The Ghosts of Alexander have a great post on the The Politicization and Militarization of Aid to Afghanistan. As the ghosts quite rightly point out the process did not begin in 2001. It began much earlier and NGOs are still feeling the impact today.

To quote the ghosts again, “All it takes is for either the US, the Taliban, the locals or the central government to see it as political and becomes so...” Unfortunately that means your organization’s carefully crafted, acceptance based, security strategy disappears along with your perceived neutrality.

Read the whole post to see how your NGO’s choice of friends in the 80’s might be affecting your security today.

Tags: Acceptance, Afghanistan, NGO Security, Analysis

In this video from the Frontline Club reporter Hamida Ghafour and author Ahmed Rashid discuss if the Taliban are set to regain control in Afghanistan or if they are they being slowly marginalised.

Tags: Analysis, Afghanistan

If you need a little cartographic assistance to help you make sense of Afghanistan, Somalia, or world wide opium production, you should check out the Senlis Council’s map page. The maps also make great orientation graphics for senior level decision makers, VIP visitors, and others with short attention spans.

Tags: Afghanistan, Somalia, Analysis, Maps, Pakistan

The Human Security Brief 2007 has been released. It challenges the conventional doom and gloom we've become so used to hearing. Maybe, just maybe, the voices of reason are winning.

You can also listen to a webcast of Andrew Mack's press conference to discuss the report. Sorry but you'll need RealPlayer. Note to UN - why can't you use a non-proprietary format?

Tags: Analysis

The Insurgency Research Group has an excellent analysis of the significance of the Taliban attack on Sunday's Afghan National Day parade. The whole post is worth reading but don't do it yet. Read the following paragraph first and then watch the No Comment TV video.

The incident on Sunday demonstrates a classic propaganda of the deed partnership in which the insurgents with growing skill select a media-significant target and with witless incomprehension international reporters beam the most sensationally damning images of the event around the world so as to deliver the worst possible interpretation. There is no need for a Taliban subtext or even a photo caption, the images speak powerfully for themselves sending messages of a stricken regime put to flight in their gilded uniforms by the daring fighters of the Taliban.

OK. Now go ahead and read the whole post.

Tags: Afghanistan, Analysis, News, video

Google Trends can be a useful tool for context analysis. If you've ever wondered why your security budget is dwindling despite the rise in security incidents or why the head office seems to have forgotten you it can be a pretty useful tool.

For those who haven't seen it before Google Trends compares the relative Google search frequency of up to five user specified terms. For example if you want to compare relative search interest in various hot beverages you might enter "coffee, tea, cocoa" and press search. Google Trends returns a nice neat chart that shows how many searches were made for each term over time. It also shows a "news reference volume" chart, or in other words the frequency with which the term has shown up in the media.

The chart above was generated when I compared relative interest in Darfur, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Congo, with Sweden as a control.
The results were pretty interesting. Searches for Iraq seem to correspond with increases in media coverage. No surprises there. The big surprise for me was Sweden. Google user are more interested in Sweden than they are in Darfur, Afghanistan, and the Congo. Talk about forgotten conflicts!

Flag B is interesting. It marks George Bush's call for more NATO troops in Afghanistan and clearly shows an increase in media coverage of Afghanistan. It even overtook coverage of Iraq for a short while. However, the general public took no notice.

The regions chart is enlightening. Americans are predominantly interested in Iraq and seem to have forgotten about Afghanistan. The Canadians, who have troops in Afghanistan but not Iraq seem equally interested in both countries. And finally, the Swedes seem to be totally obsessed with Sweden.

Not without trepidation replaced Sweden with "beer" in my search terms. I shouldn't have. I now know that your average computer using westerner is more interested in beer than they are in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. "Darfur?... never heard of it... do they have good beer?"

If you are feeling particularly masochistic try breakfast or worse boobs. For a brief while in 2004 your average Google user was more interested in what was happening in Iraq than what they were going to have for breakfast. That aberration hasn't repeated itself since. Its also interesting to note that while American's seem equally fascinated by Iraq and breasts, Canadians have a distinct preference for the later.

Tags: Afghanistan, Darfur, Analysis, Data, Tools, Iraq, Congo

I don't normally cover Iraq. There are more than enough pundits doing so. However, in this case I am going to make an exception for one simple reason: Iraq is a testing ground for a new model of war. The lessons learned in Iraq, by both sides, will be used elsewhere in the world. By the very nature of where NGOs tend to work they will be directly and indirectly impacted by this new, rapidly evolving, mode of conflict.

Suicide attacks seem to be a keystone tactic in this new conflict. Suicide attacks have a disproportionate effect on world political developments because of their targets, their apparent unpredictability and inevitability, and most of all the incredible psychological impact. NGOs can no longer be confident that they will not be the target of such attacks. Even when humanitarian workers are not directly targeted the places they frequent inevitably will be. Restaurants, hotels, night clubs, public gatherings, government buildings, and UN complexes have all been attacked by suicide bombers in recent years. To make matters worse suicide bombings are no longer rare events outside Iraq. They have increased in frequency in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and other countries around the world.

In the two video clips below author Mohammed Hafez discusses the strategy and ideology of suicide bombing. They are well worth watching.






Question: How do INGOs, often viewed as proxies of western governments, protect themselves from suicide bombers?

Tags: video, Terrorism, Analysis, Iraq, International Security

Is the world a more dangerous place to live now than it was ten years ago? How about a hundred years?

According to this first video the answer is yes. In it the University of Hawaii examines the complex issues of armed conflicts, peace-keeping operations and humanitarian relief with the input of former UN and government officials, humanitarian aid workers and PKO experts.



In "A Brief History of Violence" Steven Pinker argues the opposite. His data suggests that we are living in what might very well be the most peaceful time in human history.



So who is right here? Is the world safer? How do our cognitive biases shape our perceptions of the risks we face now versus those faced by our ancestors?

Tags: video, risk, violence, Terrorism, Analysis

I love maps. Good maps can be a security analyst's best friend. A good map can summarize an entire analytical report.

A recent post on sources and methods led me to Aon Corporation's Terrorism Threat Map. Risk levels, regions of special risk, religious extremist groups, political extremism, separatist movements, and kidnap risk are all covered in a simple and easy to grasp format. The legends are chock full of information as well. One even contains a concise explanation of the terrorism risk assessment process.




Aon's 2008 Political and Economic Risk Map is another that deserves a place on your office wall. Not only does it illustrate the usual war, terrorism, and civil disturbance risks but it also highlights exposure to the current global credit crisis. You can get a copy here but unfortunately you'll have to fill in one of those annoying online forms.




Privacy International's map of Surveillance Societies Around the World isn't nearly as professional as the ones above but it is still effective at pointing out that the world's nosiest governments aren't necessarily where you might think. Although I think Privacy International tends to be somewhat alarmist my biggest problem with their latest report is that they still leave large portions of the world uncovered. Surely Africa, the Middle east, and South Asia deserve greater attention?



For extra analytical fun try overlaying the maps. How does surveillance intensity compare to terrorism risk? Kidnap risk?

Tags: Analysis, Maps, kidnapping, Terrorism, risk

"Sources and Methods" has a great post on rank ordering the risks from the 2008 Global Risk Report. I'm not really conversant with all the math but his rank ordered list is pretty interesting. Where do you suppose international terrorism ranks compared to a pandemic? Or how about "failed and failing states" compared to "natural catastrophe: earthquake?"

Tags: Data, Analysis, International Security, risk

The Pak Institute for Peace Studies' Security Report has some interesting data on suicide attacks in Pakistan in 2007. Actually there is all manner of data covering many aspects of the violence plaguing Pakistan but I've only had time to play with the suicide bombing data. Digging deeper into the numbers reveals some interesting facts.



If we examine the number of suicide bomb attacks per month we see a peak in July 2007. This coincides with an active suicide bombing campaign against predominantly military and police targets. However if we compare it to the adjacent chart showing casualties due to suicide bomb attacks we can see another peak in November and the start of one in December. The July, November and December peaks coincide with attacks on Pakistan Peoples Party rallies and/or attacks on the party chair, Benazir Bhutto.


This chart reveals that most of 2007's suicide attacks occurred in the NWFP. The single but very lethal attack in Karachi also stands out.



Attacks probably intended to target the military accounted for 47% of suicide attacks with attacks against the police accounting for another 20%. Assessing the actual target of suicide attacks is difficult since the perpetrators are no longer around to explain their intent so these numbers are approximate. The 'mixed' category in particular may be the result of bombers attempting to attack police or military targets without regard for nearby civilians.

Nine percent of the attacks were assessed to be primarily intended to target civilians while 13% where assessed as being intended to attack government personnel and/or political entities, including VIPs.



In 2007 suicide bombings in Pakistan were almost evenly split between Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Devices (VBIEDs) and Body Borne Improvised Explosive Devices. There were a small number of 'complex attacks' involving either multiple bombers or combinations of suicide bombers and conventional attacks.



It was a comparison of the relative lethality of the variants of suicide attacks that surprised me somewhat. I had expected complex VBIED attacks to produce the highest number of casualties per incident yet we can see that complex BBIED attacks on average produced two and a half times as many casualties. However, on second examination it becomes apparent that suicide bomber on foot are able to get much closer to their targets and are able to merge easily with large crowds. Even a relatively small quantity of explosives will cause many casualties when employed indiscriminately at political rallies and religious festivals. In addition it appears that VBIEDs were employed primarily against harder military and police targets.

I would have liked to compare civilian victims of suicide bombers against total casualties but unfortunately the data fidelity is just not there. However PIPS did have a table showing total civilian casualties as a result of 2007's cumulative attacks and clashes. Once again civilians seem to bear the brunt of the violence as the chart below shows.



So what does all this mean for NGO's and others wanting to increase their personal security? Well there shouldn't be any surprises here. The data supports the tried and true advice:

* Avoid potential targets including military and police personnel and facilities as best you can.
* Don't wear clothing that might be mistaken for a uniform.
* Don't mingle with military or VIP convoys while driving.
* Avoid travelling on routes and at times used by military convoys and/or VIPs.
* Avoid political rallies especially when VIPs are present.
* Avoid large crowds including during religious festivals.

Tags: Analysis, Pakistan, Data

2008 is going to be a very difficult year for humanitarian organizations working in Sri Lanka according to this post in groundviews. I wish I could disagree with the author as the predictions are grim indeed.

"Senior leadership of pro-democracy NGOs will face ever increasing hate speech by those in power and their local and international apparatchiks. Field workers of local and international human rights and humanitarian organizations in particular will suffer the brunt of physical attacks, including outright murder and torture with total impunity. Further, organizations working on media freedom and the freedom of expression will find themselves painted as agents of foreign government’s with no real legitimacy in Sri Lanka. The Administration will become more rabid and parochial in its definition of what is local, authentic, Sinhala and Sri Lankan and essentially kosher in civil society initiatives. Anything and anyone that falls outside these self-styled definitions will be dealt with extreme prejudice."

Unfortunately I think that Sanjana has it right. You might want to make sure your contingency plans are in place and up to date.

Tags: Analysis, NGO Security, Sri Lanka

Visual-literacy.org has a great periodic table of visualization methods. You can find something here to help tackle the most complex of analytical problems.


Periodic Table of Visualization Methods

Thanks Rick!

Tags: Tools, Analysis, Data

Twitter has added the ability to track keywords. Now whenever someone sends a public update containing your word or phrase of interest you’ll receive a copy of the update. How is this useful for NGO security officers? I’m currently tracking several towns in trouble areas, Tsunami, and a variety of other keywords. You’re only limited by your creativity. One word or warning though: you’ll get ALL public updates with the search term, even ones in languages you don’t speak.

I've also finally added the solution to our geographic distribution analysis problem.

Tags: NGO Security, Tools, Twitter, Analysis

As Paul pointed out it would be beneficial to compare our office location (the blue square) with the IED incidents. We’ve also added military installations (the green squares) and the primary military convoy routes (marked in orange dashes) as these are likely targets.



A search for more information reveals the following:

You have two small low-key programs operating in town.
The bulk of programming takes place in other areas of the country but staff travelling to the field offices are forced to take one of the major roads.
The main road to the east is the only viable route to access offices in the east.
Local staff travel back and forth to work by public transport or personal vehicles using all the main roads.
International staff travel to and from work in agency vehicles.
The first military convoys of the day are usually between 0600 and 0900.

Tags: Analysis, Maps

Geographic distribution analysis is a method of examining the occurrence of security incidents or the distribution of entities over a particular geographic area to determine what can be concluded about the incidents or entities. The analysis is usually performed on a map but the final results can also be expressed in a descriptive manner, as in a written report.

To complete a distribution analysis, data on the locations of violent incidents, entities of interest, etc. should be collected and plotted on a map that covers the area in question. Next the map is reviewed to produce a summary and to draw conclusions about what it might mean.

At its simplest geographic distribution analysis might only represent one dataset e.g. a plot of violent incidents on a city map. While this can be useful in itself, as a weekly briefing update perhaps, we can delve much deeper by synthesizing two or more datasets on the same map. We could compare a plot of violent incidents and criminal activities against a plot of proposed office and residence locations. As another example we could compare the locations of narcotic growing areas and smuggling routes with an overlay of violent incidents targeting NGOs.

To illustrate lets look back at our previous problem. As you’ll recall we did a time series analysis of a series of IED attacks. Although we were able to make some basic and tentative conclusions we knew we needed to do further analysis and geographic distribution is a good next step.

After plotting the IED incidents you come up with a map that looks like this.



What are your conclusions now? Would you change or amplify your advice?

Tags: Analysis, Maps

Earlier in Analysis 101: Time Series Analysis I introduced an analytical problem and asked a few questions. You can find some possible answers here. CtJ also has some hypotheses that might serve as a good starting point for further analysis.

Tags: Analysis

Old School

To do basic time series analysis all you really need is graph paper and a pen or pencil. The down side is that this method is very labour intensive and as the dataset becomes larger most of us can’t cope.

Middle of the Road

The next step up is to use something like Excel. There are some useful free or low cost tools that can simplify time series analysis. In a previous post we saw how to use Excel to do some simple analysis. The sample templates we used are located here.

I’ve developed a Cumulative Security Incident workbook that I use to track longer-term trends. It is available on the downloads page. It’ll produce charts like this one.



Vertex 42 has a free Excel template that can help you create simple timelines. While it might seem to be better suited to presenting a final analytical product it can also be used in the analytical process. Back in the days of the First Gulf War I used a timeline similar to this in an effort to gain a better understanding of Saddam Hussain.. Above the line I plotted significant events in Saddam Hussain’s personal life. Below the line I plotted significant historical impacting Iraq. The exercise proved very revealing and shed light on the man behind the myth.



Some people use Gantt Chart software to do time series analysis but I find it awkward and time consuming.

Bleeding edge

If you are going to do a lot of time series analysis or if you need to analyse large quantities of data you should probably consider a product like Analyst’s Notebook by i2. It can handle a time series of several thousand incidents with relative ease. It is also beneficial in many other types of analysis so you’ll probably here me refer to it again. Be warned though, it is expensive.

Tags: Analysis, Software, Tools

A time series analysis is a security analysis technique that is used to examine the occurrence of similar security incidents over time. In this case time refers not only to time of day but also day of the week and the day of the month. Longer-term analysis can also include month and season.

By way of example let us imagine that during the past month there have been twelve Improvised Explosive Device attacks in the district where your organization is working. The attacks have occurred at ten separate locations. Victims have included soldiers, police officers, and civilians alike. The only apparent pattern seems to be that the attacks have all taken place on or near main roads. To make matters worse your country director wants to be briefed in four hours.

To aid your analysis we will make a quick Excel chart with the time of day on one axis and the incidents on the other. For each incident we put an X the the row that represents the time of day that the IED attack occurred. The chart should look something like this one.



Examining the chart we see that most of the incidents have occurred between 0600 and 0900. Of these half occurred between 0800 and 0900. We'll highlight these incidents in blue to remind us that they seem to be part of a grouping. There are also four incidents that don't fit the general pattern. We've marked these in red.

With the information you have now what assessment can be made? What would you advise the country director?

Lets take it one step further and make a new chart that plots the incidents against the day of the week.



At first glance there doesn’t seem to be much of a pattern here but on closer examination you'll notice that all of the ‘red’ events that were highlighted earlier fall on a Friday except for one that occurred early on Saturday morning. The remaining events all occurred on weekdays (Friday and Saturday are considered the weekend where you are working).

What does this new information suggest to you? What can you tell the country director? What recommendations can you make? What additional information do you need to seek out? What additional analysis can you do?

Tags: Analysis

There is a real gap in the availability of good analytical training and resources for NGO security officers. Most NGO security manuals introduce the topic by stressing the importance of good analysis and an understanding of the local context. They might then go on to briefly cover actor mapping, and if we are lucky incident plotting. Beyond that the reader is left to his or her own devices.

Admittedly there have been a number of recent analytical studies that examine the patterns of violence against NGOs. These studies come replete with multiple regression analysis and complex equations like this one; "Sec100k = -1.384 + 1.691*BorderPak + -0.00011*Poppy + 0.036*Homeradio". I’m sure these studies are useful for developing policy and keeping underemployed academics out of the soup lines. However, they are unlikely to provide much solace when the country director wants to know how he can safely keep program running despite the recent spate of IED attacks.

In order to try and address these shortcomings I am opening the conversation on security analysis for NGOs. We’ll start with simple, robust, and inexpensive tools and techniques that can be used anywhere under any conditions. We’ll also examine more advanced tools that take advantage of the latest in ICT.

Anyone who wants to share tips and techniques should feel free to do so. It doesn’t matter to me whether you do your analysis on the back of an empty cigarette package under a sputtering lantern or on the latest networked GIS platform in a brightly light office. The goal is to identify and share best practices and to encourage the development of new tools and techniques.

I'll post the first technique shortly.

Tags: Analysis, NGO Security