Suleyman Hancerli and Ozgur Nikbay, who are members of the Turkish National Police (TNP) and Turkish Institute for Police Studies (TIPS), have developed two new projects titled “Understanding and Responding to Terrorism Motivated Hostage and Kidnap Situations” and “Understanding and Responding to Suicide Attacks” and have submitted the proposals to NATO Headquarters in November, 2005. NATO has granted their two proposals and combined them under the Advanced Research Workshop (ARW) under the title “Terrorist Operations.” In addition to NATO, this combined ARW was sponsored by the TNP, the University of North Texas, the Center on Terrorism at John Jay College, the Rutgers School of Criminal Justice, Michigan State University, Roger Williams University, the TIPS, and the Transnational Crime and Corruption Center at American University.

In addition to the ARW of the Terrorist Operations directed by Suleyman Hancerli and Ozgur Nikbay, NATO Headquarters funded two additional projects (1) “ARW of the Policing Responses to Terrorist Operations” directed by fellow TNP members Bilal Sevinc, Huseyin Durmaz, Ahmet S. Yayla, and Siddik Ekici, and (2) “ARW of the Sociological Approach to Terrorism” directed by TNP members Suleyman Ozeren and Ismail D. Gunes. The three projects together culminated in the convening the “Conference of Understanding and Responding to Terrorism: A Multi-dimensional Approach”, which was held at the Capital Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C., on September 08–09, 2006. This conference was the product of the remarkable efforts of the entire community of TIPS. This conference could not be accomplished without the TIPS members' outstanding amount of hard work. The executive directors of the conference created a website for the participants to visit and learn more about the conference. This website can be visited at http://tipsonline.org/nato/.

These three ARWs brought together well-known key speakers and participants from top universities, research study centers, and law enforcement agencies to understand the threat of terrorism, to promote cooperation between governments and agencies, and to look at practical ways to thwart and respond to terrorism within a multi-dimensional perspective. The number of the participants in this program was over 350. Approximately 200 key speakers out of the 350 participants made their presentations in the sessions throughout the program. The participants came to the conference from 17 different countries including but not limited to the USA, Turkey, Russia, Italy, France Azerbaijan, Kyrgyz Republic, Singapore, Georgia, Macedonia, Jordan, and Ukraine. The participants debated their ideas, thoughts, information, and knowledge about how to deal with the terrorism phenomenon and how to respond to the threat of terrorism in the 43 sessions throughout the program. All the representatives of the countries, law enforcement professionals, faculty members, public and civilian organizations had a chance to explore workable actions in combating terrorism, to respond to terrorism and advance the cooperation level against it. Given the strong scholarly record on terrorism by the participants, the executive directors of the ARWs invited the participants to submit their papers for publication by IOS Press.

The papers were collected and edited by Suleyman Hancerli and Ozgur Nikbay, the editors of this book. In fact, there are four parts and 34 chapters in this book. The first part (Understanding Terrorism) has six chapters; the second part (Suicide Attacks, Radical terrorism and Case Studies) has seven chapters; while the third part (Strategies and Tactics for Dealing with Terrorist Hostage Sieges, Hijackings and Kidnappings) has ten chapters; and the fourth part of the book (Counter-Terrorism Policies: Lessons for the Future) has eleven chapters. The editors selected as the title for the book Understanding and Responding to the Terrorism Phenomenon: A Multi-Dimensional Perspective. This title encapsulates the various themes of the 34 chapters of this book which highlight how to understand the terrorism phenomenon and analyze how to respond to terrorist operations and how to promote counter-terrorism policies on the part of the governments and law enforcement professionals.

March 2007

Suleyman Hancerli, Texas, US

Ozgur Nikbay, Virginia, US