Modeling of terrorist activity in RSO-A

Basaeva Elena Kazbekovna ORCID: 0000-0002-9198-7319 PhD in Physics and Mathematics Leading Researcher, Southern Mathematical Institute — Branch of the Federal State Budgetary Institution of Science of the Federal Scientific Center "Vladikavkaz Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences"; Head of the Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, K.L. Khetagurov North Ossetian State University 362027, Russia, respublika Severnaya osetiya-Alaniya, g. Vladikavkaz, ul. Markusa, 22, YuMI VNTs RAN helen@smath.ru Other publications by this author     Kamenetsky Evgeny Samoilovich ORCID: 0000-0002-7105-3578 Doctor of Physics and Mathematics Chief Researcher, Southern Mathematical Institute — Branch of the Federal State Budgetary Institution of Science of the Federal Scientific Center "Vladikavkaz Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences" 362027, Russia, respublika Severnaya osetiya-Alaniya, g. Vladikavkaz, ul. Markusa, 22, YuMI VNTs RAN esk@smath.ru Other publications by this author     Khosayeva Zarina Khetagovna Researcher, Federal State Budgetary Institution of Science Federal Scientific Center "Vladikavkaz Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences" 362027, Russia, g. Vladikavkaz, ul. Markusa, 22, VNTs RAN hzaiac83@mail.ru Other publications by this author

Baranov Oleg Aleksandrovich Assistant to the Head of the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania, Administration of the Head of the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania and the Government of the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania 362028, Russia, respublika Severnaya osnetiya-Alaniya, g. Vladikavkaz, ploshchad' Svobody, 1 oleglarin69@yandex.ru

Introduction

The Republic of North Ossetia-Alania is located in the Greater Caucasus region, which is characterized by a complex geopolitical situation. The Greater Caucasus is characterized by significant ethno-confessional diversity, which contributes to socio-political instability in the region. In this regard, military clashes and terrorist acts often occur in the region. Therefore, although RSO-A belongs to relatively stable subjects of the North Caucasus Federal District, the task of forecasting terrorist threats on its territory is relevant. To solve this problem, we will construct a mathematical model of involvement in terrorist groups.

According to ^[9], "the overall effectiveness of an extremist and terrorist movement, like any organized force, largely depends on the effectiveness of the involvement of new members." At the same time ^[11], "the problem of terrorist recruiting, as a subject of separate, independent research, has not been reflected in analytics until today." It also notes the ignoring of this issue in the academic literature.

It can be assumed that involvement in terrorist activities is mainly related to the problems that arise during the socialization of a person in society ^[3]. "When socialization turns out to be incomplete or unsuccessful, there is resistance, rejection, resistance, nonconformism in relation to culture. A person begins to look for alternatives. And he finds them in criminal anti-cultures, in anti-cultural social movements, in religious sects, in alternative social utopias, etc. ^[12]. Ola Temitope ^[14] notes that, for the most part, people who are not satisfied with any significant aspects of their lives are prone to terrorism and violence.

Among those who share extremist views, are members of extremist organizations and participate in extremist actions, there is a dominance of young people, since people tend to adapt to the social environment with age ^{[5, 14]}. Note also ^[13] that the main motivation of terrorists is often associated with their passion, expressed in fanatical support of their movement. According to law enforcement agencies, the bulk of the terrorists are local residents ^[7].

It is very significant for understanding the process under study that "psychological studies conducted since the 20s of the XX century have shown complete similarity of recruitment technologies used by terrorist organizations with methods of involvement in destructive sects" ^[9].

As a rule, there are radical groups in any region that do not formally violate the law, but are ready to defend their important interests by illegal means. Recruitment to terrorist and extremist groups and radical groups occurs, as a rule, from the same social environment and potential participants have a similar worldview. Since joining radical groups is easier than joining terrorist groups, a change in the number of members of radical communities is a harbinger for assessing the change in the number of terrorists and extremists.

In the conditions of the North Caucasus, terrorism is associated with extremist currents of the Muslim religion and it can be expected that the involvement of people in terrorist groups will significantly correlate with the involvement in the number of professing radical Islam. The ideas of radical Islam are often spread by persons who have received religious education abroad, where they, as a rule, have been influenced by radical Islamic schools ^{[6, p. 50, 59; 8, p. 48; 10, p. 58]}.

We should also note that one of the causes of terrorism, according to K. Sterling, is: "the desire to attract attention to oneself" ^[4], which leads to terrorism of passionaries dissatisfied with the current state of affairs.

Description of the model

We assume that the number of professing radical Islam (S) is proportional to the number of young men (M), the number of those who returned after religious education outside the Russian Federation (R) and the proportion of passionate people:

   (1)                                                                  S = k_m ? k_p ? M ? R ? k,                                                           

where k _m= 0.04 is the proportion of Muslims ^[1], k _p= 0.1 is the proportion of passionate people ^[2], k is the coefficient of people's involvement in non—traditional Islam.

The statistical data given in Table 1 are used as the initial data for the construction of such a forecast.

Table 1. Indicators for RSO-A

According to the data presented in Table 1 for RSO-A, the coefficient of involvement k was calculated for the period from 2013 to 2019 (see Table 2).

Table 2. Calculated values of the coefficient of involvement k

Assuming that terrorist activity in the region depends on the value of the coefficient k of involvement in non-traditional Islam, i.e. a significant increase in the coefficient k indicates an increase in the terrorist threat. A sharp increase in the k coefficient may be associated with a change in the nature of involvement, i.e. involvement is carried out not only by specially trained preachers, but also by active adherents of non-traditional Islam.

It is reasonable to assume that there is a relationship between the involvement coefficient k and the total number of criminal cases initiated under articles of terrorist (T) and extremist (E) orientation. The available data for the period from 2013 to 2019 show that the total number of criminal cases initiated T + E depends on the involvement coefficient k with a lag of two years. Figure 1 shows the dependence of T + E on k _t-2, on the basis of which it can be assumed that this functional dependence is exponential, i.e.

(2)                                                           T_t  + E_t = a ? exp(b ? k_t-2).                                   

Parameters a and b are estimated using the least squares method based on data for the period 2013-2019. We get

                                          T_t + E_t = 0.0075 ? exp(1.9558 ? k_t-2),       R² = 0.64.                                   

Figure 1. The dependence of the total number of criminal cases initiated under articles of terrorist and extremist orientation (T + E) on the coefficient of involvement in terrorist activity k with a lag of two years.

The forecasts calculated using the above formula for the total number of criminal cases initiated under articles of terrorist and extremist orientation give a value of 41 for 2020 and 42 for 2021 (see Figure 2).

Figure 2. Actual and forecast values of the total number of criminal cases initiated under articles of terrorist and extremist orientation (T + E).

It should be noted that the projected values of the number of criminal cases for 2020-2021 are more than in 2018. and especially in 2019, but less than in 2016 and especially 2017.  Note that the forecasts for 2020-2021 are close to the average value of the indicator for the period 2015-2019.

The real value of the number of criminal cases under articles of terrorist and extremist orientation in 2020 turned out to be 8, which is significantly less than the predicted value. But, at the same time, it should be borne in mind that restrictive measures were introduced in 2020 aimed at combating the spread of a new coronavirus infection. In addition, at the beginning of 2020, two unauthorized rallies were held in RSO-A, for participation in which 29 people were brought to criminal responsibility under articles related to violation of public order. All this could change the number of people involved in extremist activities in 2020. Therefore, comparing the forecast of the number of criminal cases under articles of terrorist and extremist activity with the actual number of such criminal cases this year is not correct enough.

In the initial version of the model (1), it was assumed that involvement in radical Islam was proportional to the tension of society, which was estimated by the normalized number of murders. Calculations have shown that in this case there is no correlation between the number of criminal cases under articles of terrorist and extremist orientation (T + E) and the coefficient of involvement in non-traditional Islam k.

It should be noted that there is a high correlation (0.89) between the number of criminal cases initiated under articles of terrorist and extremist orientation (T + E) and the number of criminal cases initiated for crimes related to illegal trafficking in weapons, ammunition and explosives (Table 1, line 6). Thus, formula (2) can also be used to predict the number of crimes related to illegal trafficking in weapons, ammunition and explosives, but the coefficients a and b in this case will be different.

Conclusions

A method of short-term forecasting of terrorist and extremist activity is proposed based on the assumption that the harbinger of a change in such activity is a change in the intensity of involvement of young people in radical groups. For the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania, the coefficient of involvement in the number of adherents of radical Islam is considered as a harbinger. The model allowed us to satisfactorily assess the change in terrorist extremist activity in the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania for the period 2015-2019. The forecast for 2020 turned out to be significantly overestimated, which can be explained by events related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The developed model can be used for other subjects of the Russian Federation in which radical Islam or other radical groups are widespread. At the same time, it is possible to adjust the model in accordance with the characteristics of the subject.