The IACSP’s Counter-Terrorism Journal V19N3

Do We Need Two Armies?

Keep On Sale Until November 24th, 2013

Fighting Dirty:

Deception, And Other Unconventional Tactics In Operation Enduring Freedom Iran’s Secret War The A-Team: Hezbollah In Latin America Terrorists Threats Against India And Its Counterterrorism Response The Need For Real-Time Database Technology IACSP Conference Issue

Fall Issue Vol. 19, No. 3, 2013 Printed in the U.S.A. IACSP.COM

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Journal of Counterterrorism & Homeland Security International

Vol.19, No.3

Vol. 19, No. 3 FALL 2013 IACSP Director of Operations Steven J. Fustero Associate Publisher Phil Friedman

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Senior Editor Nancy Perry

Boston Legal:

Contributing Editors Paul Davis Thomas B. Hunter Joshua Sinai

Post 9/11 Legal Precedents Set The Stage For Tsarnaev Prosecution

Book Review Editor Jack Plaxe

by Joseph J. Kolb

Research Director Gerry Keenan Conference Director John Dew Communications Director Craig O. Thompson

Page 34

Art Director Scott Dube, MAD4ART International

Fighting Dirty

Psychological CT Advisors Cherie Castellano, MA, CSW, LPC

In Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF)

Counterintelligence Advisor Stanley I. White

by Dr. Thomas B. Hunter

South America Advisor Edward J. Maggio Homeland Security Advisor Col. David Gavigan

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SITREP

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Membership Perspective: It Is What It Is: MAJ Hidal Hasan’s Alleged Actions At Fort Hood, by Robert Brzenche

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How Real-Time Database Technology Changes The Data Analytics Game, by David Gewirtz

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The A-Team: Hezbollah In Latin America, by Luke Bencie, David Rosen, & Elizabeth Gomez

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The Terrorist Threats Against India, by Dr. Joshua Sinai

Page 26

The IACSP’s Annual Terrorism Trends & Forecasts Symposium

Page 30

Iran’s Secret War, by Leo Labaj, Nicholas Gyongyosi, & Joseph Kamali

Page 34

Fighting Dirty In Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), by Dr. Thomas B. Hunter

Page 38

Spy Artifacts From The Secret History Of Espionage, by Paul Davis

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Boston Legal: Post 9/11 Legal Precedents Set The Stage For Tsarnaev Prosecution, by Joseph J. Kolb

Page 46

Two Armies, by Bob O’Brien, Jim Weiss, & Mickey Davis

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Secure Driver: What Happened To Driver Training? By Sean McLaine

Page 54

Emergency Management Advisor Clark L. Staten Tactical Advisor Robert Taubert Hazmat Advisor Bob Jaffin Security Driver Advisor Anthony Ricci, ADSI Cyberwarfare Advisor David Gewirtz Cell Phone Forensics Advisor Dr. Eamon P. Doherty IACSP Advisory Board John M. Peterson III John Dew Thomas Patire Cherie Castellano, MA, CSW, LPC Robert E. Thorn Southeast Asia Correspondent Dr. Thomas A. Marks

Preparing For The Inevitable: New Mexico Univ. Prepares First Responders For Bombing Incidents, by Joseph J. Kolb

Page 58

How AMU Is Incorporating Gamification Into Its Intelligence Studies Program, by Leischen Stelter

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An IACSP Q&A With Philip Mudd, by Paul Davis

Page 64

Book Review: Takedown: Inside The Hunt For Al Qaeda. Review by Dr. Joshua Sinai

THE JOURNAL OF COUNTERTERRORISM & HOMELAND SECURITY INT’L is published by SecureWorldnet, Ltd., PO Box 100688, Arlington, VA 22210, USA, (ISSN#1552-5155) in cooperation with the International Association for Counterterrorism & Security Professionals and Counterterrorism & Security Education and Research Foundation. Copyright © 2013. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written permission from the publisher.

The opinions expressed herein are the responsibility of the authors and are not necessarily those of the editors or publisher.

Editorial correspondence should be addressed to: The Journal of Counterterrorism & Homeland Security International, PO Box 100688, Arlington, VA 22210, USA, (571) 216-8205, FAX: (202) 315-3459 . Membership $65/year, add $10 for overseas memberships. Postmaster: send address changes to: The Journal of Counterterrorism & Homeland Security International, PO Box 100688, Arlington, VA 22210, USA. Web site: www.iacsp.com

Personal Security Advisor Thomas J. Patire

PHOTO CREDITS: Reuters, Army.mil, Navy.mil, istockphoto. com, shutterstock.com and authors where applicable.

Journal of Counterterrorism & Homeland Security International

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European Correspondent Elisabeth Peruci Middle East Correspondent Ali Koknar National Sales Representative Phil Friedman, Advertising Director Tel: 201-224-0588, Fax: 202-315-3459 iacsp@aol.com Tactical Sales Representative Scott Dube, MAD4ART International Tel: 757-721-2774, scott@mad4art.com

SITREP

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orld Trends & Forecasts

The Syrian conflict continued to morph into a full-blown regional sectarian struggle. President Bashar Assad’s forces recently recaptured the town of Qusayr near the Lebanese border with the backing of Hezbollah fighters, whose open support for the regime is mobilizing Sunnis across the region.

The Syrian conflict continued to morph into a fullblown regional sectarian struggle. President Bashar Assad’s forces recently recaptured the town of Qusayr near the Lebanese border with the backing of Hezbollah fighters, whose open support for the regime is mobilizing Sunnis across the region.

Sectarian clashes are becoming more frequent and intense in Lebanon as it is drawn further into its neighbor’s conflict In Egypt tensions between supporters and opponents of President Morsi continued to intensify, aggravated by the deterioration in socio-

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economic conditions, increasingly frequent power cuts and fuel shortages. As of now the army is charged with plotting Egypt’s political future.

In Libya the government remains unable to establish its authority over large swathes of the country.

As dropping oil prices continued to undermine stability, competition between armed groups over the right to secure Libya’s lucrative oil export terminals left ten dead and scores wounded in Tripoli.

In Somalia, the arrest of senior AlShabaab leader Sheikh Dahir Aweys, despite a reported agreement from the Somali government that it would be willing to begin talks with Aweys, threatens to divide the capital Mogadishu between rival groups of the Hawiye clan,

particularly between Aweys’s Habr Gedir and President Hassan Sheik Mohamud’s Abgal clans. Skirmishes continue despite commitments from Madobe and President Hassan to end the fighting.

Opposition protests continued in Kyrgyzstan, challenging the authority of the central government and exposing its political, security and administrative fragility. A series of skirmishes on the Uzbek and Tajik borders between ethnic Kyrgyz and Tajiks further underscored the government’s tenuous grip on authority. There are concerns that violence in the area could trigger wider ethnic unrest.

Third Quarter 2013 Trends Deteriorating Situations • Egypt, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Libya, Nagorno-

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Karabakh (Azerbaijan), Somalia, Syria Improving Situations • None Unchanged Situations • Afghanistan, Algeria, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Bosnia, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, China (internal), China/Japan, Colombia, Côte d’Ivoire, Cyprus, DR Congo, Ecuador, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, India (non-Kashmir), Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Israel/Palestine, Jordan, Kashmir, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kosovo, Kuwait, Madagascar, Mali, Mexico, Moldova, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nepal, Niger, Nigeria, North Caucasus (Russia), North Korea, Pakistan, Philippines, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Somaliland, South Sudan, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, Venezuela, Western Sahara, Yemen, Zimbabwe Future Conflict Risk Alert • Egypt, Somalia Source: http://www.crisisgroup.org

New Fingerprint Tests Researchers in the United Kingdom and France have developed a new and extremely sensitive method for visualizing fingerprints left on metal surfaces such as guns, knives, and bullet casings. The technique utilizes color-changing fluorescent films and the team says that it can be used to complement existing forensic processes. An Institute of Physics (IOP) release reports that the chance that two people will have identical fingerprints is about 64 billion to 1, which is why law-enforcement agencies rely on fingerprint evidence.

Despite advances in detection since the nineteenth century, only about 10 percent of crimescene fingerprint images are of sufficient quality to lead to the unambiguous identification of an individual that is good enough to satisfy a court.

Instead of focusing on the residue itself, Robert Hillman and colleagues at the University of Leicester, the Institut LaueLangevin (ILL), and ISIS at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory have decided to work with the bare surface between the ridges of a fingerprint. “Think of the deposits on the surface to be like little ‘hills’, we’ve decided to go for the bare metal at the bottom of the ‘valleys’,” explains Hillman.

The full article is available at: http://ihls.com/2013/07/using-fingerprintsmore-efficiently/

Military Consumer Protection Day 2013 The FBI has joined other government agencies, advocacy organizations, and private sector groups to celebrate the first annual Military Consumer Protection Day, kicking off a year-round campaign to empower military and veteran communities with information as the first line of defense against consumer fraud.

This broad coalition is sharing tips and information about managing money, dealing with credit and debt, building savings, protecting

personal information, recognizing identity theft, and avoiding fraud.

Although all consumers can benefit from these tips, the unique challenges of military life—frequent relocation, separation from family and friends, and the stresses of deployment—can make military households an attractive target for scam artists. In fact, during 2012 the Federal Trade Commission logged more than 62,000 complaints from service members, veterans, and spouses about their experiences in the marketplace.

Visit military.ncpw.gov for free resources, tip sheets, and blog posts from national consumer protection experts. And visit our Be Crime Smart page for the FBI’s information and expertise on how to protect yourself from becoming a victim of the crimes and frauds we investigate.

TSA Launches Application Program For TSA Pre™ The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) announced that it will add a new process allowing more U.S. citizens to enroll in TSA Pre™ , an expedited screening program that allows pre-approved airline travelers to leave on their shoes, light outerwear and belt, keep their laptop in its case and their 3-1-1 compliant liquids/gels bag in a carry-on in select screening lanes.

Previously, to be eligible for TSA Pre™, travelers had to opt-in through an airline’s frequent flier program, or be enrolled in one of CBP’s Global Entry, SENTRI or NEXUS Trusted Traveler programs. To date, more than 12 million travelers have already experienced TSA Pre™ at 40 airports nationwide, and today’s announcement will expand the availability of this program to a larger portion of traveling U.S. citizens.

Starting later this year, U.S. citizens will be able to apply online and visit an enrollment site to provide identification and fingerprints. TSA will start the program at two initial enrollment sites — Washington Dulles International Airport and

Indianapolis International Airport — with plans to expand to additional enrollment sites nationwide.

TSA’s workforce comprises approximately 50,000 frontline officers who screen approximately 1.8 million travelers each day at more than 450 airports nationwide.

For more information about TSA, please visit our website at www.tsa.gov.

Consequently, more technological prevention is essential to throw a secure blanket around port operations to prevent a catastrophic and economically damaging cyber attack.

To view the report, go to: http:// www.brookings.edu/research/ papers/2013/07/03-cyber-ports-security-kramek Source: HSToday.US

Country Reports On Terrorism Is Available This report provides the Department of State’s annual, statutorily mandated assessment of trends and events in international terrorism that transpired in 2012, including country-by-country breakdowns of foreign government counterterrorism cooperation, and profiles of designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations. It comes out late second quarter each year. Since this report did not get much publicity this year, in the eyes of the IACSP, we are letting our readers know that it has been released.

To see the report, go to: http://www. state.gov/j/ct/index.htm

US Ports Ripe For Cyber Attacks, Report Says Cyber security measures and heightened awareness are lacking at selected US ports, and no facility is prepared for a cyber attack, a recent Brookings Institution study found.

The study, The Critical Infrastructure Gap: US Port Facilities and Cyber Vulnerabilities, emphasized that “port facilities rely as much upon networked computer and control systems as they do upon stevedores to ensure the flow of maritime commerce that the economy, homeland and national security depend upon. Unfortunately, this technological dependence has not been accompanied by clear cybersecurity standards or authorities, leaving public, private and military facilities unprotected.”

IACSP Reminder: Homeland Security Begins With Hometown Security If you see something suspicious taking place then report that behavior or activity to local law enforcement or in the case of emergency call 9-1-1. Factors such as race, ethnicity, national origin, or religious affiliation alone are not suspicious. For that reason, the public should report only suspicious behavior and situations (e.g., an unattended backpack in a public place or someone trying to break into a restricted area) rather than beliefs, thoughts, ideas, expressions, associations, or speech unrelated to terrorism or other criminal activity. Only reports that document behavior reasonably indicative of criminal activity related to terrorism will be shared with federal partners.

DHS is working to expand “If You See Something, Say Something ™” throughout the country by partnering with a variety of entities including: transportation systems, universities, states, cities, sports leagues and local law enforcement. If you’re interested in getting your group involved please contact 202-282-8010.

IACSP Member Perspective

It Is What It Is: MAJ Nidal Hasan’s Alleged Actions At Fort Hood

The killing of soldiers at Fort Hood is labeled “workplace violence.” The trouble is, this classification just doesn’t make sense.

By Robert Brzenchek Teena Nemelka (L) hugs a picture of her son Pfc. Aaron Nemelka, 19, of West Jordan, Utah, and touches his boots during a memorial honoring the 13 victims of a mass shooting at Fort Hood at the U.S. Army’s III Corps headquarters at Fort Hood, Texas November 10, 2009. REUTERS/ Rodolfo Gonzalez/Pool

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efore an unfortunate series of unthinkable incidents like Sandy Hook and the Boston Marathon, there was Fort Hood in November 2009. MAJ Nidal Hasan allegedly opened fire on his brothers in arms at the Fort Hood, Texas Army base. Thirteen lives were taken and an additional 32 were injured in this senseless act of “workplace violence.” Here’s what doesn’t make sense. These lives were taken and people were injured because they were going to serve their country in Afghanistan where they would pose an immediate danger to the Taliban according to Hasan. The rubber does not meet the road on the classification of “workplace violence”. As evidenced by the alleged shooter’s recent admission that his motive was to gun down his countrymen to defend the Taliban. This proves that the assault was a terrorist attack and not, as the government has implied, “workplace violence”.

It is what it is, right?

What is workplace violence? Workplace violence, according to the Department of Labor, is any act or threat of physical violence, harassment, intimidation, or other threatening disruptive behavior that occurs at the work site. It ranges from threats and verbal abuse to physical assaults and even homicide. It can affect and involve employees, clients, customers and visitors.

Homicide is currently the fourth-leading cause of fatal occupational injuries in the United States. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI), of the 4,547 fatal workplace injuries that occurred in the United States in 2010, 506 were workplace homicides. The criterion has definitely been met for workplace violence. Right? Add in motive, not workplace violence.

The confusion over how to characterize the Fort Hood attack stems in part from a much larger problem: The highest levels -- lack a clear understanding of what constitutes “terrorism.” For some, this is understandable. After all, experts guide them. But for the government, whose job requires an intimate knowledge of the legal definition of terrorism, the oversight is troubling.

The statutory definition of terrorism in Title 22 of the U.S. Code as: “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents.” According to the definition – those who should make such determinations – are compelled to quantify the questions below as occurring before classifying it as an act of terrorism: 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Was there violence during the incident?

Was the target a noncombatant?

Was the actor (s) subnational or non-state actor?

Was the actor (s) politically motivated?

Was the incident premeditated?

While there is evidence from Fort Hood to support the criteria above, to date, the government has not considered it or the concrete evidence Hasan had communicated with high-profile Al Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki prior.

With Hasan’s admission, and despite evidence in the end, the government might get the classification it wants: the Fort Hood attack is workplace violence. Our forefathers created laws, and in this matter and others the law should be the ultimate determinant. We have become a society where we focus on nonsense for one reason or another so we can make sure all angles to make it appear one way than it actually is rather than looking at the hard facts and following the letter of the law. It is what it is.

“By his own admission, Hasan was a jihadist who killed innocent Americans to defend the Taliban.” – which equals Terrorism.

As a former Navy Intelligence Specialist and as an American my thoughts are with my brothers in arms and their families that were affected at Fort Hood. The government should have your six and receive combat-related benefits, decorations, and recognition. To keep this classification of “workplace violence” would be a crime at the cost of good people to ensure an alleged gunman receives a fair trial. Where is the justice?

Source: Department of Labor, http://www.osha.gov/ SLTC/workplaceviolence/

Nidal Hasan, charged with killing 13 people and wounding 31 in a November 2009 shooting spree at Fort Hood, Texas, is pictured in an undated Bell County Sheriff’s Office photograph. A military judge ruled not to delay Hasan’s August 20 trial, and also banned Hasan from court until he shaves his beard. REUTERS/Bell County Sheriff’s Office/Handout

How Real-Time Database Technology Changes The Data Analytics Game By David Gewirtz Â

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McLaren P1 goes very, very fast, is extremely expensive, and barely has enough storage space for a laptop bag.

A Dodge Challenger R/T, with its hot Hemi engine, goes very fast indeed, is actually pretty affordable, and has a surprising amount of trunk space.

A moving van is pretty darn slow and hauls an amazing amount of goods.

The analogy breaks down a little when you start comparing the cost of the moving van to the other vehicles, but what we’re looking at here is really storage capacity vs. speed. All of that brings me to the subject of tiered storage in data centers.

I know this sounds like an incredibly geeky topic, but don’t let it put you to sleep.

The differences in storage technologies and speeds mean that investigative problems that were impossible to solve with computer help a few years ago are now far more practical and cost-effective.

We’re going to learn about that in this article.

Computer servers utilize different storage technologies and like the car and moving

van analogy, some storage technologies store a tremendous amount, but sacrifice s p e e d t o c a p a c i t y. O t h e r storage technologies store a relatively small amount, but they’re lightning fast.

For example, the typical hard disk you and I used to have in our desktop PCs is pretty much middle of the road.

It’s relatively cheap technology, but stores a whole lot of information. You can store 18 terabytes of data (about 9 times the Library of Congress’ book collection if you count text only) for under a thousand bucks. Hard drives are made up of physically spinning platters and the data retrieval speed is determined by just how fast those platters can spin.

Those of you who bought a MacBook Air or an Ultrabook recently have started using SSD (solid-state device) storage technology. This is flash memory-based technology that doesn’t rely on spinning platters and has no moving parts. It’s about four times more expensive per amount stored, but it’s also about 10 times faster.

An even faster storage technology is called “in-memory” database technology. To use the car analogy again, most storage is hung off the computer through some sort of cable, as if you were pulling it along in a trailer. You can imagine that McLaren weighed down by a U-Haul.

Not pretty.

In-memory-storage is storage implemented in the same RAM that runs the computer programs themselves. It’s right on the processor’s internal data architecture, so it functions at the speed of the processor, not at the speed of the connection. Think of it as if you placed a small overnight bag on the passenger seat of the McLaren. That bag would go very fast indeed as compared to the trailer

being towed behind. At the far other end of the spectrum is tape backup. Tape is very slow, very cheap, and stores a whole lot. It’s the Indiana Jones Ark of the Covenant warehouse of data storage. It works and is reliable, but if you’re in a rush to find anything, think again.

So let’s summarize from slowest to fastest: tape, spinning hard drives, flash-based and SSD storage, and inmemory-storage.

Here’s the big “aha” moment of this part of our discussion: in-memory-storage is about a million times faster than disk storage. It takes about 13 milliseconds (13 million nanoseconds) to access data on a spinning disk. By contrast, it takes about 10 nanoseconds to access data in RAM.

Any time you’ve got a million-fold increase in performance, you’re looking at a game-changer. True, it’s been possible to process data in RAM for years. That’s what computers do. But the price of RAM itself has come down.

Back in 1990, a terabyte of RAM cost a hundred and sixty million dollars or so, roughly the price of a Boeing 767 airliner. Today, a terabyte of RAM costs roughly $4,600 (or about what you’d pay for a used Honda).

The price of RAM has come down so much while performance has gone up, it’s like being able to buy a McLaren for the price of a Camry.

Stay with me here. We’re coming to the good stuff.

When you increase speed by a million, a data mining problem that would take two-anda-half years to solve using hard drives can be solved in a minute using RAM. That’s a big wow, but try this bad boy on for size: a problem that would take a day-anda-half to solve using hard

drives can take a tenth of a second using in-memory database technology. This makes real-time analytics possible. You can store and process roughly four billion names and addresses in a used-Honda-priced terabyte memory array.

More to the point of counterterrorism, you can analyze a tremendous amount of live sensor data in pretty much actual time. You are no longer limited by how fast data can be crunched. The limit now is how many sensors you can install, where you can install them, and how fast you can get that data into your analytics systems.

It’s not arcane stuff. All of the big tech server companies sell some sort of in-memory solution. They charge more than a used Honda, of course, but still not so much that it’s an impractical solution.

This is a price-performance technology improvement that can save lives. It’s also only a part of what we’re able to do with big data, but just this one part can change the game and give us a serious advantage over the bad guys.

For once, I’m ending an article on good news. How about that?

About the Author David Gewirtz is Director of the U.S. Strategic Perspective Institute, Distinguished Lecturer for CBS Interactive, Cyberwarfare Advisor for the International Association of Counterterrorism and Security Professionals, and IT Advisor to the Florida Public Health Association.

Mr. Gewirtz is also the author of How To Save Jobs and Where Have All The Emails Gone? Read his blog at: CBS Interactive’s ZDNet Government where tech meets politics and government or CBS Interactive’s DIY-IT for DIY tech projects and small business advice or view his David Gewirtz CBSi Lecture Series to explore IT strategy, security, and competitiveness His company site is at ZATZ.com Follow him on Twitter at @ DavidGewirtz.

The A-Team: Hezbollah In Latin America

By Luke Bencie, David Rosen and Elizabeth Gomez

Arab residents of the region bordered by Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina carry a Lebanese flag during a peace march against recent police raids on their businesses, near the Brazilian city of Foz do Iguacu, November 11, 2001. The local community of thousands of Arab merchants and their families has been under heavy vigilance by international intelligence agencies that suspect it of being a refuge and a money laundering center for Islamic extremists. REUTERS/Lucas Nunez

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he “A-team of terrorists.” That is what a former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State once said when describing Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shi’ite terrorist group with a history of violence reaching around the globe. But with such a long list of active terrorist cells occupying U.S. military and intelligence resources, could that statement really be that accurate?

After all, in the decade since 9/11, U.S. counterterrorism efforts have been overwhelmingly directed towards the Al-Qaeda network and the Taliban. In comparison, former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff stated that “Hezbollah makes Al-Qaeda look like a minor league team.” And many people seem to have forgotten that prior to 9/11, Hezbollah was responsible for more American deaths than any other terrorist organization in the world. But seventeen years after the last Hezbollah attack on American citizens, does that really matter now?

The answer: yes, more than ever. Because while Americans have had their sights on Al-Qaeda and the Middle East, Hezbollah, the most technically- and militarily-capable terrorist organization in the world, has moved into our backyard.

With a presence in an estimated forty countries on five different continents, Hezbollah is one of a small number of active terrorist groups that has a truly global reach. Unfortunately, it still comes as a surprise to many that Hezbollah has established such an extensive network in the Western Hemisphere. Their presence in Latin America goes as far back as the 1980s, when Hezbollah operatives began to take advantage of the weak governance in the “Tri-Border Region” at the intersection of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay.

The lawless territory allowed them to participate in a wide range of illicit activities including smuggling, extortion and narcotics trafficking. There is significant evidence to suggest Hezbollah’s particularly strong financial ties to the Tri-Border region and the growing Lebanese diaspora communities in the region. It is suspected that the Tri-Border area is now the primary source of independent funding for Hezbollah, with an estimated $20 million a year being funneled from money laundering, drug and weapons smuggling, and the sale of counterfeit goods.

In addition to the Tri-Border area, there is strong evidence of Hezbollah influence and presence in Colombia, Paraguay, Venezuela, and Mexico. Hezbollah has excelled at creating relationships of mutual accommodation with the criminal and terrorist groups operating in these regions including the drug cartels, Hamas and The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Already experts in smuggling and trafficking operations as a result of their illicit activities in West Africa, Hezbollah is now using its knowledge and expertise to contribute to the Latin American drug and criminal pipelines. These underground trade routes are spread throughout the northern tier of South America, Central America and Mexico.

The pipelines are the lifeblood of the criminal enterprises that Hezbollah is becoming so deeply embedded with. They serve as the medium with which criminal and terrorist organizations are able to move products, money, weapons, personnel and goods from as far as the Middle East, all the way through Central and South America, and ultimately across our borders.

While Americans have had their sights on Al-Qaeda and the Middle East, Hezbollah, the most technically- and militarily-capable terrorist organization in the world, has moved into our backyard.

There have been multiple intelligence and law enforcement reports that the influence and criminal activity promoted by Hezbollah has already begun making its way into the United States. It is suspected that the increasingly sophisticated narco-tunnels along the U.S.-Mexican border can be attributed to technology provided by Hezbollah. Believe it or not,many such tunnels have electricity and even working trains! Furthermore, gang members are being arrested in the United States with Farsi tattoos and other traits that could be attributed to Hezbollah influence. Law enforcement estimates that Hezbollah cells

and/or supporters are present in at least fifteen major cities across the United States. These cells are engaged in similar criminal and illicit activities as their associates in Latin America. As far back as the year 2000, an FBI sting uncovered a Hezbollah ring based out of Charlotte, North Carolina. The cell was found to have been supplying currency, financial services, training, false documentation and other assets to the Lebanese militia.

Though it is clear that Hezbollah does in fact have an extensive criminal fundraising network in Latin America, the question still remains; do they pose a

legitimate operational threat to United States’ national security? In 2011, the State Department maintained that Hezbollah activity in the Western Hemisphere was confined strictly to fundraising. In this regard Hezbollah poses as much of an immediate operational threat as, say, the Juarez Cartel. However, as you may

der. It is also suspected that Hezbollah is operating camps inside Venezuela to train local militants for possible attacks on American soil. Recruiting has likewise become a primary mission for Hezbollah in the Western Hemisphere, an objective made extremely successful given the large Lebanese diaspora communities in Latin America. Hezbollah operatives, using Iranian money, are infiltrating or establishing radi-

It is no secret that Iran provides Hezbollah with training, weapons, and explosives, as well as political, diplomatic, monetary, and organizational aid.

expect, it is also clear that the mission of Hezbollah in Latin America has begun to advance beyond organized criminal activity and fundraising efforts.

The relationships of mutual accommodation that Hezbollah has cultivated with other criminal and terrorist organizations in the region have begun to escalate past the traditional illicit activities of money laundering and smuggling operations. Hezbollah has begun to conduct training and recruiting operations throughout Central and South America. Reports based on law enforcement and intelligence sources claim that Hezbollah operatives have provided weapons and explosives training to organizations operating along the U.S. bor-

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cal mosques throughout Latin America. According to former U.S. Ambassador to the Organization of American States, Roger Noriega, this is allowing Hezbollah to spread its influence and advance its violent extremism right up to America’s doorstep. The strong recruiting and indoctrination efforts of Hezbollah are creating thousands of supporters that contribute monetary and non-monetary resources to the organization.

Furthermore, anti-American and anti-Israeli propaganda dispersed by Hezbollah and their supporters succeed in undermining the already precarious popularity of the United States government across Latin America’s fragile democracies. This subsequently leads to greater political power for

Hezbollah in the Tri-Border region and produces more fertile ground for terrorist cells to gain a foothold from which to launch operations.

The surge in more intense recruiting and training efforts has certainly brought the Hezbollah network in Latin America a step closer to presenting an operational threat to the United States. However, there are still many officials who believe that there is a key component missing to the threat: a lack of desire or intent on the part of Hezbollah to conduct terrorist activity within the United States. What is important to consider, however, is that while Hezbollah may not be interested or prepared for that, Iran, Hezbollah’s longtime state-sponsor, very well might be.

It is no secret that Iran provides Hezbollah with training, weapons, and explosives, as well as political, diplomatic, monetary, and organizational aid. It is estimated that Iran provides anywhere from $60 million to $100 million and maybe even up to $200 million in financial support annually.

In exchange, Hezbollah acts as a proxy for Iran, specifically, of the Quds Force, the elite extraterritorial unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The Quds Force often utilizes proxy militias to maintain plausible deniability in its activities and, according to the Defense Intelligence Agency, Hezbollah is the Quds Force’s primary proxy of choice. It is this strong Iran-Hezbollah relationship that provides the teeth to the threat posed by a significant Hezbollah network in Latin America.

Iran turned its sighs on Latin American in 2005, after the election of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Ahmadinejad began promoting an aggressive policy in Latin America with the strategic goal

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of forging partnerships with anti-American elements in the region. In 2012, Ahmadinejad visited Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Venezuela. The objective was to dilute U.S. power and influence in the Americas for the stated purpose of “bringing America to its knees.” After successfully building close alliances with several governments in Latin America over the last decade, Iran has been able to extend moderate state cover and impunity for its proxy elements and covert activities.

One of its closest alliances was with the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez, before his death in March of 2013. According to former Ambassador Noriega, Chavez, a long time opponent of United States power and influence, welcomed the partnership with Iran and Hezbollah and provided political support, financing, and arms to Hezbollah.

As noted earlier, Hezbollah is also allowed to operate training camps within Venezuela.

This “official” support of likeminded Bolivian states has greatly increased Iran’s capacity to carry out intelligence operations, train, and position their proxies to prepare the credible threat of attacks against the United States.

Many U.S. officials are under the impression that this is Iran’s ultimate purpose in creating such a sizeable covert presence in Latin America; to enable their proxy elements to conduct an attack in the U.S. in response to real or perceived U.S. actions that threaten their regime.

In this context, Hezbollah can be described as a potential insurance policy for the Iranian regime. Iran also provides the key components of intent and motivation needed to truly consider Hezbollah a legitimate operational threat to U.S. national security. Since Hezbollah often acts at the behest of Iran, it would only take a threatening

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act on the part of the U.S. or its ally, Israel (say against Iran’s nuclear facilities) to provide a strong motivation for Iran to trigger Hezbollah to conduct an attack on U.S. interests or soil.

Unfortunately, they are now in the optimal position, geographically and operationally, to do so at a moment’s notice.

to be a highly organized and mobile terrorist network that could be ready to strike the United States at any time. The FBI has stated that Hezbollah members located in North America are capable of carrying out domestic terrorist attacks with practically no warning.

The DEA, recognizing the threat posed by Hezbollah, has made substantial efforts to build cases against foreign officials and commercial entities that provide support and resources to In review, Hezbollah has been develop- the organization. Congress has also made it ing an extensive network throughout the clear that they believe Hezbollah to be a clear Western Hemisphere that they increasingly danger. The Library of Congress released use, not only for criminal activities and an analysis that revealed the likelihood that Hezbollah operatives would seek to carry out attacks on U.S. embassies or consulates in Latin America. Most These conflicting views between significantly, Congress passed the “Counterthe diplomatic corps and the ing Iran in the Westdefense apparatus are creating a ern Hemisphere Act” in December of 2012. significant barrier to any attempts The act mandated that at a unified government response the Secretary of State perform a threat assesst o c o m b a t i n g H e z b o l l a h ’s ment of Iran’s growing influence in regions south of activity in the Western Hemisphere, to include the border. its proxy Hezbollah.

The Secretary of State was also required to submit a strategy to address the threats. Howfinancial support, but also for weapons ever, the State Department report released in and explosives training and recruiting ef- June 2013 was not the aggressive, unified forts. Iran, Hezbollah’s main sponsor, has response that Congress was hoping for. also been working hard to develop close alliances with a number of Latin American It is clear that some U.S. diplomats do not governments that share a desire to under- take the same stance on the threat posed by mine U.S. power and influence. Together, Hezbollah’s presence in Latin America. State an extremely aggressive regime, intent on Department officials have repeatedly assured “bringing America to its knees” in partner- that there is no evidence of a Hezbollah operaship with the most sophisticated terrorist tional network across South America. Their organization in the world are slowly oc- assessment remains that Hezbollah activity cupying the political and physical space in the Western Hemisphere is confined to in our backyard. To any observer, this is a fundraising efforts. The State Department clear threat to national security. Ironically report to Congress goes even further, suggestthough, there may be a bigger one still. ing that Iranian influence in Latin America is decreasing and that there is no evidence of any Despite the many investigations, reports, imminent plots to attack the United States. and U.S. officials that have concluded that Hezbollah poses a significant threat to the These conflicting views between the diploUnited States, there are still many in the matic corps and the defense apparatus are diplomatic community who do not believe creating a significant barrier to any attempts the threat is legitimate. The law enforce- at a unified government response to combatment and intelligence communities have ing Hezbollah’s influence in regions south of made it clear that they believe Hezbollah the border. This lack of a comprehensive ap-

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proach could very well be a more significant threat than the presence of Hezbollah itself.

It is necessary for U.S. diplomats to have a broad scope understanding of the threats posed by an Iran-supported Hezbollah network so close to the United States. Though the State Department assessments that there are no imminent domestic Hezbollah plots may well be accurate, the fact remains that the terror franchise is perfectly staged to conduct a well-resourced attack at any time they or Iran deem necessary. Former Ambassador Noriega, understanding this vulnerability, has stated his belief that the lack of a unified government response by all responsible parties will inevitably result in a Hezbollah attack on U.S. personnel, installations or interest somewhere in the Americas.

Unfortunately, as the ongoing battle in Washington between Congress and the State Department continues over differing assessments of the threat, the United States will still not be any closer to forming the unilateral, wholeof-government strategy necessary to protect its security and interests. While everyone is looking in the other direction, the “A-team of terrorists” could be silently moving from our backyard, up our doorstep, and right through the unlocked backdoor.

About the Authors: Luke Bencie is the Managing Director of Security Management International, LLC and author of Among Enemies: Counter-Espionage for the Business Traveler.

His organization frequently conducts investigations in the Tri-border area.

David Rosen is a graduate student in the Security and Safety Leadership program at George Washington University and a Junior Associate at Security Management International, LLC. Elizabeth Gomez is a student at the College of William and Mary and a Junior Associate at Security Management International, LLC.

References: Hezbollah in Latin America-Implications for U.S. Homeland Security : Hearing before the Committee on Homeland Security, House of Representatives, 112th Cong. 1 (2011). Retrieved from http://www gpo.gov /fdsys/pkg/CHRG-112hhrg72255/pdf/ CHRG-112hhrg72255.pdf Taylor, G. (2013, June 23). State Secrets: Kerry’s department downplays Iran’s role in Latin America; likely to anger Congress. The Washington Times.

Retrieved from http://www.washingtontimes. com/news/2013/jun/23/state-departmentdownplays-iran-role-in-latin-amer/?utm_ source=RSS_Feed&utm_medium=RSS

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The Terrorist Threats Against India

And Its Counterterrorism Response

By Dr. Joshua Sinai

Photographers run past burning Taj Mahal Hotel during a gun battle in Mumbai November 29, 2008. Operations by Indian commandos to dislodge Islamist militants at Mumbai’s Taj Mahal hotel ended on Saturday, Indian television channels quoted officials as saying. The hotel came under heavy gunfire and flames leaped out of the building shortly before the announcement. REUTERS/Arko Datta (INDIA)

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I

ndia is threatened by a spectrum of internal and external terrorism threats from a variety of militant groups. While these include Maoist Naxalites and other militant groups seeking independence or autonomy in various parts of the country, this article focuses on the violent Islamist threat because it is the largest and most significant terrorist threat facing the Indian state. Since the country’s longstanding inter-communal conflicts also involve violent Hindu-Muslim communal incidents, ultra-nationalist Hindu extremism is included in this assessment.

India’s dispute with Pakistan over the future of the disputed northeastern territory of Kashmir (where the majority of the population is Muslim) serves to further exacerbate the Islamist threat. The main external terrorist threat originates in Pakistan, with terrorist groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), allegedly with Pakistani government toleration, carry out major cross-border attacks in India, such as the devastating Mumbai attacks in November 2008. India also faces a “homegrown” Islamist terrorist threat, with Indian Mujahideen (IM) the primary terrorist group that exploits domestic grievances by the country’s Muslim minority in pursuit of its violent objectives.

This article is divided into two parts. The first part discusses these internal terrorist threats, while the second part analyzes the organizational effectiveness and challenges facing India’s counterterrorism responses to these threats at the federal and state levels.

Internal Threats India has a population of about 1.2 billion, of whom an estimated 80 percent are Hindu and 13 percent (approximately 180 million) are Muslim, making it the world’s third largest Muslim population in the world.

Many Muslims occupy high positions in government, such as Mohammad Hamid Ansari, the country’s Vice President, as well as several cabinet ministers, and some have become popular Bollywood stars. Such high-profile success stories, however, do not represent the actual status of India’s Muslims, who constitute some of the poorest communities in the country. They also are underrepresented in the country’s legislatures at the national and

state levels, account for an estimated seven percent of public service employees, five percent of railway workers, with about 30,000 Muslims in India’s 1.3 million military forces.

In addition to these structural problems, the country’s Muslims also feel threatened by the proliferation in ultranationalist and anti-Muslim Hindu fervor. Ultra-nationalist Hindu demagogues, such as Bal Keshav Thackeray (who died in November 2012), inflame Hindu audiences into anti-Muslim rioting over a variety of communal issues.

Narendra Modi, considered a top Prime Ministerial candidate of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is tainted by his role in the communal riots in the western state of Gujarat in February-June 2002 in which more than 1,000 people were killed, of which 80 percent were Muslim.

In recent times, anti-Muslim communal riots by Hindu ultranationalists associated with the BJP have targeted Muslim migrant laborers who move into

The country’s Muslims also feel threatened by the proliferation in ultra-nationalist and antiMuslim Hindu fervor. Ultranationalist Hindu demagogues, such as Bal Keshav Thackeray (who died in November 2012), inflame Hindu audiences into anti-Muslim rioting over a variety of communal issues.

Hindu majority cities in search of employment. Triggers for such violence also concern HinduMuslim claims over disputed religious sites. In one of the most prominent of such incidents, the 1992 demolition of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya, in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh by Hindu mobs, triggered some of India’s worst communal riots, killing an estimated 2,000 people in many cities, including Mumbai and Delhi. In retaliation, many Hindu temples and shops across Pakistan and Bangladesh were destroyed by Muslim bombs.

With Hindus and Muslims quarreling for more than a century over their rights to the Babri

mosque’s land (with Hindus claiming that the mosque is situated on the birthplace of their god-king Rama, and was built after a Hindu temple was destroyed by Muslim invaders in the 16th century), since then Hindu and Muslim groups have turned to state’s High Court to rule in their favor over the site’s control. While the Allahabad High Court ruled in September 2010 that the disputed spot was Rama’s birthplace, its decision was suspended by the country’s Supreme Court, with the case still languishing in India’s cumbersome legal system.

Resolution of the Babri mosque’s future is significant because it is one of the grievances used by Muslim

militants to justify their antiHindu violence.

Indian Mujahideen (IM) The Indian Mujahideen (IM) is considered the primary Islamist terrorist group in India. Established around 2007 (the exact date is unknown), it is alleged to be a front for the Pakistan- based Lashkar-e-Taiba, with the goal of recruiting an Indian Muslim vanguard to create an “Islamic caliphate” across South Asia.

It was founded by Amir Raza Khan and the brothers Iqbal and Riyaz Bhatkal. The Bhatkal brothers allegedly operate it from their hideouts in Karachi, Pakistan, with other key operatives reported to be hiding in

the Gulf countries. The IM’s terrorist operations (including acting as a “front” for other Islamist groups) include the July 2006 simultaneous bombings of the Suburban Railway of Mumbai, killing more than 200 people (although other Islamist groups may have also been involved in the operation), the May 2008 Jaipur bombings in which some 80 were killed and more than 200 injured, the July 2008 simultaneous bombings in Ahmedabad that killed 56 people and wounded more than 200, the Pune serial bombings in February 2010 resulting in 17 people killed and more than 60 wounded. In February 2013, the IM allegedly carried out twin bombings in Hyderabad, killing 16 people. That month,

Triggers for such violence also concern Hindu-Muslim claims over disputed religious sites. In one of the most prominent of such incidents, the 1992 demolition of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya, in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh by Hindu mobs, triggered some of India’s worst communal riots, killing an estimated 2,000 people in many cities, including Mumbai and Delhi.

Members of Fight against Terrorism Society and National Akali Dal, a regional Sikh political party, shout slogans as one of them hold a toy gun to a cutout of Pakistan’s national flag during a protest in New Delhi May 8, 2011. Dozens of members on Sunday protested against what they say is Pakistan’s support of terrorism and urged the U.S. to declare Pakistan as a terrorist nation, according to a media release by the two organizations. REUTERS/B Mathur

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Islamist terrorist groups based in Pakistan (which allegedly are tolerated by Pakistan’s government and security services) represent the primary external threats to India.

the IM reportedly threatened to attack the skyscraper residence in Mumbai of Mukesh Ambani, the head of Reliance Industries (one of the country’s largest corporations).

in Kashmir. Interestingly, militant elements among India’s Muslim minority have not taken part in the Kashmiri insurgency because they have their own domestic problems to deal with.

Kashmir

External Threats

Aside from serving as a longstanding territorial dispute between India and Pakistan, the northwestern region of Kashmir has spawned a separatist insurgency by elements among the region’s Muslim majority over continued Indian rule over the territory, which has claimed more than 50,000 lives. Although the dispute dates back to the 1947 partition, the latest phase in the insurgency was inaugurated

by Pakistani-supported Afghan mujahideen who entered the Kashmir valley following the end of the Soviet-Afghan War, with groups such as the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front spearheading the fighting. Later, militant Pakistani groups that maintained an affiliation (whether strong or loose) with Al Qaeda such as Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, Lashkare-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, and Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami, joined the anti-India insurgency

Islamist terrorist groups based in Pakistan (which allegedly are tolerated by Pakistan’s government and security services) represent the primary external threats to India. These external threats are part of the overall strained relations between India and Pakistan, which began with the violent partition of British India in 1947 that led to an exchange and internal displacement of an estimated 12.5 million people, and was followed by the dispute over the future of Kashmir.

Notable externally organized terrorist attacks by Lashka eTaiba (LeT) against India have included the December 2001 attacks against the Indian parliament in New Delhi, in which 12 people were killed and the November 26-29, 2008 coordinated and simultaneous operations by the LeT in Mumbai, in

Bal Thackeray, chief of the hardline Hindu Shiv Sena party, greets election officials before casting his vote during India’s parliamentary elections in Bombay in this April 26, 2004 file photograph. Bal Keshav Thackeray, one of India’s most polarising politicians and leader of an influential right-wing Hindu nationalist party that has dominated politics in the country’s richest city for two decades, has died aged 86. Thackeray died of cardio-respiratory arrest on November 17, 2012 at his home, one of his doctors, Jalil Parker, said. REUTERS/Sherwin Crasto/Files

which two iconic hotels, a landmark train station, and a Jewish Chabad community center were attacked and sieged, in which 164 people were killed and more than 300 wounded.

to volunteer their services, including recruiting their friends for the operation. And, like their Western “homegrown” counterparts, these operatives had made contact with their Pakistani handlers while supposedly on “travel” to other countries, such as Saudi Arabia.

In a new trend affecting the internal and external terrorist threats to India, both these types of threats appear to be converging, with “homegrown” Islamist militants within the country’s

Government’s Counterterrorism Response

In the first challenge, India’s law enforcement and internal security agencies are considered highly fragmented and poorly coordinated. In the country’s federal political system, policing responsibility is generally granted to the states, which possess their own counterterrorism and intelligence units. Many of these forces, especially local police, are considered to lack proper training and equipment.

The Mumbai attacks are considered India’s 9/11 because they

In a second challenge, at the national level a variety of central in-

terrorism, with a centrally controlled National Security Guard (NSG) that specializes in hostage and terrorist attack situations.

In a third challenge, coordinating mechanisms such as joint committees, task forces, subsidiary intelligence bureaus, and a Multi-Agency Center, also support counterterrorism. While they attempt to coordinate and synthesize intelligence gathered by these agencies to generate threat perceptions appropriate responses, they are considered to

In a new trend affecting the internal and external terrorist threats to India, both these types of threats appear to be converging, with “homegrown” Islamist militants within the country’s Muslim minority now seeking to carry out operations on behalf of external groups such as the LeT. Thus, while Pakistani terrorist groups must still “scout” for Indian recruits to carry out attacks in India, as part of this new trend (and a phenomenon that is also happening in the West), an increasing number of self-radicalized “homegrown” Muslim youths have been reaching out to Pakistani terrorist groups to volunteer to carry out operations for them.

Muslim minority now seeking to carry out operations on behalf of external groups such as the LeT. Thus, while Pakistani terrorist groups must still “scout” for Indian recruits to carry out attacks in India, as part of this new trend (and a phenomenon that is also happening in the West), an increasing number of self-radicalized “homegrown” Muslim youths have been reaching out to Pakistani terrorist groups to volunteer to carry out operations for them.

This was revealed by the interrogation of several operatives who had been arrested following the February 2013 Hyderabad attacks, who allegedly contacted the Pakistani groups

22

highlighted the failure of India’s counterterrorism apparatus to anticipate and appropriately respond to catastrophic terrorist incidents of such magnitude.

Since then, the Indian government has attempted, with mixed results, to transform its counterterrorism agencies to implement the necessary response measures. Although the Indian government claims it has arrested some 51 terrorism cells and prevented more than 40 plots since the Mumbai attacks in 2008, according to various reports, India still needs to dramatically upgrade its domestic counterterrorism infrastructure to achieve the effectiveness required to defeat such threats.

vestigative, law enforcement and intelligence agencies are tasked with coordinating the country’s counterterrorism response. The Ministry of Home Affairs includes the Intelligence Bureau, Central Reserve Police Force, Indian Police Service, and the National Investigation Agency, while the Research and Analysis Wing and Central Bureau of Investigation are answerable to the prime minister. It is not known, however, how effective such coordination actually plays out in practice.

The country’s military—which is primarily geared toward foreign threats, including terrorism—also plays a role in domestic counter-

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be cumbersome. Moreover, states and central agencies are reported to frequently compete over budgetary resources and their respective bureaucratic autonomy, resulting in inefficient cooperation.

Finally, exacerbating these organizational inefficiencies, many security institutions at all levels of government are understaffed, undertrained, and technologically backward. All of these bureaucratic inefficiencies came to the fore in the failure to prevent and appropriately respond to the Mumbai attacks. Although significant intelligence had suggested prior to the incident that a seaborne terrorist attack was likely, and that iconic sites such as the Taj Mahal and Oberoi

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hotels would be targeted, this information was reportedly ignored by several agencies, including the Coast Guard and the Maharashtra state director-general of police.

Moreover, once the attack occurred, the security forces lacked the necessary equipment and weaponry, resulting in an overly long response time and heavy casualties.

Since 2008, India’s counterterrorism measures have remained in disarray. The most significant initiative to upgrade the country’s counterterrorism capability has been to establish a National Counterterrorism Center (similar to America’s NCTC plus FBI and Britain’s Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre) that would serve as a federal agency with real-time, actionable intelligence feeds as well as wide-ranging powers to search, interrogate and arrest suspects across the country to counter potential terrorist operations. However, its establishment has been repeatedly postponed as a result of bureaucratic turf wars and internecine politics between the national government in New Delhi and the governments of several states that are intent on protecting the autonomy of their own police forces. In fact, as a result of continued strong parliamentary opposition, in early June 2013, the government re-affirmed its intention not to call for any new law or to issue an executive order to set up the NCTC, even in a revised form.

In the meantime, the National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID) is a significant program to upgrade India’s counterterrorism infrastructure. It is an integrated terrorism-related intelligence information-sharing grid to link the databases of relevant departments and ministries in order to generate threat patterns and trends for immediate access by the country’s counterterrorism agencies. Initiated in the aftermath of the 2008 Mumbai attacks, it was expected to become operational throughout 2013.

An important final component in upgrading India’s counterterrorism capability is its cooperative alliance with countries such as the United States and Israel, with each of whom it conducts extensive training and joint exercises, including purchasing counterterrorism equipment.

24

Conclusions Given the intractability of India’s political and socio-economic problems, the four-pronged Islamist terrorist threats against India are likely to persist and even escalate. While in the short-term, relatively small scale terrorist attacks by “homegrown” Islamist militants are likely to continue at the current rate, in the long-term, given India’s economic problems, tensions between ultra-nationalist Hindu extremists and militant Islamists are expected to continue and be further inflamed by the militant community leaders on both sides. In fact, unless an equitable solution to the future of the disputed Babri Mosque can be reached by India’s Supreme Court, inter-communal rioting over this flashpoint issue is expected to persist. These inter-communal tensions are likely to be further exacerbated by Hindu communities feeling threatened by increasing numbers of Muslim migrants moving to urban regions to seek work, especially given the economic plight of many regions throughout the country.

With the Pakistani government’s interest in perpetuating instability in India (including Kashmir), Islamist terrorism in India shows no sign of diminishing. As a result, tensions between Pakistan and India are likely to continue to worsen, whether over the future of Kashmir or even the future of post-2014 Afghanistan, where Indian interests in Afghanistan are likely to be targeted by the Taliban, as they have been in the past.

For Pakistan, in particular, its deliberate nurturing of its domestic terrorist groups to wage a proxy war in Kashmir and on Indian soil is already resulting in a blowback, with some of these groups increasingly turning their violence on Pakistan itself, by conducting numerous terror attacks against government facilities, military and security forces.

With the four-pronged terrorist threats against India likely to persist and grow, the country’s fragmented response at the federal and state levels to such challenges continues to degrade its counterterrorism campaign’s effectiveness. This is particularly the case with the impasse over establishing the NCTC, which has served to weaken India’s effort to es-

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tablish a coordinated counterterrorism campaign at all levels of the state. The impasse is due to the opposition by several of the affected states to the creation of the NCTC as an umbrella infrastructure over them. Although this reflects the general difficulty of governing India at all levels of society, the fact is that the likely escalation in the four-pronged terrorist threat cannot tolerate the continuing “business as usual” way of doing things in the absence of a consolidated and integrated national effort, since on their own, the states lack the appropriate resources to efficiently counter terrorism in their jurisdictions.

In the long-term, India’s CT campaign’s coercive measures need to be complemented by appropriate conciliatory ones that address the root causes underlying some of the problems that cause terrorist outbreaks in the first place. This is because effective counter-terrorism requires a wholehearted determination to employ the full spectrum of measures required, ranging from political and socioeconomic reforms, religious pluralism and toleration, as well as military, law enforcement, and intelligence measures.

The country’s Muslims need to regard themselves as Indians first, who equally benefit from government programs to become mainstream assets to the country, not as alienated and marginalized from mainstream society.

In the long-term, therefore, India’s high levels of economic growth and expansion of its educational system, while bound to influence younger Muslim generations to focus on opportunities for upward mobility, in the absence of greater conciliatory measures may not necessarily translate into greater Hindu-Muslim inter-communal normalization and stability.

(Editor’s Note: This is an expanded and updated version of Dr. Sinai’s article published by The Soufan Group in midApril 2013. Reprinted with permission.)

About the Author Dr. Joshua Sinai is a Washington, DC-based consultant on terrorism and counterterrorism studies. He is the author of “Active Shooter – A Handbook on Prevention” (ASIS International, 2013). He can be reached at: Joshua.sinai@comcast.net.

The IACSP Announces Its’

20th Annual

Terrorism Trends & Forecasts Symposium The IACSP will be presenting its 20th Annual Terrorism, Trends & Forecasts Symposium on Friday, October 25th, 2013. It will be held at the prestigious Bergen County Law & Public Safety Institute in Mahwah, New Jersey.

SCHEDULE

Who Should Attend?

09:00 - 10:00 • J.M. Peterson: Keynote Speaker

• • • • • • • •

First Responders Military Law Enforcement Security Directors Government Personnel Intel Professionals Emergency Preparedness Personnel Homeland Security Professionals

When:

• Friday, October 25th, 2013

Where:

• Bergen County Law & Public Safety Institute: Hall of Heroes: 281 Campgaw Road, Mahwah, New Jersey, Just 45 minutes from New York City.*

Dress Code: Casual Business

26

07:30 - 08:45 • Registration/Coffee/Continental Breakfast 08:45 - 09:00 • Introduction, Moderator: John Dew, IACSP Conference Dir.

• Many of the same types of terrorists and their enablers, and tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) we are hunting overseas are the same types that either currently operate on our own soil or that we may face in the future. This ranges from hard-core terrorists, to radicalized ‘lone wolf terrorists,’ to possible ‘sleeper cells’ to very low level collaborators and fundraisers. They have had the opportunity to greatly refine their TTPs over the past 12 years and exhibit a tendency to constantly adapt and improve, particularly in light of our own TTPs and countermeasures to them.

• Considering that we have already, except for the recent Boston Marathon Bombing, had a number of “nearmisses” since 9-11, where terrorist attacks were thwarted or otherwise failed, some only by luck or ‘technical difficulties’ on the part of the attacker, they were successful before and they will try again and again. They are looking for ‘lucrative’, high pay-off targets domestically as

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we speak. This presentation takes a look at the current threat we are facing and what security professionals can do to prevent or stop an attack. Attendees will receive slideshow materials and handouts via email immediately following the symposium.

10:00 - 10:20 • Coffee/Networking 10:20 - 11:20 • Speaker: Michael Maloof • Michael will speak about the threat from an electromagnetic pulse attack on our critical infrastructure either from an impending solar storm of serious intensity expected between 2013 - and 2014 or a high altitude nuclear explosion that could have long term catastrophic consequences for our society and our way of life. A few years ago , a congressional commission went into considerable depth on those consequences to our electricity dependent infrastructures that include not only the power grid itself, but also telecommunications, our banking and finance system, and finally, our transportation system which delivers the very food and water our society depends on a daily basis.

• While an electromagnetic pulse event on our civilian infrastructure could be serious, it can be managed if government at the federal, state and local levels gives a high priority to undertake preventive action to lessen its impact to recover from it.

11:20 - 12:20 • Speaker: William Pat Schuber • The use of Unmanned Aviation Vehicles (UAV), aka Drones, has become an essential element of US Military and CIA counterterrorism policy. The “Death by Drones” of American born jihadist and a Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) leader has led to an ongoing debate as to the use of these instruments to target Americans.

This presentation will examine the development and use of these vehicles in the War on Terror. A historical analysis of their use will be examined from WWII to the present. In addition the presentation will discuss the future development and use of these vehicles as an integral part of US Military police in matters of insurgency with special emphasis on their effectiveness, benefits, but also their disadvantages and possible blowback on US interests.

• Finally the presentation will address the legal issues which have arisen as a result of the use of drones to target American citizens for extrajudicial killing. An analysis of the legal pros and cons taking into account the Bill of Rights, the President’s powers as Commander in Chief and the Congressional Resolution authorizing use of force against those who perpetrated the 9/11 attacks (AUMF) will be presented.Ending with a discussion of the drone policy for future counterterrorism efforts.

12:20 - 01:20 • Lunch/Networking 01:20 - 02:20 • Speaker: Richard P. Wright • Crime and Terror in Latin America and the Caribbean (and Implications for US Security): The growing involvement of Drug Traffick-

ing Organizations in numerous other forms of criminal activity and development of local consumer drug markets, along with increasing indicators of terror group collaboration, has engendered a continuing degradation of security conditions in countries throughout the region.

• Recent US elections and ongoing political changes in the region (e.g., Mexico, Venezuela) portend revisions of policies related to crime and terror. Border security and immigration reform are not the only issues, and the US would do well to consider the full scope of developments in the region. This presentation will discuss ongoing developments and identify key emerging issues.

02:20 - 03:20 • Speaker: Amery Vasso • With the advent of Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks available to law enforcement and emergency responders and a variety of proposed military networking solutions specifically serving the dismounted soldier, the availability of content at the “edge” is here now. For military applications there is considerable debate surrounding this powerful information capability.

• How to secure the information? Who receives what? Who needs what? What is the cognitive burden imposed by this technology? When does the amount of information impair intuition and diminish the value of experience?

Undoubtedly law enforcement and emergency responders face comparable challenges. Answering these challenges is essential in maximizing the benefits of this technology and enabling optimum human performance.

03:20 - 03:40 • Coffee/Networking 03:40 - 04:40 • Speaker: Dr. Joseph A. Devine • The Role Of Anarchists In Domestic and International Terror: Anarchists seem an obscure entity lost to the fog of history. The term itself is tertiary to lexicon of modern terrorism. The very definition of anarchism and the impact of anarchists upon American history are generally misunderstood. Anarchists by their very nature pose an active and substantial threat to public safety and homeland security. Their potential threat is exponentially increased when insidious agents of domestic or international terror groups infiltrate their movements.

• Chaos and terror instigated by anarchists throughout Europe, Asia and the United States remain a viable threat.

Like global Jihadist movements, anarchists are not inherently linked to nation states. As such they present unique challenges to the law enforcement and intelligence communities.

• The recent Occupy Wall Street Movement has characteristics of the anarchist activities of the 20th Century. The impact of anarchist movements in the early 20th Century served as a catalyst for the creation of the Bureau of Investigation. Under the leadership of J. Edgar Hoover this would become the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

04:40 - 05:40: • Speaker: David Opderbeck • The Internet pervades every aspect of American life. Financial markets, news outlets, public utilities, telecommunications industries, education, government – name any sector of public infrastructure and you will find that it is “wired.” But the characteristics that made the Internet successful – its accessibility, open architecture, and scalability – also make it vulnerable. Cyberspace is ripe for exploitation, and in fact is already being exploited, by organized criminals, terrorists, and other enemies of the State. For example, terrorists could cripple power generating stations with a “logic bomb” or a virus such as STUXNET that affects the computerized control systems.

• The security of cyberspace therefore is a top policy priority.

Yet the need for security must not destroy the very freedoms that have made the Internet so successful and so important to the fostering of democratic movements around the world. If the Internet can be exploited by our enemies, it also can be abused even by well-meaning government officials to implement unprecedented surveillance and control over ordinary citizens and private sector assets. Some policymakers have even argued that the U.S. President should control a “kill switch” that could shut down portions of the Internet in the event of an emergency – a tactic routinely employed by totalitarian states to censor criticism. In this talk, Prof. Opderbeck will discuss these and other challenging legal and policy issues surrounding cybersecurity and cyberterrorism.

5:40 • Drawing for prizes: You must be present to receive a prize.

Speaker Bios JP Peterson • JP Currently serves as the Special Projects Director of the Counterterrorism & Security Education and Research Foundation. As a long-time IACSP member and periodic contributor to our journal, he has served on the Advisory Board as General Advisor since being appointed in 1997. He has spent all of the past 10+ years supporting the war effort, with positions as a deployed on the ground as an Army Special Forces soldier, as a government civilian at the U.S. Department of Homeland security, and as government contractor in a variety of roles both domestically and overseas.

He is an annual member of ASIS, NTOA, IALEFI, ILEETA, ITOA, IDPA, AFCEA/CHS, and the Nine Live Associates. He is a life member of all of the following: the Academy of Security Educators & Trainers, Special Operations Association, Special Forces Association, AFCEA, IACSP, NRA, and the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

• Since the mid 1990’s, Mr. Peterson has donated much of his time to the IACSP, to include teaching at five of its symposia and representing the association at most of the 51 professional conferences that he has presented at, including the three largest law enforcement conferences. This presentation has been conducted at the federal and state level, as well as at professional training

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conferences, is continually updated, and draws much from the first hand experience of the presenter. As one of our ‘true believers,’ he plans to continue helping the association and its sister foundation for as long as there is a threat of terrorism.

Amery Vasso • Amery Served in the US Active Army for 23 years culminating in selection as a Senior Military Advisor for the Asymmetric Warfare Group. Mr. Vasso has several combat and overseas tours while serving in the US Army. Mr. Vasso has a Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice and a Master of Science in Homeland Security.

Mr. Vasso currently supports the Army by providing operational analysis to key Soldier technology programs.

Dr. Joseph A. Devine • Chief Devine has twenty-seven years of experience in public administration and law enforcement including eight years as a Chief Law Enforcement Officer. Additionally, he has over eight years of experience as a college professor and is a Certified Public Manager and Certified Chief Executive Law Enforcement Officer. Joseph is also a graduate of the FBI Law Enforcement Executive Development Seminar in 1995 and the FBI National Academy in 1999.

• Joseph Devine began his law enforcement career in 1979 as an officer with the Morris County Sheriff’s Department in New Jersey, becoming a detective with the Bureau of Criminal Identification.

He became an investigator for the Morris County Prosecutor’s Office in 1981, assigned to the Special Investigative Section. Chief Devine left the prosecutor’s office in 1981 to join the Rockaway Township Police Department, climbing the ranks to sergeant in 1985, lieutenant in 1990, captain in 1992 and chief on July 1, 1998. Joseph was Chief of Investigations for the Morris County Prosecutors Office in Morristown, New Jersey. He oversaw an office of 175 employees responsible for the investigation and prosecution of indictable crimes. He will soon complete a doctorate of education program at Seton Hall University with a concentration in organizational leadership. Currently, Joseph Devine is an Adjunct Professor of Management and Organizational Leadership at Fairleigh Dickinson University.

Michael Maloof • Former policy analyst for the Department of Defense and currently WND’s Washington senior reporter, Michael Maloof, discussed how everything from our daily routines to our national defense will be crippled by an EMP attack, and why this is America’s greatest threat to national security.

• “If we had a major intensive [solar] storm that had a direct hit on us, it could cost up to $2 trillion over four years to attempt to recover, and it would take us up to 10 years to recover,” with some 160 million people seriously impacted in the United States, he reported. Yet, we could take remedial action now, to strengthen and protect the grid, but the problem is there’s no one agency coordinating such efforts, Maloof said, and Congress has ignored its own commission report and shelved funding measures– estimated to be between $20-50 billion to start fixing the problem.

• We need to create the position of an EMP Czar, someone under

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the National Security Council that can direct all activities from federal, state, and local governments to take decisive action, he continued, adding that the SHIELD Act should be reintroduced to the new Congress. Maloof also outlined EMP terror threats– his biggest concern is over an attack instigated by a ‘lone wolf’ type, or a loose cannon state such as North Korea.

William Pat Schuber • Pat served as The County Executive of Bergen County for 12 years, nine years as a member of the New Jersey State Assembly and Mayor of the Borough of Bogota for four years.

• He is an Associate Professor at the School of Administrative Science, Petrocelli College, Fairleigh Dickinson University. He is a faculty member in the Master of Administrative Science (MAS), Master of Science in Homeland Security (MSHS), Master of Sports Administration (MSA) and Bachelor of Arts in Individualized Studies (BAIS). His courses include Leadership, Government, Homeland Security, Law, Ethics and Communication. He is a past Adjunct Professor in Business Law at Montclair University and Seton Hall University. He is an Instructor in the Certified Public Manager Course of Studies (CPM) and the Police Executive Leadership Course sponsored by the New Jersey Association Chiefs of Police and the New Jersey State Police (NJSP).

• He lectures frequently on military history, historical leadership, homeland security, ethics, communication and conflict resolution to numerous civic groups. He served as a Captain in the US Army Reserve (Retired). He has been appointed a Commissioner of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Richard P. Wright • Director of Global Security Operations, VDI, Inc. Richard has over thirty years security experience, with a Bachelors degree in Management Studies from UMUC. He authored the acclaimed and definitive Kidnap for Ransom, Resolving the Unthinkable and has been principal consultant in the successful resolution of multiple incidents. He has designed integrated security systems for diverse clients, developed numerous CM/BC programs, and spoken extensively in both English and Spanish in multiple international forums as well as appearing on NPR and CNN. • He currently chairs the ASIS International Crisis Management and Business Continuity Council and directs VDI’s global operations as well as managing security in Latin America and the Caribbean for one of the largest multilateral lending institutions in the Western Hemisphere.

David Opderbeck • David Is Professor of Law and Director of the Gibbons Institute of Law, Science & Technology at Seton Hall University Law School. His teaching and scholarship focus on information policy, intellectual property, and cybersecurity law. He is also Of Counsel in the Intellectual Property and Information Technology practice groups at Moses & Singer, LLP. He holds law degrees from Seton Hall University Law School (J.D. ‘91) and New York University Law School (LL.M. ‘99) and a Certificate in Cybersecurity Foundations from Stanford University. He was previously a Partner at McCarter & English, LLP.

Register Today 20th Annual Terrorism Trends & Forecasts Symposium Name Company Address City/State/Zip Phone CC# (AMEX, VISA, MC) Expire Date How Many Attending

Amount ($)

(If more than one, see below)**

Signature Today’s Date *Directions to Bergen County Law & Public Safety Institute: • www.co.bergen.nj.us/bclpsi/Directions.html • Directions to Bergen County Law & Public Safety Institute Mahwah. Rt. 17 North to McCarthur Blvd. exit about 20 minutes on Rte 17 Turn left at Light On to McCarthur. Go to end Road about 1/2 Mile Turn Right on to Darlington Ave. make first left on to Seminary Road. Take Seminary Road about 1/2 mile to Campgraw Rd. Institute is about 1/2 mile on left. Enter building on left BC Bergen Law Public Safety Institute Rates for this conference are as follows: Early Bird Rates: Until August 30, 2013 • IACSP Members: First Responders, Law Enforcement, Military, Teachers, Students, $139.

• Non Members: Corporate Security Directors, Government Agencies, $169 Standard Rates: After August 30, 2013 • IACSP Members: $169 / Non Members: $199 You can mail your registration to: IACSP (If sending check, make out to: “IACSP”), PO Box 100688, Arlington, VA 22210 USA To Fax Registration fax to: 202-315-3459 Or go to www.iacsp.com to register. For questions or inquiries, please call The IACSP Office At: 201-224-0588 or 571-216-8205. **Important: Special “Bring A Colleague” Prices Available. Call for more info.

Iran’s Secret War:

How The U.S. Will Maintain Superiority In The Face Of A Mounting Cyber Security Threat

By Leo Labaj, Nicholas Gyongyosi and Joseph Kamali

General Keith Alexander, Director of the NSA and Commander of U.S. Cyber Command speaks about cyber security and USCYBERCOM at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, June 3, 2010.

REUTERS/Hyungwon Kang (UNITED STATES)

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ntroduction

The Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property recently reported that over $300 billion worth of intellectual property is stolen from U.S. companies annually, much of that by Chinese cyber attacks. Media reports, Congressional meetings, and public opinion have been fixated on the threat of Chinese hackers since their links with the PLA were damningly revealed in a report earlier this year. However, so much focus on the Far-East has blinded many to a different growing threat, the highly volatile hacking groups supported by the Iranian government, such as the Qassam Cyber Fighters. There is a cyber war erupting and the Iranian government’s development of robust hacking capabilities has become one of the greatest threats to national security. Iran, through these groups, has the capability to inflict significant damage to domestic critical infrastructure, and consequently to the global economy.

While China has us rightfully concerned about the exposure of American intellectual property, the Iranian threat is far more basic. It targets the very fabric of our daily lives, where we eat, sleep, live, and learn.

Iran’s Hacking Groups Over the past year, the U.S. has become far more concerned with the cyber capabilities of Iran and the cyber security threat it poses.

Former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta warns that “a cyber attack perpetrated by nation states or violent extremists groups could be as destructive as the terrorist attack on 9/11.”1 A well-struck cyber attack could cripple the nation as much as a conventional attack.

Iran has a short, but volatile history beginning in the early 2000s with hacking and cyber attacks. It is purported that the American and Israeli governments were behind the Flame virus that attacked Iranian oil companies for years, as well as the Stuxnet worm that inflicted severe damage upon Iranian nuclear facilities. Iran has begun to strike back at foreign companies, banks, and even at critical American infrastructure.

Iran is taking its enemies weapons and has begun retaliating.

The rise of the Iranian cyber security threat began with an attack on the world’s most valuable company, Saudi Aramco. In August 2012 a computer virus was released on the state-owned oil company’s computers, unleashing what has been noted as one of the most destructive acts of cyber sabotage on a company in history. The virus managed

to erase data on over three quarters of Saudi Aramco’s corporate servers, replacing files with an image of a burning American flag.

The United States intelligence community claimed the attack was perpetrated by Iran, prompting Secretary Panetta to cite the attack as a “significant escalation of the cyber threat.”2 Computer security experts noted that the virus, called Shamoon, included an erasing mechanism named Wiper. That

same tool was a component of the Flame virus that plagued Iranian oil companies.

Suspicions arose that the Saudi Aramco attack was Iranian retaliation. The U.S. intelligence community subsequently placed blame on Iran for a similar attack on RasGas, a Qatari natural gas company, which occurred two weeks after the Saudi Aramco attack.

The Iranian cyber war was further escalated with a series of attacks on Western banks.

From September 2012 through early 2013, hackers caused major disruptions to services on the online banking sites of Bank of America, US Bancorp, BB&T, Capital One, Citigroup, Fifth Third Bank, HSBC, PNC, and Wells Fargo. The banks suffered Distributed Denial of Service attacks, also known as DDoS attacks, denying customers service by directing large volumes of traffic to a site until it collapses. A hacker group by the name of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters claimed responsibility for the Eugene Kaspersky, Chairman and CEO of Kaspersky Labs, speaks at a Tel Aviv University cyber security conference June 6, 2012. Kaspersky, whose lab discovered the Flame virus that has attacked computers in Iran and elsewhere in the Middle East, said on Wednesday only a global effort could stop a new era of “cyber terrorism”. REUTERS/Baz Ratner

attacks as retaliation for the inflammatory anti-Islamic video mocking the Prophet Muhammad. However, no bank accounts were breached and no money was taken; the hackers chose not to pursue money, but rather to inflict disruption of service which seems to signify not the work of amateur hackers, but that of state-sponsored attackers. The Qassam Cyber Fighters intend to continue propagating their campaign, warning American bank officials that “from now on, none of the U.S. banks will be safe.”3 While the attacks on Arabian Gulf companies and U.S. banks may seem reminiscent of the Chinese cyber threat, the Iranian hackers in reality pose a far greater threat to national infrastructure than the Chinese, who have focused on intellectual property theft. This is most evident in recent attacks on critical U.S. infrastructure. Iranian hackers have launched surveillance and infiltration missions on American infrastructure systems, probing into the computer networks that operate U.S. energy companies. Unlike the DDoS campaigns,

The cutting edge of technology rests first in the hands of private sector firms, whose valuable products are contracted by, but not limited to the federal government. Take, for example, Bonesaw, a potentially dangerous tool developed by the secretive defense contractor Endgame. the recent probing has led to infiltrators gaining information on the controls running company operations and acquiring the means to destroy or disrupt them in the future. This information on the control systems that run oil, gas, and power companies within the US could give Iran the ability to inflict massive damage to critical US infrastructure should the cyber war escalate even further. A recent report from Congressmen (now Senator-elect) Edward Markey and Henry Waxman on electric grid vulnerability states that “physical damage [caused by technological strikes] by terrorists to large transformers could disrupt power to large regions of the country and could take months to repair.”4 Knowledgeable hackers could carry out such an attack with little risk of detection or interdiction causing billions of dollars worth of damage. James A. Lewis, a cyber security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, states that the “Iranians were faster in developing [a cyber] attack capability and bolder in using it than [the US] had expected.”5 In the Congressional report of electric grid vulnerability, more than a dozen utilities had reported daily or constant attempted cyber-attacks with one utility reporting over 10,000 attempted cyber attacks each month. The U.S. power system serves over 300 million people and is valued at over one trillion dollars. The Iranians have proven that sophistication is not necessary to inflict significant damage and the recent probes on critical U.S. infrastructure systems significantly advanced Iranian cyber attacking capability.

The Future of Iran-US Cyber warfare As Iran continues to ramp up its cyber capabilities, the U.S. must act in response to this growing threat. Unlike China, the Iranians are “less interested in stealing our military secrets or how we’re going to make the next Apple product. They’re more interested in probing our vulnerabilities, so they can attack us - literally shut down, ma-

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nipulate - cause an industrial accident.”6 Iran is already ostracized from a large portion of the economic world and stands to lose far less with radical action than, say, China. The Iranian government is reportedly spending over $1 billion per year on their cyber force, which is roughly .03 percent of its GDP. The country’s aggressive preoccupation with building an operational cyber force is clear when this number is compared with the Pentagon’s budget for developing U.S. Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM), which is only .02 percent of US GDP. This is a new kind of vulnerability that has developed within the U.S., one Iran could potentially exploit using their cyber capability. If further action is taken against their nuclear program, the Iranians have the ability to damage the U.S. significantly and USCYBERCOM is currently not fully capable of defending against them. It’s critical that we examine American cyber defensive capabilities in the wake of the Iranian threat.

A New Joint Command Perhaps in response to this particular rising threat to our nation’s digital infrastructure, USCYBERCOM, directed by Army General Keith Alexander, is undergoing major restructuring. Until now, USCYBERCOM’s many data and network operations centers operated on separate networks, which made it difficult to implement broad cyber security measures. Gen. Alexander is now developing a single network combining the four C’s (command, control, communications, and computing). Whereas before upgrades had to be delivered individually on each separate enterprise, the new, cloud-based platform (called The Joint Information Environment), allows administrators to apply patches and security upgrades for the entire command instantly, saving the agency money on software, hardware, and manpower.

Thanks to Gen. Alexander, the U.S. is making significant progress in developing the robust defensive and offensive capabilities necessary for a strong USCYBERCOM. The government is aware of the nation’s vulnerabilities and has developed a revolutionary new command and control structure that will maintain America’s military superiority even as the battlefield shifts from sand dunes to cyberspace. However, the unconventionality of this particular cyber threat demands the preparation not only of the military, but of the private sector as well.

Even before the infiltration of U.S. power grids in May, Gen. Alexander reported seeing a growing number of attacks on Wall Street, “over 140 in the past 6 months.” Conventionally, the military and intelligence community have been responsible for protecting the public from threats originating outside the country. However, regardless of how vigilant and well-organized USCYBERCOM is, the rapidity and frequency of such attacks require that corporate IT security experts must quickly become the first line of defense and response to foreign threats. Thus, in March, Alexander commented on the growing partnership between his cyber warriors and the private sector. “If we’re going to see [an attack] in time to make a difference, we have to see it in real time,” he said. He suggested two-way information sharing between the government and critical infrastructure operators, as well as major Internet providers.

The cutting edge of technology rests first in the hands of private sector firms, whose valuable products are contracted by, but not limited to the federal government. Take, for example, Bonesaw, a potentially dangerous tool developed by the secretive defense contractor Endgame. Bonesaw offers a worldwide map displaying every device connected to the Internet, any malware already existing on it, as well as undetected critical vulnerabilities called “zero-day exploits.” The cost of an annual subscription to this software, which includes the capacity to display 25 zero-day exploits, is about $2.5 million. The good news is that under the protection of the Espionage Act of 1917,

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American companies like Endgame, despite their somewhat suspicious goal of concealment from the public eye, are legally obliged to ensure that their software does not ultimately harm U.S. national security.

The bad news is that it would be foolish to assume that Bonesaw is the only program of its type in existence today. Still, Endgame and companies like it may be the future of securing domestic infrastructure as the federal government is increasingly forced to rely on their technical expertise. Cyber warfare is not a closed battlefield, and the American military may no longer be the undisputed king on this front.

A final note on privacy. With the saga of Edward Snowden and the NSA leaks still so close at hand, we must of course make note of the significant threat increased federal presence on the Internet may have for American citizens. Such a concern is, as we have seen, both legitimate and important to the nature of a democracy. We offer no solutions here, no ideal balance other than the strong conviction that such a balance must be struck in an open dialogue. Privacy concerns are paramount. So is our safety. The middle ground is not easy to find, but that does not mean it is not worth finding.

Conclusion While China and its hackers pose a serious risk to the prosperity of American companies and the U.S. economy, a far different cyber threat has arisen in Iran. The Islamic Republic is at the forefront of modern developments in online warfare, and it has proven its ability and willingness to inflict significant damage to systems critical to the American economy, from the oil fields of Arabia to the financial giants of Wall Street. This new threat has led to the escalation of a secret cyber war, one in which the Department of Defense cannot stand alone.

About the Author Leo Labaj is retired from the Central Intelligence Agency and is the current Director of the Critical Infrastructure Protection Division at Security Management International, LLC. He can be reached at llabaj@smiconsultancy.com Nicholas Gyongyosi and Joseph Kamali are both completing programs of study at The George Washington University. They are Junior Associates at Security Management International, LLC and can be reached at info@smiconsultancy.com.

References: 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

http://www.defense.gov/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=5136 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/24/business/global/cyberattackon-saudi-oil-firm-disquiets-us.html?adxnnl=1&smid=tw-nytimes& partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all&adxnnlx=1351076744tjEI49Z8W3vYM7GHy4F8vA&_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/09/technology/onlinebanking-attacks-were-work-of-iran-us-officials-say. html?pagewanted=2&_r=0, http://markey.house.gov/sites/markey.house.gov/files/documents/ Markey%20Grid%20Report_05.21.13.pdf http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/24/business/global/cyberattackon-saudi-oil-firm-disquiets-us.html?adxnnl=1&smid=tw-nytimes& partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all&adxnnlx=1351076744tjEI49Z8W3vYM7GHy4F8vA&_r=0, http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2013/05/24/hackers-appear-toprobe-u-s-energy-infrastructure/,

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Fighting Dirty:

Booby-Traps, Deception, And Other Unconventional Tactics In Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF)

By Dr. Thomas B. Hunter

U.S. Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Jonathan Barreda uses a metal detector during a route-clearing mission near Marja in Afghanistan’s Helmand province on April 9, 2011. Barreda, a tank crewman, is assigned to the 1st Combat Engineer Battalion. DoD photo by Cpl. John M. McCall, U.S. Marine Corps. (Released)

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t is no secret that insurgent and terrorist forces in Afghanistan have long used improvised explosive devices (IEDs) to attack Coalition forces throughout the country, resulting in hundreds of dead and injured Allied soldiers. Less discussed is the specific issue of the use of “booby-traps” by enemy forces in-country; devices designed specifically with deception and specific targeting in mind, rather than the simpler goal of targeting any and all Coalition forces, such as IEDs placed along roadways to target military and civilian convoys, to cite just one tactic.

Certainly, it has been well documented that terrorists and insurgents have utilized these more common devices, deceptively camouflaged as well as booby-trapped, hidden inside: Abandoned cars, pickup trucks, and other four-wheeled vehicles (the most commonlyencountered IED, outside those plants directly into roadways, etc.), Carcasses of common local animals (horses, dogs, etc.), and rigged to explode upon being disturbed for disposal, Bicycles and motorcycles left near checkpoints and other locations regularly in proximity to Coalition forces, Trash and refuse piles, and, Sand and gravel piles used in construction of new roads.

Again, however, these more common IEDs, while often booby-trapped, are beyond the scope of this analysis. Rather, this article seeks to describe some of the more nefarious methods and devices, designed to trick specific groups of Coalition soldiers. The author leaves the descriptions of the more common IEDs (as described above) to other studies and writers. In addition, as booby-traps are literally as varied as the imaginations of those personnel who are creating them, a complete listing of such tactics is not possible.

the cave and killing all Coalition forces within.

This was most notably encountered during the opening “exploitation” phases of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) in 2001 when cave discovery and exploitation were a high priority for invading forces – particularly given the fact that Taliban and Al-Qaeda forces left behind significant caches of weapons, ammunition, and intelligence in their pre-existing cave complexes.

Covert Taliban IED factories have been found to have been fitted with various booby-traps in order to trigger the weapons under construction within the building, both killing or injuring the Coalition forces inspecting the facility as well as to deny them any intelligence that might be potentially gained from a successful capture of an intact facility.

Trip wires placed underwater in foot canals and connected to adjacent IEDs along the sides of the canals after receiving intelligence of Taliban or Al-Qaeda presence near an irrigated field.

General use of anti-tampering and other modifications to “left behind” artillery shells and other explosives, specifically booby-trapped to kill EOD personnel.

Widespread use of booby-traps of all types intended to protect insurgent drug-producing operations, such as poppy fields and processing facilities.

The novel tactic of insurgent snipers firing several shots from a hidden position, ensuring detection by Coalition soldiers. The sniper then

Following is a detailed summary of some of the actual booby-traps encountered by Coalition forces during OEF (Operation Enduring Freedom).

Booby Traps Encountered Other reporting from U.S. forces indicate the enemy is also using the following clandestine tactics: Easily the most common booby-trap encountered

by Coalition forces is trip wires place inside the doors of homes and other buildings, rigged to detonate adjacent IEDs to kill and injure Coalition entry teams. These are typically connected to large amounts of explosives hidden carefully throughout the house and designed to kill as many Coalition and Afghan soldiers as possible.

Improvised pressure plates, trip wires, rigged ammunition boxes, and other devices placed within caves and designed to explode, collapsing

Eastern Afghanistan (Jan. 14, 2002) -- During a search and destroy mission, U.S. Navy SEALs discover a large cache of munitions in one of more than 50 caves explored in the Zhawar Kili area. Used by al-Qaida and Taliban forces, the caves and aboveground complexes were subsequently destroyed through air strikes called in by the SEALs. Navy special operations forces are conducting missions in Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. U.S. Navy photo. (RELEASED)

U.S. Army 1st Lt. Matt Jarmon, assigned to Charlie Company, 82nd Airborne Division, exits a compound after performing a search at a village in southern Afghanistan on Feb. 5, 2010. The U.S. Army and Canadian Forces Land Force Command are helping the Afghan National Army clear several villages of improvised explosive devices, weapons caches and illegal drugs. DoD photo by Senior Airman Kenny Holston, U.S. Air Force. (RELEASED)

booby-traps his “hide” with grenades or other explosives, triggered upon being disturbed by the soldiers sent to locate and inspect the sniper’s previous position.

Of these, easily the most commonly encountered booby-trap in Afghanistan has been the rigging by the Taliban of all manner of buildings in the countryside. Thousands of such homes, offices, schools, and other structures have been pre-emptively destroyed by Coalition forces upon discovery of these booby-traps, rather than risking

they might be able to uncover. The compound, located along the Arghandab River southwest of Kandahar, appeared little different from thousands of similar structures dotting the landscape of Afghanistan, and preliminary reconnaissance indicated no presence of enemy forces.

Shortly thereafter, a portion of the squad entered the compound and began to search for anything of intelligence value, finding little of value. Moments later, however, Canadian Army sapper, Marc Carignan, entered the front door of the compound. As he did, a massive explosion rocked

of the targeted weapons) causes a small, localized, but catastrophic explosion.

Certainly, while this tactic might seem (and likely often is) an effective one, it must also be considered that such modified ammunition and weapons, given the fluid nature of asymmetric warfare in the region, could end up in the hands of forces friendly to the U.S. As it cannot distinguish between friend and foe, it is equally lethal and dangerous.

One notable historical example of this tactic was Project Eldest Son (though it underwent various

Of course, this is not to say that Coalition forces are not without their own black bag of dirty tricks even covert planting of “rigged” enemy ammunition and weapons. Utilizing this tactic, ammunition, such as a bullet, is modified to explode when fired from an enemy weapon, killing or injuring the firer, and destroying or damaging the weapon. the lives of EOD forces to dismantle them, and to reduce the delays to troop patrol movement throughout a given area (a desired by-product of booby-trapping). This tactic was most frequently encountered in and around Kandahar in 2010 during major Coalition offensive operations in the area, but continues to prove popular today in virtually any contested region of the country.

On 13 August 2010, two British soldiers were killed when an IED detonated as they searched a two -story mud-walled structure near a mosque. The attack was unusual in that it purposefully utilized IEDs made of non-metallic materials, in order to avoid detection by preliminary sweeping teams. Once inside, and the building deemed secure, an IED detonated as three soldiers descended a staircase, injuring three British soldiers. After action analysis indicated that the building had been rigged specifically to provide a false sense of security for Coalition personnel.

Then, once the larger team elements had entered, thinking it safe, an unknown gunman command detonated the IED. Even more nefariously, the assailants had pre-staged a second IED along the route leading to the helicopter landing pad, likely to target injured and other personnel as they extracted from the location. The second blast killed two soldiers, both of whom were assisting one of their comrades injured in the earlier blast on the stairs. The injured soldier perished, as well, as a result of the blast.

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On 18 May 2008, Canadian and Afghan forces were informed by local Afghan villagers that a nearby compound had been in recent use, but since abandoned by Taliban forces. Acting on this intelligence, a small joint force was deployed to investigate the walled mud compound to search for possible enemy forces and any intelligence

the entrance, sending lethal, white-hot shrapnel spraying in all directions and a thick cloud of dust billowing skyward. Clearly, someone had wanted to kill the young soldier.

Miraculously, Carignan escaped the blast with minor injuries, while the remainder of the squad scrambled over the low walls to safety. Just ten minutes later, another blast erupted from within the compound, though no personnel were injured.

Later that day, a larger team of sappers and other explosives ordnance disposal (EOD) personnel performed a rigorous, if much more cautious inspection of the compound. The resulting investigation uncovered dozens of improvised explosive devices (IED) of varying types and sizes. All of these, intentionally placed to kill or injure the squad as they entered the compound, failed to detonate with the original blasts due to a single faulty command detonation wire. The copper wire was found to run some 600 meters to a wall, behind which an insurgent had sat, waiting for the moment to detonate the deadly trap.

Fighting Fire With Fire Of course, this is not to say that Coalition forces are not without their own black bag of dirty tricks. Among the most common tactics used by the U.S., British, and other military forces is the booby-trapping of captured, discovered, and even covert planting of “rigged” enemy ammunition and weapons. Utilizing this tactic, ammunition, such as a bullet, is modified to explode when fired from an enemy weapon, killing or injuring the firer, and destroying or damaging the weapon. Specifically, the standard smokeless powder is replaced with high explosive of a similar physical appearance. Once fired, the pressure created (far greater than the tolerances

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name changes). The program was initiated, implemented, and operated by Military Assistance Command, Vietnam - Studies and Observation Group, or MACV-SOG. Its purpose was to emplace explosive cartridges and infiltrate those modified rounds into the supply chains of Communist forces. These included not only the ubiquitous rounds used for AK-47s, but also Type 67 mortar shells and other ammunition. This program was reportedly successful not only in Vietnam, but in Cambodia and Laos as well.

Conclusions The use of booby-traps by Taliban, Al-Qaeda, and other enemy forces in Afghanistan will continue to plague Coalition forces, and will likely continue to improve or adapt to ongoing Coalition efforts to detect and defect known traps of these types. It is also likely that counterinsurgency operations involving similar “dirty tricks” will also adapt to target enemy forces in the OEF area of operations. Improvements in technology and training for Coalition forces, though intentionally not described here in order to preclude revealing future countermeasures, will benefit these forces and likely save lives and injuries for those warfighters operating in that theater of operations. Nonetheless, the imagination of the insurgent cannot, itself, be defeated. Therefore, booby-traps will remain an ongoing threat as long as operations continue in Afghanistan.

About the Author Dr. Hunter is a former senior intelligence officer with the Defense Intelligence Agency, focusing on terrorist tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTP).

He has published numerous articles on topics related to special operations, counterterrorism, and targeted killing.

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Spy Artifacts

From The Secret History Of Espionage On Display In Philadelphia

By Paul Davis

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harlie the Catfish, the Drop Dead Rat, the Beano Grenade and an umbrella that shoots cyanide pellets, are spy gadgets one might expect to find in the prop department of a James Bond film.

But these items and more than 200 others are true historical artifacts on display at the Franklin Institute’s newest exhibition, “Spy: The Secret World of Espionage.”

The exhibit opened in May and visitors can see artifacts from the CIA, the FBI and the Reconnaissance Office, as well as from the private collection of intelligence historian and author H. Keith Melton.

Many of the items were drawn from the recently declassified CIA collection, including a saddle used by a CIA officer in Afghanistan and the cockpit of the A-12 Oxcart Spy Plane from 1962.

“Philadelphia has long been a hotbed of spy activity over the years, and even today our fascination with the mysterious world of espionage continues,” said Dennis M. Mint, President and CEO of the Franklin Institute. “The extensive collection of artifacts, documents, tools and interactive displays in “Spy” so vividly tell the intriguing and important tales of espionage that have shaped our world today.”

Melton, the technical advisor for the TV espionage series “The Americans” on Fox, is the author of several books on espionage and spy technology and the co-author of

His passion led him on treasure hunts around the world that added to his now more than 10, 000 artifacts in his personal collection. His hunt for artifacts took him around the world and included a visit to the KGB headquarters in Moscow and the Berlin study of Markus Wolf, the legendary head of the East German Intelligence Service (HVA), commonly known as the Stasi.

“Spycraft: Spytechs From Communism to Al-Qaeda” with Robert Wallace and Henry R. Schlesinger, and he wrote another book with Wallace and Schlesinger called “Spy Sites of Philadelphia: Two and a Half Centuries of Espionage in the City of Brotherly Love” to coincide with the Spy exhibit.

“If there is one thing visitors take away from the exhibit, it should be an appreciation of the central role that intelligence plays in the defense of our democracy,” Melton said. “So much of what happens in the clandestine world happens behind the scenes, and at a time when we are in peril as

a country and our enemies are many, intelligence is the tripwire that keeps us safe.”

in Moscow and the Berlin study of Markus Wolf, the legendary head of the East German Intelligence Service (HVA), commonly known as the Stasi.

Melton quoted R. James Woolsey, the former CIA director, who offered an interesting statement before Congress after the demise of the Soviet Union. “We’ve slain a large dragon. But we live now in a jungle filled with a bewildering variety of poisonous snakes,” Woolsey said. “And in many ways, the dragon was easier to keep track of.”

Melton said one item on display in Philadelphia is the ice ax that killed Leon Trotsky in Mexico in 1940. Melton said it took him more than 30 years to acquire it.

Melton, a U.S. Naval Academy Graduate, noted in his book “Spycraft,” that as a young naval officer returning home from Vietnam in the late 1960s, he became interested in the world of espionage.

He watched the James Bond films and wondered if there was really a “Q” supplying spies with gadgets.

“The exploits of famous spies were fascinating, but my engineer’s curiosity focused on the more obscure topic of clandestine technology.

I relate to history through gadgets,” said Melton.

His passion led him on treasure hunts around the world that added to his now more than 10, 000 artifacts in his personal collection. His hunt for artifacts took him around the world and included a visit to the KGB headquarters

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“Trotsky’s assassination was the murder of the century,” Melton said. “At the time, it commanded more press and international angst than the murder of John F. Kennedy.”

Melton explained that Trotsky was the last opposition to Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.

“What happened to the ax? I searched and searched. Finally a woman held a press conference in 2005 and said her father was a Mexican police chief and when he retired he was given the ax that killed Trotsky,” Melton said. “I contacted the reporter that wrote the article and he put me in touch with her and this began a multi-year effort and ultimately I obtained the piece.”

explained. “America’s greatest spymaster is likely to have been George Washington.

He understood the value of intelligence and the Committee of Secret Correspondence meeting in Philadelphia put together the first American intelligence service.”

The Committee of Secret Correspondence was created in 1775 and its members were Benjamin Franklin, Robert Morris, Robert Livingston, John Dickenson, Thomas Willing, Thomas McKean, John Langdon and Samuel Ward.

“The Committee would clandestinely contract for arms and ammunition, employ overseas spies, and help plan raids on British supply lines,” wrote Melton in his book “Spy Sites of Philadelphia.” “With many of the records of this committee intentionally destroyed to maintain secrecy, the full extent of its activities may never be known.”

Melton went on to explain that it seemed appropriate that the “Spy” exhibit is in Philadelphia, as the city is rich in spy history.

Melton said that intelligence was a force-multiplier for the colonials, who were fighting against the larger, better equipped and organized British troops. He quoted British Major George Beckwith, who said after the war that “Washington did not really outfight the British; He simply outspied us!”

“Philadelphia was the cradle of the revolution, but it was also the cradle of the forming of America’s first intelligence service,” Melton

Melton also noted that Harry Gold and other key individuals in the atomic bomb spy plots lived in Philadelphia. One of Melton’s favorite discoveries

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was George Koval, a Soviet GRU officer and Manhattan Project spy, who worked in the secret thermal-diffusion pilot plant at the Philadelphia Navy Yard in South Philadelphia.

“Most people think of Los Alamos when thinking of the atomic bomb and would never think that there was a secret diffusion site in Philadelphia,” Melton said. “There is such a rich espionage history in Philadelphia.” In the age of terrorism, how important is spy technology to national security?

“The more poisonous snakes we have running loose in the jungle, the more it becomes essential that we have to find them, fix them in position and finish them,” Melton said. “And espionage is the backbone of finding and fixing, and plays a role in the finishing.”

“The men and women of the intelligence community are the first line of defense and a strong intelligence community is the best investment for our ongoing peace and security.”

The “Spy” exhibit will run in Philadelphia at the Franklin Institute until October 6th and then will move on to Seattle.

About the Author Paul Davis is a frequent contributor to the Journal of Counterterrorism & Homeland Security International.

Boston Legal

Through The Political Bluster, Post 9/11 Legal Precedents Set The Stage For Tsarnaev Prosecution

By Joseph J. Kolb

Two simultaneous explosions ripped through the crowd at the finish line of the Boston Marathonkilling at least two people and injuring dozens on a day when tens of thousands of people pack the streets to watch the world famous race. REUTERS/Dan Lampariello (UNITED STATES)

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assion and political posturing among lawmakers following the Boston Marathon bombings did little other than to obfuscate prosecutorial procedure that had multiple legal precedents while at the same time putting the Rule of Law in doubt, a collateral goal of a terrorist attack being to undermine the U.S. system of government.

A day after suspected Boston Marathon bomber co-conspirator, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, was taken into custody after a standoff with local, state, and federal law enforcement agents in the backyard of Watertown, Mass., residence, federal lawmakers rushed to call for him being classified as an Enemy Combatant for the April 15, dual bombings that killed three and injured nearly 200. Tsarnaev’s 27-year-old brother, Tamerlan, the alleged mastermind behind the attack, was killed earlier in the day in a shootout with police. The brothers are said to be self-radicalized Islamic extremists who acted alone in the bombing to punish the U.S. for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Rep. Peter King (R-NY) former chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security told Fox News that, “The suspect, based upon his actions, clearly is a good candidate for enemy combatant status. He’s going to be convicted.” Concurring with King were Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC), John McCain (R-Ariz.), and Kelly Ayotte (R-NH).

Tsarnaev’s 27-year-old brother, Tamerlan, the alleged mastermind behind the attack, was killed earlier in the day in a shootout with police.

The brothers are said to be self-radicalized Islamic extremists who acted alone in the bombing to punish the U.S. for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Further greasing the slippery slope of ignoring federal law was a comment made by New York State Senator Greg Ball who tweeted after Tsarnaev’s arrest, “So scum bag #2 in custody, who wouldn’t use torture on this punk to save more lives?” He went further by saying, “One of the questions

Officials take crime scene photos a day after two explosions hit the Boston Marathon in Boston, Massachusetts April 16, 2013. Officials investigating the Boston Marathon bombing said on Tuesday that no additional explosive devices have been discovered other than the two that detonated near the race’s finish line, a development that could complicate the case. At this point, no one is in custody in connection with the Monday afternoon attack that left three dead and sent 176 to area hospitals, Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis said. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton (UNITED STATES )

to be asked is this: is “torture” ever justified in the war against terror, if it can save lives?

I am not shy in joining those who say yes, and I believe we must give those tasked with protecting us every constitutional and effective tool to do so.”

The sentiments of the lawmakers may have been presumptuous and illinformed because despite the heinous nature of the staggered explosions near the finish line of the Boston Marathon the surviving suspect has been a U.S. citizen since 2012 and was arrested on U.S. soil making him legally ineligible to be classified as an enemy combatant.

By April 22, Tsarnaev, who was recovering in a Boston hospital from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the neck was lucid enough to have a first appearance before a federal magistrate who came to his hospital room. Tsarnaev was Mirandized, told the judge he could not afford an attorney, and was appointed a federal defender. It was at that time he learned he had been federally charged with one count of using and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction against persons and property within the United States resulting in death and one count of malicious destruction of property by means of an explosive device resulting in death. He faces a maximum sentence of death or life in prison.

Regardless of the emotional impact such events as Boston have on the public, the law is quite clear as to how a case like this should be prosecuted.

The underlying factor being that Tsarnaev is a United States citizen, whether lawmakers like it or not, charged with a crime on and arrested on U.S. soil. This immediately makes him ineligible for enemy combatant status, and to the dismay of Bell, torture. In fact, the traditional definition of what an enemy combatant typically refers to a member of the armed forces of a country the U.S., is at war with.

After 9/11, the Department of Defense broadened this definition to include a person engaged in hostilities against the U.S. during an armed conflict.

According to Dawinder S. Sidhu, Assistant Professor of Law & Regents’ Lecturer at the University of

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Despite the heinous nature of the staggered explosions near the finish line of the Boston Marathon the surviving suspect has been a U.S. citizen since 2012 and was arrested on U.S. soil making him legally ineligible to be classified as an enemy combatant.

New Mexico, the main impediment to enemy combatant status applying to Tsarnaev is that the Authorization of Use of Military Force allowed for the designation of Enemy Combatant status to one who was fighting or supporting al-Qaeda. There is no evidence that Tsarnaev has that connection. Further, the Military Commissions Act authorizes military commissions against aliens, not citizens. These facts -- the absence of any connection to al-Qaeda and his citizenship -- are the most important as to the inapplicability of Enemy Combatant status or of military commissions.

“The insistence that individuals who are responsible for such heinous acts be tried under military process is understandable insofar as it reflects the horrible nature of the underlying action,” said Sidhu. “But it comes at the cost of undermining the civilian process, which has been used successfully in other historical wartime contexts and after 9/11 to try and convict those who indiscriminately kill innocents in the United States. It is a tribute to our judicial system and our dedicated U.S. attorneys -- and not a sign of weakness or victory for our enemies -- to bring the surviving suspect before the federal courts.”

Whether the rapid response of the lawmakers was to seek justice in a military tribunal where the burden of proof is less and the suspect is denied representation and a jury which are all found in a civilian court or, as King said, to gain additional intelligence about any other planned attacks or who the Tsarnaev may have been inspired by or working with, the similar rush for justice in the months and years post 9/11 resulted in U.S. Supreme Court decisions that clarified who is eligible to be tried as an enemy combatant and what the legal rights of captives are. While terrorism is fluid and unpredictable, as was the case with Boston, U.S. law and the Constitution isn’t.

Case Histories The central theme behind the majority of the post 9/11 attacks was whether an individual should be charged as a civilian or Enemy Combatant and whether that person had the right to habeas corpus, legal representation, trial by jury, and Constitutional privilege against self-incrimination. These are cases that demonstrate that despite how frustrating at times it may seem, the American system of justice does work. It is worth mentioning that although it was pre-9/11 the Oklahoma City bombing, which was significantly worse than the Boston bombing resulted in the execution of Timothy McVeigh and a life sentence for Terry Nichols.

John Walker Lindh was the first actual post-9/11 test case for the government to decide how the prisoner who came to be known as the “American Taliban” would be prosecuted. Lindh, a native of California, admitted to being a member of the Taliban and al Qaeda after being captured with other Taliban in Afghanistan in November 2001.

He was also involved in a prison uprising that resulted in the death of a CIA agent. Never the less, Lindh was indicted by a civilian Federal Grand Jury on 10 counts that included Conspiracy to murder U.S. citizens or U.S. Nationals, and two counts of providing material support and resources to terrorist organizations. Then Attorney General John Ashcroft told reporters that, “Not all conduct against the United States by U.S. citizens is susceptible to the charge of treason. The Constitution imposes a high evidentiary burden to prove the charge to prove the article of treason. Article 3, Section 3 of the Constitution requires that treason be proven only by a confession in open court or by the testimony of at least two witnesses to each alleged overt act.”

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He followed up by saying Lindh was not tried in a military tribunal because he is an American citizen.

Hamdi v. Rumsfeld Louisiana native Yaser Esam Hamdi, 20, was taken into custody by members of the Afghan Northern Alliance and turned over to the U.S. military after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in response to the 9/11 attacks in the fall of 2001. Hamdi, who had been in Afghanistan since the summer where he alleged he was performing relief work, was classified as an enemy combatant by the U.S., detained in Afghanistan for one year then transported to the detention facility at the Naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba in January 2002. That April he was transferred again to detention sites in Virginia and South Carolina. It was learned around this time that Hamdi also possessed Saudi Arabian citizenship.

In June 2002, Hamdi’s father filed a writ of habeus corpus in federal court in Virginia where it was determined that since Hamdi was an American citizen he did have the right to a public defender. The government, which had opposed the request on the grounds that Hamdi was caught “in arms” in a combat zone with an enemy of the U.S. he should, in fact, be treated as an enemy combatant disqualifying his rights to civilian legal opportunities.

The Supreme Court Regardless of the suspected association, motives, and actions of an individual who is a U.S. citizen detained in the U.S., whether representing a foreign or domestic entity presumed to be an enemy of the U.S. and classified as an “enemy combatant” that individual is afforded constitutional rights to due process, legal representation, and a civilian trial.

According to Sidhu, the most salient holding of the Court was that Hamdi, as “a citizen held in the United States as an enemy combatant,” was entitled to “a meaningful opportunity to contest the factual basis for that detention

before a neutral decision maker.”

More specifically, “a citizen-detainee seeking to challenge his classification as an Enemy Combatant must receive notice of the factual basis for his classification, and a fair opportunity to rebut the Government’s factual assertions before a neutral decision maker.” It did not say that Hamdi could not be brought before a military tribunal, the Military Commissions Act says that he can’t.

Rasul v Bush During the invasion of Afghanistan in the fall of 2001 following the attacks of September 11, U.S. military took into custody three men they believed were members of the Taliban.

Shafiq Rasul and Asif Iqbal were British citizens, and David Hicks was Australian. The three originally said they were not members of the Taliban but merely picked up arms in self-defense. Hicks’s father later said he believed his father joined the neo-conservative ruling party of Afghanistan who was alleged to be harboring Usama bin Laden.

Around the same time 12 Kuwaitis were captured alleging they were non-combatants who were providing relief services in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In a third separate incident a third defendant was arrested by Pakistani officials.

The men were transferred to the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where they were prohibited contact with family and legal defense all the while being repeatedly interrogated.

The defendants initially took their case to U.S. District Court in Washington D.C. where the case was dismissed with prejudice on July 30, 2002. The court said it did not have jurisdiction over the facility at Guantanamo Bay because Cuba does not consider it sovereign U.S. territory which subsequently prohibited trial in the U.S. In August 2002, the case was brought before the U.S. Court of Appeals who upheld the lower court’s decision.

A year later the case was brought before the U.S. Supreme Court who rendered a decision in April 2004.

The Supreme Court decided that even foreign nationals held on U.S. soil were eligible for habeas corpus. In 1867, Congress extended the protec-

tions of the writ to “all cases where any person may be restrained of his or her liberty in violation of the constitution, or of any treaty or law of the United States.” This makes the geographic location of the place of detention, charges, or nationality of the suspect moot as long as they are being charged pursuant to U.S. law.

The significance of this case in protecting the civil and human rights of suspects taken into custody in the War on Terror is profound. This landmark case calls for eliminating the indiscriminate detention of individuals without habeas corpus regardless of their nationality as long as they are being charged under U.S. law. As a result of this decision, the first three claimants in Rasul found their charges dropped in the U.S. and when they were returned to Great Britain they were summarily released from custody. The decision also limits the reckless manner in which people were taken into custody without due process at the behest of President George W. Bush. This decision now controls that compulsion.

Conclusion It must be remembered that no matter how despicable an act of terror may be on American soil or to American citizens and interests in foreign countries, it is the Rule of Law that separates the U.S. from those who desire to do it harm. Consequently, when American law makers attempt to feed into the frenzy of post-attack fear and anger, they feed into the very strategies being employed by the terrorists. Of the major terror suspects taken into custody and put on trial not one has been acquitted because the system, as it stands, has worked.

About the Author Joseph J. Kolb, M.A., is the founder and director of the Center for Border Security Studies at Western New Mexico University. He has been extensively published on criminal justice and homeland security issues with Fox News.com, Fox News Latino.com, Global Intelligence, and the New York Times.

Two Armies

By Bob O’Brien, Jim Weiss and Mickey Davis

U.S. Marines with Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment conduct a security patrol through the Nawa district of Helmand Province, Afghanistan, on Oct. 18, 2009. DOD photo by Cpl. Arthur Shvartsberg, U.S. Marine Corps.

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“I

’d like to have two armies: one for display with lovely guns, tanks, little soldiers, staffs, distinguished and doddering generals, and dear little regimental officers who would be deeply concerned over their general’s bowel movements or their colonel’s piles, an army that would be shown for a modest fee on every fairground in the country.

The other would be the real one, composed entirely of young enthusiasts in camouflage uniforms, who would not be put on display, from whom impossible efforts would be demanded and to whom all sorts of tricks would be taught. That’s the army in which I should like to fight.”

--Jean Larteguy, Soldier and Writer French author, journalist, and former soldier Jean Larteguy passed away in February, 2011.

His thoughts on “Two Armies” in his novel The Centurions had timeless relevancy to the expansion of terrorism, irregular warfare, and Communism that French soldiers were charged with countering in the aftermath of World War II. Over the years, we read and studied his “Two Armies” countless times. No matter how many times we read it, we’re always inspired. What amazes us is how Larteguy, in only two short paragraphs written in 1960, captured the true warrior essence.

To truly understand “Two Armies,” one needs to understand Jean Larteguy and what motivated him to write his profound, timeless, and universal book.

Jean Larteguy Jean Larteguy [1920-2011] fought with the Free French Forces during WWII, winning numerous military awards.

As a war correspondent in the Korean War, he volunteered for the French Battalion and was wounded at Heartbreak Ridge.

He also covered the Palestinian,

French Indochina, Algeria, and American Vietnam wars.

Bien Phu (setting the stage for America’s Vietnam War).

Larteguy is best known for his famous 1960 book, The Centurions, which chronicles the back-to-back Indochina and Algeria guerilla wars. The novel was made into the 1966 movie, “Lost Command.” Today The Centurions holds almost cult status among US military officers and Special Forces.

Following this humiliating defeat, the Paratroops and Foreign Legion were thrust almost immediately into another guerrilla war in Algeria. However, having learned from Indochina, the French embarked on their own highly-effective counterguerrilla warfare. They were winning until inflexible politicians and military generals literally quit on Algeria (which had belonged to France for hundreds of years).

Why this resurgence of interest in a book that is currently out of print? It is because it closely mirrors today’s Global War on Terror, with great relevance to the current Afghanistan and Iraq Wars. None other than US Army General David Petraeus wants The Centurions back in print.

To understand “Two Armies” is to understand France’s twenty years of non-stop wars [19401960] that left the French public weary of fighting. France’s generals refused to accept or recognize the change to guerrilla warfare, one that required very different strategies and tactics from that of traditional warfare. The result was that the vastly superior (on paper) French military, including its elite Paratroopers and Foreign Legion, was out-maneuvered and ultimately defeated by Vietnam’s Viet Minh at Dien

This capitulation caused the Paratroops and Foreign Legion

to “revolt” and make numerous assassination attempts on the life of Charles de Gaulle, who, in turn, disbanded the units.

This is chronicled in Frederick Forsythe’s historical fiction novel, Day of the Jackal. It is at this time period (1960) that Jean Larteguy penned his nowfamous “Two Armies” in his book The Centurions.

Two Armies Within the Police So how exactly is Larteguy’s “Two Armies” relevant to today’s law enforcement? For reasons very similar to those

This capitulation caused the Paratroops and Foreign Legion to “revolt” and make numerous assassination attempts on the life of Charles de Gaulle, who, in turn, disbanded the units. This is chronicled in Frederick Forsythe’s historical fiction novel, Day of the Jackal. It is at this time period (1960) that Jean Larteguy penned his now-famous “Two Armies” in his book The Centurions.

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Larteguy cited – two diametrically opposite policing philosophies. Up until the 1960’s riot era, virtually all Law Enforcement (LE) agencies were quasi-military, law-and-order enforcers. For example, police were legally authorized to fire warning shots or shoot at fleeing felons (“stop or I’ll shoot”) and use nightstick strikes to the head for resistant arrestees. There were laws on the books for vagrancy, suspicious persons, and other public disorder offenses. This was before “Miranda,” and there were very few, if any, lawsuits against

jurisdictions or individual officers. In the post 1960’s era, this has changed. Baton head strikes are considered deadly force, fleeing felons may not be shot at unless they pose a deadly danger, and warning shots are no longer allowed to be fired.

Today, lawsuits against police agencies and individual officers are commonplace.

A warrior from the Clearwater, FL, Police Department SWAT team shooting with his gasmask on.

Tactical Medics, as members of a SWAT team, prepare to enter a building in a chemical environment during training conducted near Virginia Beach, Virginia.

All of this is reflective of the dramatic changes in pre- and post-1960’s policing. Today’s police are far better trained, equipped, and knowledgeable than their earlier counterparts.

Perhaps the biggest change of all is how/when/why police

In the post 1960’s era, this has changed. Baton head strikes are considered deadly force, fleeing felons may not be shot at unless they pose a deadly danger

US Army Military Policeman in combat in Iraq. He is a member of the 89th MP Brigade. DoD Photo.

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are authorized to employ force (deadly and non-deadly). However, one fact of policing has NOT changed since Sir Robert Peel, the father of modern policing, created the first modern police force, London Metropolitan, in 1829: The primary mission of the police is to prevent crime and disorder.

Again, like the military, the police are divided into two armies, perhaps better called the warriors and the logisticians.

The logisticians are those law enforcement officers who are placed in support roles such as administration, records, many types of detectives, community

Street cop. Motorcycle instructor training taking place in Jacksonville, Florida.

policing officers, communications, etc. Are some logisticians also warriors? Yes, but basically their role is as a logistician. As a rule, logisticians and warriors operate in two very different worlds. While logisticians can plan and prepare to counter terrorist events, it is the street cops who meet it face on.

In the world of military and police, do warriors and logisticians need each other and can they work together? Yes. They need to be a unified team for an army to be successful. The key to success is for everyone to be on the same page – working together, in synch, for mutually

Two police officers from two different states undergoing tactical rifle training in Florida.

common purpose and goals.

Both philosophies can not only exist and coexist, they can also thrive and become very successful. Instead of the “us against them” mentality, it needs to be “them and us.”

At a 2011 ceremony to present valor and life-saving awards and swear in new personnel, Sheriff Chris Nocco of the Pasco County, FL, Sheriff’s Office said words to the effect: “We are peace makers; we are not peace keepers. Peace keepers are those soldiers with blue UN helmets who respond to situations as neutrals, not taking sides. That’s not what we

do. We respond to situations, determine who the bad guys are, and arrest them.” Sheriff Nocco’s army is “the army in which I should like to fight.”

Instructors in the police “army in which I should like to fight,” when teaching defensive tactics and use of force and control, also teach the warrior’s mindset and fighting techniques that can be described as combat. Training is realistic.

In the other police army operating under the thumb of political correctness and doddering chiefs and their command personnel, terms like

Army Staff Sgt. Robert Rios, right, and Pfc. Michael Halter, Company A, 2nd Battalion, 87th Infantry Regiment, lead a patrol down during a village assessment in the Jalrez Valley of Afghanistan’s Wardak Province, March 12, 2009. This was the troops’ first stop in the village as they worked their way out from the nearby Combat Outpost Apache. DoD photo by Fred W. Baker III.

“warrior” and “combat” are strictly forbidden in police training; they are not proper law enforcement terms.

New World Order: A new world order has evolved in regard to crime and terrorism.

In most large cities there are criminal families, households, and sometimes entire crime neighborhoods where regard for law and order is thin to nearly nonexistent. Such people have entrenched criminal mindsets, thinking of crime as an occupation or a part-time job. The differences between right and wrong behavior are no longer relevant.

Military police soldiers with Task Force Apache, 4th Brigade Special Troops Battalion, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, move behind a truck during a simulated patrol at Forward Operating Base Rushmore in Afghanistan’s Paktika Province, Jan. 20, 2011. The simulated patrol showed Afghan police officers the proper way to use cover while on patrol. U.S. Army photo by Spc. Zachary Burke.

With cell phones, text messaging, and other forms of instant communication, rioting can quickly materialize into a spontaneous revolutions. Even in planned protests, really bad people can blend in with peaceful demonstrators. Terrorist cells can and do take advantage of such disorderliness. And in the world of jihadists, such terrorists willing sacrifice their lives to their duty.

Disconnect -- In law enforcement, the leaders establish strategy via policy, rules, regulations that the troops are mandated to carry out.

Conversely, the troops most often establish and carry out the tactics.

This is a time-honored system, reflective of policing’s quasi-military chain of command. It is here, where the “boots meet the ground,” that the disconnect between the top and bottom of LE agencies is likely to occur, particularly in agencies where there are deep philosophical differences between those at the top and those who work the streets.

This disconnect very often centers around the use of force – especially deadly force. America’s streets are clearly becoming meaner and more dangerous, and it is the street officers who daily face this danger. Being constantly “under the gun” – often from both their departments and the streets -- widens the gulf of disconnect distrust all the more. Such disconnect closely resembles Larteguy’s “Two Armies.”

An example of where the top and bottom of LE agencies needed to be in total synch is during a riot, especially deadly, destructive urban rioting of the type experienced very recently in London, Birmingham, and a number of other cities.

The UK’s rioting is reminiscent of the devastating 1992 LA riot and so many other urban riots precipitated by use of force by police. Many frontline UK street cops had a sense of the build-up to “it” hitting the fan.

For certain, most of them have very strong opinions about their respective LE agency’s riot control response and who they preferred to have standing alongside them, since they were the ones on the receiving end of the rioters’ rage-fueled attacks and battled for their lives.

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This disconnect very often centers around the use of force – especially deadly force and it is the street officers who daily face this danger. Being constantly “under the gun” – often from both their departments and the streets widens the gulf of disconnect distrust all the more.

Warriors: The “Two Armies” disconnect is also often seen within law enforcement agencies, between the top and bottom personnel.

The top warriors are the cops who, in addition to helping people, are hunters; they hunt bad guys and people behaving badly. A relatively small percentage of law enforcement officers in any agency make the majority of arrests.

Warriors are often the first to arrive at hostile or violent situations.

They are the first in, the officers who make the arrests and, when needed, apply control tactics up to and including deadly force under the use of force continuum.

At the bottom rung of law enforcement are the sub-marginal performers, the gods and goddesses of the status quo. These are the slugs, the least dependable team members, the anti-warrior element. They are consistently the last to arrive when dispatched to a violent or a pending violent situation, the last to engage when things get physical, and rarely make arrests, even when mandated by law. Who are the officers most likely to be penalized and selectively enforced by rules and regulations?

Not the slugs, but the warriors.

Slugs will back off from situations and say as a mantra: Somebody else will arrest him. Warriors are that somebody else.

Street cops are policing’s frontline warriors – the ones who respond to crime, arrest criminals, face the very real daily threat of injury or death. If you want to know what is really happening crime wise, just ask the street cop who knows and understands the pulse of the streets.

Frontline and Elite Warriors: Just as street cops represent LE’s frontline warriors, SWAT represents LE’s warrior elite. The frontline and SWAT are also where the disconnect between the top and bottom in many LE agencies becomes most evident.

In LE agencies that are in synch, SWAT is relied upon to resolve highrisk situations. Calling out SWAT is akin to calling in the cavalry. In such LE agencies, frontline cops and SWAT have a mutual respect and appreciation for one another. This is what Larteguy must have envisioned with the “fighting army” in “Two Armies.”

In LE agencies with disconnect between the top and bottom, the top often views SWAT with great trepidation, as a necessary evil. It is only rarely allowed “off leash,” and only as a last resort. In such agencies, the top often “fears” its own SWAT and frontline street officers more than the criminal element, in what Larteguy must have envisioned with his “show army” in “Two Armies.”

If/when terrorism strikes America again, it will be the frontline street cops and SWAT who will bear the brunt of law enforcement’s counter terrorism response. The effectiveness of this response will hinge on whether its frontline and SWAT officers are real or paper tigers. To learn the answer, we only need to ask the very same frontline police and SWAT officers.

Jean Larteguy undoubtedly penned his “Two Armies” out of frustration at the “show army’s” refusal to adapt to the changing face of warfare. He correctly recognized that “fighting armies” were best suited for guerilla warfare. Today’s urban terrorism

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closely resembles yesterday’s urban guerilla warfare, which is why the US military’s General Petraeus, officers, and Special Forces continue to study Jean Larteguy’s visionary The Centurions, and why his equally visionary “Two Armies” is so applicable to today.

Ten years after the deadliest terror attack in America’s history, 9/11, the question is whether the nation, and especially law enforcement, are ready--or not--for the inevitable next terror attack on US soil.

This question becomes especially relevant in view of drastic cuts made by so many law enforcement agencies due to the continuing weak economy. They come at a very bad time. Instead of downsizing and “doing more with less,” LE needs to be enhancing and upgrading, especially in the areas of counter terrorism response and capability.

Yet, regardless of how prepared or unprepared the “show” law enforcement army is, the “fighting” frontline police warriors will stand ready because they are America’s first – and last – line of counter terrorism defense.

Jean Larteguy understood this in 1960, and we need to understand that today in 2011.

About the Authors Sgt. Robert “Bob” O’Brien, Cleveland Department of Police SWAT (Retired) is a member of the TREXPO Advisory Board and founder of the R.J. O’Brien Group Ltd., a law enforcement training and consulting service that advises and trains a number of local, state, and federal SWAT teams. He is also a Army Vietnam War veteran.

Lieut. Jim Weiss (Retired) is a former Army light infantryman, school-trained Army combat engineer, a former school-trained (regular Army) Army military policeman, former State of Florida Investigator, and a retired police lieutenant from the Brook Park (OH) Police Department. He has written and co-written hundreds of articles for law enforcement and safety forces magazines, most notably Law and Order.

Mickey (Michele) Davis is an awardwinning, California-based writer and author. Her young adult novel, Evangeline Brown and the Cadillac Motel, won the Swiss Prix Chronos for the German translation.

Mickey is the wife of a Vietnam War veteran officer.

Secure Driver:

What Happened To Driver Training?

By Sean McLaine

J

ust about every department has at least annual firearms qualification, but how many have driver training at any point after the academy?

I would like to examine why we demand officers show proficiency with weapons they statistically use very infrequently, yet feel that officers have all the driving skills they require after a block of training in the academy. It is true that most officers across the country are behind the wheel every day whether they are working or not, but how many of them are driving with a purpose? When I say purpose I mean beyond getting from point A to point B, actually trying to improve their skills.

If you follow any trade publications, you are certainly aware of the high numbers of police involved vehicle accidents. Articles are constantly published showing the dangers of police work are often encountered in the cars we drive, and all too often these articles are accompanied with a photo and a list of relatives left putting the pieces together. The problem is defined, and does not need to be proven in this article. What needs to be proven is how to reduce these numbers.

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The driving you do around town uses such a small percentage of the car’s capabilities that, from a training standpoint, it would be like shooting at a silhouette from five yards and being happy if you hit the paper. Mindless shooting will not improve your chances of being accurate in an emergency, and neither will mindless driving.

You may be saying to yourself, “I heat the rubber up a bit to stay sharp.” Many people believe if the tires are squealing and they are getting thrown around in the seat, it means they are pushing the car to the limit. They certainly may have been getting

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the car up around 95% of its grip, but are they really getting the most out of their turns? What kind of training does your academy offer, and who is doing the teaching?

When the steering wheel is turned does the officer understand the forces acting on the car? If they were trained by a program that did not teach vehicle dynamics and focused on getting a high volume of students through a short day at the skid pad and track, chances are they do not. The driver may be using 95% of the available grip on a turn where they could go faster, with better control,

and use only 88% if they adjusted the way they approached the turn. I cannot stress enough the importance of correct driver training! “We have budget constraints,� you may say. Driving, like anything else is mental as well as physical. We all use the speedometer to see how fast we are going, but were any of us trained to interpret what that information means to us in a given situation? Ask yourself if you were ever taught how to convert miles per hour into feet per second, and then think about approaching an intersection with an obstruction limiting your view down a side street. Let’s put the scenario together by now thinking about how many seconds you have to see down that side street before entering the intersection. We know the time, and we know the distance, but were we ever taught how to use time and distance equations in that manner. Miles per hour means nothing in that scenario. A driver certainly could not be expected to do that equation in their head while approaching the intersection. I use the example to demonstrate how being mentally prepared after a training session can mean safe arrival, as opposed to a supervisor hearing, “I had my lights on and this guy came out of nowhere!�

The right trainer in a classroom with the right material can do wonders for a driver to increase their level of understanding about how a car works. Nothing they will teach is complicated,

and nothing is ground breaking, but concepts will be put together and presented in such a way that the average driver has never considered. Again, this is mental, and can be done without setting foot inside a car!

These days, it seems as though the competition for auto makers to get their share of the police market is heating up. Look around and you will see departments with Crown Victoria’s, Chargers, Impala’s and any number of SUV’s. Do your officers understand the difference in handling between front wheel drive and rear wheel drive? How does the high center of gravity in a Sport Utility change the handling? With the extreme slope of the rear roof post and giant head rests, how can you avoid accidents while backing? 50% of all police car accidents occur backing up. Could being aware and prepared before your officers shut the car down reduce this number?

If you can find extra money in the budget, nothing beats seat time! As I mentioned earlier, driving with a purpose is the most important aspect after being mentally prepared. Most officers in the academy today have never driven a rear wheel drive car. Front wheel drive is very forgiving to improper throttle inputs, and the time to learn this is not on an icy night during the adrenaline dump from hearing your friend screaming to save his

life. You may have been driving for 30 years, but does that mean you have been driving correctly for all of that time? Putting somebody behind the wheel with a trained instructor critiquing can mean more precision, more safety, and less wear and tear on equipment. Driving is a perishable skill and somebody who took a couple of days of driver training in 1980 could definitely use some refreshing. Next time you are down at town hall, ask the town accountant how much your department has paid out in lawsuits resulting from car accidents. Then look at how much the town has paid in vehicle replacement/repair. After that, look at what was paid in medical expenses from officers who were injured in car accidents. Lastly check to see how many work days were missed by those officers. . .oh and uh one more thing. Was overtime given to another officer to fill their seat while they were out? Once you have added all those columns, compare it to the cost of a comprehensive training program for your officers. Would you want to tell a little girl her father is not going to see her grow up because of a traffic accident?

Unfortunately this happens all too often.

About the Author

Sean McLaine is the Lead Instructor at ADSI.

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IACSP University Spotlight

Preparing For The Inevitable:

New Mexico University Prepares First Responders For Bombing Incidents

By Joseph J. Kolb

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After the commander of a New Jersey fire department deemed a HazMat situation “all clear” in an apartment they were dispatched to because of a strong odor, an astute fire fighter looked in a closet and found jugs of urine. This revolting and seemingly innocuous discovery may have warranted a smirk and a quick close of the door had it not been for his recent training at the Incident Response to Terrorist Bombings class at the Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center (EMRTC) at New Mexico Tech in Socorro, N.M. The observation made by the fire fighter uncovered a plot to use urea nitrate bombs, made from the bottled urine, to explode inside the connecting tunnels between New Jersey and New York City. After summoning investigators to the apartment a cache of maps with pinpoint locations where the bombs would be placed were discovered.

According to Van Romero, Ph.D., Vice President of New Mexico Tech and a prominent explosives researcher, these scenarios occur more frequently than we want to imagine. That was the impetus to begin the programs for first responders nearly 20 years ago on the quaint campus some 75 miles south of Albuquerque, N.M. EMRTC regularly hosts classes for first responders such as Incident Response to Terrorist Bombing Incidents; Prevention of and response to Suicide Bombing Incidents; Medical Preparedness to Bombing Incidents; and Initial Law Enforcement Response to Suicide Bombing Attacks.

Romero says that by the end of 2013 EMRTC, whose training is funded by FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security, will have trained some 500,000 first responders since starting the program in response to the first World Trade Center attack in 1993.

He feels preparation for bombings are especially relevant with the current environment of internet access to bomb making, even if rudimentary, technology and the lone wolf terrorist whether they be foreign or domestic.

“It’s the access to this kind of information and social media that concerns me,” Romero says. “There are also a lot more failures causing explosions that don’t get publicized.”

This training couldn’t have been more relevant than in Boston where EMRTC has trained 1,500 first responders in the city alone and 15,000 across the state.

Romero said he has heard from graduates of the program who were on the scene and said they were fortunate to have the training they received.

“We want them to care for the injured but, if they can, preserve evidence, understand the effect of explosions on structures for their own safety, and recognize the potential for secondary devices, which happened in Boston,” Romero says. “Our graduates know what det cord, blasting caps, and initiators look like to assist in preserving evidence.”

It has been the preservation of evidence from explosive devices that has allowed EMRTC to work with federal law enforcement agencies, the military, the Department of Homeland Security, civil engineers, and foreign nations, to recreate the blast and create a narrative and subsequent planning.

Romero shared an incident where EMRTC was called to study the efficacy of a barrier design to protect buildings in Saudi Arabia from the affects of explosive blasts following the attack on the Khobar Towers in 1996, that killed 19 U.S. servicemen and injured nearly 500. It was determined that not only would the barriers fail, they would actually exacerbate the blast’s affect on the building. EMRTC research has also found, in terms of building design, that large glass entries to buildings not only increase the projectile risk of broken glass and debris but also can effectively enhance the funneling of the blast into the building.

It has been the preservation of evidence from explosive devices that has allowed EMRTC to work with federal law enforcement agencies, the military, the Department of Homeland Security, civil engineers, and foreign nations, to recreate the blast and create a narrative and subsequent planning.

One recent EMRTC recommendation that was promptly implemented was on New York’s George Washington Bridge. Out of concern that a vehicle bomb detonating on the suspension bridge would rupture the support cables and cause collapse of the bridge, EMRTC developed a cable protection design called “sacrificial containers” which are wrapped around the main cables. In the event of an explosion, the containers would absorb the blast maintaining the integrity of the cables.

Most recently, while sitting in his university office, Romero saw the Boston Marathon explosion replayed repeatedly and knew immediately what he was looking at. In fact it didn’t take long for television stations to contract his lab to demonstrate the destructive force of a pressure cooker bomb.

“I told one of my assistants to look up pressure cooker bombs on the internet and he was back in two minutes with sites on how to make them”, he says. “There had to be some kind of training involved though because the fact they had two pressure cooker bombs detonate almost simultaneously demonstrates a level of sophistication.”

Romero says that given the simplicity of the pressure cooker design he would not be surprised to see similar incidents in the future. While using different explosives, the precedents have already been established of mass killers prepared to detonate crude but deadly explosive devices such as James Holmes, charged in the July 2012, Aurora, Colo., movie theater mass shooting. When investigators arrived at his apartment they found it booby trapped and packed with explosives.

“This is why training for first responders is crucial; they are the first ones at the scene and need to be prepared,” says Romero. “This training further gives responders the confidence to do a good job.”

The two most popular programs at EMRTC are the Incident Response to Terrorist Bombings (IRTB) and Prevention of and Response to Suicide Bombing Incidents (PRSBI). In the four-day trainer the trainer IRTB course students

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“I told one of my assistants to look up pressure cooker bombs on the internet and he was back in two minutes with sites on how to make them”, he says. “There had to be some kind of training involved though because the fact they had two pressure cooker bombs detonate almost simultaneously demonstrates a level of sophistication.”

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“Bomb U” as New Mexico Tech has euphemistically been referred to has been at the forefront of explosive research for more than 60 years when researchers built the proximity fuse, the first real fuse for a smart bomb.

learn how to identify commercial, military, and IED explosives; common explosive formulations used by terrorists; identify potential terrorist targets; pre-attack indicators; and tactics and techniques. The PRSBI course is five days and covers definitions of suicide bombing threats; infrastructure protection; risk management; critical asset assessment; and suicide bomb devices. Both courses emphasize not only classroom but field work where devices are actually detonated to demonstrate what occurs during an explosive event.

Romero says that his staff at EMRTC is constantly studying and planning for the effects of different explosives but that the challenge is to stay ahead of those who would use them against people and structures whether it be for ideology, protest, disenfranchisement, or revenge.

“I’m more concerned about what’s next, I don’t want to prepare for yesterday’s bombing but the next one,” Romero says.

And he is very cynical about the future where he expects to see more of the lone-wolf types of incidents involving homemade explosive devices which are made of common household chemicals.

“Bomb U” as New Mexico Tech has euphemistically been referred to has been at the forefront of explosive research for more than 60 years when researchers built the proximity fuse, the first real fuse for a smart

bomb. At the time the program was called Terminal Effects Research Analysis and was led by E.J. Workman. TERA was eventually joined by the Center for Explosives Technology Research in 1983. By 1993, in the wake of the first World Trade Center bombing, the university combined the two research arms into EMRTC. Romero says that while other universities conduct explosive research, this work comprises nearly 50 percent of the university’s funding to the tune of $50 million per year primarily from the Department of Homeland Security, followed by the Department of Defense, and Department of Energy.

Following the first World Trade Center bombing, the FBI turned to EMRTC to study the FBI’s theory of how Ramzi Yousef planned the explosion. Through re-enactmentat EMRTC, it was found the FBI’s theory was plausible validating the theory in a controlled setting and helping to convict Yousef where he was ultimately sentenced to life in prison. Ironically, on the day the university sponsored a conference to discuss the study, beepers went off in the auditorium notifying agents that the Alfred P. Murrah Building had been bombed in Oklahoma City.

“Our biggest efforts now involve understanding blast waves in an urban and underground setting, similar to subways,” Romero said.

These studies have included not only theoretical models but also controlled explosions around scaled buildings and tubes resem-

bling subways. To Romero, Boston was not a surprise. The goal is to mitigate the effects of the blast on lives and property. For more information about EMRTC go to http://www. emrtc.nmt.edu/

About the Author Joseph J. Kolb is an adjunct instructor in the Criminal Justice Program at Western New Mexico University. He is the founder of the university’s undergraduate and graduate certificate program in Border Security Studies. He has been published in Americas Quarterly, FoxNews.com, The Global Intelligence magazine, the New York Times.

IACSP University Spotlight

Playing Games:

How AMU Is Incorporating Gamification Into Its Intelligence Studies Program

By Leischen Stelter

W

ho says school is all work and no play? In mid-June, Professor Jason Anderson introduced a newly redesigned “game” into American Military University’s Open Source Collection course, part of the bachelor’s degree program in intelligence studies. This “game” gives students experience collecting and analyzing intelligence in real-time, using one of the fastest growing sources of open-source information: social media. During a recent panel discussion at the International Association for Intelligence Education, Anderson spoke about the process of incorporating gamification techniques into AMU’s Intelligence Studies program.

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“I wasn’t sure how I was going to fit gamification into intelligence studies,” Anderson said. “Then I decided to use social media as an outlet and turn it into a game.”

Gamification is not a new concept, it has been used in everything from getting kids excited to exercise to feeding the world’s hungry.

The basic objective of gamification is to engage use rs by us i n g g a m e mechanics and game design in non-game contexts. But, there were few specific examples about how to incorporate gamification into intelligence education.

Anderson started by creating Twitter profiles and feeds. While he curates the information on the Twitter accounts, the game itself happens in real-time. The objective of the game is for students to collect information and verify sources by corroborating information with other open-source and publicly available channels. Generally, students need to combine a minimum of 12 open-source outlets to verify an account.

So what do students gain after they verify sources? Information, of course. Students then incorporate this information into their class projects.

“In the educational setting, the reward we go after is information. There’s an information gap, there’s something we’re trying to figure out and we need to bridge the gap to get to the objective we need,” said Anderson. “Gamification gives you the ability to synthesize what’s important for you,” he said.

AMU is an ideal setting to incorporate this new application of gamification into intelligence studies. As a 100% online university,

students are familiar with using technology as part of their learning process. This incorporation of social media into intelligence collection has a real-world application for intelligence students. As social media becomes a greater and more respected source of information, the intelligence community will continue to refine how it collects and analyzes the vast amount of information on these platforms. Getting this kind of practice inside the classroom gives AMU students a better understanding of what it’s like to collect, analyze and then apply the intelligence they extrapolate.

About the Author Leischen Stelter works with the public safety outreach team at American Military University writing articles about issues and trends relevant to professionals in emergency management, law enforcement, fire services and national security. She manages several of the University’s blogs and social media accounts including @AMUDisasterEd, which focuses on news and events relevant to emergency management professionals.

She is currently pursuing a Master ’s Degree in Emergency & Disaster Management from American Military University.

An IACSP Q&A With

Philip Mudd

A riot police officer fires teargas during clashes with supporters of Islamist group Ansar al-Sharia at Hai al Tadamon in Tunis May 19, 2013.

Supporters of the hardline Islamist group clashed with Tunisian police in two cities on Sunday after the government banned its annual rally and the regional arm of al Qaeda urged it to stand firm against the authorities. REUTERS/Anis Mili

B

ackground

Philip Mudd joined the Central Intelligence Agency in 1985 as an analyst specializing in South Asia and then the Middle East. He began work in the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center in 1992 and then served on the National Intelligence Council as the Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia (1995-98).

After a tour as an executive assistant in the front office of the Agency’s analytic arm, Mr. Mudd went on to manage Iraq analysis at the CIA (1999-2001).

Mr. Mudd began a policy assignment at the White House in early 2001, detailed from CIA to serve as the Director for Gulf Affairs on the White House National Security Council. He left after the September 11 attacks for a short assignment as the CIA member of the small diplomatic team that helped piece together a new government

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for Afghanistan, and he returned to CIA in early 2002 to become second-in-charge of counterterrorism analysis in the Counterterrorist Center. He was promoted to the position of Deputy Director of the Center in 2003 and served there until 2005. At the establishment of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Security Branch in 2005, FBI Director Mueller appointed Mr. Mudd to serve as

the Branch’s first-ever deputy director. He later became the FBI’s Senior Intelligence Adviser. Mr. Mudd resigned from government service in March 2010.

Mr. Mudd is the recipient of numerous CIA awards and commendations, including the Director’s Award; the George H.W. Bush Award for excellence in counterterrorism; the CIA’s Dis-

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tinguished Intelligence Medal and the Distinguished Career Intelligence Medal; the first-ever William Langer Award for excellence in analysis; and numerous Exceptional Performance wards.

In his book Takedown: Inside the Hunt for Al Qaeda (University of Pennsylvania Press), Mr. Mudd describes his role in two organizations that changed dramatically after 9/11 and he sheds light on the

inner workings of the intelligence be somebody who could have community during the global his name on the spine of a book. counterterror campaign.

I love words. I like writing. So it was really rewarding, as someAs a participant in and a witness one who grew up reading, to to key strategic initiatives—in- have my name on a book. cluding the hunt for Osama bin Laden and efforts to displace IACSP: I took note that you the Taliban— Mr. Mudd offers didn’t settle any scores in your an insider’s perspective on the book. You spoke well of everyone. relationships between the White Were you lucky enough to have House, the State Department, not worked for dopes in your caand national security agencies reer, or did you simply wish not to before and after the invasions of include them in the book?

Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mudd: If you work for as many people as I did and in organizaPhilip Mudd was interviewed by tions as large as I did, you’re Paul Davis, a contributing edi- going to run across people who tor to the Journal and an online are incompetent, which is OK, columnist (Threatcon). or difficult and malicious, which is tougher to deal with. People complain about Washington D.C. IACSP: I read your book as a city that has lost its sense of Takedown. I thought it was courtesy. I knew I would take interesting. Why did you write some criticism, but I think a return to civility is not a bad goal to have. the book?

Mudd: I wrote the book for a IACSP: Would you give us an couple of reasons. One is professional and one is personal. The professional reason is I thought there would be a thousand of us who had tiny windows on this war so that an historian over time could build a mosaic picture of the war by reading some windows from intelligence guys, some windows from military guys and some windows from diplomats. I thought I had my tiny sliver, my tiny optic. And the personal piece is pretty straightforward. I have a BA and MA in English Literature and I always wanted to see if I could

overview of your career?

Mudd: I spent the first ten years

in the CIA as a line analyst, analyzing politics and leadership in mostly South Asia and the Middle East. After that it started getting interesting. I worked on interagency analysis, with Defense Intelligence and State Department, for example. I started working in management and learned how to manage people on Iraq, well before the Iraq War. I had a tour for a year, around 9/11, at the White House, and then I came back to manage different levels, includ-

ing the second in charge of the counterterrorism program at CIA. I finished up on loan to the Bureau as their senior intelligence advisor and second in charge of National Security at the FBI. To me, the uniqueness was the variety. I saw so many things that I think it turned out to be a great benefit.

IACSP: Can you pinpoint a par-

ticular highlight and/or low point?

Mudd: The low point was early

in my career. I wasn’t promoted very quickly, as I remember, and I was not sure I was learning very quickly. That was frustrating. I wasn’t sure this was something I should do for a lifetime. It took a while to learn and to grow. The highlight, just in terms of action, in interest and learning, had to be the post-9/11 years. Not in terms of reward, because I would never want to live that again, but in terms of contribution and maybe in participating in something that is going to go down in history. How can you not look at that and say, that was a unique life. Painful as it was, it was fascinating.

IACSP: Do you feel that 9/11 changed the mission and the culture of the CIA? Mudd: That is really a good

question. I think the cultural issues that I saw and the change is really significant. Traditionally, intelligence serves the policymaker who has to make a decision. In the age of terrorism, it’s the CIA who is both collecting

the information and typically acting on it. Usually, it is the diplomats or the military who are acting on the intelligence.

So that made the intelligence process immediate, it made it personal, it made it tactical. And the second thing was the sense of responsibility, not for a sort of looming strategic threat like the Soviet missile force, but for a threat that could leave a child in Chicago or Los Angeles or Miami motherless if we failed.

That changes your dynamic pretty quickly.

IACSP: Post-9/11, analysts

were put in the field, like the woman who died in Afghanistan when a man thought to be an asset blew himself up along with CIA officers on the scene. Some case officers said she should not have been there. Do you think it was a good idea, in general, to put analysts in field operations? Or should that be case-by-case?

Mudd: I think it should be case-by-case for a simple reason.

The simple reason is this: I was a career analyst because it was what I was drawn to and I thought it was both my personality-type and my intellectual bent. I have more case officer or operational friends than I do analyst friends, I think.

They have different personality types, but when you are managing thousands of people, occasionally you are going to have folks who have personality types who can do either. They change interest over the course of time or they have

I spent the first ten years in the CIA as a line analyst, analyzing politics and leadership in mostly South Asia and the Middle East. After that it started getting interesting. I worked on interagency analysis, with Defense Intelligence and State Department, for example. I started working in management and learned how to manage people in Iraq, well before the Iraq War.

talent that can apply in both places, so if I saw an officer I thought had talent in a career path that was different from what they grew up in, I’d say it served the country and the service to have them do that.

I don’t see why we should put a bar against it.

IACSP: When I was in the Navy we had the expression, “needs of the service.” It trumped everything.

Mudd: That’s exactly right. Not only the needs of the service, but if someone has talent that might be more valuable elsewhere, why would I say, that’s not their career path; I’m going to prevent the maximum use of that talent? That does not make sense to me.

IACSP: Who would you say was a standout

figure, professionally and historically, in the years following 9/11?

Mudd: CIA director George Tenet was one.

He made a profound contribution to my career.

Another one who should be regarded as an American hero and American legend was the director of the FBI, Bob Mueller. The character that he showed day-to-day, the commitment, the steadfastness; that guy was incredible. Another was the longtime deputy director and then acting director of the CIA, John McLaughlin.

He was a role model in terms of character and intellect. Good man with a steady hand on the tiller and he had a brilliant analytic mind.

IACSP: You’ve dealt with a good number of

journalists over the years. Do you think the CIA deals more with the press since 9/11?

Mudd: The challenge with what we saw in Part of this is based on what they say. I think London and Boston is people want to look at problems and find solutions that are easily comprehensible. That is, the government should have found these guys, for example, as there were signs of radicalization. When you have just a few individuals who have basic devices like a pressure cooker or a kitchen knife, trying to believe that there is some government policy or some security policy that can minimize this, I think, is simply wrong. If you have violent people who leave very little signature in counties of 330 million people, they are going to succeed. If you want a solution, go live in a security state. There is no solution that is easy.

IACSP: In your view, did enhanced interrogation aid in combating Al Qaeda?

Mudd: There is no question in my mind

that enhanced interrogation techniques gave us unique information from terrorists that when added to other information was critical to understanding the adversary. I suspect they are people who think that if you arrest a terrorist they walk in and give you the crown jewels. Here is the next strike, here are the plotters. That’s not the world I lived in. What I witnessed was classic intelligence collection through technical means, for example, through phones, or human intelligence, that is sources, information we got from friendly security services – all that information is fragmentary. When you added detainees to that picture, our ability to get mosaic pieces clearly and faster, increase dramatically. Our understanding of Al Qaeda was fundamentally different because of detainees.

these strikes were incredibly effective. If you don’t think they’re right or appropriate, that’s a different question. But don’t tell me they weren’t effective.

IACSP: You spent some years at the FBI. In this age of terrorism, do you think the FBI can continue to act both as a law enforcement agency and a domestic intelligence agency? Do you feel, like some, that we ought to have an MI5-type organization?

Mudd: I don’t. Not because I think it is a

bad idea. Both ideas, separate intelligence organizations or a unified organization like the FBI, have advantages. I’m just not sure it offers enough of an advantage for us to take the time, effort and money to make it happen. The reason is quite simple. There is efficiency in being able to act on the information you collect. In the British system they have a great security service, but over beers they might tell you they wish they had some of our law enforcement capability. In their system, intelligence has to hand off to law enforcement. But there is efficiency in their system. For example, if you are training at the MI5 Academy, you’re training to be an intelligence officer. You’re not training to be a law enforcement officer. To my mind, both have advantages and both have disadvantages, but there is not enough of an advantage that we should even think about it.

IACSP: I recall an interview you gave to CNN where you told the interviewer, “War is hell, get over it.” Great answer. I loved it.

Mudd: I spoke a little too emotionally, but Mudd: Yes. One of the reasons is the CIA IACSP: In your view, are the drone what I’m seeing in the 21st Century is that was at the heart of a campaign that was not only everyday news for Americans, but everyday news for American families. Some felt we had the responsibility to change the rules a little bit because we had to translate what we were doing to people who were scared. It was not just an intelligence campaign, it was an American campaign. We had to explain the campaign to those who were paying for it. Intelligence has been so different during the war on terror that it merited a change in the way we considered our responsibility to open up to the American people.

IACSP: What do you think can be done to guard against attacks like the bombing at the Boston marathon and the hacking to death of a British soldier in London?

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strikes a critical weapon against Al Qaeda?

Mudd: To my mind, the drone strikes are one of the critical factors of why we’ve stayed safer. We don’t have access to the areas where a lot of these leaders operate and neither do other security services. We either let them plot or we move against them with unmanned drones. The speed with which we eliminated not only leadership, but large swath of the operational commanders, facilitators and the Al Qaeda organization and its network and affiliates, was too fast for them to respond to. In essence, we were like sand getting into gears. It stripped the engine because we could use these strikes to eliminate the architecture of a terrorist group faster than they could replicate it.

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people are trying to separate out tragedy from war. For example, civilian causalities are always going to be a part of war. Anytime we choose to use weapons of war, we ought to go in with our eyes open. Tragedies will result.

There is too much of a sense that war can somehow be antiseptic. War should be the last resort of any country that is trying to protect national security. War is tragic.

IACSP: Are you working on a second book?

Mudd: I’m working on a book for Liveright books on analytical thinking and how to think about complex problems.

IACSP: Good luck and thanks for speaking to us.

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IACSP BOOK REVIEW

Takedown: Inside the Hunt for Al Qaeda

Iraq forces patrol during a military operation in the Hamrin mountains area near the Iraqi-Iranian border, June 11, 2013. Iraq forces said on Tuesday they had detained 156 suspected insurgents during operations to crack down on of al-Qaeda militants, the Naqshbandi army and the outlawed Baath party. Iraq is facing a surge in sectarian violence officials blame on Sunni Islamist insurgents determined to drag the country into a civil war. REUTERS/Mohammed Adnan (IRAQ)

By Philip Mudd Reviewed

by Dr. Joshua Sinai (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), 224 pages, $28.95.

“T

akedown: Inside the Hunt for Al Qaeda” is an authoritative and informative “insider” account by a former high level official at the CIA and FBI about how both agencies substantially upgraded their counterterrorism capabilities following the U.S. government’s failure to prevent al Qaeda’s catastrophic attacks on 9/11. Philip Mudd is ideally positioned to discuss these issues following a distinguished 24-year career at CIA, where he rose to become Deputy Head of its Counterterrorist Center, culminating in a four year detail in 2005 to the FBI as a deputy director of its National Security Branch. He resigned from government service in March 2010 (more on the reasons for his resignation later in the review). He is currently a sought-after commentator on television news programs.

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Mr. Mudd’s account begins following 9/11’s attacks when he was selected to support a small diplomatic team that was deployed in Pakistan and Afghanistan that helped establish a new government for Afghanistan, following the American military intervention that overthrew the Taliban regime in late 2011. Mr. Mudd’s discussion of his role reads like a spy novel, with the American team using various ad hoc methods to improvise a new political order with its Afghan counterparts, some of whom, like Hamid Karzai (the future president), had been living in exile for many years. With the American intervention criticized at the time for not pressing sufficiently to roll up Osama bin Laden and his escaping forces (who ultimately made their way to Pakistan’s tribal regions), one might disagree with Mr. Mudd’s explanation that “But then, the fight was up in the air: ousting the group [i.e., the Taliban] that had hosted the architects of 9/11 was a primary focus, and the hunt for Al Qaeda leaders was only a part of that mission.”

In 2002, Mr. Mudd returned to the CIA as a senior official in the Counterterrorist Center, becoming its Deputy Director in 2003.

At this point the book becomes a highly informative primer on the components that constitute effective counterterrorism. With their overall mission to “Ensure that we do not have another catastrophic event on U.S. soil,” their objective became to “Destroy Al Qaeda’s safehaven; break up plots; find, fix, and finish plotters.”

terrorism became effective over time, Mr. Mudd argues, as it succeeded in arresting top operational commanders such as Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, who was captured in Pakistan in March 2003.

Mr. Mudd explains that a measure of success in counterterrorism is not merely “who was captured or killed…but whether operations broke plots and destroyed the networks that could sustain long-term training and planning resulting in another strategic strike.” In this sense, Mr. Mudd concludes, “the focus on these operational figures was well founded: virtually no one, in 2001, would have bet that the United States would not have witnessed another 9/11-style event by now. In this most critical sense, the operational focus was successful.

Bin Laden took nine-plus years to take down, and Zawahiri is still out there, but their organization poses nowhere the strategic threat it did a decade ago, and its leadership is decimated beyond recognition.”

Successful counterterrorism requires not only effective intelligence and military operations against terrorist networks, but solid analytical products to guide the nation’s top decision makers. As an “insider”, Mr. Mudd provides a revealing portrait of how the “threat matrix” – a snapshot” summary of the threats facing the country on a daily basis – is produced, the difficulty of piecing together fragments of disparate intelligence information about terrorist cells and their operatives, how intelligence analysts attempt to be careful about

Successful counterterrorism requires not only effective intelligence and military operations against terrorist networks, but solid analytical products to guide the nation’s top decision makers.

Interestingly, with bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, his deputy, on the run and in hiding, they became, in effect, “symbolic leaders, providing strategic direction, cajoling their underlings, weighing in on key decisions, but not day-to-day overseers.” It was the “top operational commanders and their subordinates and facilitators” who became the focus of U.S. counterterrorism efforts, Mr. Mudd writes, because they “posed the most significant tactical threat to the United States.” Here, U.S. counter-

prioritizing threats, since lots of unfounded rumors invariably make their way as “raw intelligence” – but all of which need to be considered, given the difficulty of penetrating terrorist organizations such as al Qaeda to uncover their imminent plots.

With America’s attention now focused on understanding how “homegrown” extremists, such as the Tsarnaev brothers (who bombed the Boston Marathon), are radicalized into becoming terrorists, Mr. Mudd’s book also provides important insight on

how the FBI examines the activities of individuals who are suspected of possible future involvement in terrorism. While a majority of those who are radicalized are clusters of “angry young men” who “think about doing something,” but never take action, the key to determining their proclivity to becoming terrorists, he writes, is to “Find the key players; find how they communicate; find their overseas contacts; determine their access to weapons, explosives, training; find who radicalized them, and who they’d radicalized.”

Mr. Mudd had an exemplary career at CIA and FBI, but the upward trajectory in his career took an unfortunate turn when his 2009 nomination by President Obama as head of intelligence at the Department of Homeland Security was derailed by some Congressmen who raised objections over the CIA’s supposed harsh interrogation techniques against captured terrorist operatives (for which he writes that he was not directly involved). This unfortunate (and unfair) episode is sensitively discussed by Mr. Mudd in the book’s concluding chapter.

Mr. Mudd’s “Takedown: Inside the Hunt for Al Qaeda” is one of those very few insightful books about counterterrorism that only a veteran practitioner could write, making it essential reading for those with an interest in this field.

(Editor’s Note: This is a revised version of a review that was published by The Washington Times. Reprinted by permission.)

About the Author Joshua Sinai is a Washington, DC-based consultant, specializing in terrorism and counterterrorism studies. He is the author of “Active Shooter – A Handbook on Prevention” (ASIS International, 2013). He can be reached at: Joshua.sinai@comcast.net.

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