Abstract

Spatial and Temporal Tracking of Insurgency Activities with a GIS
Track: Defense and Intelligence
Author(s): Manoj Jha, Bheem Kattel

Insurgency in the post 9/11 era poses a new threat to the United States' armed forces engaged in combat missions in hostile territories. While insurgency is not a new phenomena, in the post 9/11 era with a rapidly changing geo-political environment its characteristics are fundamentally different than previous insurgencies. An examination of recent insurgencies in Iraq reveals that insurgents constantly change tactics in carrying out their missions, to be successful and maximize damage. In this paper, we develop a GIS model to map the spatial and temporal locations of recent insurgencies in Iraq so that a decision-maker can obtain a historical perspective of insurgent activities. The model can assist in appropriately allocating resources and contingencies as part of counter-insurgency activities. Future works will include adding a 3-dimensional modeling capability and interfacing the GIS with agent-based models for improved decision-making.

Manoj Jha
Morgan State University
Department of Civil Engineering
1700 East Cold Spring Lane
Baltimore , Maryland 21251
United States
Phone: 443-885-1446
E-mail: mkjha@eng.morgan.edu

Bheem Kattel
Morgan State University
Department of Industrial Engineering
1700 East Cold Spring Lane
Baltimore , Maryland 21251
United States
Phone: 443-885-4241
E-mail: bkattel@eng.morgan.edu