How can you tell if enough members of a terrorist cell have been captured or killed so there’s a high probability that the cell can no longer carry out an attack? A mathematical model of terrorist organizations might provide some clues. The question is what sort of mathematical model would work best.
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One way to describe a terrorist organization is in terms of a graph–a web of lines linking nodes. In this model, each node would represent an individual member of a given cell, and a line linking two nodes would indicate direct communication between those two members.