June 24, 1994: Pentagon Report Predicts New Age of Religiously Inspired ‘Superterrorism’

The Pentagon privately publishes a report called Terror 2000. It is designed to help US intelligence prepare for new terrorism threats. Peter Probst in the Pentagon’s Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict supervises the report. The panel consults with 40 experts, including a top Russian intelligence official and a senior Israeli intelligence official. The report concludes that the world is witnessing the dawn of a new age of “superterrorism.” It predicts chemical and biological attacks and says that terrorists will soon try to conduct simultaneous bombings and attacks. [Reeve, 1999, pp. 259-260] Also, in contrast to the state-sponsored terrorism familiar to most Americans at the time, the report says tomorrow’s “most dangerous” terrorists would be “motivated not by political ideology but by fierce ethnic and religious hatreds.… Their goal will not be political control but utter destruction of their chosen enemies.” [Washington Post, 10/2/2001 ] The report further states: “We appear to be entering an era in which few, if any, restraints will remain.… Unlike politically motivated terrorists, [religiously motivated terrorists] do not shrink from mass murder.… Mass casualties are not to be shunned… but sought because they demonstrate to unbelievers the cataclysmic nature of divine retribution.” [United Press International, 5/17/2002] It also postulates the use of planes as weapons, but this is not put in the report, partly for fear of giving potential terrorists ideas (see 1993-1994). The study is presented to officials in Congress, FEMA, the CIA, FBI, NSA, DIA, Justice Department, State Department, and senior executives from the telecommunications, banking and computer industries. State Department officials consider publicly releasing the report but ultimately decide not to. “That was a mistake,” Probst will later say. [Washington Post, 10/2/2001 ; United Press International, 5/17/2002] Marvin Cetron, an expert who wrote the report, will later say, “Some of the people thought it was right on—but most of them thought it was too far out.” [Reeve, 1999, pp. 259-260]