforts to eradicate their presence. The foundation for the theoretical analysis of safe havens is based upon Lichbach's solution groups of the Rebel's Dilemma.