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Women Are The “Biggest Losers” In The Arab Spring

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Terrorism Trends & Forecasts 2014 If Iraq Falls, Is Nuclear War Inevitable?

The Terrorist Threats Against Canada And Its Counterterrorism Response Law Enforcement’s Higher Calling In The Time Of The NSA In The Desert: SEAL Team SIX And The Rescue Of Aid Worker Jessica Buchanan An IACSP Interview With Sandra V. Grimes, Former CIA Officer

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If Iraq Falls

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Is Nuclear War Inevitable?

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Page 6 SITREP, Terrorism Trends & Forecasts 2014, by Olivier Guitta Page 10 Law Enforcement’s Higher Calling In The Time Of The NSA, by David Gewirtz Page 12 Surveillance Detection: A Key Skill For Security And Counter-Terrorism Professionals, by Jeff Burns Page 14 Fears Of Unholy Alliances Emerge As Mexican DTO Tunnel Discoveries Increase, by Joseph J. Kolb Page 18 Fusing Counterterrorism, Crime and Natural Disasters: The Delaware Valley Intelligence Center In Philadelphia Is A 24/7 Operation, by Paul Davis Page 24 The Terrorist Threats Against Canada And Its Counterterrorism Responses,

by Dr. Joshua Sinai Page 28 If Iraq Falls – Is Nuclear War Inevitable?, by Col. Danny Dickerson (Ret.) Page 34 On the Ground in Kenya: A Conversation With An FBI Legal Attaché in Nairobi Page 38 Hostage In The Desert: SEAL Team SIX And The Rescue Of Aid Worker Jessica Buchanan, by Dr. Thomas B. Hunter Page 42 Secure Driver: Saving The Day, by Sean McLaine Page 44 Women Are “Biggest Losers” In Arab Spring, by Abigail R. Esman Page 46 An IACSP Interview with Sandra V. Grimes, Former CIA Officer, Mole Hunter and Author of ‘Circle of Treason”, by Paul Davis

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SITREP Terrorism Trends & Forecasts 2014

A

By Olivier Guitta, the Director of Research at the Henry Jackson Society

The UK

By Researcher Hannah Stuart

Islamism-inspired terrorist activity in the UK will continue to diversify in 2014.

Among the British Security Services’ primary concerns for the year ahead is the on-going Syrian conflict, which has already attracted up to 400 individuals from the UK in recent years.

Some of the individuals fighting in Syria will return not only with combat experience and bomb-making expertise

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group of analysts from London’s Henry Jackson Society discuss the global threat of terrorism in 2014, showing how extremist Islamic violence has fragmented across the Arab world and is concentrating in parts of Africa, for instance. The Sochi Winter Olympics also gets a mention, as does the UK. but also renewed jihadist inspiration and connections to al-Qaeda operatives globally. Their impact on radicalisation in the UK will likely be felt not just in the coming year but over the next decade and even beyond.

This year will also see the release of influential jihadists, either from prison or from under government controls for terrorist suspects (known as a terrorism prevention and investigation measures).

This includes Mohammed Hamid, the self-styled ‘Osama bin London’, convicted for soliciting murder in 2008 and up for potential release from prison in March. It also includes a 32 yearold known as ‘AY’, said to have been a key coordinator in the

2006 al-Qaeda plot to detonate liquid bombs on-board transatlantic airliners.The Security Services have identified several thousand individuals in the UK who support or engage in violent extremism and the impact of such charismatic and connected individuals should not be underestimated. After last year’s fatal attack on Fusilier Lee Rigby in Woolwich, for example, it emerged that one of the killers had previously attended lectures

by Hamid.

counter-terrorism efforts, and another 7/7 style attack should never be discounted.

We have seen – and will continue to see – more smaller scale attacks by lone actors attempted here. But the threat has not shifted. Large terrorist cells with links to alQaeda central or South East Asia will remain a feature of Britain’s

2014 will see Africa become even more of a hotspot: from Algeria to Tunisia, to Mali to Libya to Niger, to Nigeria, Kenya, Somalia, just to name a few. The emergence of additional al-Qaeda affiliates is go-

Journal of Counterterrorism & Homeland Security International

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Africa

By Olivier Guitta Two African al-Qaeda affiliates were able to pull off spectacular and deadly terror attacks over 2013: first, the In Amenas attack that killed 39 foreign citizens in January and the Westgate one in September that killed 71.

ing to have terrible implications for the security on the continent.

In fact, there are a number of offshoots of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) that could pull off spectacular and deadly attacks: from Ansar al Dine to Ansar al Sharia to Al Mourabitun (a merger from Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) and al-Mulathameen (Masked Men Brigade) of Mokhtar Belmokhtar. The latter might be the most dangerous because of Belmokhtar’s experience and sophistication. These groups co-operate and have common objectives including the ridding of Africa of Western influence; the overthrowing of apostate ‘unbeliever’ governments and the installing of fundamentalist regimes based on Sharia Law. Libya has one of the highest terrorist concentrations in the world; adding to the sheer amount of weapons lying around - MI6 estimates 1m tons of weaponry, more than the entire arsenal of the British Army- and its almost failed state status, make it the most dangerous place on the continent.

Further south, both Boko Haram and al-Shabaab are also potentially thinking of internationalising their cause, especially in light of both the “success” of Westgate and AQIM’s fundraising achievements through ransom money. Thus targeting Western interests or citizens might be something of a priority for these two groups.

Overall a very gloomy outlook for Africa.

Egypt

By Researcher Emily Dyer While Egypt is pushing forward its political transition into 2014, its deep divisions threaten to completely derail any remaining appearance

of stability. General al-Sisi’s interim government is taking its first step towards holding new parliamentary and presidential elections with a referendum held on the newly drafted constitution in midJanuary. Islamists (namely Muslim Brotherhood supporters) are likely to reject the political process they feel they have been entirely ousted from participating in and will instead pursue power and revenge through boycott and violence on the streets. Both sides – the military rulers and Brotherhood supporters – have not shown any sign of backing down, both viewing their survival as dependent upon the destruction of the other. Any violence on the streets will be met with an undoubtedly heavy hand from the police and security forces.

Terrorist groups based in the Sinai, who will continue to increase and broaden their attacks both along the peninsula and throughout wider Egypt, are likely to remain the biggest threat to the prospect of reclaimed stability. Despite bolstered security measures, the Suez Canal (namely military bases, vital trading routes and cargo ships) and leading political figures (namely al-Sisi) will face the greatest threat of attack. North Sinai will become a further established front for al-Qaeda and al-Qaeda affiliated groups, not just as a place to attack but as a base from which to run operations.

The current regime’s denial about the limitations of Egypt’s economy and financial support from its Gulf neighbors is likely to fuel civil unrest and violent uprisings throughout 2014 - particularly during the summer months. Moreover, its attempt to secure status quo through crackdowns on the Muslim

Brotherhood and terrorist groups (including its labeling the Brotherhood as a terrorist organization) will only lead to further violence, terrorism and civil unrest.

Iraq and Yemen

By Researcher Robin Simcox

It will be Syria that dominates the overall Jihadi focus, drawing in huge amounts of funds and foreign fighters. As a result, 2014 could be the year that the world begins to properly focus its attentions on a key actor in the Syrian war – the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL, aka al-Qaeda in Iraq).

02 January also highlights the increasing ability and aspiration of Syrian jihadists to attack targets inside Lebanon.

Lastly given Hezbollah’s failure to respond to several Israeli airstrikes on Syria during 2013, and increasing security problems in its South Beirut strongholds, it is instead more likely to focus on its domestic and Syrian enemies in 2014.

Russia

By Researcher Andrew Foxall

By Researcher Rupert Sutton

As Vladimir Putin enters his fifteenth year in power, the North Caucasus looms large on the Russian security agenda. In the first three quarters of 2013, 375 people were killed as a result of armed conflict in the North Caucasus. The three suicide bombings in Volgograd in October and December 2013 (which killed 41 people in total), together with the car bombing in Pyatigorsk in December (which killed 3 people), showed beyond doubt the continued threat posed by insurgents from the region. Given that the Caucasus Emirate – the main source of Russia’s domestic insurgency – declared its aim to use “maximum force” to “prevent” the Winter Olympic Games (to be held in Sochi, in February) from taking place, in mid-2013, the likelihood of terrorist attacks in Russia in 2014 is high.

Iran

The killing of the former Finance Minister Mohammad Chatah, a persistent critic of both the Syrian regime and Hezbollah, on 27 December has highlighted the readiness of supporters of Bashar Al-Assad to carry out indiscriminate attacks in Lebanon, and a similar campaign of assassinations to those which followed the Cedar Revolution in 2005/06 is possible in 2014. Any attacks by Sunni militants on Shia or Alawite areas will also see retaliation by pro-Assad paramilitaries, with the double bombing of Sunni mosques in Tripoli in August 2013 a template.

What is unclear is whether there will be an increase in the number of terrorist attacks in 2014 relative to 2013. After all, the resources available to the Caucasus Emirate are limited. Rather, what seems more likely is that there will be a change in the location of attacks. Given that the full extent of Russia’s security architecture will be focused on Sochi (at least for the duration of the Olympic Games), an attack elsewhere in Russia seems likely. The geographical spread of insurgency away from the North Caucasus republics into southern Russia suggests that likely targets might include: Rostov-on-Don; Krasnodar; and Stavropol (as well as the already-targeted Pyatigorsk and Volgograd).

Whether or not an attack takes place, President Putin may decide to launch a crackdown across the North Caucasus after the Olympic Games in response to increasing instability in the republics over recent years. If such action is forthcoming, it is likely to trigger further violence.

2014 will be a critical year on the Iran front.

Even though an interim deal was struck late last year, Tehran is currently believed to be two months away from the ability to produce weapons-grade uranium - that’s not the opinion of foreign-policy hawks in Washington but of Olli Heinonen, the former number-two at the IAEA. That’s why

Al-Qaeda-linked groups such as the Abdullah Azzam Brigades will continue to attack Shia neighborhoods and pro-Assad targets, with its capability unlikely to be damaged by the death of leader Majid Al-Majid. The claim of responsibility by the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham (ISIS) for a car bomb strike on the Shia district Haret Hreik on

The amount of territory ISIL control – both in Iraq and Syria – will fluctuate throughout the year depending on its military successes, but its ambition to govern will remain undiminished. Furthermore, ISIL will become an even more significant regional threat. It could expand its operations even further into Lebanon, bombing Hizbollah strongholds in retaliation for their involvement in the Syrian war. However, regardless of ISIL’s activities in 2014, they will likely not be directed by al-Qaeda Central (AQC) in Pakistan, which struggles to influence ISIL’s overall strategy (wanting the group to focus solely on Iraq). Relations between Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda’s emir, and ISIL’s leadership, are already fractious; yet they will become even more so if Zawahiri attempts to re-assert strategic control over the group’s activities.

AQC itself will remain a direct threat to the West, yet its relevance will diminish further in Western policymakers’ minds if Zawahiri is unable to direct another attack there this year. In all likelihood, the al-Qaeda threat to the West will emanate mainly from Yemen, where al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) remains a potent force. AQAP will use any suitable recruits – especially those with European or American passports – to attempt devastating, high-impact attacks, likely on aviation. Aggressive counterterrorism operations carried out by American and Yemeni forces can only stunt, rather than eradicate, this Yemeni-based threat.

By Researcher Oren Kessler

8

US allies in the Persian Gulf are privately bemoaning the interim agreement: it contains certain measures to slow the Islamic Republic’s march to nuclear weapons, but little to nothing to actually roll it back.

Having pocketed a deal that doesn’t ask it to remove a single centrifuge or even suspend enrichment, Iran is feeling emboldened to promote its radical foreign policy around the region. That includes its massive support for the Syrian government, whose forces are responsible for most of the estimated 130,000 killed in their country’s three-year civil war. The Iranians also continue to arm and fund Hezbollah – a Lebanese terror militia that has also been key in quashing the Syrian revolt, while also running a terror network extending to Europe, Africa and Latin America. And domestically, Tehran’s appalling human rights record will continue to bring it into conflict with the West: it executed 125 people in just the four months following the inauguration of supposedly moderate president Hassan Rouhani in August 2013. Despite the regime’s charm offensive, and the Obama administration’s desperate desire to avoid another Middle East confrontation, 2014 will be a year of reckoning on Iran.

Lebanon

With the ongoing conflict in Syria the detrimental effects being felt in Lebanon will persist and increasing sectarian violence is likely, particularly in Tripoli, where sporadic fighting has continued since November.

The summer months tend to see the most intense fighting, and with both Presidential and General elections due street fighting at sectarian interfaces could become a feature of 2014.

Journal of Counterterrorism & Homeland Security International

About the Authors

Olivier Guitta is the Director of Research at the Henry Jackson Society, a London-based think tank, where Hannah Stuart, Emily Dyer, Robin Simcox, Rupert Sutton, Oren Kessler are Research Fellows and Andrew Foxall is the Director of the Russia Studies Centre. Source: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk

Vol. 20, No.1

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Law Enforcement’s Higher Calling

A protester holds a placard calling for Germany to give political asylum to the fugitive former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden, outside the seat of the lower house of parliament, the Bundestag in Berlin November 18, 2013.

REUTERS/Thomas Peter (GERMANY)

In The Time Of The NSA

By David Gewirtz

N

SA. Whoever expected those three initials to get so much press? In this article, I’m going to discuss how counterterrorism and law enforcement now have an even greater responsibility after the Snowden theft and subsequent media revelations.

Let’s get a few bits of housekeeping out of the way first. I, in no way, support Snowden’s actions. There are other mechanisms provided within the U.S. government for legal whistle blowing, and running away with America’s secrets first to China and then to Russia is not one of them. He is a criminal, period.

Second, most of what has been revealed about the NSA won’t surprise anyone in counterterrorism.

Governments have had to keep an eye on the goings on of other governments, enemy actors, and suspected enemy actors since the

10

times before Alexander ruled Macedonia. It’s shouldn’t even be all that surprising to run of the mill Americans and citizens of other nations. After all, Hunt for Red October was written back in the 1980s and it showed the idea of satellite imaging.

We’ve had espionage thriller,

political thrillers, and spy yarns for a very long time. There were also many real-world stories reported in the press over the years, going back thirty, forty, fifty years and more.

So none of this is new, really, and yet it has incited a firestorm

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Vol. 20, No.1

of response. One reason for the firestorm is the media itself, which lives off of hits, surges in readership, and traffic. By bleeding out the NSA stories week after week, The Guardian and thousands of other media outlets have a “buzzy” story that also gets readers riled up,

driving more comments on Web sites, and more outrage.

Outrage does wonders for media ratings.

But don’t make the mistake that the general outrage about the NSA is all fueled by the press.

If everyone felt warm and fuzzy about their government, there wouldn’t be outrage. But there is an almost overwhelming level of animosity among citizens -not just in America, but all over the world.

more reliable. Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking services have become meeting places for families, friends, businesses -- as well as organized crime and terrorist groups.

The idea of spying on digital data freaks people out, because digital data pretty much defines us all. We are inextricably entwined in the leaves, branches, and digital mulch we leave behind. And it’s not just new information. I wrote an article recently where I showed that Google had indexed content I wrote as a college student back in 1983 -- way, way, way before the Internet.

about the surveillance discussion. But they don’t. They certainly don’t trust the politicians -- does anyone? But more than that, they don’t trust you and me.

They don’t trust that local, state, and federal law enforcement, investigative, and intelligence officials won’t go on fishing expeditions. They don’t trust that we won’t use access to this data to meet some sort of arbitrary quota. They don’t trust that we won’t use access to this data to further a political or personal ideology. They don’t trust that we won’t use access to this data to spy on a potential or former lover (or that lover’s suspected partner).

that we respect privacy, that we value individual freedom.

I’m presenting this responsibility to you, because when it comes to trust and citizens, it’s never about the big government in faraway cities. It’s always about the government and official presence we see and feel every day. It’s about the working law enforcement and security professionals in every community, in every town, in every state, in every jurisdiction. Presidents come and go. Politicians come and go. But, for security professionals, this is a career, a mission, a calling all its own. We’ll always be here, protecting and serving.

The economic crisis and the banking Your new responsibility is even scandals were just the On one hand you have the prevailing belief that the NSA Let me be blunt: they don’t trust bigger than that. Now you have to tip of the iceberg. (and, by extension, every other that law enforcement won’t be prove, through your actions and In the last 20 years, the world has changed tremendously.

Among other massive earthquakes were Russia, China, and India joining the world of international commerce -- and then very quickly learning to play capitalist hardball in the world market.

three-letter agency and police organization on the planet) is spying on everyone’s digital data. On the other hand, everybody constantly generates a huge flow of spy-worthy digital data that all of us would rather be kept private.

Those are just well-meaning, law-abiding citizens. I haven’t even begun to talk about the very real threat of terrorist organizations who love Gmail and Twitter more than a mama loves her newborn. We need digital surveillance because there are very bad people out there who are using the very same digital tools our kids and grandparents use.

America has become even more divided along party, religious, and ethnic lines than ever before. Trust of the government, after two decade-long wars, has There is no doubt, as long as essentially vanished.

And then there’s the simple fact of how we all live our daily lives: everything is online. We text, chat, email, Facebook, message, Dropbox, Skype, and connect online. We hardly ever stick notes in letters and send them with a stamp. Heck, many of us don’t even call people on the phone; texting is faster and

there are potential catastrophic threats out there, digital surveillance will be necessary. And that brings me to you and the higher calling I alluded to in the title of this article.

If citizens felt comfortable trusting their government, from the president on down to the local neighborhood cop, they wouldn’t be nearly as upset

jerks. They generally believe that if there is more information that can be sifted for anything possibly incriminating that law enforcement and investigators will sift, regardless of whether that information truly came to light in a legitimate or judicially acceptable way.

Our citizens believe that the NSA surveillance will lead to fishing expeditions, knocks on the door in the middle of the night, disappearances, and excessive prosecution and persecution.

So, this then, is your higher calling. Don’t do it. Show your fellow citizens that you can be trusted with important counterterrorism data and won’t use it to count coup or fuel widespread, McCarthyistic witch hunts.

Show your fellow citizens that law enforcement can be trusted to enforce the law with compassion and reason and caring.

Show them that American counterterrorism professionals aren’t members of some sort of modern Gestapo. Show them that we care about them. Show them we’re doing this for them. Prove to them

your decisions, that this is still the America that we all grew up to love and cherish.

It’s a high bar the founders set out for us. As the Constitution put it, “...establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”

Right there is the balance we have to strive for: justice and tranquility, common defense and general welfare, all mixed in with liberty.

That’s your job, your higher calling: live up to the very best of American ideals, the better angels our founding fathers turned to guide all future generations. If anyone can do it, I’m confident you can.

About the Author

David Gewirtz is the Director of the U.S. Strategic Perspective Institute, Distinguished Lecturer for CBS Interactive, Cyberwarfare Advisor for the International Association of Counterterrorism and Security Professionals, IT Advisor to the Florida Public Health Association and an instructor at the UC Berkeley extension.

Surveillance

Detection:

A Key Skill For Security And Counter-Terrorism Professionals

H

By Jeff Burns

istory has taught us that certain kinds of activities can indicate terrorist plans are in the works, especially when they occur at or near high profile or sensitive sites, places where high profile individuals reside or work, or where large numbers of people gather like government buildings, military installations, bus or train stations or major public events. The ability to detect hostile or suspicious activity early in the target selection and planning phase is the primary means of defeating a terrorist or criminal attack. Thus, surveillance detection (SD) has become critical to successful intelligence collection, counter terrorism and security operations.

Terrorist attacks follow a distinct process referred to as the Terrorist Attack Cycle. The terrorist attack cycle includes: Target selection, planning, deployment, escape and exploitation. Regardless of the type of attack, whether it be terrorist, such as a bombing or kidnapping, or a criminal attack, such as a theft, there is almost always some

12

amount of preoperational hostile surveillance conducted. This hostile surveillance is intended to assess a potential target for value, security measures and vulnerabilities and it’s during this phase that terrorists and other attackers are vulnerable to detection.

In general terrorists have relatively poor surveillance skills or tradecraft. It is this poor surveillance tradecraft that if recognized

can provide individuals and organizations with the time needed to involve the proper authorities, avoid an immediate threat and help prevent an attack.

In Surveillance Detection (SD), the acronym T.E.D.D. is often used by the U.S. government to define the principles that can be used to identify surveillance conducted by hostile surveillance and counter intelligence

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agencies. T.E.D.D. stands for Time, Environment, Distance and Demeanor. In other words, if a person sees someone over time, in different environments and over distance or someone who displays poor surveillance tradecraft then that person can assume they are under surveillance.

Time, environment and distance are not applicable when a specific location or mode of public trans-

portation is targeted or in cases of ambush attackers. Therefore, when talking about hostile surveillance, demeanor is the most critical of the four elements. Poor demeanor will often help the target or surveillance detection unit identify hostile surveillance.

Demeanor indicators include: people wearing unsuitable clothing for the weather or environment, people with unusual bulges under their clothing, wires protruding from their clothing, people who are sweating profusely, mumbling to themselves or fidgeting, people who appear to be attempting to avoid security personnel or law enforcement and people who appear out of place.

When attempting to identify hostile surveillance, you must first identify suitable observation points (OP’s) that provide optimal views of critical locations that hostile surveillance would want to watch such as the entrance to the targets residence or office.

Close attention should be paid to vehicles and people that look out of place or are people exhibiting poor surveillance demeanor.

Surveillance detection personnel should conduct a pattern and route analysis to determine where along routes of travel that the target is most predictable and vulnerable. Route analysis should include identification of choke points. Choke points are a geographical feature such as a valley, bridge, round a bout or other area where the target must travel and where rapid forward motion and or escape is difficult. If a choke point provides a position where attackers can freely wait for their targets and have access to a suitable escape route, the choke point becomes a potential attack site. An ideal countermeasure would be to vary routes and times of travel to avoid exhibiting predictable behavior.

Hostile surveillance operatives will often change their appearance by changing clothes, using hats or wigs and other disguises. Many times, they will change vehicle plates or even change vehicles. For

this reason, it is important to focus on an individuals facial features, build, mannerisms, gait and identifying marks such as scars and tattoos. When it comes to vehicles, special attention should be paid to characteristics such as body damage, stickers and other unique characteristics.

determining if surveillance is being conducted against a specific target. The focus of surveillance detection is to distinguish types of suspect behavior and other indicators of possible surveillance and report any suspicious behavior or indicators. The reports are then analyzed and directed to the proper authorities for an

Surveillance can also be used to collect intelligence on a range of potential targets in order to eliminate target options and aid in target selection by identifying a target that satisfies the objective of the attacker.

There are primarily three types of surveillance related activities; they are surveillance (SV), surveillance detection (SD) and counter surveillance (CS).

Surveillance: In this case hostile surveillance conducts purposeful observation of people, places and vehicles with the intent of collecting intelligence that can be used in the planning of a hostile action be it criminal or terrorist, against a specific target. Surveillance can also be used to collect intelligence on a range of potential targets in order to eliminate target options and aid in target selection by identifying a target that satisfies the objective of the attacker.

Surveillance Detection: Surveillance detection can be conducted by civilians, executives, security personnel, government agencies, law enforcement and the military. Surveillance detection conducts purposeful observation of people, locations and vehicles with the specific intent of

appropriate response. Surveillance detection plans should include a strategy for recording and reporting observations, use of cover and will include a surveillance detection response during routine travel and around any facilities or locations that may be targeted. Surveillance detection plans should be implemented discretely and abide by local laws and federal laws such as the Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Act (F.I.S.A.). If hostile surveillance is detected, all relevant details should be reported to the appropriate authorities in a timely manner. The response to discovery of hostile surveillance will depend on the situation and potential threat at the time of discovery.

Counter Surveillance: Counter surveillance is often conducted by professionals who are trying to exploit and neutralize hostile surveillance. Essentially, counter surveillance is an operational measure taken once hostile surveil-

lance has been identified. Counter surveillance then conducts surveillance of the hostile surveillance in order to gather intelligence that can be used to manipulate, exploit or apprehend the hostile surveillance. Counter surveillance is normally conducted by intelligence agencies and the military but in today’s global environment more and more security contractors are becoming involved in counter surveillance operations.

Some sophisticated attackers may use counter surveillance as a countermeasure against surveillance detection to increase their operational security.

When conducting surveillance detection, it is important not to cross over into the role of counter surveillance as this can compromise any future counter surveillance operation conducted by the authorities and risks chasing the surveillance into hiding.

Surveillance detection works because it allows the hostile surveillance to feel confident operating in the open because they have no idea anyone is watching them. If the intelligence collected by surveillance detection warrants further investigation, then the proper authorities can get involved and design a professional counter surveillance operation to exploit or capture the hostile surveillance.

By applying professional surveillance detection to security and counter terror operations we can effectively detect and prevent terrorist attacks in the planning phases, reduce the number of attacks and allow for safer operations in high risk environments.

About the Author For over 19 years, Jeff Burns has been providing security consulting, close protection, intelligence services, surveillance and counter surveillance services and training to government, law enforcement and corporate clientele. He currently works full time in law enforcement as an investigator assigned to a covert surveillance unit where he conducts surveillance and undercover operations against individuals suspected of, or involved in criminal activity.

Fears Of Unholy Alliances Emerge

As Mexican DTO Tunnel Discoveries Increase

By Joseph J. Kolb

Seized drugs are shown in a highly sophisticated smuggling tunnel used to smuggle drugs between the U.S. and Mexico, in this handout photo released to Reuters October 31, 2013 by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Department (ICE). The tunnel linked an industrial park in Otay Mesa, California with Tijuana, Mexico and featured both rail and ventilation systems. REUTERS/ICE/

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he discovery of a sophisticated narcotics smuggling tunnel extending from Tijuana, Mexico to an industrial park in southern San Diego County in October is not only a harbinger for smuggling operations by Mexican drug trafficking organizations but also fertile ground for “unholy alliances” with terrorist organizations spurring concern that detection methods by the Department of Homeland Security need to be improved and amplified to reflect this new threat.

Since 1990 more than 140 cross-border tunnels have been discovered along the southwest border of the United States, according to a 2012 Department of Homeland Security Office of the Inspector General report with an 80 percent increase in tunnel activity occurring since 2008. What was vaguely addressed is how the majority of these tunnels have not been found until completed and at or near fully operational status.

“Tunnels are definitely the new paradigm for smuggling organizations that have to adjust to the constriction caused by border security strategies and the residual circumstances of a chaotic border,” said Victor M. Manjarrez, Jr., Associate Director, National Center for Border Security & Immigration, at the University of Texas-El Paso.

“I expect as border security efforts improve and options for the criminal element are further reduced, they will turn to other means such as tunnels” Manjarrez believes this proliferation of tunnels is a direct result of increased and improved border security efforts along the southwest border, however, what is occurring underground remains somewhat confounding.

In the most recent discovery on Oct. 29, federal agents found a 600 yard long tunnel that ran 35 feet deep under the border fence from Tijuana to Otay Mesa in southeast San Diego County, retrieving 17,292 pounds of marijuana and 325 pounds of cocaine from the tunnel, allegedly constructed by the Sinaloa Drug Trafficking Organization (DTO).

This discovery came as no surprise to Manjarrez who has seen

firsthand the trends in smuggling after a 20 year career with the U.S. Border Patrol where he commanded the busy Tucson, Ariz. and El Paso, Texas, sectors.

It is the potential exploitation of these tunnels as potential conduits for terrorist groups to infiltrate the U.S. that has not fully reached a critical level of concern. With the full understanding that transnational criminal organizations work on no ideology and are profit motivated, the potential for these foreign terrorist organizations to name a price for passage is not unrealistic.

Cross-border tunnels are a result of transnational criminal organizations seeking new and dynamic methods to smuggle their illicit contraband which could be anything from narcotics, weapons, bulk cash, or aliens from special interest countries. This opportunity may be a costly business expense to the drug trafficking organization, with tunnels costing in excess of $1 million, but with the majority being found after they become operational the cost is worth it, as well as the collateral business opportunities that could arise.

“We know the FBI is concerned that tunnels could be used to smuggle WMD and/or terrorists into the U.S.,” Triston Reed, Mexico Security analyst for

With rail systems and ventilation in tunnels directly entering populated areas, smugglers can transport anything they want with less focus on concealment.

Cross-border tunnels are a result of transnational criminal organizations seeking new and dynamic methods to smuggle their illicit contraband which could be anything from narcotics, weapons, bulk cash, or aliens from special interest countries.

STRATFOR, a private security analysis firm says. “You also don’t know what you don’t know, so how do we know tunnels haven’t been used to bring terrorists into the U.S.?”

What’s particularly concerning is that above ground, smugglers can only transport what can be concealed among legitimate goods or carried across expansive terrain.

Reed’s comment of what is and isn’t known is more profound than flippant.

Opinions conflict as to the presence and even the assistance of extremist groups involved in the financing and construction of the tunnels. In the absence of concrete intelligence, observers are evaluating startling similarities.

Tunnels are used to cross guarded borders all over the world, such as in Rafah in the Gaza strip where weapons, drugs, and militants can cross through.

There is a known presence of Hezbollah in Mexico and Latin America. While they are purported not to be operationally motivated rather than funding, the specter can’t be ignored. Beyond the construction similarities between the DTO tunnels and those found in Gaza is the confirmed presence of Hezbollah and Iranian Quds in Mexico and the nexus with DTOs. And while we don’t know if they have infiltrated the U.S. subterrainially, there is no doubt, through official confirmation, that Somalis allegedly connect to Al Ahabaab, Yeminis, Iranians, Sudanese, and Afghans, have all crossed the border illegally.

surface movement in sparsely patrolled areas of the border, have had little impact on early identification of tunnels under construction. The strength of UGSs is that they can be deployed to remote areas where several dozen can be monitored at a remote location by a dispatcher. These pieces of equipment provide CBP tremendous law enforcement surveillance coverage, but at the same time they are designed to detect seismic activity above ground.

There was one report identifying a case where the Border Patrol responded to seismic sensors which are typically used to identify foot traffic. Repeated efforts by agents to locate the “foot traffic” failed only later to learn that the sensors were being tripped by tunnel diggers beneath their feet.

Manjarrez says large metro areas like San Diego/Tijuana provide the perfect ‘border clutter’ that helps mask the criminal

The southwest border is fraught with old mining tunnels, sewer and water systems, and even old tunnels that were used for smuggling liquor during prohibition that are not mapped by DHS.

The problem that exists is that there is no reliable technology in place to accurately detect the presence of tunnel construction activity.

Manjarrez says it is very difficult to detect a tunnel as it is being constructed to enter the United States because the criminal element is very protective and limits the ‘need to know’ on their side.

“It would be far too simplistic to say that we should have equipment to monitor every single mile that is vulnerable to tunneling along the southern and northern borders of the United States,” he says. “Is it the best use of resources? The idea is to reduce risk by targeting certain areas, which they often do, to get the best bang for the taxpayer buck.”

Unattended Ground Sensors, designed to remotely detect

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“You can adjust the sensitivity of the UGS to pick up subterranean activity but it will also pick-up tremor and earthquake activity, which is almost a constant in southern California,” Manjarrez says. . UGSs have their limitations.

“You can adjust the sensitivity to the point that it will alarm with the slightest movement from a dog, moving cars nearby, jets leaving nearby, think of Otay Mesa which is where most of the complex tunnels have been discovered,” Majarrez says. “If the UGS is alerting for just about everything, then law enforcement is being contacted at each ‘false alert’ which is a waste of resources.”

element,” he said. “These types of areas will continue to be fertile areas that can be exploited by the use of tunnels – so yes this is one thing we should expect to grow.”

The Otay Mesa area has seen major tunnel operations shut down over the past 20 years.

Two of the largest marijuana seizures came from tunnels in this area. In November 2010, agents seized about 22 tons of marijuana from a tunnel there.

A year later another 32 tons of marijuana from another tunnel in the area was also seized.

Police were led to this recent tunnel after a Chula Vista police

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officer pulled over a truck for a traffic violation where they found approximately three tons of marijuana in the back. The truck had been under surveillance leading investigators to a warehouse in Chula Vista which was allegedly being used as a transport center for the drugs being pulled from the tunnel in a warehouse in Otay Mesa.

Manjarrez feels the optimism of closing one major tunnel down should be tempered by the fact that there may be dozens, if not hundreds more.

The southwest border is fraught with old mining tunnels, sewer and water systems, and even old tunnels that were used for smuggling liquor during prohibition that are not mapped by DHS. To address this need for the El Paso region the National Center for Border Security and Immigration is embarking on a pilot project to map all known methods of access into the U.S. from Mexico via these underground pathways, some of which are more than a hundred years old. Manjarrez hopes to see similar existing and potential mapping become standard procedure in the future.

Manjarrez agrees this is just a first step towards addressing the issue of smuggling tunnels, but further efforts may need to look at geologic surveys to identify areas where cross-border tunneling could be most likely. In addition there should be more specific use of seismic detectors as well as being just as diligent with subterranean surveillance.

About the Author Joseph J. Kolb is an instructor in the Criminal Justice Department at Western New Mexico University. He founded the department’s undergraduate and graduate certificate program in Border Security Studies.

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Fusing Counter Terrorism, Crime and Natural Disasters:

The Delaware Valley Intelligence Center In Philadelphia Is A 24/7 Operation

By Paul Davis

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The Delaware Valley Intelligence Center (DVIC) will provide tangible security benefits for our region,” said Philadelphia Mayor Nutter during a tour of the $20 million dollar site. “At the most basic level, any first responder in the field with a radio will have ability to connect with the DVIC and share real-time information with a host of agencies. This is a key step for our City and region, the sixth largest metro region in the Nation, in preparing to respond to emergency situations.”

Located on the site of a former Defense Department logistics center in South Philadelphia, the stated primary mission of the DVIC is to collect, integrate, evaluate, analyze and disseminate intelligence about all types of hazards including terrorist threats, criminal activity and weather events. The DVIC was established to house all of the region’s assets together for counterterrorism, crime and natural disasters.

The DVIC uses a Situational Awareness Portal that contains integration with incident management systems, automatic analysis tools, GIS mapping and visualization capabilities, data mining and advanced data analytics software, and DE confliction capabilities.

The DVIC’s mission mirrors the other 77 fusion centers around the country. The DVIC is operational twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. The agencies represented in the DVIC include the Philadelphia Police Department’s Real Time Crime Center, the Criminal Intelligence Unit, the Homeland Security Unit, and the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) Watch Center, as well as the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and other regional partner agencies.

Inspector Walt Smith, a 26year veteran of the Philadelphia Police Department, serves as the Executive Director of the DVIC. Smith also serves as the Chairman of the Major Cities Chiefs Intel-

ligence Commander’s Group and he is the Vice Chairman of the Five County Southeastern Pennsylvania Regional Counter Terrorism Taskforce,

“The DVIC is governed by a Managing Board that includes the Southeastern Pennsylvania Regional Task Force, the New Jersey Office of Homeland

The DVIC uses a Situational Aw a r e n e s s P o r t a l t h a t contains integration with incident management systems, automatic analysis tools, GIS mapping and visualization capabilities, data mining and advanced data analytics software, and DE confliction capabilities.

“As the executive director of the DVIC, I manage the dayto-day tactical and strategic operations,” Smith said. “I work directly for Philadelphia Police Deputy Commissioner Nola Joyce, who works directly for Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey. I’m the inspector of strategic intelligence and information sharing within the Philadelphia Police Department.”

Smith said that under his immediate command at the DVIC are Philadelphia Police Captain Derek G. Kephart, the commanding officer of the Real Time Crime Center (RTCC) and DVIC deputy director Tara Garvey, as well as the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) Watch Group.

Security & Preparedness, the Philadelphia Area Regional Transit Security Working Group, the City of Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Police Department, and the executive director of the DVIC. There is also an Executive Advisory Committee composed of all DVIC member agencies.

After taking a writer on a tour of the DVIC, Inspector Smith invited the writer to the DVIC’s conference room to discuss the fusion center’s mission. Smith also invited Captain Kephart and his assistant, Sergeant Jay P. Bowen, Philadelphia Police Captain Raymond J. Evers, the commanding officer of the Criminal Intelligence

Unit, Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) Detective Grover Linaweaver, and transportation analyst Bob Giorgio to sit in.

“The whole point or goal behind the fusion center was to create that collaborative environment where we can remove “stovepipes.” If you can bring the right people to the right place at the right time with the right information, you can make a difference,” said Smith.

“Prior to the fusion center being established, the Philadelphia Police Department had all of these units doing excellent work – individually. Collaboratively, they do much better work.”

“When a tip or lead comes into the 24/7 Real Time Crime Center, not only do they immediately apply all of the applications from a technology standpoint and from a personnel investigative standpoint to initially grab that package and create that folder of information, they also immediately notify the Criminal Intelligence Unit,” Smith explained.

“In addition to that, they also have the option of notifying the Homeland Security Unit, which sits right in the same building.

If the tip relates to transit, they have the transit group right in the building as well. If it relates to port security, we have the Coast Guard in the building.

If it is something that has to be looked at on the classified side, we also have a secure space that handles classified information.”

Smith went on to state that they

can look at this tip from many different angles and provide actionable intelligence rapidly.

“Terrorist-related events happen very quickly,” Smith said. “You need to get ahead of the bad guy and the way to do that is through information and intelligence prior to the event happening.”

activity because we got a report of someone taking photos of the Sunoco Refinery using a red van. Homeland Security may say, hey, we’re getting information that may contain some form of ammonia nitrate fertilizer, and the Transportation guys may say, hey, we saw the red van doing the same thing.

That’s how you start putting the mosaic together.”

“One of the great things we do here is the license plate reader program,” Kephart said. “We have a fleet of license plate reader cars out there that scan license plates”.

Kephart explained that if a robber jumps in a vehicle and flees the scene after a robbery, and the victim only has a vague description, but possibly a tag

“Video cameras speak for themselves. They are a great witness,” Kephart said. “We have crimes committed all of the time and these cameras are set up in such of a way that they give a good view. We recently caught a shooting in one of our high crime locations.

Smith said that fusion centers on a national level are supporting not only state and local operations, but also federal operations. Through their Homeland Security Unit the DVIC has a direct connection to the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, and they have on site a U.S. Department of Homeland Security intelligence officer. In the near future the DVIC will have the FBI, the ATF and other federal and state partners on site.

“The DVIC has a “morning huddle” and everyone from the different components come in and meets to discuss issues, problems and commonality.”

Smith said. “For instance, if someone says there was a red truck was stolen in South Philadelphia and we think it may be involved in some suspicious

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Smith noted that since the Boston Marathon bombing large events with large amounts of people are being policed differently. Officials are looking closely at these events from a counterterrorism and homeland security point-ofview. Smith cited as an example, the annual Army-Navy game in Philadelphia.

“You have America’s best and brightest in one location and it’s a very valuable target, so we had our camera systems up and our investigators out there, and there was a homeland security package out there as well,” Smith said. “This is a team function. A collaborative effort is what the fusion center is all about. It is about people talking.”

Captain Kephart said that the Real Time Crime Center utilizes technology to fight crime.

and these cameras are set up in such of a way that they give a good view. We recently caught a shooting in one of our high crime locations. A citizen was sitting on a stoop, families are walking by, and then an assailant came up, shoots the citizen and fled the scene. We were able get a good description of the assailant via our video camera.”

Kephart said that they also often

They created a Homeland Security Information Network Portal. When there is a major event, all of the fusion centers across the country connect to the portal and they are able to share situational awareness – in real time – with other centers.

number, the center can run that number in their system. If the tag number does not come back to an owner, as criminals don’t often pay their license, registration and proof of insurance; it will come back as a “dead tag.”

“However, using the License Plate Reader Program, we are able to show the investigating officers on a map where we have scanned that location before,” Kephart explained. “So that car may have been scanned at a location six times last month between the hours of 12 am and six am. We can put a plainclothes police team out there so we can stop the vehicle and make the investigation from there.”

“Video cameras speak for themselves. They are a great witness,” Kephart said. “We have crimes committed all of the time

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get video evidence and the tag number of people leaving the scene of an auto accident.

“The Real Time Crime Center is an all-threats, all-crime, allhazards center, so we are always looking for current threats,” Smith said. “We work with the Office of Emergency Management in Philadelphia, and we make sure we know what’s going on in the city. That whole system comes together: Homeland Security, city services, emergency management, fire, police, and the Delaware Valley Intelligence Center’s many components for major events.”

For example, Smith again spoke of the Army-Navy game, where the Homeland Security Unit as well as the DVIC supported that event.

“We provided a threat assessment for all of the people who participated in security for the event,” Smith said. “We also did threat assessments for the PGA Golf Tour in Delaware County and after the Boston Marathon bombing we also did a threat assessment for the Broad Street Run. This was an important effort for us and this was a good collaborative effort. It is a shame that it takes a tragedy to bring us all together.”

Smith said they also prepare “Snapshot Reports.” Smith explained that if an incident occurs in another city or internationally, they look at it and ask what it means for the Philadelphia area.

“We create a quick synopsis of what occurred, the method of operations, what the systems that brought it together, and

we try to provide that situation awareness to our partners”.

Smith said they were moving to connect to the community, looking at groups such as town watch organizations and community service representatives. The police can’t do it alone, he said.

“We do good work, but we do better work with partnerships.”

Smith said that one of the things they created was the Homeland Security Information Network Portal. When there is a major event, all of the fusion centers across the country connect to the portal and they are able to share situational awareness – in real time – with other centers.

“There is no border for terrorism or crime,” Smith said.

Smith said that protecting civil rights and civil liberties has been the cornerstone of the center.

“You can’t effectively enforce the law by violating the law.

Early on we established a formalized privacy policy,” Smith said. “This is also true throughout the National Fusion Center Association, which is a network of fusion centers.”

Kephart added that they have established robust constitutional protections in the Real Time Crime Center and the DVIC. “Our video camera data is only held for 30 days. If it is of no investigative use, we delete it,” Kephart said. “License plate reader data is saved for one year.

These safeguards are in place by policy.”

Smith said they abide by all state and federal laws and they are part of the 28 CFR Part 23, the intelligence gathering process.

Sergeant Bowen said that every action in the watch center is given a control number.

“We have a portal system where we receive an R5, (Request for Information) that has an ORI (Originating Agency Identification) number,” Bowden said.

“We verify who these individuals are and then we perform a task based on that information, whether it is video, investigative support, social media/open source, facial recognition, license plate readers. Everything is given a control number and it is always monitored and supervised by someone here. Anything major or critical is pushed out to an email group, whether it is Homeland Security, the inspector, or the captain.”

Bowen noted that during Hurricane Sandy there were areas of Philadelphia that flooded.

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“We have cameras in the flood zones and we relayed that information to Emergency Management. I think that once the public knows it’s a helpful tool and not a spying tool, I think we’ll get more of a buy-in as the public is the enduser,’ Bowen said.

commanders may know already, but we reaffirm that this is what we are hearing from our street information, our informants, and things of that nature. Also, if through either our debriefings or speaking to our confidential informants, we learn a person is carrying a gun, that’s information we want to get out right away to our cops. If they come across that

Evers said that human trafficking of women and juveniles by Asian gangs is a huge concern for the unit.

The Criminal Intelligence Unit works closely with the Philadelphia Police Vice Unit and their federal partners.

Captain Raymond J. Evers, the commanding officer of the Criminal Intelligence Unit said that they keep tabs on organized crime, motorcycle gangs and street gangs in Philadelphia.

“We get information from the streets, package it in a way, and get it back to our patrol officers and our detectives on the streets,” Evers said. “The most important thing is officer safety and getting the right information to our commanders who are making strategic moves on where to put our police personnel.” Evers said they want to put our police officers and investigators in the areas where they believe that crime is going to happen.

“If there is a shooting at a drug corner in East Division, we predict that there will be some kind of retaliation,” Evers said. “Our

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person, we want them to use as much caution as possible.”

“We have issues with the Russians and the Asians gangs similar to when in the 1930s and 1940s there where language and cultural barriers with the Italian La Cosa Nostra (LCN). But these groups, like the Italians, are getting more assimilated into America.”

Evers said that human trafficking of women and juveniles by Asian gangs is a huge concern for the unit. The Criminal Intelligence Unit works closely with the Philadelphia Police Vice Unit and their federal partners. “We also work closely with the Real Time Crime Center here at the DVIC.” Evers said. “You have a lot of technology here, but what criminal intelligence brings is the human element. You can’t get away from face-to-face dealing

with the public, going out there and talking to people, having a cop knock on your door. Policing will never get away from that.

But if you match the technology of the Real Time Crime Center and the human element of criminal intelligence together, it is a perfect team.”

Evers said that with his unit integrated at the DVIC, working together in the same space, they can get things done a lot quicker.

“It is about being all on the same floor, the same space, working together,” Evers said. “We had an issue when two individuals wanted for several homicides were using public transportation, getting from Southwest Philly all the way to North Philly. We worked closely with SEPTA who are right here across the hall - because we wanted our SEPTA partners to be aware that these were downright killers.”

Evers said that one of the two killers was later killed and the other captured after a shoot-out with the FBI and the Philadelphia Police.

“Everybody in this facility was strategically placed here by the police department to enhance its overall mission,” Smith said.

“Our Commissioner said these are the key people who need to be here. Now there are other units that would fit in as well, and we may grow and expand to include that capability. We have the key players.”

Bob Giorgio spoke of the startup of the Philadelphia Regional Transit Security Working Group, which was put together by SEPTA and PATCO, along with Amtrak and CXX. Giorgio, a transportation analyst and retired fire chief with expertise in homeland security, said they will have a watch center operation to take tips and leads. “Our people here will look at that information

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and make comparisons and if something rises to the level of an emergency, emergency forces will be notified,” Giorgio said. “One of the things we’re looking at is pre-operational terrorism – such as somebody out there looking at the transit system trying to determine vulnerabilities. There are 1.2 million daily riders across the two systems, with just under 300 stations. Those police officers have a large territory to protect. We’re supporting them and the public.”

Giorgio said that if there is suspicious activity occurring in Philadelphia or in Los Angeles on the transit systems, they can reach out to their federal partners at the DVIC to put more eyes on it to determine if there are operational cells preparing to do something.

“Instead of the transit agencies getting together to form their own fusion center, it is done here at the DVIC under one house,” Giorgio said.

SEPTA Detective Grover Linaweaver said he was placed at the DVIC to serve as a liaison officer between the fusion center and the transit system.

“I came as a detective, so I do a lot of vetting for the analysts,” Linaweaver said.

Smith said that in addition to terrorism and crime, the DVIC looks at all-hazards, like flooding, ice storms that knock out power systems, as well as pandemics.

He said they work closely with the Department of Public Health in Philadelphia, as well as the CDC and other organizations.

“Information and intelligence are driving operations,” Smith said.

About the Author Paul Davis is a contributing editor to the Journal.

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The Terrorist Threats Against Canada And Its Counterterrorism Responses

By Dr. Joshua Sinai

Tactical police officers leave an armoured vehicle after a standoff with an armed man in Toronto November 13, 2013. According to local media, the man was pronounced dead at the scene after two loud noises were heard, but police could not confirm if they were gunshots. REUTERS/ Mark Blinch

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espite Canada’s successful thwarting of recent al Qaida-related homegrown terrorist plots, it continues to be threatened by homegrown Islamist terrorists and their supportive religiously extremist subcultures.

Significant numbers of Canadian Muslims are reported to travel overseas to join Islamist insurgencies in conflict zones such as Mali, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria and Yemen. Al Qaida and its affiliates also threaten Canadian overseas interests. Canada faces terrorist threats from other ideological extremists, as well, such as far-right and environmental militants, although Islamist extremists are considered the most significant threats to its national security.

In response to such a spectrum of threats, Canada’s counterterrorism program is considered highly effective at blending intelligence and law enforcement measures to disrupt, preempt, and arrest potential terrorist operatives, although, like other Western countries, its programs to counter extremism at the local level are still at the beginning stages of implementation.

The Spectrum of Terrorist Threats Facing Canada

Second Wave In a second wave of terrorist attacks, from the 1980s through the 1990s, Canada experienced additional types of terrorist threats. Small anarchist groups, although they were relatively small in size, carried out attacks such as a firebombing in 1982 of a Litton Industries factory north of Toronto, Ontario that manufactured guidance devices for American cruise missiles, with ten persons injured.

In terms of the primary terrorist threat to Canada posed by Islamist extremism, it is crucial to highlight the denominational and countries-of-origin differences that characterize their communities.

There are an estimated 1million Muslims in Canada (out of an estimated population of 35 million), making them the second largest religion after Christianity. Islam is also considered the country’s fastest growing religion. Immigration has largely fuelled the increase in Canada’s Muslim population, with the largest share of immigrants coming from Pakistan. An estimated 5 percent of the population of Greater Toronto is Muslim, making it the largest concentration of Muslims in any North American city.

In Canada, terrorist-related activities generally include fundraising, lobbying through front organizations for extremist causes, politicizing immigrant communities to support ancestral country-related extremist groups, procuring weapons and materiel for terrorist groups, facilitating transit for terrorist operatives to and from the United States and other countries, as well as conspiring to conduct terrorist operations in Canada and abroad.

The most catastrophic terrorist attack during this period occurred on June 23, 1985, with the bombing by Indian Sikh extremists of Air India flight 182 in mid-flight as it took off from Montreal, Quebec’s International Airport, crashing into the Atlantic Ocean while in Irish airspace.

All 329 passengers were killed, including 268 Canadians, 27 British citizens and 24 Indians.

In the case of far-right extremist militants – such as white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and skinheads – although they have operated in Canada over years by promoting hatred against various ethnic and religious minorities, their operatives have conducted few terrorist attacks, with most of their extremist activities considered as incendiary incitement.

In the third historical wave, beginning in the late 1990s and continuing through the current period, Islamist terrorism has become the primary terrorist threat, with Canada The most catastrophic terrorist continuing to be featured on al Qaida’s list of priority attack during this period occurred targets. Nevertheless, this on June 23, 1985, with the period has also experienced several attacks by extrembombing by Indian Sikh extremists ist environmental groups, which are also anarchist in of Air India flight 182 in mid-flight nature. During the period as it took off from Montreal, of October 2008 to July 2009, for example, one of Quebec’s International Airport, these groups bombed six natural gas pipelines owned crashing into the Atlantic Ocean

by Encana Corporation, while in Irish airspace. All 329 in Dawson Creek, British Columbia, with another passengers were killed, including anarchist group firebombing a Royal Bank of Canada 268 Canadians, 27 British citizens (RBC) branch in Ottawa, and 24 Indians.

Ontario in May 2010, causing an estimated $300,000 in damages.

Over the years, and especially since the 1960s, Canada has faced several categories of domestic terrorist threats, which can be outlined as a series of historical “waves.”

First Wave In the first historical wave, from the 1960s through the 1970s, extremist elements among Quebec’s nationalist movements posed the primary domestic terrorist threat, with Quebec Liberation Front (FLQ) separatist and MarxistLeninist type groups conducting an estimated 160 attacks during this period. Other terrorist attacks during this period (although not directed against Canada, as such) included a series of bombings by anti-Castro Cuban exiles against Cuban diplomatic interests in Canada.

Third Wave

Many of Canada’s Muslims arrived in the 1980s.

Initially, Canada became an attractive refuge for those fleeing the Lebanese Civil War. An estimated 170,000 Canadians of Lebanese descent live in Canada, with most of them Shi’ite. Many of them are concentrated in Toronto, Ontario, and Montreal, Quebec. Over the years, Canada’s Lebanese community has generally not been involved in terrorist-related activities, except for Hassan El Hajj Hassan, a Canadian-Lebanese

dual-national, who was allegedly involved in Hizballah’s bombing of a bus filled with Israeli tourists in Bulgaria on July 18, 2012, killing five Israelis, including their Bulgarian bus driver. In the current period, with the Lebanese Hizballah under siege in Syria and Lebanon, Canadian authorities are likely concerned about spillover effects into Canada, where violence might erupt between the country’s Sunni and Shi’ite communities over the conflict in the two Middle Eastern countries.

In terms of other Muslim communities, in the 1990s Somali Muslims began arriving in Canada in the wake of the Somali civil war, as did Bosniaks fleeing the violent upheaval in the former Yugoslavia. Other Muslim immigrants have come from Albania, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, as well as Francophone Muslims from North African, many of whom settled in Montreal.

What is different from other immigrant communities in Canada, and a major concern for Canadian security authorities, is a growing (although still minority) subgroup among these Muslim immigrants of homegrown violent extremists who do not subscribe to the Canadian ideals of democracy and pluralism.

In the first significant Islamist terrorist event, although Canada was not the immediate target, in mid-December 1999 Ahmed Ressam, a 32-yearold Algerian (and resident of Montreal at the time) who was traveling on a false Canadian passport as Benni Antoine Noris, was arrested at the Port Angeles, Washington, border crossing, with more than 100 pounds of explosives in the trunk of his car. Ressam was allegedly headed for Los Angeles International Airport where he planned to blow up a terminal on New Year’s Eve. Despite its preemption, Ressam’s plot raised major concerns in Canada and the United States because Canada’s lax immigration policies had made it possible for him to enter the country in 1994 with a false passport, succeed in claiming refugee status, commit numerous petty crimes without law enforcement intervention (while at the same time receiving welfare benefits), and even evade deportation by establishing a false identity as a Canadian citizen with a Canadian passport. Since then, with Canadian counterterrorism measures substantially upgraded, al Qaida-related or inspired plots have continued, although all of them have been thwarted.

Thwarted terrorist plots in Canada have included the following: • In 2006, in what was called the “Toronto 18” plot, 18 people tied (although loosely) to al Qaida were arrested for planning a series of coordinated attacks, such as detonating truck bombs, shooting in a crowded area, and attacking prominent government buildings, including taking hostages.

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In August 2010, three Ontario men were arrested for terror-related activities as part of what became known as Project Samossa, and charged with making or having explosives and participating in the activities of a terrorist group.

In April 2013, Tunisian-born Chiheb Esseghaier, a Ph.D. student in Montreal, and Raed Jaser of Toronto, were arrested as part of an alleged al Qaida in Iran plot to derail a New York to Toronto passenger train on the Canadian side of the border. Neither man was a Canadian citizen. Although the RCMP alleged the two men received “guidance” from al Qaeda in Iran, they stated the plot was not state-sponsored. A third man, Ahmed Abassi, was arrested in the U.S. and faces terrorism charges there. Prosecutors alleged that Abassi had “radicalized” Esseghaier.

On July 1, 2013, two Canadians, who were allegedly inspired by al Qaida, were arrested in Abbotsford, British Columbia, for plotting to plant pressure-cooker bombs at British Columbia’s provincial legislature headquarters on Canada Day (July 1). The suspects, John Nuttall and Amanda Korody, had reportedly been monitored by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police since February 2013.

Significant non-Islamist terrorist incidents have included the following: • In October 2013, Piratheepan Nadarajah, from Brampton, Ontario, a Canadian national, pleaded guilty in the United States to two terrorism offences in connection with the Tamil Tigers. He was charged with attempting to acquire anti-aircraft missiles and provide material support to the LTTE – a designated foreign terrorist organization. He had been extradited to the U.S. in 2012 alongside a co-conspirator, Suresh Sriskandarajah, who pleaded guilty in July 2013 to conspiring to provide material support to the Tamil Tigers. Both of them were arrested in Ontario in 2006, but freed on bail in 2009 during extradition proceedings, which they lost in December 2012 when they were sent to the U.S. In 2012, Ramanan Mylvaganam, a third co-conspirator, who was a computer engineering student at the University of Waterloo, pled guilty in the U.S. for his role in the plot.

In addition to these domestic incidents, Canadian security authorities are also concerned about two other manifestations of terrorism. The first concerns the several dozen Canadians who have traveled overseas to fight on behalf of their militant co-religionists. Notable examples include the following: • Mohamed Hersi, who was arrested in March 2011 at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport, had allegedly planned to travel to Somalia via London and Cairo to join al-Shabaab.

• William Plotnikov, a former Toronto boxer and Seneca College student, who had reportedly left Canada in September 2010 after being radicalized by a Toronto imam following

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is conversion to Islam, was killed by Russian security forces in Dagestan in July 2012.

In July 2012, 25-year-old Hassan El Hajj Hassan (who held a dual holding dual Canadian and Lebanese citizenship) was alleged to have been a member of the terrorist cell that bombed the Israeli tourist bus in Bulgaria.

In November 2012, Hussam Samir al-Hams (a Canadian of Palestinian descent) who had joined Hamas’ al-Qassam Brigades, was killed in an IDF operation during the Gaza War. In January 2013 Xris Katsiroubas and Ali Medlej (high school friends from London, Ontario) took part in an al Qaida-related siege of the Amenas gas facility in the eastern Algerian desert, whereupon they were killed by the countering Algerian security services. Both had reportedly traveled to Morocco in 2011, eventually making their way to Mauritania and Mali, where they trained under Mokhtar Belmokhtar, the al Qaida-linked terrorist leader who had masterminded the attack.

A third Canadian, Aaron Yoon (a friend of the pair), was arrested in Mauritania prior to the attack in Algeria and was subsequently extradited to Canada.

In February 2013 Jamal Muhammad Abdulkader, a Montreal student, who had traveled to Syria to join Jabhat al-Nusra (an al Qaida affiliate), was killed in a truck explosion in central Damascus.

In April 2013, Mahad Ali Dhore (a Canadian of Somali descent), was killed in al Shabaab attack in Somalia.

In September 2013, Ali Mohamed Dirie (who had been convicted as part of the 2006 Toronto 18 terror plot), had traveled to Syria in 2012, a year following his release from prison, and was killed while fighting alongside al Qaida-affiliated insurgents in Syria.

In the second manifestation of terrorist threats against Canada concerns terrorist attacks overseas that target Canadian citizens and interests.

Although in this example Canadian interests were not directly targeted, Annemarie Desloges, a Canadian consular officer, and Naguib Damji, a Vancouver businessman, were among those killed in al Shabaab’s attack against the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya, in September 2013. Canada regards such threats seriously because they affects how the country conducts diplomacy, business, travel, security and development assistance abroad.

Counterterrorism Measures The fact that the al Qaida-related terrorist plots over the past decade have been successfully thwarted by Canadian security services during their formative pre-incident phases attests to the effectiveness of Canada’s counterterrorism program, which was substantially upgraded following a period of relative laxness in the 1990s.

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During that early period, militants associated with foreign terrorist groups, such as Ahmed Ressam, operated relatively freely in Canada by taking advantage of the country’s liberal immigration and political asylum policies, as well as the porous Canadian-American border.

This situation changed dramatically after Ressam’s arrest and the 9/11 attacks against the United States when Canada began implementing a series of comprehensive and integrated counterterrorism measures. This includes close cooperation with counterpart agencies in the United States in programs such as the Beyond the Border Action Plan, which focuses

enforcement and intelligence agencies and financial intelligence units around the world.

Canadian government agencies also perform security screening on those who intend to travel to Canada, in order to prevent entry of foreign nationals who pose a terrorism risk.

As stated in its June 2013 counter-terrorism strategy, “Building Resilience Against Terrorism,” the overreaching priority of Canada’s counter-terrorism agencies is to protect the country and the safety and security of its citizens at home and abroad. This strategy document – the first issued by the Canadian government – is intended to guide these and other federal departAnother important Canadian ments and agencies to align counter-terrorism agency them to the four elements of “prevent, detect, deny is the Financial Transactions and respond,” with resiland Reports Analysis Centre ience positioned at the core of these four elements. of Canada (FINTRAC), which

analyzes, among other threat areas, terrorist-related financial transaction data to provide such intelligence to domestic law enforcement and intelligence agencies and financial intelligence units around the world.

on improving the management of individuals crossing the two countries’ shared borders.

The primary counter-terrorism agencies include the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), the country’s national police service (and an agency of the Ministry of Public Safety Canada); the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), which investigates threats, analyzes information and produces intelligence; the Criminal Intelligence Service Canada (CISC), which exchanges criminal information and intelligence within the Canadian law enforcement community; and Public Safety Canada (Canada’s equivalent of the American Department of Homeland Security), which provides coordination across all federal departments and agencies responsible for national security and the safety of Canadians, ranging from terrorism to natural disasters.

Another important Canadian counter-terrorism agency is the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC), which analyzes, among other threat areas, terrorist-related financial transaction data to provide such intelligence to domestic law

In terms of detecting potential terrorist activity, Canadian security services monitor suspected violent extremists who operate domestically, as well as track Canadian nationals travelling abroad to possible conflict zones who might be seeking training or indoctrination in extremist ideologies, or facilitating or participating in terrorist activity. Also of concern are their activities upon their return to Canada, where they might attempt to radicalize others into violent extremism or conduct attacks themselves.

Canada’s counter-terrorism strategy is also based on cooperation and partnerships with allied governments and international agencies. With Africa, for example, experiencing an upsurge in terrorist activity, Canada is working closely with local governments and international partners to improve African countries’ counterterrorism capabilities, including addressing potential terrorist threats to Canadian interests in Africa.

Countering Homegrown Violent Extremism With homegrown violent extremism posing the most significant domestic terrorist threat to Canada (as well as other Western countries) due to upgraded border controls and other preventative measures, the Canadian government has implemented a variety of programs that attempt to prevent extremist ideologies from taking hold of vulnerable individuals. These

focus on outreach programs and engagement with Muslim community leaders and local organizations to raise awareness and to help identify extremists who may be attempting to radicalize others and promote violence.

It is not known, however, how successful these counter-extremism programs are in deradicalizing such susceptible individuals and facilitating their disengagement from potential terrorist activity.

Another component of this outreach program is to inform policy development through the promotion of academic research on terrorism and counter-terrorism (including countering violent extremism) through a [Canadian] $10 million Kanishka Project (named after the Air India 747 jet destroyed in the 1985 bombing).

Conclusion Following a period of lax defenses against terrorist operatives in the 1990s – as exemplified by the relative ease of movement of Islamist militants such as Ahmed Ressam – Canada’s counterterrorism measures have been substantially improved and upgraded since then. As the thwarting of numerous al Qaida-linked or inspired plots demonstrate, although these operatives failed to execute a successful attack on Canadian soil, their motivation and intent to launch terrorist operations appears to have remained constant, especially if the opportunity arises. In a worrisome future development, while the prolonged conflict in Syria is expected to continue to draw some Canadian Muslims, especially young Sunnis, to travel to Syria and join the militant opposition forces, especially those linked to al Qaida, an unknown variable is whether the escalating conflict between Sunnis and Shi’ites in the Middle East will spill over into intra-communal acts of violence between their counterparts on Canadian soil.

Canada’s counterterrorism agencies recognize that they must maintain their vigilance in degrading terrorist capabilities to conduct operations, as well as reduce the motivation by susceptible individuals to be radicalized into violent extremism. Moreover, like their Western counterparts, Canadian security services must ensure that their nationals who travel to overseas conflict zones are carefully monitored and do not engage in extremist activities upon their return to Canada.

Finally, the evolving threat of cyber-terrorism is likely to become an ever increasing concern for Canadian agencies that focus on the security of the country’s public and private critical infrastructure.

About the Author Dr. Joshua Sinai is a Washington, DC-based consultant on terrorism & 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

If Iraq Falls, Is Nuclear War Inevitable?

By Col. Danny Dickerson (Ret.)

Iranian Defence and Armed Forces Logistics Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar (C) inspects guard of honour on his arrival for talks in Baku, April 19, 2006. Najjar arrived in Azerbaijan for a three-day official visit. REUTERS/Ogtay Mamedov

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ue to the success in delaying international intervention in its nuclear weapons program, Iran is now at the threshold of becoming a nuclear power. The former heads of two of the most powerful intelligence agencies in the world, Gen. Michael Hayden, former director of the CIA and NSA, and ex-general Amos Yadlin, exchief of AMAN, Israeli military intelligence, were recently of the same opinion: Iran has reached the point of a nuclear threshold state and can build several nuclear bombs in a matter of weeks. Although we do not know if this is indeed true, many leaders in the Middle East and here in the U.S. view the recent Iran cooperation with the West as allowing Iran to continue its nuclear work while pursuing its ambition of becoming the region’s dominant power.

Today, in the Middle East, there are only two true military powers, Israel and Iran. Israel developed its military capabilities out of a necessity for survival, while Iran from a desire to conquer this region of the world Upon coming to power, in 1979, the Ayatollah Khomeini outlined in his book, Islamic Governmen,t his vision of an Islamic conquest of the Middle East, which was to be achieved through a program entitled The New System of International Terrorism rise of the Sunni Islamist militancy.

Iran, although concerned with the military capabilities of Israel and the U.S., was never bothered with the Arab military within the Middle East, as the U.S. maintained the role of guarantor of security in the region allowing Saudi Arabia and its allies to maintain small and largely untrained armies. Today, the U.S. is retreating from this traditional role in the Middle East.

Without a nuclear deterrent, Tehran realized that a conventional war with either Israel or the U.S. would result in defeat. Therefore, under Khomeini’s dogma, Iran adopted a strategy opposite that of Western armies. In the West, militaries treat wars as a game of chess. Armies engage one another in a series of moves and countermoves determined by certain variables. Iran has focused its doctrine of war not on one of military vs. military (the chess pieces), but on the chessboard; the physical, social, economic and political terrain of the enemy. Wars of the last fifty years have shown that the conquest of the human terrain will determine the ultimate winner in a conflict.

Mostafa Mohammah Najjar, Iranian Defense Minister, stated “You don’t need an army, territory, or military bases. All you need are groups of highly trained, highly motivated individuals equipped

with modern weapons, who can destroy whole countries and civilizations.”

With this in mind, Iran entrusted their war plans to two units, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC) and the Quds Force, both of which are experts in Fourth Generation warfare and to proxies.

From its own war with Iraq, as well as the current conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan by the U.S., Tehran learned that proxies can serve as a more effective fighting force in any future confrontation and has been strengthening its relations with the Shi’a population throughout the Middle East, as a potential fifth column force, to the alarm of the Saudi’s and their allies.

In Saudi Arabia, the Shi’a constitute 15% of the population and is concentrated in the oil rich region.

Although not numerous enough to challenge the King, they do constitute an actual and potential arm of Iranian influence. Qatar’s population is 24% Shi’a and is of special interest to Iran as it is the location for the largest U.S. military air base in the Middle East, Al-Udeid; storage facilities for early deployment by U.S. forces; and the forward headquarters to CENTCOM. Qatar has been seen as the “Trojan horse” in this conflict of Iran vs. Saudi Arabia, playing both ends against the middle, often to the detriment of Saudi Arabia and the U.S. In the United Arab Emirates, 15% of the population is Shi’a and Dubai is home to many Iranians and an important commercial and financial vein for Iran.

Bahrain is the most vulnerable with 70% of its population being Shi’a. The large Shi’a population has allowed Iran’s Revolutionary Guards to establish terrorist cells in the kingdom aimed at destabilizing the monarchy.

Oman has the smallest population of Shi’a (6%) and is a weak country. Uncertain of the intentions of Washington, Oman has developed close relations with Iran and has signed a modus vivendi with Iran on military cooperation. Government officials have allowed the smuggling of restricted goods

through their ports and into Iran, as well as the smuggling of Iranian weapons and advisors to other countries in the Middle East.

Iran, currently, holds sway over a third of the Middle East and can blackmail 55% of the world’s oil reserves.

The leaders in Tehran realized that the U.S., by being in Afghanistan and Iraq, was entrenched on Iran’s Eastern and Western border, within swift striking distance to any target in their country. As early as 2001, Iran began to extend its influence by infiltrating both countries, and today, is active in numerous Iraqi and Afghan provinces.

Iran has an enormous amount of sway in Kabul, as the Iranian cause is aided by the fact that the Shi’a and many Sunni Afghans understand that they are better off with Iran than with the Taliban.

In December, 2013, Afghan President Karzai agreed to a cooperation pact with Iran, and according to Aimal Faizi, Karzai’s spokesman, “Afghanistan agreed on a long-term friendship and cooperation with Iran. The pact will be for long-term political, security, economic and cultural cooperation, regional peace and security.”

Iraq is another battleground that has seen Iran making strides in dominating once U.S. forces withdrew. Iraq is three countries surrounded by a common border, the Kurds in the north, Sunni in the central part, and the Shi’a in the southern region. This division was necessary to offer some stability to a country that was on the verge of internal disintegration after Saddam Hussein’s regime was toppled.

Iraq is the new battleground between Shi’a and Sunni, Iran and Saudi Arabia, and could well become the flash point for open hostilities between these two powers. Al-Qaeda backed forces have seized control of large portions of Falluja and Ramadi, two of the most important cities in western and central Iraq and control a region stretching from Ramadi in central Iraq to the northern Syrian town of al-Raqqah. This victory represents a setback for Tehran and its support of prime minister al-Maliki.

Al-Qaeda has been welcomed back by the greatly outnumbered Sunnis in Iraq and this latest victory will lead to an increase in funding and weapons by the Gulf’s Sunni states and Iran to their respective allies; further increasing the danger of embroiling the whole of the Middle East in open conflict.

America’s involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq has provided Iran with the geopolitical openings it feared taking prior to Sept. 11th. In December 2006, at the Gulf Cooperation Council Summit, Iranian President Ahmadinejad stated that the Gulf States and the Middle East had to replace their security reliance on the U.S. with a reliance on Iran instead. Although Iran has been maintaining open diplomatic relations with the Gulf States, Tehran is still involved in clandestine activities to overthrow these governments and extend its influence throughout the Middle East.

As part of Iran’s bid for regional hegemony, a political and military axis has formed, comprising not only Iran and Shi’ites in Iraq, Lebanon,

These victories in Iraq by alQaeda have had a chilling effect on any hopes of avoiding war in the Middle East. President Assad now faces a new front in his war against the al-Qaeda backed rebels at a time when he was beginning to win the upper hand. Emboldened by the victory in Iraq, and smelling another in Syria, new recruits are streaming to join the rebels in their fight against the Assad government.

Iran cannot afford the loss of its most powerful ally and will assist President Assad in every way possible to insure that the al-Qaeda rebels are defeated, from increasing logistical support and the strength of Hezbollah in Syria, to sending conventional forces into the region, and, ultimately utilizing non-conventional weapons.

Iran’s leaders realize that the U.S. has little appetite for another war in the Middle East, which has provided Tehran further incentive to bring Iraq and Afghanistan into its axis. The consensus on the Arab street is that Iran has turned the Iraqi and Afghan wars into major strategic victories, and the U.S. cannot be trusted for support from Iranian aggression, i.e. the U.S. is considered tired and weak. Such is the growing distrust of Washington that, in February 2011, a top UAE sheik explained to two visiting U.S. officials: “We and the Saudis will not accept a Shiite government in Bahrain. And if your president says to the Khalifas what he said to Mubarak (to leave office), it will cause a break in our relationship with the U.S.” The official further added that the Gulf nations were “looking East” – to China, India and Turkey – for security assistance.

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to close the Gulf to all shipping, thus threatening to collapse the world’s economy. “Iran’s navy is the most capable in the region and, even with the presence of Western forces, can probably stem the flow of oil from the Gulf for brief periods by employing a layered force of KILO submarines, missile patrol boasts, naval mines, and sea and shore-based anti-ship cruise missiles.” Further, short- and medium-range missiles have been placed aboard cargo vessels in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz as a force multiplier for Iran. Working with China, Iran is establishing a series of ports for both military and commercial vessels in Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Myanmar.

These “string of pearls” ports would safely connect the sea lanes between China and Iran, extending the military reach and influence of each nation and challenging American, British and Indian presence in the region.

Recent intelligence reports indicate that Hezbollah has been supplied with Iranian anti-ship missiles, as well as other systems, that, already in place in Lebanon, could target Israeli ships, aircraft and bases within Israel.

and Yemen, but also various Sunni forces that have an interest in opposing Saudi Arabia and Egypt. It was during the 2006 Lebanon war that a distinct Iran-Syria-Qatar-Hizballah axis first emerged to oppose the Saudi-Egyptian camp.

At a later stage, this axis expanded to include Hamas, which, until recently, has received increasing support from Iran, as well the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. Lately, Syria and Iran have been striving to add Turkey to their ranks, and have met with some cooperation on the part of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

While supporting its proxies throughout the Middle East, Iran has continued developing its conventional forces in preparation for a war with Israel and the U.S. Iran has conducted naval exercises and reinforced its defenses along the Gulf of Hormuz for the purpose of defending against any attack (sea, air, land) from U.S. or Israeli forces and

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The Iranian’s have prepared for a war of attrition in which neither Israel nor the U.S could hope for a total victory. The U.S. military is already exhausted from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff has already informed Washington that the U.S. military is unprepared for another war, regardless of its size. In Israel, the Israeli Defense Forces are comprised primarily of reservists whose prolonged absence would have an adverse effect on Israel’s economy. Israel has no natural resources and its key infrastructures are located within artillery and missile range of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Lebanon.

Israel cannot afford to lose a war, whereas its enemies have the space, population, and time to absorb a series of defeats.

Iran’s standing army, Hezbollah and Hamas, total more than all the other armies of the Middle East combined, and if allowed to possess nuclear weapons, Iran would be more than capable of taking control of the Middle East and the world’s reserves of oil.

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With nuclear weapons, Iran would have the ability to threaten the governments of the Middle East and U.S. troops stationed in the area. The possession of nuclear weapons, combined with virtual control of the Strait of Hormuz, and the resulting ability to place a stranglehold on a large portion of the world’s oil, would embolden Iran to increase its use of terrorism without fear of retaliation on the part of any Western power: “With a nuclear weapons option acting as a deterrent to U.S. and allied action against it, Iran would likely lend greater support to terrorists operating against Israel, Iraq, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Europe and the U.S.” In response to Iran’s military strength and influence and the fears that a nuclear armed Iran would be even more aggressive, the Gulf Cooperation Council under Saudi leadership tasked a team in May 2009 to begin the study of peaceful purposes for nuclear power.

The Middle East is committed to the nuclear arms race and any attempt by Washington to prevent nuclear proliferation is largely unrealistic. With Iran’s military superiority, the Arab States believe that a nuclear deterrent is the only recourse if Tehran invades their borders. This mindset carries the seeds for a nuclear confrontation throughout the Middle East. Saudi Arabia would resort to a first strike, if Iranian forces invaded Kuwait, in order to keep these forces out of the oil-rich Eastern Province. Kuwait has no geopolitical buffer zone and would strike first if Iranian forces began to build up on its borders. This scenario could be played out with the other Arab States; threaten one and the entire Middle East becomes embroiled in a nuclear war.

In the mid-1990’s, the Saudi’s began working with the Pakistan government on the Pakistani The Arab States feel threatened nuclear program and have and having a strong interest financed up to 60% of the in blocking Iran’s potential Pakistan nuclear program for a nuclear capabilities, see nuclear guaranteed delivery of seven to weapons as the only solution to nine nuclear warheads. the Iranian problem. The Saudi’s are negotiating with France for the Upon being appointed the new chief of Staff of purchase of nuclear technology, Pakistan’s armed forces in 2013, Gen. Raheel Sharif began the transfer to Saudi Arabia of the and Paris has already signed nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles Riyadh purchased and which Pakistan held in reserve civilian nuclear deals elsewhere under a secret defense pact the two governments in the Middle East, to include signed in 2004. In addition, the Saudi’s are using the Pakistani Baluchistan as their base for continAlgeria and Libya. ued subversive operations against Iran.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is working with both France and the United States as well as South Korea, to develop its nuclear power industry, Kuwait has shown interest in nuclear power cooperation with France, and its emir said in February 2009 that his country is “seriously considering joining the nuclear club but only for peaceful purposes.”

Jordan in May 2009 signed a nuclear energy cooperation agreement with Russia in which Moscow would provide Amman with power plants, research facilities, and training centers.

Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, in 2007, announced that Egypt would redouble investment in its nuclear power infrastructure, and signed a nuclear energy deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin in March 2008, giving Russia the go-ahead to bid for building the first of four nuclear power plants in Egypt. In July 2006, the Muslim Brotherhood publicly called on the Mubarak regime to develop a nuclear deterrent. This suggests that a nuclear weapons capability would be high on the former Muslim Brotherhood-led government.

Prior to Sept. 11th, Iran was responsible for 90% of the major acts of global terrorism, and is well-prepared for future terrorist acts against its enemies. With help from North Korea, Iran has improved its missile capabilities to the point that all of the Middle East could be targeted with conventional, chemical, and nuclear warheads and in the near future could deliver nuclear armed ICBM’s onto the European continent.

Currently there are two possibilities if Iran acquires nuclear weapons: 1) attacks on Israel and/ or Saudi Arabia, caus-

ing hundreds of thousands of casualties; 2) using nuclear weapons as a geopolitical weapon, seeking to dominate the Middle East and forcing the hand of Western powers, either subtly or by overtly threatening death and destruction to those who fail to heed their dictates.

While these two possibilities have been debated by political scientists and world leaders, there is a third, even more plausible scenario, Iran using an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) weapon against Israel and/or the U.S. The threat posed by Iran, not just to the Middle East, but to Europe and the U.S., concerning the use of an EMP weapon is far more immediate than most realize.

An EMP is an above-atmosphere level detonation of a nuclear device that produces enough radiation to wreak havoc with electrical systems. The blast produces a very brief but intense electromagnetic field that can quickly induce very high currents in electrical devices, shorting them out. The stronger the electromagnetic field — the “pulse” — the stronger the current and the more likely electrical devices are to “blow out.”

In an article titled, “Electronics to Determine Fate of Future Wars,” an Iranian Military journal explains how an EMP attack on America’s electronic infrastructure, caused by the detonation of a nuclear weapon high above the U.S., would bring the country to its knees. “Once you confuse the enemy communication network you can also disrupt the work of the enemy command- and decision-making center,” the article states. “Even worse today when you disable a country’s military high command through disruption of communications, you will, in effect, disrupt all the affairs of that country. If the world’s industrial countries fail to devise effective

ways to defend themselves against dangerous electronic assaults then they will disintegrate within a few years. American soldiers would not be able to find food to eat nor would they be able to fire a single shot.”

According to Dr. Peter Vincent Pry, executive director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security, “Iran openly talks about using an EMP to attack Israel or the US. Tehran has undertaken offshore exercises using Scud missiles fired and positioned in such a way that they exploded in the atmosphere — exactly the method you would use for an EMP attack.”

Dr. Pry warned: “One nightmare scenario posed by the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (Attack) was a ship-launched EMP attack against the United States by Iran, as this would eliminate the need for Iran to develop an ICBM to deliver a nuclear warhead against the U.S. and could be executed clandestinely, taking the U.S. by surprise.”

A civilian freighter or a submarine could launch an EMP weapon from off the east or west coast of America; from the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of Cortez, Cuba or Venezuela, and the U.S. has neither the missile defense nor any warning systems in the event of just such an attack.

Consider Iran’s militant behavior without a nuclear umbrella; imagine how it will be with one.

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About the Author Danny Dickerson is a retired Colonel, U.S. Army. He has served as an advisor to the UN, NATO and Interpol on terrorism and intelligence planning.

He has trained law enforcement in the U.S. from the local to federal level on terrorism and intelligence, as well as investigators for the Canadian Attorney General’s office and police officials in Egypt and Jordan, and is recognized as a “presenter” by the Illinois Terrorism Task Force.

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He has written articles addressing the growing threat of terrorism which have been republished in Latin America, Europe and the Middle East.

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Iran’s successful stalling tactics over the past 20 years has brought the world to this critical juncture. Iran is currently enjoying a “window” of time before the six-month deal goes into effect, during which it is not bound to take any credible steps toward disabling its ability to produce a nuclear weapon.

References

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Even if Iran were to stop its nuclear program, the Middle East would still be faced with a formidable Iranian proxy in Lebanon, i.e. Hezbollah, which is being replicated in Iraq, Gaza, and the West Bank and even in Jordan among the Palestinians.

Tehran does not consider Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Sheikhdoms to be beyond its reach.

•

The Saudis are feeling surrounded by Iranian influence - in Iraq, in Syria, in Lebanon, in Bahrain. The Saudi ambassador in London, Prince Mohammed bin Nawaf bin Abdulaziz stated that “We are not going to sit idly by and receive a threat there and not think seriously how we can best defend our country and our region.”

If Iran cannot be prevented from acquiring nuclear weapons, Saudi Arabia and its allies may not sit and wait to see what Iran does during the next six months. In the London Times, November, 2013, Saudi Arabia agreed to allow Israeli jets to overfly its territory to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities, and will assist Israel with drones and tanker planes.

Armed with both nuclear weapons and fifth columnists in states throughout the Middle East,

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Iran would be well positioned to bend all regional states to its will and the risk to Europe and especially the U.S. of a nuclear attack increases dramatically. Following its program of lateral asymmetric warfare, it wouldn’t be outside the realm of possibility for Iran to provide nuclear weapons to any of its proxies with the intentions of having these groups carry out nuclear attacks against the West.

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Vision of the Islamic Republic of Iran Network 1, Tehran, April 10, 2000, http://www.lexis-nexis.com.

Murad Batal al-Shishani, “Al-Qaeda ‘Awakens’ in Iraq,” http:www.atimes. com, November 18, 2008.

MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 1249, “Arab Media Accuses Iran and Syria of Direct Involvement in Lebanon War,” August 15, 2006, http://www.memri.org/ bin/articles.cgi?Page=countries&Area =lebanon&ID=SP124906.

MEMRI Inquiry and Analysis No. 490, “Recent Attempts to Form Strategic Regional Bloc: Syria, Turkey and Iran,” January 6, 2009, http://www.memri.org/ bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area= ia&ID=IA49009.

Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lowell E. Jacoby, “Current and Projected National Security Threats to the United States,” statement before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, February 24, 2004, http://intelligence. senate.gov/0402hrg/040224/jacoby.pdf.

Defense Intelligence Agency Director Thomas R. Wilson, “Global Threats and Challenges,” statement before the Senate Armed Services Committee, March 19, 2002, http://www.senate. gov/~armed_services/statement/2002/

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March/Wilson.pdf.

“Iran Deploys Ballistic Missile from Sea Vessel,” Middle East Newsline, October 12, 2004.

Robert D. Kaplan, Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power (New York: Random House, 2010), pp. 7, 9, 12, 71, 79, 94, 280, 291, and “China’s Port in Pakistan?” Foreign Policy (May 27, 2011).

“Iran Navy,” Iranian Defense (June 3, 2011), http://www.iraniandefence.com/ iran-navy/; Abhijit Singh, “Iran Seizes Opportune Moment to Project Naval Power,” World Politics Review (June 14, 2011, http://www.worldpoliticsreview. com/articles/9153/iran-seizes-opportune-moment-to-project-naval-power; and Philip Walker, “Beijing’s BlueWater Navy,” Foreign Policy (June 3, 2011), http://www.foreignpolicy.com/ articles/2011/06/03/Beijings_blue_water_navy.

Draft Report: Restraining a NuclearReady Iran: Seven Levers, Washington: Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, 13 September 2004, http:// www.npec-web.org/projects/Iran/200409-13SevenLevers.pdf.

“GCC Work Teams on Peaceful Nuclear Energy Use Meets,” Oman Daily Observer, May 20, 2009.

“Saudi-French Civil N-Pact ‘Soon’”, Saudi Gazette, May 11, 2009.

“South Korean Cabinet Approves Peaceful Nuclear Accord with UAE,” Kuwait News Agency, June 17, 2009.

James Kanter, “France Set to Announce UAE Nuclear Deal,” International Herald Tribune, January 14, 2008.

“Kuwait Eyes Civilian Nuclear Power Project with French Help,” The Peninsula (Doha), February 10, 2009.

“Russia, Jordan Sign Nuclear Cooperation Agreement,” Haaretz, (Tel Aviv), May 23, 2009.

“Egypt Unveils Nuclear Plants Plan,” BBC News, October 29, 2007.

“Russia-Egypt Nuclear Deal Signed,” BBC News, March 25, 2008.

James A. Russell, “A Tipping Point Realized? Nuclear Proliferation in the Persian Gulf and Middle East,” Contemporary Security Policy 29, no. 3, (December 2008), p. 530.

“Iran Could Test ICBMs as Early as 2005,” Middle East Newsline, May 20, 2004, http://www.menewsline.com/ stories/2004/may/05_20_1.html.

See “No Defense: America’s Growing Vulnerability to an EMP Attack,” by Dan Dickerson, The Journal of Counterterrorism & Homeland Security International, Vol. 18, No. 1.

On the Ground in Kenya

A Conversation With An FBI Legal Attaché in Nairobi

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Muslims participate in a demonstration against the deportation of controversial Jamaican preacher Sheikh Abdullah al-Faisal, outside the Jamia Mosque in Kenya’s capital Nairobi January 8, 2010. Kenyan immigration authorities deported the Jamaican Muslim cleric to Gambia because they believed he had links to terrorism, the government said. The banner reads, “There is no other God but Allah and Muhammad is his Prophet”. REUTERS/Noor Khamis (KENYA -

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he FBI’s legal attaché, or legat, program places Bureau personnel in more than 60 countries around the world. Working primarily through U.S. Embassies, FBI employees serve at the pleasure of host country governments, and their core mission is to establish and maintain liaison with local law enforcement and security services. Such partnerships are critical in the fight against international terrorism, cyber crime, and a range of other criminal and intelligence matters.

FBI.gov recently sat down with Dennis Brady, the Bureau’s legal attaché in Nairobi, Kenya, to talk about their partnerships with the Kenyans and our work in that region of the world.

Q: What are the key threats in Kenya that impact Americans and U.S. interests?

Team operator embedded on a permanent rotating basis. So when something happens—a kidnapping or an act of terror or piracy—we can respond immediately with a full range of Bureau expertise.

Q: Is that expertise also used to help train Kenyan law enforcement?

Brady: The terrorist orga- Brady: Absolutely. Training nization al Shabaab has been the biggest threat we face.

Members of that group use IEDs [improvised explosive devices] to carry out terrorist attacks. They are known to throw grenades into local buses and attack local police officers. They also have a history of kidnapping Americans in Somalia—an area that our legat office covers. Piracy in Somalia is also a continuing threat.

Q: What types of FBI person-

nel are posted to Legat Nairobi?

Brady: In addition to our administrative and support staff, we have a special agent bomb technician, a member of the FBI’s counterterrorism fly team, and a Hostage Rescue

is one of our key functions, and it’s been going on for years. We train Kenyan law enforcement personnel in a variety of disciplines, including crime scenes, IEDs, and tactics. We also provide instruction in areas such as fingerprinting, cyber investigations, evidence collection, intelligence analysis, interview techniques, and major case management. In the past few years, the Bureau has conducted more than 40 training sessions in Kenya and has trained more than 800 individuals. We also have 10 Kenyan graduates of the FBI’s National Academy who are still active in law enforcement. The Kenyans are very receptive to everything we offer and are enthusiastic, ac-

S

Diary, Search History Offer Bizarre Insights Into “White Widow”

By Abigail R. Esman

amantha Lewthwaite has made plenty of news since she first came into the spotlight on July 7, 2005. That’s when her husband, Muslim convert

Jermaine Lindsay, blew himself up in London in the service of Allah – killing 52 people and injuring more than 700 others. Yet more and more about the so-called “white widow” still remains mysterious– and even a bit bizarre.

Now suspected of helping orchestrate the September attacks at the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya – in which more than 72 were killed and hundreds wounded – Lewthwaite is considered one of the world’s most dangerous women. Some counterterrorism experts working on her case believe she has become a leading figure in the al-Shabaab terrorist network.

Investigators have a better picture of Lewthwaite’s thinking after recovering a hand-written 9-page diary and a computer showing her Internet search history.

What emerges is the picture of a woman who loves her children, yet boasts of how they are being raised to become terrorists.

One page is devoted to a conversation her husband had with two of their children.

“He asked them what do you want to be when you are older?” she wrote. “Both had many answers but both agreed to one of wanting to be a Mujahid. He asked them how did they plan to achieve such a goal, and what really is a Mujahid?”

To reach their goals, the children would have to learn what that means.

“The only way to do this is if we know what a Mujahid is? How does he spend his day? How does he spend his night? And once we know the answers to this we can strive to be a Mujahid.”

British media say Lewthwaite once was a “nice,” “shy,” Irish Catholic girl from County Down, North Ireland.

But her diary makes clear her ideas of faith changed radically.

In seeking a spouse, she wrote

that she wanted a man who would “go forth and give all he could for Allah and live a life of terrorizing the disbelievers as they have us. This is what I wanted and Allah gave me this and better.”

Jihadis apparently want to look good, too. Investigators checked her Google searches and other computer activities, finding an interest in diets, makeup, and making explosives only hours before the Nairobi attack.

In other Internet searches, she sought advice on the “Islamic meaning of horoscopes,” even looking up her own star sign – a practice deemed sinful in the eyes of Islam.

Lewthwaite may have thought that she was safe from being identified in her online activity: she reportedly spent a year working in a pie factory in South Africa under the name Natalie Faye Webb. Investigators suspect that her recent clothing shopping sprees, as well as her search for makeup and diet tips, may indicate her plans to change identity again as “the world’s most wanted woman,” continues on the run.

About the Author Abigail R. Esman, the author, most recently, of Radical State: How Jihad Is Winning Over Democracy in the West (Praeger, 2010), is a freelance writer based in New York and the Netherlands.

tive participants in the process.

What we provide supplements their own training and significantly improves their capacity to do their jobs.

Q: Does the training have other benefits?

B r a d y : Ye s , i t f u r t h e r strengthens our working relationship with the Kenyans and reminds us of how much we have in common. Kenya was formerly a British colony and has a European-style legal system. The police and defense forces are separate, and the country operates its law enforcement and courts under the rule of law. Kenya also has an extradition treaty with the U.S., so when we locate fugitives, we can get them removed through the legal process and extradited back to the U.S. to face justice. All of these things make for good partnerships, and that becomes critical when you are responding to a crisis like the Westgate Mall terror attack a few months ago. In a life and death situation like that, everyone needs to know they can rely on one another.

Q: After the attack ended, on the edge of the collapse Brady: The Kenyans have what was the crime scene like?

Brady: Very complicated.

Westgate was a large mall, four stories, with underground parking and an attached parking structure. In the process of fighting the attackers, there were explosions and a fire.

The area where the attackers were had home furnishings that

would fall in and catch fire.

But there was a lot of attention paid to the soundness of the structure and where we could reasonably collect evidence.

Safety of the investigators was paramount. We had an FBI structural engineer and hazardous materials experts on scene in addition to our other assets. At the height

On September 21, 2013, al Shabaab gunmen attacked the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi. Over a period of several days, they killed more than 70 people.

We b e l i e v e , a s d o t h e Kenyan authorities, that the four gunmen inside the mall were killed.

caught fire. The fire

Q: On September 21, 2013, al spread and continued

Shabaab gunmen attacked the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi. Over a period of several days, they killed more than 70 people.

What was the FBI’s response?

to burn, causing that part of the structure to collapse into a pit that smoldered for weeks.

a Saturday. I was called to the embassy, and we immediately began securing resources to assist the Kenyans. Our people were on the scene from the first day. The FBI’s role was—and continues to be—to facilitate, enable, and assist the Kenyan investigation and prosecution regarding a crime that occurred largely against Kenyan citizens on their soil.

tors working to collect evidence?

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Q: There have been conflict-

ing reports about what happened to the gunmen. Can you comment?

Brady: We believe, as do

the Kenyan authorities, that the four gunmen inside the mall were killed. Our ERT made significant finds, and there is no evidence that any of the attackers escaped from the area where they made their last stand. Three sets of remains were found. Also, the Kenyans were on the scene that first day and set up a very secure crime scene perimeter, making an escape unlikely.

Additionally, had the attackers escaped, it would have been publicly celebrated and exploited for propaganda purposes by al Shabaab. That hasn’t happened.

Q: All in all, are you pleased with how the legat responded to the crisis?

Q: Was it dangerBrady: The attack started on ous for investiga-

Brady: It’s amazing we got our Evidence Response Team [ERT] people down into that pit. It was a very difficult place to work. While ERT was doing its work, every now and then a propane tank would explode or vehicles

charged four individuals in connection with the terror attack, and the case is moving through the court process.

The four are directly connected to the individuals who physically carried out the attack. Nobody is under the impression that we have fully identified the entire network in this attack, however.

That’s why the investigation continues.

of the initial investigation, the Bureau had more than 80 people on the ground there.

Q: Where does the investigation stand now?

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Brady: Very much so. Our people stood shoulder to shoulder with the Kenyans through some very difficult days. It’s also worth noting that it wasn’t just Americans helping the Kenyans. It was an international effort. But yes, I am proud of how the legat responded and how we were able to assist our host country when they most needed us.

Source: FBI.gov

Hostage In The Desert:

navy.mil

SEAL Team SIX And The Rescue Of Aid Worker Jessica Buchanan

By Dr. Thomas B. Hunter

O

n October 25, 2011, American Jessica Buchanan, 32, and Danish national Poul Hagen Thisted, 60, were kidnapped by a Somali criminal gang. During a brief stop for supplies at a roadside market, following a meeting of the charity organization for which they both worked, the Danish Demining Group (DDG), they were seized and driven off into the desert. A third DDG employee was released, and quickly provided authorities with the details of the kidnapping.

Somali police informed American forces of the kidnapping in short order, and the beginnings of a potential hostage rescue operation were put into motion amongst U.S. and international political circles, military forces, and intelligence agencies.

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Buchanan and Thisted were handed over to a criminal gang approximately 120 km south of Galkayo, a regional capital, though they were quickly moved to the coastal town of Harardhere in the Mudug region. Word of these rapid movements quickly spread through the established intelligence networks headed by the U.S. military and CIA, and the location of the hostages was soon fixed, though not without considerable effort.

Among the first actions taken was the retasking of American drones from both the CIA and the U.S. military (specifically, the Joint Special Operations Command – Horn of Africa, or JSOC-HOA), assigned to locate and track the hostages and the men that abducted them. These systems provided critical realtime intelligence throughout the entire operation, from shortly after the kidnapping to the rescue operation. Given that the U.S. has long had drones operating in the region, particularly to support U.S. forces in the Horn of Africa, based in Djibouti, the retasking and subsequent round-the-clock monitoring of events was a relatively simple undertaking.

This aerial tracking, in addition to the aggressive use of HUMINT (human intelligence) reporting, would prove critical to all related operations due to the frequent movement of the hostages by the gunmen, who were experienced enough to realize that they could not hold their captives long in one location, lest authorities learn of their location and move against them. Reporting indicates that, indeed, at one point, Buchanan and Thisted were both moved offshore to a previously hijacked vessel (Malaysian-flagged tanker MV Albedo), to better deter any rescue attempt. This move apparently did not last long, and the two were soon moved back to shore, though subjected to an irregularly-scheduled and frequent series of movements to various villages and other remote locations.

As mentioned, however, U.S. military and intelligence forces and agencies were by then well aware of these movements and had long since turned their full attention and assets to tracking the gunmen.

Hostage taking is, of course, far from uncommon in Somalia, and frequently takes months, and sometimes years to resolve (usually through the payment of ransoms). Buchanan’s situation was complicated and exacerbated, however, due to the fact that she suffered from medical issues that, according to reports from a doctor who had been permitted to visit her, painted a picture of a woman suffering from potentially lifethreatening dehydration and illness – symptoms for which she was receiving little to no treatment by her captors.

On Tuesday, January 25, 2012, the go-ahead was formally given by JSOC commanders to proceed with the rescue of Buchanan, to be accompanied by an unknown number of FBI personnel, some from the elite Hostage Rescue Team (HRT), to ensure legal formalities were followed in order to best ensure a smooth arrest and later prosecution of any captured hostage takers. It is not known what part HRT personnel played in the events that followed; however,

these highly trained personnel have frequently worked alongside military and intelligence personnel in locating and arresting of numerous wanted terrorists. Their inclusion in this operation was not unusual or unwanted.

At approximately 9:30pm local time, U.S. forces, possibly U.S. Army Rangers, took control of the local airport at Galkayo.

Local reports indicate that local Puntland security personnel may have assisted as an initial augmentation force, due to the size of the airport, their knowledge of the area, and to their ability to mitigate potential local Somali political concerns over the arrival of U.S. troops at the airport.

Within 30 minutes of their arrival, the airport was reported back to JSOC mission commanders as secured, and by 10:00pm eight helicopters, joined by one MC-130 special operations fixed wing aircraft, landed at the airport and disembarked their forces. Three hours later, two helicopters took off and proceeded south towards the location of the armed camp, where Buchanan was being held.

It was at approximately this time that a team of highly trained counterterrorism military personnel from the US

On Tuesday, January 25, 2012, the go-ahead was formally given

by JSOC commanders to proceed with the rescue of Buchanan, to be accompanied by an unknown number of FBI personnel, some from the elite Hostage Rescue Team (HRT), to ensure legal formalities were followed in order to best ensure a smooth arrest and later prosecution of any captured hostage takers.

Navy’s SEAL Team Six (also known as the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, or DEVGRU) had jumped from an aircraft high above the Somali desert, utilizing a rare operational tactic known as HALO, the acronym used to describe a High Altitude, Low Opening parachute jump. In this way, special operations personnel are able to insert silently into a contested area, without alerting enemy forces. This tactic is of particular necessity when absolute stealth is required, situations in which the otherwise preferred option of the use of vehicles or helicopters is deemed, tactically, too risky to the lives of the hostages.

JSOC planners had determined that this method was necessary, given reports that, in addition to reports of Buchanan’s failing health, both hostages were guarded by gunmen equipped with AK-47s and other automatic weapons, as well as unspecified improvised explosive devices. Moreover, the mental stability of the hostage takers was in question, due to their well-known use of khat, a local stimulant known to produce amphetamine-like highs. Worse, the “crash” that inevitably follows the use of khat frequently produces anger, hostility, and unpredictability amongst its users. With this volatile mix known via intelligence reports, JSOC realized that a silent, swift, and likely lethal assault would be necessary to best ensure the safety of the hostages.

According to the latest intelligence, again, much of which was provided in real-time by drones, and perhaps even by personnel previously covertly infiltrated to observe the camp, there were at least 10 and possibly as many as 20 gunmen encamped at the target location.

It was clear that a sufficiently sized and highly-trained team would be necessary to have the best possible chances of conducting a successful rescue under these fluid and dangerous conditions. To this end, the standby team from SEAL Team Six

assigned to JSOCHOA was selected as the primary element assigned to the rescue of both Buchanan and Thisted.

On schedule, 24 SEALs leapt from their aircraft into the pitch-black sky, freefalling to a predetermined altitude, then landing at the designated forward assembly point. The jump and landing apparently were conducted without incident, the team uninjured and equipment and weapons undamaged, as they stowed their parachutes and prepared for the infiltration to the objective. Their destination was the temporary camp, which had been fixed as being at a location between the vil-

cal condition had long since provided the required parameters for a swift, silent, and, if necessary, violent assault.

likely from a competing criminal gang intent on making off with their potentially lucrative quarry: two Western hostages.

Once the on-scene SEAL commander identified the requisite conditions, he gave the order for the assault.

It was then that she heard the voice.

The counterterrorists moved rapidly and silently towards the camp, the desert sand somewhat masking their approach. The sentries were engaged first and quickly eliminated; however, the gunfire that ensued alerted those gunmen who remained, and a gun battle broke out between the two forces.

The SEALs moved immediately to their primary targets,

Uncertain, she lowered the blanket covering her face, and saw a group of heavily armed men clad in black, including balaclavas covering their faces, who reassured her that they were US Navy SEALs and that they were there to rescue her.

lages of Iidole and Higale, some 100km south of the airport. For this reason, the SEALs chose to parachute in approximately three miles from their drop zone, making the rest of the insertion on foot.

Upon their arrival, they found some guards on irregular sentry patrols, with some gunmen sleeping, and others chewing khat and generally not paying strict attention to camp security.

Nonetheless, the SEALs knew the kidnappers had long since expressed their willingness to kill the hostages and, moreover, Buchanan’s deteriorating medi-

40

Buchanan and Thisted. While the fighting continued, small teams broke off to secure the hostages, eliminate any close threats, and to begin immediate triage procedures to assess their medical condition and to prepare them for their extraction from the camp.

As the gunfight continued, however, Buchanan remained hidden under her blanket, with nothing to protect her from the bullets that were flying past her tent and into the night sky.

In her mind, she felt that the gunfire was not, in fact, from a rescue force, but rather most

“Jessica, we’re with the American military and we’re here to take you home. You are safe.”

At first, the voice did not make sense to Buchanan. After all, how could there be Americansounding voices here in the middle of nowhere after three months of hearing little other than men speaking in Somali dialects?

Uncertain, she lowered the blanket covering her face, and saw a group of heavily armed men clad in black, including balaclavas covering their faces, who reassured her that they were US Navy SEALs and that they were there to rescue her. It was only then that she accepted the unbelievable reality of the night’s turn of events. Immediately, the team medics went to work assessing her condition, providing food and water, and administering other necessary medical attention.

Shortly after, the site was declared secured. A post-action assessment by the ground team determined that at least nine gunmen were killed (a still unspecified number may have been captured or escaped), with no losses to the SEALs or, more importantly, to the hostages.

A short time later, the sound of two helicopters echoed over the desert sands and landed near the compound. The SEAL medics, along with their teammates, then carefully but quickly made their way to the helos, placed Buchanan and Thisted safely in the center of one helo, then disappeared into the night.

Moments later, the entire team made its way back via separate helicopters (from those that had earlier landed at the seized airport) were airborne and heading back to US-held Galkayo airport. The SEALs returned, eventually, to another location.

They arrived safely at approximately 4:00am, prior to dawn, having successfully completed their mission. By 10:00am, all U.S. forces had departed the airport and returned to their normal bases of operation.

This quick assessment was solely a preliminary one intended to assess her immediate injuries and ability to move. Moments later, one of the SEALs picked up Buchanan and ran with her off into the desert, away from the camp, before placing her on the ground, a safe distance from the fight. The medics then continued their medical evaluation and treatment of the weary, sick hostage.

Jessica Buchanan was later reunited with her family and recovered fully from her illness. She went on to write a book about her experiences as a hostage in Somalia, entitled Impossible Odds: The Kidnapping of Jessica Buchanan and Her Dramatic Rescue by SEAL Team Six. Unharmed, Thisted was also reunited with his family a short time after the rescue operation and currently lives in Denmark.

As the gunfight wound down, however, and prior to the arrival of the expected evacuation helicopters, the SEALs heard something in the distance. Word was passed amongst the team members of a possible hostile force still in the immediate area, and quickly laid on top of Buchanan to shield her from any possible incoming weapons fire. Minutes later, the all clear was given.

About the Author

Journal of Counterterrorism & Homeland Security International

Vol. 20, No.1

Dr. Hunter is a former senior intelligence analyst with the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), focusing on terrorist tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTP). He has published numerous articles on topics relating to civilian and military special operations, counterterrorism, and hostage rescue.

He has also published an introductory book on international targeted killing operations entitled Targeted Killing: Self-Defense, Pre-emption, and the War on Terrorism.

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SECURITY DRIVER:

Saving The Day

By Sean McLaine

Y

ou are a professional, and you do not get paid for what you do; you get paid for what you may have to do! That is why you are a security driver and not a chauffeur doing airport runs. Chances are, you may be called on to thwart an attack on, or prevent the kidnapping of one or more of the most powerful executives, diplomats or celebrities in this country. Chances are better however, that you may be called on to save the day in another way.

Are you prepared for that moment? Do you carry a can of flat fix, or an air compressor in your car? Is the spare tire fully inflated? Having those bases covered could mean valuable time saved in a pinch. You may even want to consider a heavy-duty jack. They are miniature versions of the ones used at the service station and are not very expensive. It saves you the trouble of scraping up your hands and spending extra time working on a 90 degree day. Another tip - have the spare tire next to the flat tire and make sure all

42

the lug nuts are loose before you put the car on the jack. The last thing you need is to take the flat tire off only to knock the car off the jack leaning into the trunk to pull out the spare.

No, that’s not blood on the CEO’s shirt, it’s ketchup! At a bad time too. . . right before the shareholder’s meeting. Knowing his size and having an extra shirt and tie in the car can mean a lot and save her/him from embarrassment. Just make sure it is a solid shirt with a rather plain tie that can go with most suits. You don’t want to show him the tie and have him think the one with the stain is the better option.

Journal of Counterterrorism & Homeland Security International

In the winter, you should carry a bottle of windshield washer fluid. Salt or sand from the roadway can be impossible to see through if it starts to dry and smears on the glass. This is unsafe, and slows you down, as you are unable to see where you are going as easily. You could also miss something dangerous under these conditions. When you are driving in rain or snow, it strains your eyes making you feel tired more quickly. By having a clean windshield, you make it that much easier on yourself. Wiping the blades clean with alcohol removes dirt and grime that causes smearing, and makes the wipers work like new. Extra wiper blades can never hurt as well.

Vol. 20, No.1

Also, make sure you have a small shovel in the trunk. They break down to a compact size for easy storage. I have only needed mine 2 times in the 20 years I have been driving, but I was glad to have it when it was needed! (Thanks for the gift mom.)

Carry water or anti-freeze for the radiator. In the summer months, water will work just fine. In the winter however, you will want anti-freeze. A mixture of the fluid with water will work well and save a bit of money. Although you will most likely be driving a newer car, you don’t want to count on the fact that it will not overheat. This is more likely in warm weather, especially when stopped in traffic.

Pulling the hood release under the dash will allow substantially better cooling but make sure you close the hood fully before getting back up to speed.

Do you have extra bulbs for the headlights? Many of the people we drive have homes in rather remote locations with dark windy roads leading up to them.

In these areas high beams are more than just a luxury. The last thing you need is to almost miss a curve or not spot a large animal in time because you do not have sufficient lighting to show the way. It is also embarrassing to get pulled over with passengers in the car. Many newer cars are built in such a way that your local service station would charge $50 in labor just to get to the light, so make sure you know how to switch them out before the need arises.

A small umbrella that fits in the glove box may come in handy on more than one occasion.

Jumper cables are a thing of the past. This is not your father’s foreign luxury car, so try a battery pack. They do not take up much more space, and eliminate the dependency on another car to get the job done. Even on a brand new car, a trunk sensor can go causing the light to stay on and drain the battery. Down side to the battery pack is they need to be charged on a regular basis. Since I grew up in Fairfield and did contract security at GE headquarters, I will use the Jack Welch timeline to emphasize my next point.

away, knowing where firehouses and ambulance garages are is a tremendous help.

Now, to get to the point. If the person you are protecting has a medical emergency in your car, YOU become the most important person in the entire company!

Although he had what he calls the “hitby-a-truck” succession plan, the selection process for his successor began in 1994.

The final three people were considered for one year. The successor was named in December 2000, and Dr. Welch was set to retire in April of the following year.

Because of General Electric’s acquisition of Honeywell (which was announced in October 2000) Dr. Welch did not retire until September 2001.

Now, to get to the point. If the person you are protecting has a medical emergency in your car, YOU become the most important person in the entire company!

A company can be thrown into turmoil without its leader. Mass layoffs can follow, Stocks can fall and mergers can fall through. I opened by saying you get paid for what you may have to do. By having a defibrillator and a basic medical kit with you at all times, you could save a life.

In the bigger picture, you can save the livelihood of thousands of people. Just make sure you don’t mix up the battery pack with the defibrillator.

Do you have all of the local hospitals marked on your map? In an emergency, that is not going to be enough. You have to be able to identify hospitals with trauma centers and have directions clearly printed from your regular travel routes.

You should have the routes written out step by step, from the office, the boss’s houses, the main highways, and anywhere else you spend a lot of time. If you are far

With modern technology, 911 systems have Automatic Location Indicators and the dispatchers can often know where you are based on that data. Weigh your options and make the best decision you can as to whether you should wait for medical services to come to you, or if you should go directly to the hospital.

The above list is a summary of some of the most important items a Security Driver should have in the car at all times. However, every detail’s needs vary and a constant assessment should be taken before each day begins. Is there something different happening today and who will be in my car? What supplies could I possibly need today to make the person in the back seat more comfortable, more safe and secure?

Have a written check list and review it daily.

About the Author Sean McLaine is Lead Instructor at Advanced Driving & Security Inc.

Women are

“Biggest Losers” in Arab Spring

By Abigail R. Esman

T

Women shout slogans against the government and members of the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafists.

According to a Thomson Reuters Foundation poll on 22 Arab states, Egypt emerged as the worst country to be a woman in the Arab world today, followed closely

by Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Egypt scored badly in almost every category, including gender violence, reproductive rights, treatment of women in the family and their inclusion in politics and the economy. The banner reads, “No Brotherhood and Salafists, We are the revolutionary legitimacy.” To match Analysis ARAB-WOMEN/SPRING REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El-Ghany

he Arab Spring, with the rising tide of hope for democracy and change it ushered in, has turned to autumn. For women it has become an Arab Winter, dark and cold and growing more perilous by the day.

And nowhere is the situation worse than it is in the country where hopes for democracy and freedom were the highest: Egypt.

Such are the findings of a new Thomson Reuters Foundation poll, which showed that women are worse off today in all the “Arab Spring” countries than they were previously. Moreover, throughout the Arab region, violence against women, sexual abuse, and political oppression remain generally the worst in the world.

These findings are tragic, not only for what they reveal about the plight of women in the region, but for what they tell us about the future of the “Arab Spring” countries. “Despite hopes that women would be one [sic] of the prime beneficiaries of the Arab Spring,” note the Reuters report’s authors, “they have instead been some of the biggest losers, as the

44

revolts have brought conflict, instability, displacement and a rise in Islamist groups in many parts of the region.”

women within the family, their integration into society, and attitudes towards a woman’s role in politics and the economy.”

The poll questioned more than 300 “gender experts” in all the 21 Arab League member states plus Syria (which lost its membership in 2011) during August and September. In drawing their conclusions, researchers “assessed violence against women, reproductive rights, treatment of

That Saudi Arabia did not come out as the worst of the list was surprising to many, but so was the fact that Iraq ranked as the second-worst – a long distance from where those supporting the removal of Saddam Hussein from power expected the country to be today.

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Egypt’s numbers are the most telling, however, exposing not just the rise in power of Islamic fundamentalist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, but how very inevitable this result was from the start – and certainly once Hosni Mubarak was displaced. This, after all, is the country where a shocking 91 percent of all women are victims of genital mutilation, a practice clearly endemic (especially in rural areas) even under Mubarak’s so-called secular reign. Since the rise of Islamist factions, however, the situation has become even grimmer, the poll indicates, with rising rates of trafficking and forced marriage.

“There are whole villages on the outskirts of Cairo and elsewhere where the bulk of economic activity is based on trafficking in women and forced marriages,” Zahra Radwan, Middle East and North Africa Program officer for the Global Fund for Women, told Reuters.

That outcome might have been expected, given the nature of the Muslim Brotherhood-led government that followed Mubarak’s fall. It was the Brotherhood that opposed a UN declaration on women’s rights that would allow women to travel and use contraception, arguing that such a move, which “contradicts established principles of Islam,” would essentially destroy society.

(Russia, Iran, and the Vatican also opposed the measure.)

How bad are things in Egypt and Iraq? As No. 1 and No. 2 respectively, they are worse, evidently, even than Saudi Arabia, which is notorious for its abysmal record in its treatment of women. That ranking alone is shocking: but it also provides an insight for Westerners into the undercurrent and power of

Islamic fundamentalism and Islamism in those Arab Spring countries, and the decreasing likelihood that democracy will take hold in the next decade.

In fact, not only do these two countries pose greater threats to women’s lives than even Somalia and Sudan, but the poll finds that the Saudis are beginning to make small strides towards opening doors to women. Saudi women, for instance, will have the right to vote in municipal elections for the first time in 2015; they recently were granted the right to practice law; and thanks to forceful activism, the right to drive may also soon be within their reach.

Contrast this development with Syria, which follows Saudi Arabia as the fourth worst country for Arab women. Here, too, Westerners once hoped for a new, democratic, progressive state to rise in place of Bashar al-Assad’s cruel dictatorship.

“Many Syrian women worry about the influence of militant Islamists who have taken control of some rebel-held areas,” Reuters reports. Young girls in refugee camps also suffer, the researchers found, where even 12-year-olds have been forced into marriage.

The report also describes a “spike in honor killings” in Syria, rising to about 300 a year,

“There are whole villages on the outskirts of Cairo and elsewhere where the bulk of economic activity is based on trafficking in women and forced marriages,” Zahra Radwan, Middle East and North Africa Program officer for the Global Fund for Women, told Reuters.

Indeed, listed as the survey’s third worst country for women, Saudi Arabia scored “better than many other Arab states when it came to access to education and healthcare, reproductive rights and gender violence,” according to the poll’s authors. But even more important was their observation that thousands of younger Saudis who had traveled abroad were returning “with very different ideas about their relative places in the world.”

though it is unclear whether that number is a significant change from previous years. A 2007 article in the Christian Science Monitor put the number at 200 to 300 annually.

In Libya, too, where the world once held so much hope for a free and democratic future, women now face kidnappings along with random arrest, rape, and physical abuse, Reuters found. It is worth noting, however, that the physical abuse numbers may result

from a rise in the reporting of such events, rather than from an increase in incidents.

The sad thing is that much of this violence could have been anticipated – and at least in part prevented. Certainly it was naïve to believe that the majority of the women who fought for Mubarak’s removal were any more westernized than the majority of the men. With an illiteracy rate of 35 percent (45 percent of women), in a country where two-thirds of women between the ages of 15-49 support the practice of genital mutilation, the proverbial writing was clearly on the wall.

But far more disturbing is the picture that this paints for the future, particularly with a new Egyptian constitution that, for all its lip service to democracy, holds sharia law supreme. If Saudi women are advancing, it is thanks to a new willingness by their government to support (western) education. But such opportunities may be lost to Egypt’s women, and increasingly, to their sisters in Syria, Lebanon, Libya, and even the Palestinian Territories (which scored a miserable 15 out of 22 in the Thomson Reuters study).

The inevitable result will not only be a deterioration of women’s rights in these countries, but too, a growing Islamic conservatism as the curtains surrounding the windows to the West – and to the Enlightenment – begin to close. As they do, the threats will continue to grow stronger, not just to Egyptian women’s lives, but to our own.

About the Author Abigail R. Esman, the author, most recently, of Radical State: How Jihad Is Winning Over Democracy in the West (Praeger, 2010), is a freelance writer based in New York and the Netherlands.

An IACSP Interview with

Sandra V. Grimes,

Former CIA Officer, Mole Hunter and Author of “Circle of Treason”

C

“

ircle of Treason” is an account of the “Ames Mole Hunt” written by two former CIA officers who were key members of the CIA team that conducted the hunt for a spy within the CIA.

Sandra V. Grimes and Jeanne Vertefeuille were two of the five principals of the CIA team tasked with hunting one of their own and were directly responsible for identifying Ames as the mole, leading to his arrest and conviction.

Aldrich Ames has been called one of the most destructive traitors in American history and the CIA’s most notorious traitor. The CIA officer provided information to the Soviet Union that contributed to the deaths of at least ten Soviet intelligence officers who spied for the United States.

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Vol. 20, No.1

(Editor’s Note: This Interview took place prior to the airing of the ABC spy drama TV mini-series “The Assets,” which is based on Sandra V. Grimes’ “Circle of Treason.”)

Jeanne Vertefeuille died just after the publication of the book.

Sandra V. Grimes was a twentysix year veteran of CIA’s Clandestine Service who spent the majority of her career working against the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. She joined the CIA in July 1967 shortly after graduating from the University of Washington with a degree in Russian.

Sandra V. Grimes was interviewed by Paul Davis, an online columnist and a contributing editor to the Journal.

IACSP: Other books have been

written about Aldrich Ames. Why did you and your co-author write “Circle of Treason?”

GRIMES: The reason we wrote it was not so much to talk about our involvement in what became known as the “Ames Mole Hunt Team,” the story of finding a spy in the CIA, but it was really to tell the story of his victims – our assets, those agents who were executed or imprisoned because of Rick Ames. I’m not certain if Jean and I would have published the book if we were not able to tell those stories.

IACSP: Would you give us

an overview of why the mole hunt began and what happened to those assets?

GRIMES: Well, it all began in 1985 and 1986 when we, the CIA’s Soviet East European Division in the Directorate of Operations, started losing our assets, one after the other, after the other. Now, in many cases we were unaware that these assets had been arrested until after it occurred. When the KGB makes an arrest they don’t send us a cable saying “hey guys, one for us and minus one for you.”

IACSP: They don’t do a press release either.

GRIMES: No. However, by early 1986 we had lost four sources within about four months and that was unprec-

edented. Obviously, something was terribly wrong. There were two theories, each fairly obvious - one, we have a mole. Two, our communications had been compromised. They are reading our traffic. So, two things we were faced with. One, we had to figure out how to keep any new sources alive, and secondly, we had to determine what had caused these losses.

For the second part of that, Jean Vertefeuille, my co-author, was put in charge of a task force to try to determine what had happened. That was in 1986 when she came back from her tour in Libreville, Gabon. That was in the Counter-Intelligence Center, meanwhile, I was in the

1986 initiated the first of two defection operations against us to try to throw us off track. The last one ended in early 1991 and here we were no closer to finding out what had occurred. Also, by this time, there were some people who had come to believe that whatever had caused our losses in 1985 and 1986 was largely an historical problem. It might be nice to know the answers, but it had no bearing on our current operations, because those security measures we put into effect did work.

IACSP: Those security measures cut Ames out of his access to the information on Soviet assets, am I right?

First, Rick walks in the front door of the Soviet Embassy in Washington D.C. on April 16, 1985, and he identifies himself. Then just about two months later he provides his KGB handlers with the names of, or identifying information, on all of our penetrations of the KGB and the GRU.

Soviet-East European Division and I was put in charge of handling the headquarters’ end of an operation involving a new source, which we happened to get in January 1986. Basically, we instituted draconian security measures to try to keep this guy and subsequent sources alive - again, not knowing what caused our problems. From 1986 until 1991, Jean and her task force and her subsequent investigative unit, were unable to come up with an answer for our losses. There were many possibilities, but each one was investigated and discarded.

While all of this was going on, the KGB - still busy with arrests and executions - in early

GRIMES: Yes, they cut him and almost everybody out, plus, he was overseas. From 1986 until 1989 Rick was in Rome. So in 1991 we were no closer and Jean was facing mandatory retirement in 1992. She felt guilty that she had been unable to find an answer to why we lost the assets and asked her management if she could spend the rest of her time until retirement taking one more look. They said yes.

Jean saw this as a solitary effort, but that changed in a couple of months. Jean’s boss, Paul Redmond, the new deputy chief of the Counter-Intelligence Center, had just come from the Soviet-East European Division.

He and Jean went to the FBI

to discuss an unrelated matter and after they finished their business, Paul just happened to mention that we were going to take another look at the cases.

The bureau colleague asked if they could join and Paul said sure. That same day, after he and Jean returned from the FBI, he called me and asked me if I would like to join this effort. He knew I was resigning from the CIA. I was walking out and only an opportunity to find out why we lost General Polyakov and Colonel Poleshchuk, two cases I was involved with most of my career, would make me say yes. That’s how the task force started. There were two guys from the bureau, Special Agent Jim Holt and Soviet analyst Jim Milburn, Jean and myself. And then later, once Rick became our primary focus, we added Dan Payne, a CIA Office of Security employee. It was Dan who did the investigation and gathered all of the information on Rick’s finances. Paul Redmond was the catalyst of the team. He deserves a great deal of credit for our successes.

IACSP: Take us to the beginning.

GRIMES: First, Rick walks

in the front door of the Soviet Embassy in Washington D.C. on April 16, 1985, and he identifies himself. Then just about two months later he provides his KGB handlers with the names of, or identifying information, on all of our penetrations of the KGB and the GRU. When they received this information they realized they had huge problems. I’m certain they just couldn’t believe the number of penetrations we had of their services. It was really rather remarkable. And at least four of them were abroad, so they had to do something and get these people back to the Soviet Union and arrest them without letting us know, but there were so many of them that obviously we knew there were terrible problems.

They had a source they had to protect, and that’s Rick. So they assumed that we would start to look for the reason we lost these cases. Their purpose was

military intelligence and as far I know he was the highest ranking Soviet intelligence officer this country has ever run. It was quite a ride.

to try and throw us off from Rick.

For example, the first controlled operation they conducted against us was a “write-in” in Bonn. He refused to be met and he told us in his letters that the source of our problem was a mole in our communications component outside Washington D.C.

IACSP: You knew Rick Ames. What was your impression of him?

GRIMES: Rick and I grew

IACSP: This was meant to throw you off the trail.

GRIMES: Exactly. He volunteered in January of 1986 and by the fall of 86 we all came to believe that he really didn’t exist, that this was just a KGB deception operation.

The next one was in June of 1988 and we ran that case for over three years and he was also KGB-controlled. He was a volunteer in Moscow and he provided us with a KGB document that was an assessment of the activities of our Moscow station during the critical period of 1984 until the end of 1986 and the KGB’s conclusion in this document was the reason for all of our failures was due to poor “tradecraft” by all of our officers in Moscow. This was done to provide some kind of smokescreen for Rick, as they were wrapping up these cases rapidly. Rick certainly knew, and we never tried to hide it from anybody, when our little task force was started in 1991 we did not hide the fact that we were looking for a human penetration in CIA. IACSP: You talk about the

“assets” and the “sources” – these are people and they went to their death. The KGB shot them in the head, which was the standard method of execution.

GRIMES: Exactly. But there

were also some people given up

by Rick who were not intelligence officers and they received lengthy prison terms. In those days, anytime that one of these Soviet KGB or GRU intelligence officers volunteered to work for the U.S. Government, he was aware of the fact that

48

From left to right are Sandy Grimes, Paul Redmond, Jeanne Vertefeuille, Diana Worththen and Dan Payne.

Now I’m totally convinced that had it not been for Rosario, Rick’s wife-to-be, he probably would not have committed treason. Rick was never interested in the finer things in life. He didn’t care how he dressed or how he looked. But then everything came down on him at once. He had a divorce from his first wife and he and Rosario were living together and she wanted to get married, and she just spent and spent and spent. he was putting his life in our hands. This is not the pleasant side of espionage, but we were the Soviet’s main enemy. When we lost them, that was on us, we had failed them.

IACSP: Tragic. What was the

motivation of the Soviets who spied for us?

GRIMES: Their motivation

was a combination of factors.

Money certainly played a role and there would be revenge, concerns that their career was not going well, or a mid-life crisis – the full spectrum. Take someone like General Polyakov.

We had been in touch with him

for so many years, and over the years his motivation changed.

He never wanted to defect.

He was born a Russian and he wanted to die a Russian. He really didn’t champion our ideals of freedom, but he thought he could make a difference in the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States. His leaders had no moral authority.

Money was not a motivation for him. I think we paid him over all those years only $15,000.

IACSP: How important was General Polyakov to the CIA? GRIMES: He rose to the

rank of General in the Soviet

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Vol. 20, No.1

up together as we were young officers in the same division. He was four or five years older. We car-pooled in the early and mid1970’s. I liked Rick Ames. He was a goofy guy, an absentedminded professor. If you had told me the Rick Ames I knew in the 1970’s and early 1980’s was going to become one of the worst traitors this country has ever seen, I would bet you a million dollars you were wrong.

Jean had to convince me. Now I’m totally convinced that had it not been for Rosario, Rick’s wife-to-be, he probably would not have committed treason.

Rick was never interested in the finer things in life. He didn’t care how he dressed or how he looked. But then everything came down on him at once. He had a divorce from his first wife and he and Rosario were living together and she wanted to get married, and she just spent and spent and spent. I don’t think he could say no to her. He saw no way out.

IACSP: And Rosario Ames only received five years in prison.

GRIMES: Rick was a GS-14, so she knew the money was coming from somewhere and she didn’t care to ask.

IACSP: You wrote in the book that when Rick Ames returned from Rome he had changed.

GRIMES: He was not the Rick I knew. He was a cold fish. He was arrogant, beautifully dressed and he even had manicures. He was a tall guy, but he was always slouched over. Now he stood erect and there was an air of confidence.

He was in complete control of himself and his surroundings.

The gentle, happy-go-lucky Rick I knew was gone.

IACSP: How did Ames beat

the CIA’s lie detector tests over the years while he was spying for the Soviets?

GRIMES: I’ll preface my

remarks by saying the lie detector is only a tool. There were two tests after he began to spy for the Soviets. There was one in 1986 before he left for Rome and there was one in 1991. In the tests he was having problems with contacts with foreign nationals, but he explained that his wife was from Colombia and they visited her family down there.

and as I’m entering it in into the chronology, I just glance up and see that the day before he had a lunch meeting with Chuvakhin. And Dan hands me another slip from the 5th of July and he had a meeting with Chuvakhin on July 2nd and the next slip was from 31 July, another cash deposit and that same day he had a lunch with Chuvakhin. This was the first link that would lead to Rick’s arrest and conviction.

By early 1993 our task force was drawing to a close and in late 1992, FBI Soviet analyst Jim Milburn began to draft a report of our findings. This was an official FBI document, not a CIA document, and Jean

Jean and me. We were absolutely convinced that Rick was the traitor and we spent two years looking for him and our analysis proved that point.

The bureau didn’t share that view. Luckily, in 1993, additional information became available. While this information did not identify Rick as a spy, it certainly pointed in his direction. Most importantly, it forced the FBI to open a full-scale investigation of Rick Ames. He was arrested on February 21, 1994. The bureau arrested him around the corner from his house as he was on his way to CIA headquarters to answer a fictitious cable. It was a ruse to get

IACSP: How did you ulti-

mately identify Ames as the spy?

GRIMES: Was there a eureka moment? Yes, that was when Dan Payne received bank deposit slips from one of the banks where Rick and Rosario had a checking account. This was in August of 1992, about a year after we started our work. At the time Rick had become the primary focus and I had been charged with putting together a chronology of all the information we had on Rick and his activities. This turned out to be over 500 pages. This included everything from his badge in & out, performance reviews, and his operational contacts.

In my research I came across a Soviet contact that he was trying to develop in early 1985.

His name was Sergey Chuvakhin, a Soviet arms control specialist assigned to the Soviet Embassy in Washington D.C. He was a legitimate arms control specialist, he wasn’t a KGB agent. The contact was sanctioned by both the FBI and the CIA and it was not unusual for our officers who were back in the U.S. to assist the bureau in developing some of their targets. Now Dan hands me a deposit slip that shows on May 18th Rick makes a deposit of say six or seven thousand dollars in cash to his checking account

The contact was sanctioned by both the FBI and the CIA and it was not unusual for our officers who were back in the U.S. to assist the bureau in developing some of their targets.

and I had some input into the draft, but we didn’t have any say in the final document, which did not identify Rick as the primary suspect.

him out of the house. Rosario was arrested at the house not too long after that. They were both charged with espionage and both later pled guilty.

IACSP: Didn’t those cash IACSP: Were you part of deposits ring any bells for the FBI?

any debriefings?

GRIMES: No. The docu-

stayed on after Rick’s arrest for about three months and then I retired. But I did see Rick. It was at the federal courthouse in Alexandria. I was sitting there with another CIA employee and a bunch of guys from the bureau at the bond hearing. I’ll never forget a sound I never heard before. It was a clank, clank,

ment did however include Rick’s name on a short list of other possible suspects.

IACSP: Who did this report go to at the FBI, Robert Hanssen? (Laughs)

GRIMES: I don’t know. It was a very difficult time for

GRIMES: No. Jean was. I

clank and I turned around and there was Rick. He was in his prison jumpsuit and he had leg-irons on and handcuffs and he shuffled in. And then there came Rosario. He got up and pontificated for a time - I’m innocent and I’m not a flight risk and blah, blah, blah.

And I’ll never forget that after listening to Rick, his lawyer and Rosario and her lawyer, the magistrate said “Sir, your crime is against every citizen of this country.” And the gavel came down. Bail denied.

IACSP: Did he know at that time that your task force was instrumental in bringing him down?

GRIMES: Not at that time.

But the very first day we started the task force Rick walked into the office and asked why I was there. I told him that Jean and I and two of our buddies from the bureau are going to take another look at the old cases.

He offered his assistance. It is my opinion and I’m speaking for Jean too, as we shared this opinion, that while we think Rick certainly respected us for our abilities and our knowledge of the Soviet services, he thought more highly of his intellectual abilities than ours. And to some extent, we think, he was comfortable knowing that even though it was Jean and Sandy, it was “two broads.”

IACSP: What are the lessons learned from the Ames case?

GRIMES: The CIA should

have paid more attention to the statement “Follow the money, follow the money.” We should have done it sooner.

IACSP: I understand that your book will be dramatized on TV.

GRIMES:Yes, it will air on

ABC and it will be an eight-part series based on our book called “The Assets.”

IACSP: I look forward to watching it. Thank you for speaking to us and thank you for your service.

Journal of Counterterrorism & Homeland Security International

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