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Islamist militants frequently lack a talent for tradecraft. In recent attacks in Britain and Spain, terrorists made numerous mistakes: receiving traffic citations while traveling in 'enemy' territory, acting suspiciously when questioned by the police, and traveling together during missions. Militants' preference toward suicide operations restricts their ability to acquire practical experience, particularly when they lose their lives during attacks. And their unyielding devotion to their cause blinds them to opportunities to improve their operations. This is good news for counterterrorism officials. Terrorists' poor tradecraft provides alert law enforcers with critical leads they can use to identify their attackers, unravel their plots, and-sometimes-disrupt their operations before they cause additional harm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the Madrid and London train-bombings, perceptions of the sources of Islamic terrorism changed. The British response to domestic jihadism was to apply community-policing principles to counter-terrorism enforcement. This essay describes the origins and intentions of the community-based policing of terrorism and partnership programmes with Muslim faith organisations. Collaboration with Muslim partners has helped to build confidence within government agencies that Muslim leaders are keen to curb terrorism, but has failed to build trust among the general Muslim public. The application of community-policing principles is, it is argued, an effort to bridge steep trade-offs between effective prevention and the social and political integration of Britain's Muslims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent bombings in London and Madrid raise the specter of episodic terror attacks in the United States that fall short of the "mushroom cloud" scenarios discussed in the aftermath of 9/11 and the run-up to the Iraq war. Despite the smaller scale of these attacks, they have the potential to generate widespread fear and anger. This article builds on new work in behavioral law and economics to show how these emotional responses can generate systematic biases that motivate and direct counterterrorism policy. These biases should be cause for concern, not least when they lead us to adopt policies that are more burdensome on others instead of those that are most effective at preventing further attacks. Not surprisingly, policies which impose burdens on others—and therefore appear less costly-tend to interfere with civil liberties, particularly those of noncitizens. Recent psychological studies offer an unprecedented opportunity to recognize and understand these biases, and to take action to correct them. One process-oriented corrective that I propose here is to conduct systematic human rights impact assessments during the formulation of counterterrorism law and policy. These assessments should lead to measures more protective of both liberty and security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]