Cooperative game theoretic centrality analysis of terrorist networks: The cases of Jemaah Islamiyah and Al Qaeda

The identification of key players in a terrorist organization aids in preventing attacks, the efficient allocation of surveillance measures, and the destabilization of the corresponding network. In this paper, we introduce a game theoretic approach to identify key players in terrorist networks. In particular we use the Shapley value as a measure of importance in cooperative games that are specifically designed to reflect the context of the terrorist organization at hand. The advantage of this approach is that both the structure of the terrorist network, which usually reflects a communication and interaction structure, as well as non-network features, i.e., individual based parameters such as financial means or bomb building skills, can be taken into account. The application of our methodology to the analysis results in rankings of the terrorists in the network. We illustrate our methodology through two case studies: Jemaah Islamiyah’s Bali bombing and Al Qaedas 9/11 attack, which lead to new insights in the operational networks responsible for these attacks.