ections between al-Qaida and terrorist groups
throughout Southeast Asia further highlight this reality. The terrorist
threat today is both resilient and diffuse because of this mutually
reinforcing, dynamic network structure.

_Figure 2_ is representative of how terrorists and terrorist
organizations operate on three levels. At the first level are those
terrorist organizations that operate primarily within a single country.
Their reach is limited, but in this global environment their actions
can have international consequences. Such state-level groups may expand
geographically if their ambitions and capabilities are allowed to grow
unchecked.

At the next level are terrorist organizations that operate regionally.
These regional operations transcend at least one international boundary.

Terrorist organizations with global reach comprise the third category.
Their operations span several regions and their ambitions can be
transnational and even global.

[Illustration: _Figure 2_: Transnational Terrorist Networks]

These three types of organizations are linked together in two ways.
First, they can cooperate directly by sharing intelligence, personnel,
expertise, resources, and safe havens. Second, they can support each
other in less direct ways, such as by promoting the same ideological
agenda and reinforcing each other's efforts to cultivate a favorable
international image for their "cause." By capitalizing on the very
technological advances that we use within our country, terrorist
organizations learn and share information garnered from our web sites,
exploit vulnerabilities within our critical infrastructure, and
communicate across the same internet paths we use each day. The
interconnected nature of terrorist organizations necessitates that we
pursue them across the geographic spectrum to ensure that all linkages
between the strong and the weak organizations are broken, leaving each
of them isolated, exposed, and vulnerable to defeat.

+Availability of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)+

Weapons of mass destruction pose a direct and serious threat to the
United States and the entire international community. The probability
of a terrorist organization using a chemical, biological, radiological,
or nuclear weapon, or high-yield explosives, has increased
significantly during the past decade. The availability of critical
technologies, the willingness of some scientists and others to
cooperate with terrorists, an