The Counter Terrorist Magazine - December/January 2013

Page 1

R e c o n f o r Mumbai • Ki dnap in L. A. • Caballero s Templario s • Cognit ive Wa r

Journal for Law Enforcement, Intelligence & Special Operations Professionals

Counter The

Dec 2012/JAN 2013

Volume 5 • Number 6

The Rampage of Extremists

An SSI Publication ®

December 2012/january 2013 USA/CANADA $5.99

www.thecounterterroristmag.com The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013 1


Š 2011 Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. All rights reserved.

Every second matters.

When time and safety are critical, military and civilian first responders use Thermo Scientific handheld chemical identification instruments to rapidly identify explosives, precursors, narcotics and other chemical hazards directly at the point of need. With more than 5,000 handheld chemical identification instruments deployed worldwide, we understand what first responders demand of their equipment—and why every second matters. These insights were key as we developed FirstDefenderŽ RM and FirstDefender RMX, our next generation Raman instruments, which are even faster and easier to use than ever before. For rapid, accurate analysis of a wide range of potential chemical hazards,

FirstDefender RMX and FirstDefender RM Next generation Raman instruments enable rapid identification of unknown chemicals in the field.

turn to Thermo Scientific handheld instruments, formerly sold under the Ahura Scientific brand. To schedule a demonstration of our newest solutions, visit www.thermoscientific.com/mil-chemID or call +1 (978) 642-1132.

Moving science forward

2 The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013

Circle 254 on Reader Service Card


The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013 3

Circle 34013 on on Reader Service Card Circle Reader Service Card


4 The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013

Circle 29 on Reader Service Card


Counter

The Journal for Law Enforcement, Intelligence & Special Operations Professionals december/january 2012

Volume 5 • Number 6

COVER story:

32

The Rampage of Extremists By Dean T. Olson

contents

FEATURES: 32

20

48

58

8

Firsthand: Kidnap For ransom in Los angeles By Larry Winston and Brian Davis

20

Case Study: Reconnaissance for the Mumbai Attacks By Steve Young

48 58

Los Caballeros Templarios: “Social Bandits” By John P. Sullivan

Palestinian Cognitive Warfare By Richard Landes

departments: 6 From the Editor Suicide Solution 46 Book Review A Battle for the Soul of Islam: An American Muslim

Patriot’s Fight to Save His Faith

69 Innovative Products

Government Identity Management System, ETA Trauma Kit, Victory Boot

72

Training Review

RKI Vehicle Dynamics

Cover: A man in front of a burning barricade in Bahrain. Photo: Al Jazeera English

The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013 5


Counter The

From The Editor:

Suicide Solution By Chris Graham

I

Journal for Law Enforcement, Intelligence & Special Operations Professionals

Volume 5 • Number 6

have bad news to report. The challenges facing Western civilization are greater than anyone has admitted to you. You have been told the US government’s debt is $16 trillion. In fact, the US government’s unfunded future liabilities are a multiple of this number. The European Union is in worse shape and will likely dissolve. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has been given the deed to the American house in the form of debt. The PRC has modernized and expanded its military and established a presence everywhere in the world where resources can be found and at locations of potential strategic advantage. In 2008, Russian representatives approached China requesting to coordinate dumping American debt in an apparent attempt to tank the US economy. 1 Numerous open source reports suggest that financial and electronic attacks against Western nations have been undertaken. 2 Network pundits ask if or when war with Iran will begin. In fact, Iran has made war against her neighbors and the West continuously since the mullahs came to power in 1979. Al Qaeda and other Islamist militant groups are dangerous. They also represent only a fraction of the risk we face. They are the armed wing(s) that support the Islamic supremacist ideology that the Muslim Brotherhood unleashed decades ago. Today Brotherhood affiliates influence and manipulate the policies of Western governments acting as a peaceful “carrot” while terrorist groups play the “stick.” 3 We also have a nation on our southern border that may collapse under the weight of corruption and an organized crime insurgency at any moment. 4 Many thousands of infiltrators penetrate that border at will each year. The bottom line is that we face challenges as great as any that have been faced in history. We also face a bizarre scheme referred to as “defense sequestration.” If the US government does not immediately agree to deliberate cuts of deficit spending, hundreds of billions of dollars will automatically be slashed from our defense budget beginning in January 2013. The cuts are mandated to be carried out in such a way that the fewest people possible will lose their jobs and the degradation of our capabilities will be maximized. The adversaries mentioned above could not have planned a more efficient national suicide for us. Whatever cocktail Ozzy was singing about didn’t have anything on this. Semper Fidelis, Chris Graham Editor, The Counter Terrorist

ENDNOTES

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=afbSjYv3v814 accessed 10/14/12. 2 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123785310594719693.html accessed 10/14/12. 3 Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser, A Battle for the Soul of Islam, An American Patriot’s Fight to Save His Faith Threshold Editions, 2012. 4 http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2009/01/07/pakistan-mexico-and-us-nightmares/ accessed 10/14/12. 1

dec 2012/jan 2013

Editor Chris Graham Director of Operations Sol Bradman Director of Advertizing Carmen Arnaes Production Assistants Giselle Manassa Melissa Benson Contributing Editors Eeben Barlow Joe DeBergalis Jennifer Hesterman Richard Marquise Tom Nypaver Steve Young Graphic Design Morrison Creative Company Copy Editor Laura Town Advertising Sales Chris Bell Publisher: Security Solutions International 13155 SW 134th St. • STE 204 Miami, Florida 33186 ISSN 1941-8639 The Counter Terrorist Magazine, Journal for Law Enforcement, Intelligence & Special Operations Professionals is published by Security Solutions International LLC, as a service to the nation’s First Responders and Homeland Security Professionals with the aim of deepening understanding of issues related to Terrorism. No part of the publication can be reproduced without permission from the publisher. The opinions expressed herein are the opinions of the authors represented and not necessarily the opinions of the publisher. Please direct all Editorial correspondence related to the magazine to: Security Solutions International SSI, 13155 SW 134th Street, Suite 204, Miami, Florida. 33186 or info@thecounterterroristmag.com The subscription price for 6 issues is $34.99 and the price of the magazine is $5.99. (1-866-573-3999) Fax: 1-786-573-2090. For article reprints, e-prints, posters and plaques please contact: PARS International Corp. Web: www.magreprints.com/quickquote.asp Email: reprints@parsintl.com Phone: 212-221-9595 • Fax: 212-221-9195 Please visit the magazine web site where you can also contact the editorial staff:

www.thecounterterrroristmag.com © 2012 Security Solutions International

6 The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013


THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ENGAGING & ELIMINATING LIES IN YOUR ARMS. Technology is changing and so are your needs. DSG Arms specializes in a broad selection of high-end brand name M4 / AR-15 weapons and components. When the difference between this level and the next is your gear, DSG Arms is there to deliver. L.E. / Military discounts to all active duty personnel.

DSGARMS.COM CAGE: 1L0J5

GSA: GS-07F-6007R

Circle 275 on Reader Service Card

1.800.382.7571

Weapons

SALES@DSGARMS.COM

Optics

Components

FACEBOOK.COM/DSGARMS @DSGARMS

The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013 7


Firsthand:

kidnap for ransom in los angeles

By Larry Winston and Brian Davis

Counter The

8 The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013


Early in the summer of 1993, the Los Angeles Police Department Robbery Homicide Division was contacted by an adult male who reported that his college-age brother had been kidnapped by members of a large Mexico-based gang known as the Sinaloa Cowboys.

T

he Sinaloa Cowboys are well known among California law enforcement agencies as a wellorganized violent gang specializing in the trafficking of cocaine from Sinaloa, Mexico into the United States. Many violent crimes—including murder—have been connected to the Cowboys, both in the US and in Mexico. Many members of the Cowboys are prior Mexican

military and are trained in firearms proficiency and tactics. Further investigation in this case determined that the reporting party was himself a player in another large Los Angeles-area Mexican gang. Fearing for his younger brother’s life, he had reluctantly contacted the LAPD for help. The kidnap appeared to be in retaliation for a cocaine deal gone bad. After three

He was to place a duffle bag containing the ransom into a blue trash bin to the rear of the liquor store located at that intersection.

The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013 9


prior deals for 6 kilos of cocaine had successfully gone down between the parties, the Los Angeles gang had now failed to pay the Sinaloa Cowboys for a delivery. As is the case with many kidnappings that are narcotics-related, the victim (the brother in this case) was not a gang member, had no criminal record

whatsoever, and in fact was a college student. All other parties involved, including the party reporting the crime, were bad guys with long criminal records. Because of the details of the case and the unsavory characters on all sides of this crime, the SIS was brought in. The Los Angeles Police Depart Special Investigation Section (SIS) is

The Complete Tactical Video Tool System!

FOR MILITARY & LAW ENFORCEMENT OPERATIONS

All products are interchangeable and new tools can be added at any time! Night Vision Monocular Pole Camera 2-20ft Pole Cameras An array of technology-based ➤ Fiberscopes & Videoscopes video surveillance tools that ➤ Under Door Cameras allow a team to safely assess any ➤ Listening Devices ➤ Thermal Imaging potentially dangerous situation ➤ Robotic Remote Control Cameras ➤ Digital/Analog Wireless Video ➤ ➤

Zistos Corporation Ph 631.434 .1370

E-mail: sales@zistos.com 10 The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013 Circle 311 on Reader Service Card

made up of twenty detectives who are tasked with the surveillance and arrest of armed suspects. The team is highly trained in surveillance and arrest tactics and specializes in the arrest of multiple suspects. The SIS investigates all kidnap for ransom cases that originate in Los Angeles County. Because of the geographic location of Los Angeles, many kidnappings that originate in southern California can lead the LAPD and SIS across the border into Mexico and vice versa. Although contact is maintained between the LAPD and the Mexican authorities, kidnap cases involving drug cartels can be a grey area as far as cooperation with south-of-theborder authorities. Mexican gangs and organized crime frequently employ law enforcement agents. On several occasions, SIS detectives have found themselves crossing the border to gather intelligence. There is no “get out of jail free card” for the SIS, but when an innocent victim was involved, the team did what needed to be done for the victim’s safe return. The investigating detectives from Robbery Homicide Division briefed the SIS regarding the situation. In this particular case, the Sinaloas demanded $40,000 for the return of the victim. Negotiations had already begun between the suspects and the victim’s brother, and the SIS facilitated continued negotiations. SIS involvement in kidnaps generally begins with one detective from the unit meeting the victim’s family member or the person who has been in contact with the kidnapper. On many occasions, to ensure the family member’s safety, during the course of ransom negotiations, SIS would covertly introduce an SIS detective into the situation. SIS, of course, monitors conversations to ensure that its officers are not being set up. In this case, the Sinaloas had prior dealings with the family member, knew what he looked


T H E

C O M P A C T

P O W E R

Y O U

N E E D –

On Duty

Just slightly larger than the popular Ruger® LCP,® the Ruger® LC9™ is one of the smallest 9mm pistols

or Off.

on the market, making it the perfect choice for a backup or off-duty firearm. It features a finger grip extension floorplate, a dovetailed, high-visibility 3-dot sight system, a manual safety, a loaded chamber indicator and is now available in two laser models. The Ruger® LC9™

LC9 | 9mm Luger

is another great product from the industry 2011 Handgun of the Year

leader in rugged, reliable firearms!

WWW.RUGER.COM/LC9 Circle 347 on Reader Service Card

©2012 Sturm, Ruger & Co., Inc.

091112

The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013 11


Get military news, product deals and benefit resources straight to your inbox

It’s our mission to serve those who serve our country, and stand as a resource to the world’s best. Whether you’re active military, reserve, veteran, family or supporter - become a part of the newest military community online.

Benefits Videos

Career Advice Expert Columnists

ENLIST AT MILITARY1.COM! Circle 335 on Reader Service Card Circle onCounter Reader Service Card~ 12301 The Terrorist

December 2012/January 2013

The Coast Guard spends much more time thinking about how to keep ships from sinking, than it does about how to sink them.

When you leave the military, your mind is usually filled with a range of emotions. There’s joy over your newfound freedom.

A US soldier captured a gunfight, in which he was shot four times, with Taleban insurgents on a camera attached to his helmet.

Product Video Library Find out how to simultaneously search vast public and proprietary records

News Forums

Products Education


like, and had familiarity with his family composition. It was not practical to put an SIS detective into the ransom delivery. Through additional taped telephone conversations, it was agreed that $40,000 would be delivered after the two brothers were allowed to talk to each other by cell phone as a proof of life. The ransom was to be dropped by the victim’s brother. The brother was instructed by the kidnappers to drive his vehicle to the northeast corner of Compton and Gage. He was to place a duffle bag containing the ransom into a blue trash bin to the rear of the liquor store located at that intersection. During negotiations based on direction provided by SIS, the victim’s brother stated to the Sinaloas that he was in fear of his life and would not deliver any ransom alone. He insisted that a friend be allowed to accompany him. As

expected by the SIS, the suspects denied that request. They stated that if anyone was seen other than the brother, the victim would be killed. Surprisingly, this request is often agreed to by kidnappers. In this instance, the SIS could not allow the brother to make the ransom delivery alone. The SIS did not trust the brother and despite the brother’s narcotic and arrest history, his safety, along with the victim, was still our concern. The SIS has prepared many ransom packages for delivery. They often have bundled money and customized it at the last minute based on the suspect’s demands. In this case, the packages were tightly taped in an attempt to make it as difficult as possible to open them, giving responding detectives a few extra seconds to transition from a surveillance mode into a tactical arrest mode. As is the case with many crimes of this nature, law

enforcement needs to “follow the money.” Based on the circumstances, a Spanishspeaking SIS detective was hidden under a blanket in the back seat of the delivery vehicle. The detective was armed with a

Within minutes, SIS detectives observed two male Latin suspects exit an apartment of the building in question and drive northbound in an older red Chevy van.

Counter Terrorism Solutions for a Modern World

Counter Terror Expo 2013 is the largest international event to protect against threats for: Police, Emergency Services, Government, Military, Intelligence & Security Services, Private Sector, Large Scale Sites, Oil & Gas, Cyber, Maritime/Anti-Piracy and Critical National Infrastructure.

9000+ attendees, 400+ exhibitors, 5 conference streams, 12 workshops and the A-Z of counter-terrorist and security solutions. If you’re involved in security & counter terrorism then register today to protect against the terrorist threat.

www.counterterrorexpo.com/TCTM1 Co-Located with

Lead Media Partner

Circle 267 on Reader Service Card

Supported By

The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013 13


■ ■

An internationally acclaimed conference featuring 50 speakers Over 200 exhibits of the latest products & services Awards presentations & memorial ceremonies Networking during & after the expo

Disrupting and Dismantling Transnational Criminal Organizations

Sponsors

Visit www.BorderSecurityExpo.com for more information Circle 103 on Reader Service Card

14 The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013

Circle 191 on Reader Service Card

short barreled shotgun and an undercover radio to monitor and broadcast. The detective and victim’s brother were both wearing body armor. The delivery vehicle and the hidden detective were monitored by SIS ground units and air support. As the SIS Electronics Supervisor, I requested the assistance of the FBI electronics task force to assist in cell phone tracking in an attempt to locate the victim. As a result of three conversations between the brothers, it was determined that the victim’s cell signal seemed to originate from an apartment building seven blocks south and east of the drop location. The building contained twenty-six units and the cell signal (based on the limitations of the equipment of the time) could not be more specific. Detective Davis, SIS Field Supervisor, contacted LAPD SWAT and requested that they stage near the apartment in case a dynamic entry would be needed. SIS detectives set up observation points around the apartment complex and the ransom drop location while another phone call was monitored. The suspects’ demands were finalized and the drop spot was confirmed. When both locations were covered by SIS, Detective Davis gave the word for the ransom package to be delivered. It isn’t unusual for the suspects to attempt to monitor the delivery of the ransom in an attempt to either rip off the delivery or determine if the police have become involved. Manpower in kidnappings can be extreme, and in many cases all twenty detectives on the SIS team, along with a dedicated helicopter, would be necessary to look for countersurveillance and adequately deploy on several locations as conditions required. The first priority was to protect the undercover detective riding with the victim’s brother. The victim’s brother and the hidden SIS detective drove approximately three miles from the family residence to the liquor store at Compton


Tacprogear manufacTures a compleTe line of HigH-speed low-drag TacTical gear & equipmenT Tacprogear is widely used in global hot spots where High-speed, low-drag equipment is required, not optional!

sofT armor

Tacprogear’s manufacturing capabilities & network of reliable partners help us achieve extraordinary results… delivering mission critical equipment to wherever and whenever duty calls! Tacprogear designs and builds all products to not only meet, but exceed the rigorous demands of our clients.

plaTe carriers

TACProGEAr’S BATTlE TESTEd ProduCTS:

Hard armor

• Hard Armor

• Weaponlights

• Soft Armor

• Apparel

• Carriers

• Gloves

• Vests

• Coveralls

• Pockets

• Balaclavas

• Pouches

• Footwear

• Packs

• Weapon Accessories

• Flashlights

• Slings

• Safety Equipment

• Eye Protection

• Sleeping Bags

• PPE

pockeTs & poucHes

Tacprogear, llc 755 NW 17TH AVE., SuiTE 106 dElrAY BEACH, FloridA 33445 uSA TEl: 561-865-7279 FAX: 561-265-4061 sales@Tacprogear.com

HelmeTs

Circle 333 on Reader Service Card

weapon accessories

The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013 15

Circle 101 on Reader Service Card


and Gage. They delivered the package without incident. Both the victim’s brother and the undercover detective were safely out of harm’s way. Within minutes, SIS detectives observed two male Latin suspects exit an apartment of the building in question and drive northbound in an older red Chevy

van. Because the victim was neither of the male Latins in the van, Detective Davis broadcast instructions to follow the van and arrest both suspects if they displayed interest in the area of Compton and Gage. Based on statements made during phone conversations with the victim, the detectives were confident that the victim

16 The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013

was in the apartment building. Further, because the team knew what apartment the two suspects in the van had left, if the suspects showed interest in the ransom location, detectives believed that they were now in visual contact with the exact apartment in question. The van was subsequently followed to

Circle 174 on Reader Service Card


Circle 237 on Reader Service Card

The Card Counter Circle 275 on Reader Service

Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013 17


Compton and Gage and immediately began circling the liquor store parking lot. The occupants looked all around and paid particular attention to the trash bin containing the ransom package. SIS moved in to conduct a vehicle containment technique and arrest the suspects. This technique is very rapid, involves several vehicles, and deploys overwhelming firepower against the

suspects and their vehicle. Statistics show that for over 35 years this tactic has been effective in providing a safe arrest and containment of armed suspects with no shots fired from either side in 97% of incidents. The other 3% of the time, suspects just don’t see the big picture and SIS detectives are always prepared to take action immediately if needed. On this

COUNTER-TERRORISM training SPECIALISTS Instructor Support Curriculum Development Doctrine Writing Training & Equipment

occasion, the suspect in the right front seat leaned out the open right front window and pointed a .45 caliber pistol in the direction of detectives. Six SIS detectives in three vehicles immediately returned fire. The detectives were armed with .45 caliber 1911 style pistols, 12 gauge shot guns and M1A4 .223 caliber assault rifles. Both suspects were killed. Detective Davis immediately ordered SWAT to make entry into the apartment that the two van suspects had exited. SWAT breached and entered. They observed the victim duct taped to a chair in the middle of the room. A third suspect was covering him with a handgun. The suspect was apparently surprised and off guard. He was taken into custody without incident and the victim was rescued uninjured. Since the mid-1960s, SIS has handled every kidnap for ransom reported in the city of Los Angeles and has never lost a victim.

About the author

Weapons Handling Arrest Control Defensive Tactics

CQC

M.A.C.H. Subject Control Use of Force Active Shooter

PATROL

Small Team Tactics Tactical Movement Convoy Operations

PSD

Explosive Detection Apprehension Narcotic Detection

K -9

Controlled F.O.R.C.E. is the Developer and Sole Source Provider of the M.A.C.H.™ System of NLW Tactics Training TRAINING THE PROTECTORS OF THE UNITED STATES Phone: 630-365-1700 | info@controlledforce.com

www.controlledforce.com 18 The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013 Circle 247 on Reader Service Card

Mr. Winston’s 30 years of service with the Los Angeles Police Department include 17 years with the Special Investigation Section (SIS). His instruction experience includes providing training to agencies throughout the United States, including numerous federal agencies and the U.S. military. Mr. Winston is a principal of the Tactical Surveillance Institute (www. tacticalsurveillanceinstitute.com). Mr. Davis has 30 years’ experience in criminal surveillance and supervision of specialist units of the Los Angeles Police Department, including the Special Investigation Section (SIS). His instructional experience includes providing training to agencies throughout the United States, including numerous federal agencies and the U.S. military. Mr. Davis is a principal of the Tactical Surveillance Institute (www. tacticalsurveillanceinstitute.com).


www.homelandsecurityssi.com Find out more at:

Take your training to a higher level...

SSI Elevated Tactics training Enhance the tactical flexibility of your SWAT or SOP team with elevated training using specialized equipment and tools such as those manufactured by Patriot3. Improve your tactical surprise and force protection with additional operational options provided through elevated, special-use vehicles. In this two-day introduction and awareness training, you’ll learn: • Vehicle driving and operating techniques in a variety of situations • Global case studies of real-world operations using the specific equipment • Using vehicle platforms for observation, structure multiple entry techniques, and linear assaults • Elevated obstacle negotiation and firing platforms • Emergency evacuations, climbing and descending options • Distraction and deception techniques ® SECURITY • and much more... SOLUTIONS

SSI

INTERNATIONAL

Protecting the Homeland Together ®

Call now for more information.

Elevated Tactics Training provided in partnership with Patriot3.

Phone: 866-573-3999 Fax: 866-573-2090 contact@securitysolutionsint.com Circle 313 on Reader Service Card

The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013 19


Case Study:

Reconnaissance for the Mumbai Attacks By Steve Young

At approximately 2000 hours on November 26, 2008, two motorized inflatable boats containing five men, each belonging to the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba, landed on the southern tip of the peninsula jutting into the Arabian Sea that is home to nearly twenty-one million citizens of Mumbai city, formerly known as Bombay.

The Taj Mahal Palace under attack. Photo:Trakesht 20 The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013


A

rmed only with small arms (AK-47’s) and hand grenades, they proceeded up the peninsula conducting terrorist attacks. By 0800 hours on November 29, Indian Rapid Action Force personnel, Marine Commandos, and National Security Guard forces had killed 9 of the attackers and captured Pakistani citizen Ajmal Kasab. The terrorists had succeeded in killing at least 173 people and wounding at least another 300. It was India’s worst terrorist attack in terms of casualties and is often equated by Indians with the September

11, 2001, attack suffered by the United States. The Mumbai attack could be considered successful from a terrorist’s perspective. But what is most interesting from a tacticians or intelligence perspective was that target selection and surveillance were not conducted by any of the terrorist perpetrators, but by American citizen Daood Gilani, a.k.a., David Headley. Born Daood Gilani on June 30, 1960, to his American mother, Sherrill Headley, and Pakistani father, Syed Saleem Gilani, Gilani grew up in Karachi,

Ajmal Kasab

The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013 21


Pakistan, after his parents divorced. Here, he reportedly became extremely nationalistic (Pakistani) and anti-Indian. In his late teens he returned to the United States and lived with his mother in Philadelphia. However, Gilani returned to Pakistan several times and delved into drugs. In 1988, German police arrested him in Frankfurt trying to smuggle two kilograms of heroin into the United States. Gilani only served four years in prison after US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents offered him a deal to cooperate against his two partners. They were convicted and received heavier sentences.1 In 1997, the DEA again arrested Gilani and he became a paid informant. The DEA then assigned him to travel to Pakistan and consort with drug dealers. However, he ran afoul of the law again and served an additional eight months in

prison. While in prison, Gilani allegedly became a devout Muslim and, apparently unknown to the DEA, an Islamic supremacist. In 2000, Gilani again traveled to Pakistan under DEA control, but, at the same time discovered Lashkare-Taiba (LeT), a US-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization whose Islamist ideology and anti-Indian manifesto appealed to Gilani. Eventually Gilani was introduced to LeT founder Hafiz Saeed, who recruited Gilani for the Islamist cause. Unbeknownst to the DEA, Gilani made several additional trips to Pakistan during 2000 and early 2001 to meet with LeT operatives.2 After September 11, 2001, the DEA had Gilani travel to Pakistan several times to search out Pakistani drug dealers and also infiltrate terrorist groups. However, it is unclear how many of his Pakistan trips were actually sanctioned or paid for

by the DEA. Nevertheless, in February 2002, at the same time he was possibly working for the DEA, Gilani began attending LeT training camps. According to information divulged as part of his plea agreement,3 Gilani received additional LeT training in August 2002 and in April, August, and December 2003. Gilani’s activities between 2003 and 2006 are not well documented. However, in January 2006, Gilani met Major Iqbal (likely an alias), a Pakistani representative of the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI), who recruited Gilani to spy for Pakistan and to continue working with LeT. In February 2006, Gilani flew to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he began the process of changing his official name to David Headley (from his mother’s maiden name). For a foreign spy, this was an important event because now Headley would be able to travel

Homeland Security CERTIFICATE PROGRAM Courses for Public Safety Practitioners Courses include:

 Law Enforcement Professionals Available Now!

 Fire Service Professionals Available Now!

 Emergency Management Professionals Coming Soon!

Rural Domestic Preparedness Consortium

Enroll in a course today. No fees! No cost!

DISCLAIMER: This project was supported by Cooperative Agreement Number 2006-GD-T6-K001 administered by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security/FEMA, Training and Exercises Integration Secretariat. Points of view or opinions in this document are those of the author and do not represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

For more information please visit www.preventivestrategies.net or www.ruraltraining.org 22 The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013

Circle 265 on Reader Service Card


on his US passport as a tourist and his Westernized name would not raise any official suspicions about his international travel, especially when crossing the Pakistani border into India. When he returned to Pakistan, Major Iqbal began training Headley for his surveillance duties in Mumbai.4

Target Selection According to his plea agreement,5 Headley made trips to Mumbai to conduct surveillance in September 2006, February and September 2007, and April and June 2008. On each occasion, posing as a tourist, he took extensive videos that he delivered to his LeT and ISI handlers in Pakistan. He did not learn of the planned assault from the sea until just

The Nariman House, attacked in Mumbai, November 2008. Photo: Nicholas

Y A W E H T G N I D A E L LED Lighting by Golight inc 308.278.3131 www.golight.com militarysupport@golight.com » Long Life LED’s » Low Amp Draw » Remote Controlled or Fixed » Portable or Permanent Mount

Circle 285 on Reader Service Card

The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013 23


selected is subject to speculation. However, the fact that Mumbai has nearly twenty-two million people in one of the world’s most populated countries guarantees immediate publicity, which is what terrorist groups thrive on. Without media coverage, the event would never get noticed, nor would the terrorist group’s political message be conveyed to the general public. The two hotels attacked are some of the largest in the city and traditionally host many foreigners. We can assume these hotels were chosen for maximum casualties. The Jewish community center appears to have been a target because of the traditional animosity between Muslims and Jews. The Leopold Café is a popular restaurant and bar hangout for foreigners. Drinking and bars are against Muslim religious practices, so it is possible that the bar was chosen as a target because of its affront to Islam. Finally, the train station was an excellent target because of the large number of Indian passengers frequently present in its terminal. Location of the five principal targets of the LET terrorists in Mumbai, as well as the Cama Hospital where most of the dead and wounded were transported. Two terrorists also briefly attacked the Cama Hospital but there were no casualties there. Inset: Damage from the attack at the Oberoi Trident hotel. Photo: Nicholas (Nichalp) before his April 2008 travel to Mumbai, when potential landing sites were discussed. After arriving in Mumbai in April 2008, Headley identified with GPS the various landing sites, traveling by boat to each one so he could further describe the sites upon his return to Pakistan. Video became essential to the surveillance phase of the operation. In fact, when doing his surveillance activities throughout the city, Headley frequently stayed at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, eventually a prime target, going on inhouse tours and photographing and shooting surveillance videos. By the time

he finished his surveillance there, he had documented almost every square inch of the very large hotel.6 In addition to the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, the final targets were the Leopold Café, the Chabad House Jewish Community Center, the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) Train Station, and the Oberoi-Trident Hotel. The Oberoi was considered a target of opportunity because it had not been on Headley’s original list of potential targets; however he took an opportunity to video the hotel and it was eventually selected for the attack.7 Why these targets were eventually

24 The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013

The Attack All things look different at night, even to those familiar with the area in the daylight. In the Mumbai case, attacking at night and originating from the sea inhibited Indian citizens and security services. It also provided a degree of concealment for the terrorists. Having landed their inflatable boats at approximately 2000 hours on November 26, 2008, the attackers split into five groups of two and began their attacks. At approximately 2130 hours, two persons, including Ajmal Kasab, attacked the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) Train Station. By the time this assault ended at about 2245 hours, 58 people were killed and 104 others wounded. Shortly after the


attack, Kasab was captured alive, but his partner was killed by Indian security forces. At approximately the same time as the CST was being attacked, the Leopold CafĂŠ was attacked by 2 people. Approximately 10 people were killed there. Apparently the terrorists spent little time there, only spraying the CafĂŠ with AK-47 fire before moving on to assist in the takeover of the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel and the Oberoi Hotel. Meanwhile, the Chabad House Jewish Community Center, also known as the Nariman House, was taken over by two people, and residents of the center were held hostage. During the second day of the attack, the five-story building was stormed by Indian commandos late in the evening of November 28. Both terrorists and a commando had been killed during the assault. The terrorists also murdered

Circle 83 on Reader Service Card

Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife Rivka Holtzberg, who was six months pregnant, along with four other hostages.8 The sequence of events at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel and Oberoi Hotel is less clear than the other attack sites presumably because so many witnesses make for conflicting reports. Nevertheless, it appears that the attacks on the two hotels were conducted nearly simultaneously and began at approximately 2300 hours on November 26. Four terrorists assaulted the Taj Mahal and two assaulted the Oberoi. The lobbies of both hotels and the hotel restaurants were assaulted first. At least thirteen diners in the Oberoi were killed, including thirteen-year-old Naomi Sherr, who was having dinner with her father, who was also killed.9 Terrorists then made their way onto the various floors looking

for targets of opportunity. Indian security forces arrived first at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel at approximately midnight on the November 26 and fought with the terrorists throughout the night, while evacuating as many hotel guests and staff as possible. Fighting continued throughout November 27 and 28. In the early morning hours of November 29, it was reported that the Taj was under the control of Indian security forces. However, all terrorists were not accounted for and at 0730 hours, Indian commandos discovered the last remaining terrorist and shot him. It was not until 0800 hours on November 29 that the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel was secured, leaving 31 hotel guests and staff dead and approximately 250 survivors.10 11 Security forces did not arrive at the Oberoi until approximately 0600 hours

The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013 25


on November 27, and they immediately began to assault the building. The terrorists retreated to the upper floors and began detonating hand grenades, setting the roof on fire and trapping a number of hotel guests. Fighting continued throughout the day and night of November 27, but by mid-morning of the 28th many hostages had been rescued. At approximately 1500 hours, Indian security forces had killed both terrorists. Approximately 30 hostages had been killed and 140 people rescued. Many foreigners were killed in the five attacks, including 6 American citizens. However, of the approximately 173 people killed during the 3-day attack, approximately 138 Indian citizens were killed, mostly at the train station, but also a number of Indian police and commandos.12

Aftermath of the 26 November 2008 Mumbai Attacks It was not until Ajmal Kasab, the lone surviving terrorist, was interrogated by Indian Security Services that LeT and Pakistani involvement in the attack was determined. Presumably the Pakistanis were not pleased that Kasab had been captured alive, because Pakistani support for the operation, although suspected, was then confirmed by the Indians. Kasab was convicted of 86 counts of murder in an Indian Court and sentenced to death on May 6, 2010. On April 25, 2012, his death sentence was upheld by the Indian Supreme Court.13 In early April 2012, the US Government offered a $10 million reward for the capture of Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, founder of LeT. The day

following the announcement, Saeed gave a press conference in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, demonstrating his freedom of movement and quasi-official Pakistani government support.14 As for David Headley, in 2010 the US Government accepted a plea deal after he pled guilty to all federal terrorism-related charges. According to the terms of the plea agreement, the US Attorney General agreed not to seek the death penalty against Headley as long as he continued to cooperate with federal officials. Interestingly, Headley’s sentencing has been deferred until after the conclusion of his cooperation.15 This latest twist regarding Headley’s sentencing allows Headley to remain in US custody indefinitely and avoid extradition to India, where he would likely face the death penalty.

Helping You Protect Us

Karlstad, MN / 877-436-7800

RUBB ER TRAC K CONV ERSIO N SYST EMS, 76 MODELS TO CHOOSE FROM !

Mattracks.com 12SM00000149

Circle 297 on Reader Service Card

26 The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013


All Armor. All The Time.

HEAT Armor designs, manufactures and integrates armor technology into commercial and military platforms providing protection from handguns to armor piercing threats such as IEDs and other blast events. We develop systems that meet the demands of your operational needs.

Counter Action Vehicles Emergency Retrieval Vehicles Emergency First Response Vehicles Armored Security Team Vehicles Pursuit Vehicles

速 www.heat-armor.com

1.773.938.1030 Circle 175 on Reader Service Card

info@heat-armor.com

The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013 27


Lessons for the United States

Endnotes

Sebastian Rotella, “The American Behind India’s 9/11—And How U.S. Botched Chances to Stop Him,” ProPublica, November 22, 2011, http:// www.propublica.org/article/davidheadley-homegrown-terrorist. 2 FRONTLINE and ProPublica Documentary, “A Perfect Terrorist,” November 22, 2011, http://www.pbs.org/ wgbh/pages/frontline/david-headley/. 3 US Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs, “Chicago Resident David Coleman Headley Pleads Guilty to Role in India and Denmark Terrorism Conspiracies,” March 18, 2010, http:// www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2010/March/10ag-277.html. 4 Rotella, “The American Behind India’s 9/11.,”. 5 US Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs. “Chicago Resident David Coleman Headley Pleads Guilty.” 6 Ibid. 7 Ibid. 8 BBC News, “Mumbai Attacks: Key Sites,” November 26, 2009, http://news. bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7751876.stm. 9 Rotella, “The American Behind India’s 9/11.” 10 “2008 Mumbai Attacks,” Fantastico Journal,. March 10, 2012, http://www. fantastico.herobo.com/?media=2008_ 1

The United States remains vulnerable to a terrorist attack of the type that occurred in Mumbai. Opportunities for illegally obtaining automatic weapons and explosives exist. A lone wolf attacker who keeps his plans to himself is a significant threat to individual security and may have nobody standing between him and his prospective victim(s). In recent US (active-shooter) cases the goal of the perpetrator(s) was to inflict fear and casualties. A Joint Intelligence Bulletin issued by Homeland Security and the FBI in August 2011 emphasized these threats and discussed mitigation measures.16 Only increased citizen awareness, personal security measures, and the persistent vigilance of counterterrorism professionals can minimize the opportunities for adversary successes.

About the Author Dr. Young is a former CIA Operations Officer of the Clandestine Service with tours in the Middle East and South Asia. He is currently the Coordinator for the Masters of Science in Security Studies at Sam Houston State University, in Huntsville, Texas.

Mumbai_attacks. 11 “Casualties of the Mumbai Attacks,” Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Casualties_of_the_2008_Mumbai_ attacks Accessed May 1, 2012. 12 Ibid. 13 “Supreme Court Reserves Verdict on Ajmal Kasab’s Plea,” The Times of India, April 25, 2012, http://articles. timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-0425/india/31398159_1_sabauddin-shaikhajmal-kasab-death-sentence. 14 “Pakistani Militant Leader Defiant After U.S. Slaps $10 Million Bounty on Him,” Fox News, April 4, 2012, http:// www.foxnews.com/world/2012/04/04/ pakistani-militant-leader-defiant-after-usslaps-10-million-bounty-on-him/. 15 US Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs. “Chicago Resident David Coleman Headley Pleads Guilty to Role in India and Denmark Terrorism Conspiracies,” March 18, 2010, http:// www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2010/March/10ag-277.html. 16 “Use of Small Arms: Examining Lone Shooters and Small-Unit Tactics,” Joint Intelligence Bulletin, Homeland Security and Federal Bureau of Investigation, August 16, 2011, http://www. publicintelligence.net/ufouo-dhs-fbiupdated-small-arms-and-lone-shooterswarning-august-2011.

G SQUARED CONSULTING

offers a full complement of Energy Weapon Protection Garments such as Bullet Proof Carrier Vest, Gloves, Tactical BDU's, Coveralls, Shelters and more. Connector Series -

Protector Series -

Touch Screen/Electro Shock Discharge Gloves

Multi Threat Tactical and Patrolman Duty Gloves

(Electro Shock Weapons (i.e. Taser), Cut/ Slash, Fire/ Flame, Tear/Bite Anti Microbial and Touch Screen)

Thorshield Uniforms G Squared Consulting presents, "Guardian Series" apparel, now you can have protection and comfort in a uniform. G Squared has designed high, medium and light weight multi-threat uniforms that provide protection and comfort.

Carrier Vest

Electro Shock Weapon Protection

877.562.1935 www.ThorShield.com info@ThorShield.com G-Squared Consulting LLC 3819 S. Evans Blvd. #306 Tucson, AZ 85714 28 The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013

Circle 97 on Reader Service Card


R ER ts ’s pE g fo pt iLo n Ro i CE Co d p Eu adREnELi an LEnfE g HERs n d CoRvi an sEmm Co

Defence IQ Is prouD to present the 12th AnnuAl

OVER

% 0 5 MILITARY

20% Discount for counter terrorist reaD ers caLL +44 (0)207 368 9871 anD Quote mp_Ct_imH_ad

ATTENDANCE

Delivering flexible, reliable anD cost effective rotary-wing capability

pestana chelsea briDge, lonDon Main conference: 30-31 January 2013 pre-conference focus Day: 29 January 2013

4

assess the future of rotary-wing capability in both the land and naval domains

4

Benchmark your current performance against representatives from the united states, germany, the netherlands, sweden, the united Kingdom, france, turkey, poland, italy, and malaysia

4

Enhance your squadron’s ability to operate low and fast at night

4

adapt the latest lessons from contemporary theatres of operations

4

network with senior rotary-wing commanders from around the world

Register online at www.militaryhelicopterevent.com Contact us on defence@iqpc.co.uk or +44 (0)207 368 9871 Quote: MP_CT_IMH_AD to claim your 20% discount when you register Sponsored by:

Circle 103 on Reader Service Card Int Military Helicopter FP AD.indd 1

The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013 29 24/10/2012 17:01


V

CRAFTED BY EXPERIENCE...

SSI’S VICTORY BOOT. www.ssitacticalgear.com

30 The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013

Circle 291 on Reader Service Card


Victory! O ne the most famous weapons in the world isn’t a weapon at all. Going back to the Han

Dynasty eight centuries ago and on through the Roman Empire, World War II and right up to present day, one of the decisive factors in victory on the battlefield or in special operations has been none other than the lowly boot. Without good boots, military disasters have frequently occurred. Take for example, Hitler’s campaign “Barbarossa” or Red Beard, where the biggest invasion in history (four million German soldiers along a front that was 2,900 miles wide) invaded Russia. The Germans didn’t count on the invasion lasting until winter. There on the outskirts of Moscow, exhausted German soldiers that had been marching up to 12 hours a day, found themselves facing winter with light summer boots. Their feet were soon devastated by the freezing Russian cold, or what they called "General Winter". They were ultimately defeated by ice. So, when SSI Tactical Gear set about designing the best boot for combat for law enforcement and military personnel, they used the experience they have as the leading trainners for SWAT and Special Operations teams around the world. This real-world experience led to a boot design that would protect warriors in any conditions. A boot warriors could fight in over glass shards, sharp metal shrapnel

from IED’s, and any other obstacles that got in their way. They crafted the Victory to withstand the rigors of kicking through doors and windows to get the bad guys; accomplish the mission; come home safe; and never be defeated by anything. The Victory can now be yours through SSI Tactical Gear. Using top quality components that are made in the United States of America including Velcro® safety fasteners, 3M Thinsulate® and YKK Zippers®, SSI's Victory Boot is rugged as it is flexible and lightweight. The sole is cut deep, which gives you the traction you need on any surface. 1,000 Denier Nylon Cordura® with its breathable, antibacterial lining gives you full weather resistance. Genuine leather completes the boot's durability and performance and incorporates features like the "TactiPocket" on the side. In tough times for budgets in departments across the country, you can get the Victory for 30% less than any other competitive product that is made in America—quality and durability that exceeds footwear our well-known competitors make in China or in Asia— and still beats their price. The Chinese may have known how to make good boots eight centuries ago, but today, only SSI Tactical Gear leads to Victory.

Call now to get agency or distributor pricing. 1-786-573-3999 ext 113, 305-401-6906, 305-302-2790. www.ssitacticalgear.com The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013 31


the rampage of

extremists

By Dean T. Olson

Counter The

"Martyrs" at the Coptic Hospital Morgue. October 9, 2011. Photo: Lilian Wagdy

32 The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013


From West Africa throughout Pakistan and into Indonesia, the desecration of churches and the murder of hundreds of Christians and other religious minorities in Muslim nations is commonplace and seldom reported in the United States.

G

roups that track acts of terrorism against Christians, for example, define such violence as that directed towards civilians and church workers solely on account of their faith. Excluded from these numbers are attacks related to war, combat, and insurgency.1 Because many acts of violence are unreported, these numbers are low. Between January 1 and September 25, 2012, 582 people have been killed and 1,188 injured in terrorist violence targeting Christians.2 Three widely dispersed groups affiliated with al Qaeda account for a large percentage of these attacks. Al Shabab

in Somalia, Boko Harem in West Africa, and Tehrik-e-Taliban in Pakistan attack Christians and other religious minorities in their respective areas of operations.

Al Shabab Al Shabab, also known as Harakat Al-Shabaab al-Mujahidin, is an Islamist organization that controls much of southern Somalia, excluding the capital Mogadishu. It has waged a bloody insurgency against Somalia’s transitional government and its Ethiopian supporters since 2006. Al Shabab leaders have claimed affiliation with al Qaeda since 2007.

Photo: Bill Nicholls

The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013 33


preceded by another attack on Christian churches in Garissa, Kenya, that occurred in July. Gunmen killed two policemen guarding a church, snatched their rifles and then opened fire on the congregation from inside and out on a Sunday, killing fifteen people and wounding forty. Two gunmen entered the simple wooden church in the city of Garissa on a Sunday at around 10:15 a.m., while two others waited outside, police commander Philip Ndolo said. When the congregation fled the attack inside, they ran straight into another hail of bullets from gunmen outside. At least one grenade was detonated in the attack.3

Boko Harem

"Pay attention!!! One blood, one nation," reads this sign featuring a Christian cross and an Islamic crescent. The Tahrir protest was powered by a huge Islamist turnout. A recent Coptic Christian march through Cairo was attacked by local men. Photo: Al Jazeera English Analysts believe that the group contains several thousand fighters, including a large number from the Hawiye clan. Foreign fighters, including Somali Americans, have traveled to Somalia to fight with al Shabab. A sampling of recent incidents reveals the nature of the violence. One child was killed and three seriously hurt in a grenade attack on St. Polycarps church in Nairobi, Kenya. This attack was

34 The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013

Nigeria is Africa’s most populous country with more than 160 million people and nearly 350 ethnic groups speaking over 200 languages. The country is about 50 percent Muslim, 40 percent Christian, and 10 percent indigenous sects. Nigeria has struggled with pervasive corruption and the difficulties of governing a diverse nation in which religion is one of the most important features of identity. The ongoing struggle between Muslims and Christians is a significant factor in the country’s violence, particularly in the central part of the country where the Christian north and Muslim south intersect. Recent violence by Boko Harem targeting Christians includes the Christmas Day 2011 suicide bombing of a church in Madala on the outskirts of the Nigeria’s capital Lagos. Twenty-six people were killed in the attack.

Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), also known as the Student Movement of Pakistan, or alternatively referred to as the


Introducing Your New Visitor Management Solution...

complia with hspdnt homeland sec 12 urity presidentia directive l Since 2003, Security Solutions International (SSI) has taken a holistic approach to security and is the leading provider of Identity Management Solutions for the Maritime industry, Education, Healthcare, Corporations, Government and Law Enforcement Agencies.

The New Leader in Government Identity Management The SSI Visitor Management System is the Security Identification Industry’s only Visitor Management system that can thoroughly comply with Homeland Security Presidential Directive(HSPD) 12 to verify the identity of individuals gaining access to government facilities. Capable of reading data embedded into numerous forms of government-issued identification cards (PIV, CAC, FRAC, TWIC, etc.) Government Identity management system confirms that the card presented is FIPS compliant (Federal Information Processing Standard.) The cardholder enters a PIN # which opens up data from the card’s smart chip including an embedded photo of the cardholder for a visual match. Further verification of the visitor’s identity is done by utilization of a fingerprint reader. From here, all data collected is sent to a Server-based Certificate Validation Protocol (SCVP) for final verification and to confirm that the individual’s vetting and access privileges are still valid and that credentials have not been revoked. Further, the system integrates the results of this exercise directly into the facility’s access control system so the card has specific rights and restrictions within the facility. We are hardware agnostic and can provide full solutions utilizing your existing infrastructure

Call now for more information.

Phone: 866-573-3999 Fax: 866-573-2090 Circle 239 on Reader Service Card contact@securitysolutionsint.com Circle 295 on Reader Service Card

SSI

®

SECURITY SOLUTIONS INTERNATIONAL

Protecting the Homeland Together ®

The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013 35


Pakistani Taliban, is a collective of armed A few days later the TTP returned and Islamist groups based in the northwestern dragged Christians out of their homes at Federally Administered Tribal Areas along gunpoint. Gunmen reportedly shouted, the Afghan border in Pakistan. “You infidels have to convert to Islam or A sampling of TTP attacks on die‌ How dare you stage a procession Christians reveals the nature of the against the Taliban?â€? Three churches violence. More than 100 TTP militants were burned down, along with dozens of attacked the Christian colony in Christian-owned shops. overwhelmingly Muslim Taiser, Pakistan, The TTP is also responsible for several on April 21, 2012. An 11–year-old was high-profile terrorist attacks, allegedly executed during the attack. Two other including the 2007 assassination of children were also shot. The attack former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. This attack was followed by the followed the desecration of churches a botched 2010 New York City Times few days earlier. The TTP had chalked Square vehicle-born improvised explosive threats on local churches and on device attack conducted by Faisal Christian homes in the town, insisting Shahzad. Investigators discovered that that Christian residents convert to Islam. Shahzad had been trained and financed When the Christians saw the threats, they organized a demonstration to call by the TTP. The group actively directed on police to protect their community. and facilitated the plot. Risk-Managerment-ad-2011.FH11 Page 2 assassinated In2012 2011, the TTP Protection was not provided. Wed Oct 31 14:27:29

  ­Â€    Â‚

 ­  Â? ƒ Â?      Â?Â?Â? Â?Â? ­Â?Â?Â? Â? Â?Â?Â?

36 The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013 Composite

Circle 273 on Reader Service Card

Pakistan’s Minority Affairs Minister Shahbaz Bhatti over his resistance to the country’s draconian blasphemy laws. The laws carry the death sentence for anyone who insults Islam. Bhatti, the country’s only Christian federal cabinet minister, was gunned down as he was being driven to work through the capital. Attackers left leaflets at the site saying they had acted in the name of al Qaeda and Tehrik-eTaliban. A spokesman for the group, Ahsanullah Ahsan, claimed responsibility for the attack saying, “This man was a known blasphemer of the Prophet.�

World-Wide Religicide Offences relating to religion may have first been codified by India’s British rulers in 1860 and were expanded in 1927. Pakistan inherited these laws when it was partitioned from India in 1947. In the mid 1980’s, a number of clauses were added to the laws by the military government of General Zia-ul Haq in an attempt to “Islamize� them. It was an attempt to legally separate the Ahmadi community, officially declared nonMuslim in 1973, from the main body of the predominantly Muslim population. The carnage that can occur when Islam and other faiths intersect has been called “religicide.� Carl Moeller, president of Open Doors, reports that “Christians in cities like Baghdad and Mosul are gripped by terrorism. They are fleeing in droves.�4 On August 16, 2012, at least 20 people died in blasts and shootings across Iraq. Before the toppling of Saddam Hussein, Mosul was home to some 75,000 Christians. Now that number has dropped to around 25,000. Christian homes are set on fire and bombs are placed in their cars; other Christian families are receiving letters threatening them to leave Iraq or be kidnapped or killed.


G N I T A R T E N PE . . . T H G I N E TH

. C N I , S E I R T S U D N I S M RIES.COM A D A ST NDU SIGH PON A E W AND S E L GG S, GO R A L OCU MON L A RM /THE N O I T VIS SI TRIES.COM NIGH S DAM

TS.

.A MSINDU WWW DA 017 S@A 72-3 SALE (310) 4 -1421 5 T: WES (540) 81 : EAST

Circle 308 on Reader Service Card Circle 305 on Reader Circle 180 on Reader Service Card Service Card

The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013 37


Egypt’s 10 million Coptic Christians are facing similar pressures following Hosni Mubarak’s ouster and the takeover of Egypt’s government by Islamic supremacists from the Muslim Brotherhood. In October 2011, a massive protest by Coptic Christians over the torching of the church in the village of Elmarinab by Islamists and the brutal attack on a Coptic rally in Maspiro, Egypt, earlier in the month resulted in the army and police running over unarmed protesters with armored personnel carriers and firing into the crowd. The attack left 24 Copts dead and over 300 injured.5 The violence has driven 100,000 Coptic families from the country with more leaving every month.6 Hindus in Muslim-majority Pakistan fare no better. In addition to murder and desecration of Hindu temples, Hindu women have also been the victims of kidnapping and forced conversion to Islam. It is estimated that 20 Hindu girls are abducted every month and forcibly converted to Islam.7 In October 2005, a Hindu couple in Karachi, Pakistan, returned home to find that their three teenage daughters had disappeared. After checking with the local police, the couple discovered that their daughters had been taken to a local Islamic school, or madrassah, had been converted to Islam, and were then denied unsupervised contact with their parents.8 Other Muslims from minority sects are not immune to attacks either. In February 2011, 1,500 Islamists attacked a house belonging to a local Ahmadiyah leader where worship services were being held. Ahmadiyah communities across Indonesia have been persecuted by their co-religionists. At least 3 people died in this attack and many more were reported

Pope Shenouda III, The Coptic Orthodox Christians' Pope in Egypt, listens to President Barack Obama deliver a much anticipated speech to the Muslim world from the conference hall of Cairo University in Egypt June 4, 2009. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy) to be seriously injured in the Pandeglang district in West Java, Indonesia. Local police reported that the attacks were intended to stop the Ahmadiyah sect from holding their worship meetings. 9 Buddhists in Thailand’s restive south face similar violence by Islamic

38 The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013

extremists. In the Muslim-majority Malay Pattani region, comprising the three southernmost provinces of Thailand, Buddhists have been murdered in driveby shootings, beheadings, and bombings. In March 2012, four bombs targeting civilians exploded in the Yala shopping


district and the parking lot of a hotel in Hat Yai, killing 16 and injuring more than 300 others.10 Since January 2004 there have been about 11,000 violent incidents instigated by Islamists in the Muslim-dominant southernmost provinces, with nearly 5,000 people killed and 8,000 injured.11 Islamic supremacy was the cause of the Danish cartoon unrest of 2005 and early 2006. After a Danish newspaper and other European publications printed 12 cartoons caricaturing Islam’s Prophet Mohammad, violent protests erupted around the world. Muslims throughout the Middle East and Africa protested the cartoons. At least 200 people died as Muslims rioted, burned embassies and churches, and injured many more. The Danish and Norwegian embassies in Syria, the Danish embassy in Lebanon,

Circle 81 on Reader Service Card

and the Italian embassy in Libya were attacked and burned. A bomb outside the Danish embassy in Pakistan killed 8 people. Al Qaeda claimed it was revenge for the “insulting drawings.”12 Ahmed Abu Laban was one of the most prominent of a group of Danish imams and activists who toured the Middle East seeking to “internationalize” their campaign of protest of the cartoons. Abu Laban, a sixty-year-old of Palestinian origin, angrily denied allegations from moderate Muslims and European intelligence services that hidden “masterminds” triggered the “sudden” explosion of protests, a full four months after the cartoons were first published. He denied claims from European intelligence and security sources that the Muslim Brotherhood elements had worked hard to whip up Muslim anger over the

Benazir Bhutto. Photo: iFaqeer

The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013 39


Danish cartoons. Abu Laban’s delegation hedged their bets by showing more than the twelve cartoons originally published. In a forty-three-page booklet, called by Danish intelligence officials “the Akkari-Laban dossier,” the group of Danish Muslim clerics from multiple organizations presented their case to multiple Muslim luminaries and asked for support in the cartoon controversy. Included in the dossier were three cartoons of Muhammed that were not actually part of the original editorial. They were highly inflammatory and appear to have been designed to push Muslim emotional buttons. They included a crudely drawn caricature of Mohammed depicted as a pedophile, Muhammed wearing a pig face, and Muhammed being sodomized by a dog while kneeling during prayer.13 Abu Laban praised the Muslim boycott of Danish goods on al Jazeera while condemning it on Danish TV. The worldwide killings that followed the agitations of the Danish imams were followed by reward offers for killing those responsible for the cartoons. In India, Haji Yaqoob Qureishi, a minister in the Uttar Pradesh state government, announced in February 2006 a cash reward of US $11 million for anyone who “beheads the Danish cartoonist” who caricatured Mohammed. And the duplicitous Danish Imam Ahmad Abu Laban was caught on film talking about a man who wants “to wreak absolute havoc” and “wants to join the fray and turn it into a Martyr operation right now.” His fellow traveler and imam in search of agitation, Ahmed Akkari, initially denied making the remarks, then later

Circle 343 on Reader Service Card

40 The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013

claimed that he was “only joking.” Police in Berlin subdued Amer Cheema, a student from Pakistan, as he entered the office building of Die Welt newspaper armed with a large knife. Cheema admitted to trying to kill Editor Roger Köppel for running the Mohammad cartoons. He committed suicide in his jail cell and Pakistani media claimed he was tortured to death. A reported 30,000 people attended Cheema’s funeral near Lahore. The burning of Korans at a base in Bagram, Afghanistan, by US soldiers disposing of them resulted in rioting. At least thirty-nine were killed, including four Americans. Hundreds more were wounded in mob violence across the nation.14 The Korans had been removed from circulation among al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners being detained at the base after it was discovered that prisoners were writing messages in them to other prisoners. On September 11, 2012, the US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, was raided by a company (-) sized irregular force armed with small arms, RPGs, and mortars utilizing mobile warfare tactics. The US Ambassador and three other Americans were killed. Unconfirmed reports suggest that Ambassador Chris Stevens was brutalized before being murdered and that two former SEALs on a separate contract responded to the raid as good Samaritans to assist and were killed after fighting valiantly against waves of attackers. For reasons that are unknown, members of the US administration repeatedly made transparently false statements that the Americans had been killed by a Muslim mob spontaneously reacting to a YouTube video that they


President Barack Obama, with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, delivers a statement in the Rose Garden of the White House, Sept. 12, 2012, regarding the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson did not like. As of this writing, it is not clear why the Department of State chose not to use their (American) Worldwide Protective Service contractor teams that have been so successful in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere to protect the Ambassador and repel the assaults. The world has grown accustomed to mob violence and rioting, but Islamic supremacist violence seems to receive curiously light public scrutiny. Some believe that these events, many having some form of organization or instigation, such as the instigated Danish Cartoon incident, may serve one or more purposes.

The Crime of Blasphemy? There is a push to criminalize criticism of Islam and Mohammed. Groups such as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) have publicly demanded passage of laws outlawing such criticism in countries around the world. The OIC has steered

through the United Nations’ human rights apparatus a resolution condemning the “defamation of religion,” which for the bloc of fifty-six Muslim states of the OIC ranged from satirizing Mohammed in a newspaper cartoon to criticism of draconian shariah practices every year since 1999.15 Surprisingly, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Barrack Obama appeared to express support for this.16 President Obama gave a speech to the United Nations (UN) General Assembly days after the Benghazi attack, stating, “(the) future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.”17 Stunningly, Secretary Clinton was instrumental in getting the UN to pass resolutions informally referred to as “blasphemy laws.” We live in dangerous times. We have need for greater agility in our defense apparatus. We must seek out true alliances with Muslims such as Dr. Zuhdi Jasser who condemn supremacist

Circle 307 on Reader Service Card

The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013 41


Circle 256 on Reader Service Card

Reconyx HyperFire security series cameras are designed for quick and easy deployment in areas where no power or communication lines exist. • Motion activated trigger as fast as 1/10th of a second. • 1080P High Definition color images by day, NoGlowTM Covert Infrared illumination by night. • Compact size (5.5” x 4.5” x 3”) aids in concealment. • On-board memory and power with a battery life of up to one year or 40,000 images.

• Completely weatherproof housing designed for extreme duty usage. • General surveillance and license plate capture models available. No • Made in the U.S.A. Glow Covert Infrared

Visit www.reconyx.com for more information. 42 The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013

Circle 303 on Reader Service Card


Circle 277 on Reader Service Card

The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013 43 Circle 277 on Reader Service Card


ideology. Finally, we must never forget our commitment to liberty and to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, particularly the first amendment.

about the author Mr. Olson is a retired law enforcement commander. He was in charge of his department’s participation in the regional Joint Terrorism Task Force. His most recent book is Tactical Counterterrorism: The Law Enforcement Manual of Terrorism Prevention (Charles C. Thomas, 2012).

Endnotes TRoP, The Religion of Peace, List of Islamic Terror Attacks http://www. thereligionofpeace.com/ 2 Ibid. 1

Kenya Church Attacks Kill 15, Wound 40 In Garissa, By JASON STRAZIUSO 07/01/12 , http://www. huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/01/kenyachurch-attacks_n_1641108.html 4 Ibid. 5 Egyptian Army, Police Kill 24 Coptic Christian Protestors, 10-102011, Assyrian International News Agency (AINA), Http://www.aina.org/ news/20111010003621.htm 6 U.S. Copts Association, Tuesday October 9th 2012, Muslim Brotherhood Rising, http:// www.copts.com/english/?p=3008 7 The International News, http://www. thenews.com.pk/, 20 Hindu girls forced to convert in a month: HRCP, http:// www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-497065-20-Hindu-girls-forced-to-convertin-a-month-HRCP 3

SNHU offers more than 180 online degrees and certificates that fit your life and career. Enroll today and find out more about the SNHU advantage: • Corporate and military discounts for eligible students. • Justice Studies programs that focus on cybersecurity and homeland security. • Faculty who have real-world experience.

CALL

1.888.607.8374

44 The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013 Circle 111 on Reader Service Card

Anwar, Syed. “State of minorities”. http://www.dawn.com/2006/06/18/ op.htm, Minorities` right to liberty 9 http://ahmadiyyatimes.blogspot. co.at/2011/02/indonesia-3-ahmadimuslims-killed.html, February 6, 2011, Indonesia: 3 Ahmadi Muslims killed, several injured in attacks in Pandeglang district in West Java, Abdul Musawir Maala 10 “Three deadly bomb blasts hit Yala in southern Thailand”. The Guardian UK. 2012-03-31. http://www.guardian.co.uk/ world/2012/mar/31/thailand-bombblasts-yala?newsfeed=true. Retrieved 2012-03-31. 11 Twelve slain in far South over two days, Bangkok Post, 9/10/2012, http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/ local/316164/twelve-killed-in-terroristattacks-in-thailand-deep-south-over-twodays 12 Olson 13 Olson 14 Kevin Sieff, February 21, 2012, http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/ asia_pacific/afghans-protest-improperdisposal-of-koran-at-us-base/2012/02/21/ gIQAjhBqQR_story.html 15 http://cnsnews.com/news/article/ un-adopts-religious-intolerance-resolutionchampioned-obama-administration, U.N. Adopts ‘Religious Intolerance’ Resolution Championed by Obama Administration, By Patrick Goodenough, December 20, 2011 16 http://www.forbes.com/sites/ abigailesman/2011/12/30/could-yoube-a-criminal-us-supports-un-anti-freespeech-measure/ accessed 11/07/2012. 17 http://www.washingtonpost. com/blogs/under-god/post/obamathe-future-must-not-belong-tothose-who-slander-the-prophet-ofislam/2012/09/26/acb9ab92-0810-11e2a10c-fa5a255a9258_blog.html accessed 11/07/2012. 8


New and improved

( portable vehicle barrier ) When Law Enforcement in Dallas wanted a product to protect the greatest sporting event in the US they chose SSI’s PVB. The reason the PVB is used by agencies and militaries across the globe is that it transfers the momentum of the threatening vehicle upwards and stops it in its tracks. Two adults can deploy the barrier in minutes, and there is no need for electricity whatsoever. The Portable Vehicle Barrier comes with several customized configurations: • You can put wheels on it so that it acts as a swing barrier and easily opens a road • You can toughen the line by adding anchoring cables or place the PVB’s in one single row or even three rows to stop anything • Additional safety features can be added PVBs can be folded down quickly –moved and stored with ease – the PVB is reusable and durable. Best of all NO maintenance is required. Made in the USA means jobs in the USA and supporting our national economy. Ordering is quick and easy allowing us to make the PVB available to your agencies immediately. Besides being the most cost effective barrier in the business today, the PVB is a VBIED killer. CALL NOW.

Call now for more information. Pricing dependent on quantity and delivery location. Call: (305) 401-6906 or email info@homelandsecurityssi.com

Or visit our website: www.SSIPVB.com

Circle 308 on Reader Service Card

SSI

Circle 226 on Reader Card TheService Counter Terrorist

®

SECURITY SOLUTIONS INTERNATIONAL

Protecting the Homeland Together ®

~ December 2012/January 2013Service 45 Card Circle 136 on Reader


Book Review

A Battle for the Soul of Islam:

An American Muslim Patriot's Fight to Save His Faith By Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser

Reviewed by: Chris Graham

uhdi Jasser is the founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy. He is a former naval officer, a medical doctor, and an American Muslim. He is one of a small number of people in the public eye who have recognized that terrorism is not conducted because individuals are frenzied, impoverished, or derive pleasure from killing. It is conducted to manipulate adversary actions. He understands that it is the goals of terrorists that must be defeated, not merely that single tactic. His book, A Battle for the Soul of Islam: An American Muslim Patriot’s Fight to Save His Faith (Threshold Editions, 2012), describes the ideology that motivates Islamic supremacist terrorism and identifies other, equally important, tactics that are employed to achieve the same ends. The author writes: “For the outsider who looks at the Islamist ambition to mount a worldwide revolution and considers it to be an outrageous proposition, consider a few facts. Muslim Brotherhood [MB] started early in the 20th century and for quite some time its influence was largely confined to Egypt. In the last

[Brotherhood founders] had for their group. Some of the leading Muslims in the United States will deceive Americans about Qutb’s [Milestones’ author] ideology. Mohammed Elibiari, appointed to Secretary Janet Napolitano’s Department of Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC), and who purports to be an expert on ‘deradicalization,’ could not get himself to criticize Qutb in any effective way…” Jasser states that Milestones favored “headon confrontation,” but that “many of their followers have chosen more subtle and very often more effective means of ideological engagement, infiltration, and evangelism.” He says, “Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain said it best in Munich in February 2011 when he talked about the lessons Britain learned from the failure of post-9/11 counterterrorism programs that ignored British Muslim identity and worked too closely with British Islamists.” He said that “the only way to bring Muslims to a genuine British identity is for the United Kingdom to begin a more potent advocacy of a ‘muscular liberalism’ in Muslim communities

Z

few decades, however, it has spread around the world as a primary influencer of too many terrorist groups to name here. Milestones [an early MB strategy and ideology document] continues to win converts to the cause, millions of them, which is exactly the sort of vision

46 The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013


and Muslim nations. He lamented the profoundly negative impact of ‘politically correct’ multiculturalism on the… British government…” The author notes that “it’s not just about the suspicious guy with the backpack, but about the propagandists who say that shariah law is no real threat to secular law, or the congressman who claims there is nothing wrong with his attending a fund-raising event for a group with terrorist ties.” He adds: “Universities such as Harvard, which blithely take Wahabi petrodollars and in return have professors teach one-sided courses in Middle Eastern history that somehow conveniently blame Israel for all problems in that region, must also be called out on their collusion with the Islamists.” He adds, “one of the easiest ways to spot an Islamist is that every other word they utter is ‘Islamophobia.’ Many prominent counterterrorism experts

are labeled Islamophobes repeatedly by groups like CAIR [Council on AmericanIslamic Relations], MAS [Muslim American Society] and MPAC [Muslim Public Affairs Council]. In fact, in August 2011 the George Soros-funded Center for American Progress (CAP) issued a 132-page report titled Fear, Inc.: The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America. Its objective was to supposedly ‘exposeand marginalize-the influence of the individuals and groups” that CAP claims are part of an “Islamophobia network in America.’” Jasser observes, “one must keep in mind that not all people who come to America are here because they really respect this country’s embrace of liberty, democracy and human rights. There are people who come to this country because they want to undo it, to remake it along the lines of religious fundamentalism, or because they’re anarchists, and simply

Bite Suit Helmet

3" Ball

$12.95

Hand Protectors

[[

Follow us on Scan our QR code with your smart phone to view our online catalog.

2.5" Ball

$11.95

2" Ball

$9.95

$39.95 ea

Special Operations Harness

Bite Suit

available in black, coyote or multicam*

$39.95

Has cutouts so the buttons can still be worked while it’s holstered. Has 2¼" metal clip on back of holster so it can be worn on a 2" duty belt or clipped to a MOLLE tactical vest.

Reward Balls with Tug Handles

$74.95

E-Collar Holsters

want to destroy the United States, or because they want it to be like China, Cuba and so on. Not everyone is here to take advantage of the opportunities for prosperity. Some actually want to undo our economy because they see it as the easiest way to destroy us.” Dr. Jasser states: “The U.S. Constitution [and] the Bill of Rights… should never be violated. Until we recognize the threat of Islamism in all its forms, the majority of Americans will be gulled into recognizing only its most obvious form: terrorism.” He adds, “may we never undo what so many others have given their lives to protect.” As long as Zuhdi Jasser and Muslims like him continue their work, there is hope for reformation within Islam before Islamists have achieved domination. He has my admiration and support. I hope he has yours. Buy this book, read it, share it.

with plastic buckles

$1,189.95

$149.95

with metal cobra buckles

$199.95

*with attachments for MOLLE pouches and K-9 camera

Muzzles $69.95

Malinois

German Shepherd

YOU’VE GOT THE RIGHT DOG, NOW GET THE RIGHT EQUIPMENT Circle 279 on Reader Service Card

The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013 47


An "honorable bandit". Panel of Piña Mora mural in Palacio del Gobierno showing Pancho Villa. Photo: Lyricmac

Los Caballeros Templarios:

“Social Bandits” Counter The

48 The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013

Photo: Esparta Palma


By John P. Sullivan

Challenges to the Mexican state include the rise of “social banditry,” narco-control of turf, narcocultura (narcoculture), information operations, corruption and impunity culminating in the erosion of governmental legitimacy, and a situation of “dual sovereignty,” where cartels complement and compete with state functioning.

A

lejandro Junico, head of Grupo Reforma, a Mexican media conglomerate, termed this challenge “social insurrection.” According to Junico, “Now, the reason [cartel violence] has spread like wildfire is that we have probably something that’s closer to social insurrection than actually a drug war, per se.”1 La Familia Michoacana (LFM; the Michoacán family) and its successor/ competitor Los Cabelleros Templarios (the Knights Templar) hail from Michoacán, where a unique set of social and economic challenges has resulted in an impoverished populace residing at a

key transit hub for the transshipment of narcotics and precursor chemicals used in the manufacture of cristal— methamphetamine.2 Together, these two groups provide a unique insight into the rapidly shifting mosaic of Mexican cartel activity. Starting from the foundation of La Empressa, a traditional criminal enterprise, La Familia emerged as a vigilante band appealing to local sentiments, morphed into a poly-drug cartel that challenged the state, and ultimately splintered into its successor/competitor the Cabelleros Templarios. During this evolutionary path, we

see brutality, control of state functions, shifting alliances, the use of propaganda (information operations), and brutality cloaked in the mantle of “social banditry” and the interplay between communal and cult bonds. Indeed, the use of narcocultura and spiritual/quasi-religious ideology is used to solidify group cohesion and nurture legitimacy among the populace.

La Familia Michoacana La Familia employs a combination of paramilitary and psychological tactics. Operating from its base in Michoacán,

The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013 49


The Grupo Reforma headquarters at Mexico City. Photo: Carolina López

it is active in the neighboring states of Guerrero, Mexico, and Jalisco. Its crossborder reach extends to important centers of operations in California, New Mexico, Georgia (including the key transshipment hub of Atlanta), North Carolina, South Carolina, and Florida.3 In California, LFM is believed to have links with both Sureño and Norteño affiliated gangs. It is currently affiliated with the Sinaloa Federation and helps facilitate the movement of drugs through two lucrative distribution triangles: Tijuana-San Diego-Los Angeles and El Paso-HoustonAtlanta. 4 Emerging from La Empressa in the 1980s, LFM started with a local focus that emphasized helping the poor and protecting the community, building a powerful myth surrounding its

Tactical Power Military Sources Summit Sustainment 10th

Strategies to Reduce the Demand for Energy on the Battlefield January 28th–30th, 2013 | Washington, D.C.

Focus Day: January 28, 2013 Hilton Alexandria Mark Main Summit Days: January 29-30, 2013 Center, Alexandria, VA

What’s new for 2013? •

The Future of Logistics, Materiel Readiness and Requirements to Support Global Operations

Strategies for minimizing weight and size of tactical power sources while meeting user requirements

New Military Sustainment Focus for 2013: •

The best practices and policies to maintain and increase materiel readiness and life cycle management

The requirement for an efficient, open channeled joint logistics between the services and other government agencies

Achieving systems that can operate at maximum loads in all military environments

Developing alternative fuel sources to meet current and future energy needs

A look into the development and delivery of tactical power to support battlefield operations

Power generation and conditioning standards in accordance with military sustainability initiatives

Acquisitions and requirements as the drawdown from Afghanistan increases

Implementing the efficient strategies and partnering with the proper industry in order to achieve the individual and joint service logistical and materiel readiness plans

Discover the Latest Advancements in Mobile Power for the Warfighter! w w w . Ta c t i c a l P o w e r S o u r c e s S u m m i t . c o m Circle 148 on Reader Service Card

50 The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013

www.MilitarySustainmentSummit.com Circle 168 on Reader Service Card


PROTECT YOUR ASSETS WITH THE STATE OF THE ART IN LPR-BASED VIDEO ANALYTIC TECHNOLOGY

• ENTERPRISE LPRTM IS A REVOLUTION IN VIDEO ANALYTIC TECHNOLOGY, designed to operate as a stand-alone tool OR INTEGRATE WITH THIRD-PARTY SURVEILLANCE AND SECURITY STRUCTURES SUCH AS A VIDEO MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (VMS). • ENTERPRISE LPRTM is the security industry’s FIRST FULLY FUNCTIONAL LICENSE PLATE RECOGNITION (LPR)-BASED END-TO-END SURVEILLANCE AND SECURITY SOLUTION. PROVIDES SITUATIONAL AWARENESS WITH HOLISTIC, ACTIONABLE INTELLIGENCE IN REAL TIME. • ENTERPRISE LPRTM is the ideal investigative tool for counter-terrorism efforts. • ENTERPRISE LPRTM’S COMMAND CENTER works with a wide range of conventional cameras and offers the user the ability to monitor and manage its systems EITHER REMOTELY OR ONSITE. • ENTERPRISE LPRTM offers the STATE OF THE ART IN DATA MINING AND PREDICTIVE ANALYTIC TOOLS. Track the movements of persons of interest over days, weeks, months, or years. RECOGNIZE MOVEMENT PATTERNS that can predict and help prevent terrorist activity. • ENTERPRISE LPRTM provides a BROWSER-BASED REPORTING PORTAL for powerful and comprehensive reporting. • ENTERPRISE LPRTM works with an UNLIMITED NUMBER OF CAMERAS. • ENTERPRISE LPRTM REQUIRES NO INSTALLATION AT THE USER SIDE. Circle 125 on Reader Service Card

www.platesmart.com Circle 125 on Reader Service Card

For More Information 749-0892 The Counter Terrorist ~ Call December(813) 2012/January 2013 51


operational ethos. This skilled use of narrative allowed it to capture power and reach. Ultimately, LFM became a powerful poly-drug enterprise centered on methamphetamines. Other lines of business included marijuana and cocaine trafficking, kidnapping for ransom, and pirating CDs and DVDs. Equally significant, they co-opted politicians and political processes and seized political control and influence at municipal and state levels throughout Michoacán.5

Los Caballeros Templarios The Knights Templar or Los Caballeros Templarios are an offshoot of La Familia. They emerged as the remnants of the LFM after the Mexican state cracked down on La Familia’s activities. Like their predecessor (the original Knights Templar), they evoke an image of social protection, regionalism, religiosity, and revolutionary rhetoric. They are believed to field an army of about 1,200 sicarios and use violent campaigns to bolster their cause.67 According to journalist Loan Grillo, “The Knights are a breakaway group from the ‘narco-Evangelical’ cartel known as La Familia Michoacana.”8 Los Templarios rose in the aftermath of the federal crackdown on LFM. In

that blitz, federal police are reported to have shot and killed “El Chayo,” Nazario Moreno González, the spiritual leader of LFM, known as “el más loco” (the craziest one) in December 2010. That event was followed by the arrest of “El Chango” (the monkey), José de Jesús Méndez in June 2011. Los Templarios are believed to be led by Servando Gómez, an LFM lieutenant under Moreno. Los Templarios announced their presence with a series of cartel banners (narcomantas) promising community security. Grillo reported that the mantas proclaimed, “Our commitment is to safeguard order, avoid robberies, kidnapping, extortion, and to shield the state from rival organizations.”9 These organizations were not specified, but it can be inferred that both Los Zetas and federal security forces were the implicit violators of Michoacán’s integrity. These messages (narcomensajes) were quickly followed by a demonstration of the Knights’ prowess as community protectors when an alleged kidnapper was hanged from a highway overpass.10 Los Templarios are widely believed to be successfully assuming control of LFM’s turf and operations. They are also sustaining LFM’s confrontation with the state. In May 2011, they shot at a federal

police helicopter, they displayed corpses in villages proximate to the underseventeen soccer World Cup in Morelia to demonstrate their presence, and they currently continue their brutal displays throughout their area of operations. Among these continuing attacks was the May 25-26, 2012, attack on Sabritas (a branch of PepsiCo). The Sabritas attacks included arson attacks on fixed sites (distribution centers in Apatizingán, Lázaro Cárdenas, Uruapan, Salatierra, and Celaya), and attacks on 40 delivery vehicles.11

Social Banditry and Influence Operations La Familia made its public debut in September 2006 when twenty masked bandits stormed Uruapan’s Sol y Sombra nightclub. The gunmen fired shots into the air and then tossed six human heads onto the dance floor. Accompanying this bloody display was a placard announcing: “The family doesn’t kill for money. It doesn’t kill for women. It doesn’t kill innocent people, only those who deserve to die. Know that this is divine justice.”12 Violence is used as a symbolic statement of control, reach, and prowess. The cartel—in this case LFM— is cast as community protectors using

TACTICAL MEDICS INTERNATIONAL Meeting all of your tactical medical needs

O u t s t a n d i n g Tr a i n i n g Gear and Supplies Direct Mission Suppor t Medical Threat Assessments A g e n c y C o n t r a c t s Av a i l a b l e

Call: 904.328.2238 w w w. t a c t i c a l m e d i c s . c o m 52 The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013

info@tacticalmedics.com Circle 89 on Reader Service Card


Circle 301 on Reader Service Card

Circle 275 on Reader Service Card The Counter

Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013 53


targeted violence to ward off and punish interlopers and those who violate regional community norms. The LFM cartel seeks to forge and sustain legitimacy and constituency in the community. Public statements amplify symbolic acts of violence by the cartel. These include narco-messages/ narcomensajes, narcomantas, narcocorridos (folk songs), corpse-messaging, and media communiqués. In the Sol y Sombra InfoOps, the brutal display was followed by ads in local papers (La Voz de Michoacán and El Sol de Morelia). Flyers and handouts were also distributed, heralding La Familia’s autonomy and goal of warding off Los Zetas’ “destructive power.”13 These InfoOps are part of LFM’s efforts to manipulate social space and form a social base through paramilitary tactics, terror, and crafting the image of “social bandit.” Social banditry is sustained by developing the

GW COLLEGE OF PROFESSIONAL STUDIES • ARLINGTON

Master of Professional studies

security and safety leadershiP Learn from experts. classes taught by professionals in homeland security policy, law enforcement cooperation, public safety leadership, emergency management, and cyber security.

More Information! 703.248.2800 www.nearyou.gwu.edu/ssl

Specialize your coursework. choose to focus your studies on fundamentals of strategic security or strategic cybersecurity enforcement. Attend convenient classes. classes are offered one evening per week and one saturday a month in arlington, Virginia. Earn credentials quickly. complete a master’s degree in approximately 16 months. www.nearyou.gwu.edu/ssl for a list of all GW graduate programs, visit www.gwu.edu/gradapply.

37960

the GeorGe WashinGton uniVersity is an equal oPPortunity/affirMatiVe action institution certified to oPerate in Va by scheV.

Circle 283 on Reader Service Card

54 The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013

myth of community protectors. First described in the work of Eric Hobsbawn, social banditry is a powerful mechanism of “primitive rebellion.”14 La Familia’s preferred public face “is that of powerful avengers who protect the poor and battle the rich, corrupt and others who exploit the poor locals.”15 Quasi-religious narratives support this image. As New Yorker correspondent William Finnegan observed, “La Familia’s corpse messaging often mentions divine justice. Its soldiers are said to be required to carry Bibles or, alternatively, a selfpublished volume of epigrams by Nazario Moreno González.”16 Finnegan elaborates on this point:17 In addition to their quasi-religious fervor, La Familia’s public broadsides often have a political cast. In a paid advertisement published in two statewide newspapers, La Familia posed the question “Who are we?” Its own lengthy answer began, “Workers from the Tierra Caliente region in the state of Michoacán, organized by the need to end the oppression, the humiliation to which we have constantly been subjected by people who have always had power.” A senior American official in Mexico City told me, “La Familia is looking more and more like an insurgency and less like a cartel.” Lately, a faction of La Familia has taken to signing the messages left at decapitation scenes “La Resistencia.” Adopting a pseudo-religious or cult persona is a tool of cartel legitimization. Such imagery sustains group cohesion, garners tacit support from the community, and reinforces social and political control. Grassroots support and selective and symbolic use of extreme violence and charity blend seamlessly with extortion, protection, and “street taxes” to solidify their power base.18 Los Caballeros Templarios continue this practice. In doing so, the “Executions and beheadings cloaked in cult-like


religious pronouncements demonstrate their zeal and reinforce the myth that they are protecting and purifying the land.”19

Narcocultura and Barbarization Narcocultura involves the manipulation of narratives and social artifacts to create a frame of understanding and alternative primary loyalties. Here, images, oaths, folk songs (narcocorridos), and increasingly social media are used to brand the cartels’ operations. Both LFM and Los Caballeros are reported to exploit imagery to forge loyalties and shape their operating environment, contesting the state and criminal rivals alike. Protecting the local community from interlopers is integral to this messaging. For example, in early July 2009, LFM initiated coordinated attacks against state forces in 10 cities. In this campaign, at least 19 security operators (police and military) were killed. La Familia waged this campaign as a counter-strike against federal forces. Included in the action were 6 near-simultaneous assaults on federal police barracks, commando raids, and the torture-murders of 12 off-duty police intelligence operatives.20 Blockades (or

Circle 309 on Reader Service Card

narcobloqueos) are often part of this social shaping, constituting a powerful tactical tool with strategic resonance. The use of spiritual imagery is a key component of this cartel confrontation with the state.21 Indeed, the religious imagery exploited by the Michoacán cartels may be their most threatening aspect. Recently, “El Chayo,” Nazario Moreno González, has been reported to be worshipped—or more properly venerated—as a saint in Michoacán. According to reports chronicled by InSight, altars with photos and figurines of Moreno referring to him as “saint Nazario” have been discovered in two neighborhoods in Apatizingán. Moreno is also venerated in a prayer that cites him as a representative of God, the “Protector of the Poorest,” and “Knight of the towns.”22 Here we see spiritual and practical continuity between LFM and Los Caballeros Templarios constituting a potentially powerful force for mobilizing both cartel operatives and a social base. Barbarization is a key component of this social shaping. Decapitations, dismemberment, and mass attacks help convey the cartels’ potency. These often brutal and graphic attacks target government forces, rivals, and

community transgressors. While corpsemessaging accompanying beheadings have become a staple of the drug war, new modes of barbarization continue to emerge. From butchering and cooking victims, known as making pozole (or stew), to dismemberment and mass killings, we now see the first instance of narco-conflict crucifixion in Michoacán. In this case, reported by the Prosecutor General of Michoacán, the victim was lynched from police custody to receive

Eladio Martinez Cruz, a 24-year-old accused of rape, was found crucified from a highway sign on September 7, 2012, in Contepec.

The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013 55


Both La Familia and Los Caballeros exploit the timehonored tradition of honorable bandit in Mexican tradition. They have been likened to “Pancho Villa for the Twitter generation.”

“divine justice” from Los Caballeros Templarios. Eladio Martinez Cruz, a 24-year-old accused of rape, was found crucified from a highway sign on September 7, 2012, in Contepec. Local police had allegedly arrested the victim before cartel operatives, believed to be members of Los Caballeros—or alternatively La Familia—blocked a police vehicle transporting the victim. Martinez had been arrested for rape, and when he was found crucified he was naked, with signs of torture; his genitalia had been severed and placed in his mouth. The crucified corpse was hanged for display 18 feet off the ground, with ice pick punctures to the chest. It was accompanied by a narcomanta (placard) identifying him as a rapist. The use of public humiliation and extrajudicial assassination by the cartel had a dual purpose: to brand the state as being ineffective in delivering justice and to signal to the community that the gangsters were their true protectors—a potent example of barbarization leveraged to amplify perceptions of the gangsters as “social bandits.”23

Evolution of Conflict and Criminal Enclaves The cartel evolution seen in Michoacán presents a unique case study. La Familia emerged as a quasi-cult-like gang from La Empressa, a traditional enterprise. Initially allied with Los Zetas, it shifted alliance to the Sinaloa Federation and embraced social banditry and the provision of utilitarian social goods combined with religious imagery and narrative to secure a base of social support. La Familia and later Los Caballeros Templarios exploited a “triad of influence”— violence, corruption, and impunity—to secure operating space. “Embracing the role of local champions to the poor and

56 The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013

disenfranchised is a classic tack of social bandits,”24 and both La Familia and Los Caballeros Templarios actively sought that mantle. Los Caballeros emerged in 2011 as a faction of La Familia. Both still exist as competitors and Los Caballeros are likely to prevail as the successor organization. Los Caballeros follow traditions established and honed by LFM and their imagery evokes the same cult-like quasireligious narratives—including an oath to fight ethically against materialism. Los Caballeros continue to project the image of “social bandit” and protector of Michoacán (and increasingly Guanajuato) from a range of rivals, including the state, Los Zetas, and the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación.25 Both La Familia and Los Caballeros exploit the time-honored tradition of honorable bandit in Mexican tradition. They have been likened to “Pancho Villa for the Twitter generation.”26 If La Familia was the beta-version of a new and dangerous drug-trafficking organization, Los Caballeros Templarios is likely version 2.0, a refined version of the postmodern social bandit. Only the future knows where version 3.0 will go, but social banditry, state confrontation, and barbarism are likely to grow anywhere an existing state exhibits corruption and ineffectiveness.

About the author Mr. Sullivan is a senior research fellow with the Center for the Advanced Studies of Terrorism (CAST) and a member of the Advisory Board of Southern Pulse | Networked Intelligence. He serves as a lieutenant with the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department. His current research focus is terrorism, transnational gangs, criminal insurgency, and their impact on policing, intelligence, and sovereignty.


Endnotes “Kidnapping Can Be a Family Affair in Mexico’s Drug War,” Interview with Alehandro Junco by Ray Suarez at PBS News Hour, May 14, 2012, http://www. pbs.org/newshour/bb/world/jan-june12/ mexico2_05-14.html. 2 George W. Grayson, La Familia Drug Cartel: Implications for U.S.-Mexican Security, Carlisle Barracks: US Army War College, Strategic Studies Institute, December 2010, especially pp. vii-xi. 3 “La Familia Michoacana and their U.S. Contacts,” Borderland Beat, January 9, 2011, http://www.borderlandbeat. com/2011/01/la-familia-michoacanaand-their-us.html. 4 Samuel Logan and John P. Sullivan, “Mexico’s ‘Divine Justice,’” ISN Security Watch, ETH Zurich, August 17, 2009 at http://www.isn. ethz.ch/isn/Security-Watch/Articles/ Detail/?lng=en&id=104677. 5 Ibid. 6 Ioan Grillo, “Crusaders of Meth: Mexico’s Deadly Knights Templar,” Time, June 23, 2011 at www.time.com/time/ world/article/0,8599,2079430,00.html. 7 Ioan Grillo, “Saints, Knights and Crystal Meth: Mexico’s Bizarre Cartel,” Chicago Tribune, July 18, 2012, http:// 1

Circle 99 on Reader Service Card

articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-07-18/ features/sns-rt-us-mexico-drugs-knightsbre86h0wb-20120718_1_nazario-moreno-knights-templar-el-mas-loco. 8 Grillo, “Crusaders of Meth.” 9 Ibid. 10 Ibid. 11 “Memorandum: Sabritas Attacks,” Southern Pulse, May 30, 2012. 12 Logan and Sullivan, “Mexico’s ‘Divine Justice.’” 13 Ibid. 14 See Eric Hobsbawm, Bandits, New York: The New Press, 2000, 1969; Eric Hobsbawm, Primitive Rebels, New York: Norton, 1959. See also Logan and Sullivan, “Mexico’s ‘Divine Justice’,” and John P. Sullivan and Adam Elkus, “Mexican Crime Families: Political Aims and Social Plans,” Mexidata, July 27, 2009 at http://mexidata.info/id2344. html for discussions of “social banditry.” 15 Logan and Sullivan, “Mexico’s ‘Divine Justice.’” 16 William Finnegan, “Silver or Lead,” The New Yorker, May 31, 2010, http://www.newyorker.com/ reporting/2010/05/31/100531fa_fact_fi nnegan?printable=true#ixzz26mW0p2UI. 17 Ibid. 18 Logan and Sullivan, “Mexico’s ‘Di-

vine Justice.’” 19 Ibid. 20 Sullivan and Elkus, “Mexican Crime Families: Political Aims and Social Plans.” 21 John P. Sullivan and Robert J. Bunker, “Rethinking Insurgency: Criminality, Spirituality, and Societal Warfare in the Americas,” Small Wars & Insurgencies, 22:5, pp. 742-763, 2011. 22 Tracy Knott, “Dead Drug Boss ‘Sainted’ in Mexico,” InSight Crime, July 12, 2012, http://www.insightcrime.org/newsbriefs/dead-drug-boss-sainted-in-mexico. 23 Robert Bunker. “Mexican Cartel Tactical Note #13: Man Crucified in Michoacán, Mexico,” Small Wars JournalEl Centro, September 10, 2012, http:// smallwarsjournal.com/blog/mexicancartel-tactical-note-13-man-crucified-inmichoacán-mexico. 24 Logan and Sullivan, “Mexico’s ‘Divine Justice.’” 25 “Memorandum: Sabritas Attacks,” Southern Pulse, May 30, 2012. 26 Logan and Sullivan, “Mexico’s ‘Divine Justice.’”

The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013 57


Palestinian Cognitive Warfare

Counter The

The sun sets on another day in Gaza while the skyline burned. Photo: Al Jazeera English

58 The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013


By Richard Landes

Cognitive Warfare (CW) is the art of getting a more powerful enemy to choose to unilaterally disarm. Ron Schliefer described its goal as, “convincing your enemies to be pacifists and your own side to be patriots.” 1

"I

n essence,” writes Stuart Green, author of a seminal work on the subject, “cognitive warriors seek to shatter their enemies’ wills rather than their abilities to fight.”2 While such goals might a priori seem absurd, especially

for a very weak and very aggressive foe with a highly destructive agenda, in reality, over the last twelve years, global jihadists have had remarkable success in their CW as compared with the West, especially in matters where direct violence is not involved (e.g., the “public sphere” —journalism, academia, diplomacy, and law).

In unrestricted warfare, terror constitutes a tactic not for victory on the kinetic battlefield, but for better position in the cognitive theater of war. To focus entirely on the agents of terror, without paying attention to the coordination with cognitive warriors, is to be fooled by the magician’s misdirection. Yet, for a variety of reasons, the democratic West (modern and post-modern), has failed to pay attention to the more critical cognitive theater of war—at least for the time being—a battlefield where we are

The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013 59


Civilians under attack? Photo: Henri Bergius

at a disadvantage and continue to lose ground. On a strategic level, cognitive warriors exploit the following democratic vulnerabilities: • Reluctance to go to, or sustain, war: Despite their powerful armies, democratic societies so prefer non-military solutions that they can be dissuaded from using force (e.g., in stopping Iran from developing nuclear weapons), and persuaded to discontinue military endeavors (e.g., Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan). • Open public sphere and a propensity to public self-criticism: Democratic openness to critical claims, especially in the age of video communications with its powerful images, makes the public vulnerable

to images of their own society’s cruelty (especially to civilians) without accurate context, rendering even winnable wars unpopular. Thus, accusers can try to turn their enemy’s high moral standards against them. • Human rights and respect for minorities: Democratic commitments to human rights permit cognitive warriors to present themselves as moderates and demand the most stringent protections for their side according principles they flatly reject where others are concerned. The dysfunctional relationship created by those who legitimate these demands without any counter-demand for reciprocity produces lopsided victories for the enemies of civil society. • Reluctance to resort to violence,

60 The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013

especially in civil settings: Democratic renunciation of public violence makes Westerners reluctant to see a causus belli,3 offering a key dimension in the battle for position. Warriors who will use violence as a first resort (e.g. terror), empower their cognitive counterparts, false “moderates” who in turn protect them from exposure. Threats and violence against designated targets, intimidate others, forcing them to appease demands that systematically favor the attacker’s position and disfavor the position of a stronger, but pacifically-inclined, foe. All of these (and more) represent inherent vulnerabilities of any democratic nation, in the present case, “Western” ones. In the twenty-first century, these vulnerabilities have been exploited into


NTOA is The leAdiNg prOfessiONAl OrgANizATiON serviNg The lAw eNfOrcemeNT speciAl OperATiONs cOmmuNiTy N T OA m e m b e r b e N e f i T s : •

The Tactical Edge

• Member

Award-winning Publication •

Digital Library

Exceptional Training

Online Discussion Forums

Tested Program

Resource Library

Educational Scholarships

Annual Conference Scholarships

Discounted Tuition

• Scenario

Members-only Web site

File Sharing Area Online

Database

Networking Opportunities

Become a memBer at www.ntoa.org

National Tactical Officers Association PO Box 797, Doylestown, PA 18901 | 800-279-9127 Circle 222 on Reader Service Card

Circle 222 on Reader Service Card

The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013 61


potentially fatal weaknesses. Every virtue identified here—openness, self-criticism, rejection of violence, respect for the rights of the “other” — represent some of the finest and most valuable aspects of modern Western society. Indeed, they are necessary if we are to sustain a civil culture (Western or not). But, we also need to understand how they appear to an enemy determined to destroy that civility and replace it with a deeply regressive theocratic dominance—something any society that hopes for fairness must reject. Far from jettisoning such virtues as inconvenient baggage, I think that, were the spokespeople who dominate our public sphere right now to show courage and commitment to these values, not only for us, but to demand reciprocity from our foes, these “vulnerabilities” might well turn into vital strengths. There are two campaigns of cognitive warfare that illustrate the problem. Palestinians have conducted an enormously successful cognitive warfare campaign against Israel, especially since the outbreak of the Second Intifada (Oslo Terror Campaign) that began in late 2000. This Palestinian victory is relevant to a larger, spectacularly successful, campaign conducted by global Islamists against the democratic West at the same time. In both cases, manipulation of Western mainstream news media is the center of gravity of these cognitive offensives.

Pallywood and al Durah Palestinian opposition to Israel has always contained a powerful dimension of jihad against a dhimmi people—the Jews under Islam—who had the nerve to want to “be a free people in their land.” Such a development was intolerable, especially

Circle 178 on Reader Service Card

62 The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013

when the land they claimed existed in the heart of Dar al Islam. This dimension of the conflict, long ignored by Westerners who often see it as a largely secular struggle over territory and sovereignty, has only increased since the resurgence of global jihad (1979/1400 AH), and the foundation of Hamas (1988), with their frank adherence to the most irredentist view of the “sacred trust” of Palestine.4 Faced with overwhelming Israeli military strength, Islamists, still maintaining the absolutist rejection of Israel, turned increasingly to cognitive war.

Tactics involved: • Framing the narrative as Israel, the colonialist-imperialist mega-power with links to international Jewry and America, against the tiny Palestinian resistance: The Palestinian David against the Israeli Goliath. • Create “lethal narratives” —with the help of video—that accuse Israel of deliberately murdering innocent civilians, preferably children, to both stimulate the desire for revenge among Muslims and justify even the most violent “resistance” to outside, third parties. • Suppress negative own-side coverage among Western journalists through cutting off access, intimidation, violence, and alliance with causes journalists display empathy for (e.g., “social justice”) • Spread the most virulent antiZionist memes —apartheid, Nazi-like, genocidal—among receptive audiences in the West. • Fire weapons at Israeli civilians from Palestinian civilian areas, trying to draw return fire that will kill some own-side civilians, thus producing material for more “lethal narratives.” • Use every Israeli military campaign against such violence as an opportunity to spread further lethal narratives along with memes of the victimization of innocent


Muslims, the cowardice of “moderate” Muslim rulers, and guilt by association of any “ally” of Israel—US, Europe. One of the most effective elements of CW is the mainstreaming of lethal narratives against Israel. This particular dimension of the warfare at once depends on the cooperation of key Western cultural figures and institutions, and has the added bonus (for the cognitive warriors on the attacking side) of weakening the broader culture of freedom of speech and press that these Western players collectively benefit from and allegedly defend. Given Israel’s moral claims on the world community in the wake of the Holocaust, she has a particularly vulnerable place in that community, and Palestinians and other Arab sources have deployed lethal narratives against Israel. Sometimes this has worked to their disadvantage,5 but more recently they have had singular success. This approach proved especially fruitful after 1967, when the conflict could be framed as Israeli Goliath vs. Palestinian David, and journalists sympathetic to an underdog could reason, “Israel has all the weapons, we can level the playing field by giving the PR victory to the Palestinians.”6 Indeed, the press’ sympathy for Palestinian claims, especially from the Lebanese civil war onwards (1975-1982), created a news cycle that went from reporting Palestinian accusations as news, to slow and eventual disproof, to silence. In journalistic terms, the modus operandi was: believe the Palestinians until proven wrong; distrust the Israelis until proven right; and when that happens, fall silent until the next cycle.7 American forces have experienced similar in Iraq and Afghanistan. This pattern became so successful, that during the first Intifada, it produced a new “national” cinema, Pallywood, in

which the shebab (street youth) played resistance for the journalists and their cameramen. The raw footage was then cut down into believable sight-bytes and strung together with a narrative that consistently drove home the IsraeliGoliath/Palestinian-David framing of the story. Whether improvised B-roll of phony injuries and staged ambulance evacuations, or staged footage around real tragedies like Gaza Beach, Pallywood provided constant material for a Western

news media eager to show footage of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and (somewhat less explicably) eager for footage that cast Israel in the role of villain (i.e., lethal narratives). The best way to understand how this works may be to examine a single example: the case of Muhammad al Durah. On September 30, 2000, France2 TV News, at the prompting of their longtime Middle East correspondent, Israeli citizen Charles Enderlin, ran the story of the death of a twelve-year-old Palestinian boy at Netzarim Junction in Gaza— “the target of fire coming from the Israeli position.”8 Caught on film

in six short, out-of-focus ten-second clips of the allegedly hour-long drama, as reported by Enderlin, accepted the narrative recounted to him by his cameraman of twelve years, Talal abu Rahmah. This constitutes a classic example of a lethal narrative: not that the boy was “caught in a crossfire,” but, in the words uttered under oath by Talal, the primary witness, “in cold blood.”9 Indeed, without the lethal narrative about deliberate murder of a defenseless child, this story would not have had anywhere near the same impact that it, in fact, did.10 Anyone examining this footage, familiar with the workings of Pallywood should have had major suspicions about the veracity of the narrative. Although few outsiders had a clue about this pervasive staging, someone like Charles Enderlin and his bosses in Paris would have known about it.11 Indeed, this particular footage bears extensive indices of staging from start to finish, both in the evidence we have12 and the evidence we don’t have.13 The French court that saw Talal abu Rahmah wrote some scathing passages about Enderlin’s dereliction as a journalist in its rejection of his defamation suit against Philippe Karsenty in 2007.14 While some of these observations only became clear later, there was more than enough evidence to question both the broad story—boy gunned down by Israelis—and its weaponization—coldblooded murder. And yet, not only did the news media run with this story, they corroborated it with amateurish forensic observations.15 In other words, a lethal narrative, concocted of whole cloth, designed to tar Israel with the most heinous crime of the deliberate murder of a defenseless Palestinian youth crying for mercy, entered the mainstream information circulation system as verified news.

The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013 63


From the perspective of cognitive warfare, the al Durah episode can be likened to the explosion of a dirty (atomic) bomb whose poisoning radiation continues to weaken us. The explosion occurred on three different fields of the cognitive theater of war: Muslim, Western, and Israeli. In the Muslim world, it aroused the anger and indignation of Muslims the world over. Israeli Arabs, in an unprecedented event, poured into the streets and rioted for days; Osama bin Laden used the image for a global recruiting video, calling on Muslims everywhere to avenge the death of this child by whose murder Israel tried to “kill every child in the world”; Pakistani Jihadis produced a video of their execution of the Jew, journalist Daniel Pearl, with the image of al Durah for background. The al Durah “icon of hatred” entered the public and educational systems not merely of Israel’s neighbors, but Islamist nations as far afield as Iran and Mali.16 In the West, and especially in Europe, the video had an electrifying effect: Demonstrations all over the world denounced Israel. Leftist groups, like International ANSWER and International Solidarity Movement, aggressively promoted the image of Palestinian victimhood and merciless Israeli oppression.17 The image of the Israeli David crushing the Palestinian Goliath, already widely accepted in media circles,18 became set in stone. Arafat rode high on widespread approval of his turn to a terror war.19 At the same time, the video had a paralyzing effect on the Zionist camp. Those in the peace camp called up their dialogue partners to apologize, only to have their Palestinian friends tell them the dialogue was over; those defending Israel found themselves shouted down; and those critical of Israel used the story to

Avenue Al Qoods in central Bamako, Mali, Africa. The painting in the foreground portraits the Muhammad al-Durrah incident. Photo: PetterLundkvist blacken the IDF’s name and push harder for concessions to the Palestinians.20 Even the Israeli government found it nearly impossible to fight the accusations, squelching any effort on the part of people who questioned the evidence that Israel had even killed the child, much less that they had done it on purpose.21 Indeed, the al Durah episode set the seal on years of future apologies and concessions by Israeli spokespeople in the face of accusations of murder and mayhem.22 At the same time, it set in motion a wide range of denunciations of Israel by “alter-juifs,” Jews who had previously not so identified publicly, but now felt bound “as-a-Jew” to condemn Israel for its despicable deeds.23

Palestinian Cognitive Warfare in Open War with the Israelis By the end of the decade, the pattern of cognitive warfare established so

64 The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013

powerfully in 2000 had become almost routine: Jeremy Bowen of the BBC laid out the issues on the first day of Operation Cast Lead (December 27, 2008): “Israel always has one eye on what’s going on and another eye on international reaction ... they have a certain amount of time to act to achieve what they want to achieve before international pressure on them stops [them] because of the pressure on [them for killing] civilians...”24 To that end, one Gazan described Hamas’ approach to Italian journalist Lorenzo Cremesoni: The Hamas militants looked for good places to provoke the Israelis. They were usually youths, 16 or 17 years old, armed with submachine guns. They couldn’t do anything against a tank or jet. They knew they were much weaker. But they wanted the [Israelis] to shoot at the [the civilians’] houses so they could accuse them of more war crimes [italics added].25


With the compliance of Western media, any violent Israeli reaction to the Palestinians (or Hezbollah), turned into a win-win for the “weak side.” As long as they kept the attacks on Israeli citizens below a certain threshold, they did so with impunity. If they provoked open conflict, they could, at the cost of some of their own civilians, gain enormous points in the broader delegitimization of Israel. In the case of Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, for example, international outrage was fueled both by real incidents (Samouni clan, Dr. Abuelaish’s daughters) and stories invented out of whole cloth (Al Fakhoura UN School, Abd Rabbo Family).26 By the end of the threeweek campaign, the misinformation had become the main story, and the UN Human Rights Council appointed four people to head a commission, allegedly to look into these claims, but apparently, given the composition of the panel, to render them legal and binding as accusations of war crimes and crimes against humanity.27 The “Goldstone Report,” working from the principle that “it would be cruel not to believe Palestinian claims,” basically rubberstamped the lethal narratives proffered by the NGOs and the news media, despite the fact that the vast majority of the claims were unsubstantiated. In other words, the Hamas strategy of firing on Israeli civilians until Israel struck back, then hiding behind their own civilians to maximize casualties at the hands of Israelis, gave them a spectacular victory in the international arena. In response to both lawfare and the threat of lawfare based on these accusations, modern army commanders consult with international lawyers before formulating strategy.28 Of course, such strategies would backfire if reportage covered the way in which Hamas used civilians as shields,

and the risks and casualties that Israeli soldiers suffered in trying not to kill enemy civilians while fighting an embedded Hamas.29 This cannibalistic strategy of bringing harm to their own civilians could only work if the news media not only emphasized the endemic suffering of the Palestinians (to the point of absurdity30), but also, and in accordance with the insistence of the Palestinian leadership that contributes so much to that suffering, the media blame Israel. In his report on the al Durah story, Bob Simon noted, that “in the Middle East, one picture is worth a thousand weapons.” Apparently Simon, who demonstrated in the report his willingness to recycle Pallywood material even without the deadlines of the daily news cycle, approves.31 After all, recycling lethal narratives permits journalists to “level the playing field,” and thereby play a crucial role in the conflict. Ironically, however, they purchase their crucial role in the conflict at the cost of perpetuating it. Instead of supporting the Palestinian people, they support the very leadership that continues, now for over sixty years, to sacrifice the people on the altar of their desire to revenge lost honor. Rather than champions of the weak, the mainstream news media become “useful infidels” for some of the most regressive forces on the planet.32 The long-term consequences of this Western and Israeli inability to resist these lethal narratives have been the remarkable circulation in the West (albeit in disguised secular form) of a Muslim apocalyptic scenario in which Israel is the Dajjal (antichrist), the source of all the problems, the player whose elimination will bring peace. The most bizarre aspect of this accomplishment on the part of the jihadi cognitive warriors is that the ultimate target of their apocalyptic Circle 305 on Reader Service Card

The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013 65


narrative is the very Westerners who have adopted it in its disguised form. If the “normal” dynamic of apocalyptic time is: “one person’s messiah is the other’s antichrist,”33 the post-modern approach has given us the remarkably self-destructive: “your antichrist is my antichrist, even if that means me.”

about the author Dr. Landes is a professor at Boston University. He is author of Heaven on Earth: The Varieties of the Millennial Experience (Oxford 2011) and co-editor of Paranoid Apocalypse: A HundredYear Retrospective on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (NYU, 2011), his upcoming book is entitled They’re so Smart Cause We’re so Stupid. His documentaries are available at: www. seconddraft.org/index.php?option=com_co ntent&view=category&layout=blog&id= 58&Itemid=159

Endnotes Schliefer’s work on the subject includes Psychological Warfare in the Intifada: Israeli and Palestinian Media Politics and Military Strategies (Sussex University Press, 2006), and Perspectives of Psychological Operations (PSYOP) in Contemporary Conflicts: Essays in Winning Hearts and Minds (Sussex University Press, 2011). 2 Stuart Green, Cognitive Warfare, Thesis (Washington DC: Joint Military Intelligence College, 2007), p. 86; online: http://www.scribd.com/doc/20459296/ Stuart-Green-LTC-USN-CognitiveWarfare-02-July-2008-Final. Anyone interested in cognitive warfare needs to read this thesis. 3 On the psycho-cultural dimensions of this crucial issue, see Muslims and Westerners: Nicolai Sennels’ work, summarized in “The Psychological Differences,” The New English 1

66 The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013

Review (May 2010): http://www. newenglishreview.org/Nicolai_Sennels/ Muslims_and_Westerners%3A__The_ Psychological_Differences/. 4 On the resistance to the “Jihad” version of history among the guardians of the public sphere: according to Benny Morris, when he wrote 1948, the publisher, who had solicited it, refused to publish because it moved from a secular explanation to a religious one for the war against Israel. On the revival of apocalyptic Jihad in 1400 Annus Hijra, see Landes, Heaven on Earth: The Varieties of the Millennial Experience (New York: Oxford, 2011), chapter 14. 5 Most famously, claims of Israeli massacres embroidered with tales of rape at Deir Yassin, designed to make Israel look bad in the international community actually fueled the Arab exodus that swelled the ranks of Palestinian refugees. For the 1997 BBC interview of the

Circle 233 on Reader Service Card


head of Arabic Desk of the Palestine News Service in 1948, see http://www. youtube.com/watch?v=72Ata-hY9WQ. For a Zionist analysis of this episode, see Maurice Ostroff, “Big Lies that cause untold miseries,” Second Thoughts: http:// www.2nd-thoughts.org/deir_yassin. html. For the other side, see Matthew Hogan’s dismissal of the evidence that the rapes were made up: “The 1948 Massacre at Deir Yassin Revisited,” Deir Yassin Remembered (2001): http://www. deiryassin.org/mh2001.html. 6 Some openly and sympathetically referred to their atrocity accusations as “the weapons of the weak.” 7 The pattern is laid out in detail by Rafael Israeli in a book about an alleged poisoning of Palestinian schoolgirls in Jenin in 1983: Poison: Modern Manifestations of a Blood Libel (Lexington Books, 2002). 8 See Enderlin’s own version of

its broadcast in Un enfant est mort: Netzarim, Septembre 30, 2000 (Paris: Don Quichotte editions, 2010), p. 4. For the most extensive study of the al Durah case with the primary sources available for viewing, see Landes, “The Al Durah Affair,” Second Draft: http://www. seconddraft.org/index.php?option=com_ content&view=article&id=62&Item id=80. 9 Robert Fisk, “Where ‘Caught in the Crossfire’ Can Leave No Room for Doubt,” The Independent, October 2, 2000. 10 See Nidra Poller, “Enderlin, Charles. Un enfant est mort [a child is dead] / Netzarim, 30 September 2000,” SPME Archives, 7280, October 2010: http:// spme.net/cgi-bin/articles.cgi?ID=7280. For an excellent study of the impact on this picture in eliciting a profound empathy, see Tamar Liebes and Anat First, “Framing the Palestinian Israeli

Conflict,” in Framing Terrorism: The News Media, the Government and the Public, ed. P. Norris et al. (New York and London: Routledge, 2003), ch. 4. 11 When, in viewing the raw footage of France2’s cameraman Talal abu Rahmah from that day and having someone mention the extensive staged footage, both Enderlin and his superior in Paris remarked variants of “oh, they do that all the time.” Landes, “Conversations with Charles Enderlin,” September 24, 2007: http://www.theaugeanstables. com/2007/09/24/conversations-aveccharles-enderlin/; “RCJ Interview with Leconte and Jeambar, February 1, 2005,” Augean Stables, September 18, 2007, http://www.theaugeanstables. com/2007/09/18/background-on-therushes-interview-with-jeambar-andleconte/. 12 The three identifiable bullets to hit the wall overhead come from the

8th

Counter IED TRAINING FORUM Identifying and Eliminating the IED Threat: Risks at Home and Abroad January 28-30, 2013 | Washington, D.C

IDGA’s flagship 8th annual Counter IED Training Forum returns in 2013 with a focus on the withdrawal from the Middle East. It will investigate and display the IED community in a post-Iraq/Afghanistan world as the fight develops on our shores and those of our allied nations. FEATURED SPEAKERS INCLUDE: •

Colonel Santiago San Antonio, Director, Counter Improvised Explosive Devices COE NATO

Captain Joseph Polanin, USN, Commanding Officer, Navy School of Ordnance Disposal

Pablo Esteban Parra Gallego Project Manager, Presidential Program for Mine Action Colombia Mine-Action Center

Lisa Albuquerque Program Manager, Naval Expeditionary Dog Program, ONR

For more information visit www.CounterIEDSummit.com/CT Limited spaces available. Circle 115 on Reader Service Card

Civil Defense, new from Liberty Ammuni5on, world leader in high performance lead-­‐free ammuni5on.

Customized from the US Military, now available for US law enforcement and personal defense in limited quan55es.

!"#$%#&'()"*+,")*Weight (gr) Velocity (FPS) Kinetic Energy (FPE) Terminal Effect Penetration Fragmentation Accuracy (@ 25 mtrs) Lead Free

Available at Circle 231 on Reader Service Card

*.// 50 >2000 >450 >5” 12” >7 pieces <2” 100%

*01+23 60 >2000 >500 >5” 12” >7 pieces <2” 100%

*0456!! 78 >1900 >600 >5” 12” >7 pieces <2” 100%

WWW.LIBERTYAMMO.COM (727 ) 239-7252 The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013 67


Palestinian side, not the Israeli; there is no clear sign of blood from an alleged massive stomach wound either in the footage or the day after; the boy, even after he is pronounced dead by Enderlin, moves slowly and deliberately; the boy in the hospital pictures is not Muhammad al Durah. For an extensive analysis of the evidence, see the dossier at The Second Draft: http://www.seconddraft.org/index. php?option=com_content&view=article &id=62&Itemid=80. 13 No ambulance evacuation footage, none of arrival in hospital, no bullets from eleven alleged wounds. 14 Court decision, October 19, 2006, English translation: http://www. theaugeanstables.com/al-durah-affair-thedossier/courts-decision-in-the-karsentycase/. 15 Suzanne Goldenberg, of the Guardian, observed that the Israelis must have been targeting the boy since a dozen bullet holes cluster around the wall where they sat, without noting that a) they all have direct entry trajectories indicating non-Israeli provenance, and b) they do are far too few to confirm Talal’s eyewitness description of “bullets like rain” for “more than 40 minutes.” Suzanne Goldenberg, meanwhile, concludes on the forensic evidence that the boy was targeted: “Boy’s death stokes up battle for Jerusalem,” The Guardian, October 2, 2000. 16 See Landes, Icon of Hatred, http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=eXPx5faFA_A. 17 ANSWER’s website features a collage of the picture of al Durah together with the one of the boy from the Warsaw Ghetto, http://www.iacenter. org/Palestine/palestinian_resist.htm; Adam Rose, in response to evidence the Israelis did not kill the boy, invoked the “higher truth” of Israeli victimization of

Palestinians: “The Truth of Muhammad al Durah: A Response to James Fallows,” 2003, http://www.supportsanity. org/articles/the%20truth%20of%20 mohammed%20al-dura%20article.htm. 18 See the coverage from the previous day in which AP and the NYT recaptioned a photo of an Israeli beaten by rioting Arabs and protected by an Israeli border guard into a Palestinian beaten by that border guard: Landes, “Black Hearts, Red Spades,” Augean Stables, April 10, 2006, http://www. theaugeanstables.com/2006/04/10/blackhearts-and-red-spades-the-media-getsthe-intifada-wrong/. 19 Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff, Hamilchamah ha-Shevi’it [The Seventh War], (Tel Aviv, 2004), p. 14. 20 B’tselem, whose determination to highlight every possible infraction of Palestinian rights by Israelis, to bring an end to the occupation, has made them especially vulnerable to Palestinian false accusations, still counts Al Durah as killed by the Israelis, http://old.btselem. org/statistics/english/Casualties_Data.asp? Category=13&region=GAZA&sD=29&s M=09&sY=2000&eD=26&eM=12&eY= 2008&filterby=event&oferet_stat=before. 21 When I first started my investigation of al Durah in 2003, I met a major Israeli journalist who told me “100% the Israelis killed him.” 22 The passive approach to Israeli hasbarah during the intifadah. See Stephanie Gutman, The Other War: Israel, the Palestinians and the Battle for the Media (San Francisco: Encounter, 2000). 23 Les Alter-juifs, ed. Shmuel Trigano, special issue of Controverses 4 (2007). 24 The Second Draft, http://seconddraft. org/index.php?option=com_content &view=article&id=650%3Aday-1-tvnews&catid=88&Itemid=279. 25 Lorenzo Cremesoni, “Doubts on the

68 The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013

Number of Victims: Could be 600 rather than 1300,” Il Corriere della Sera, January 21, 2009, English translation, http:// www.theaugeanstables.com/2009/01/28/ cremonesi-article-in-english/. 26 See the collection of material available at Understanding the Goldstone Report, Case Studies, http://goldstonereport.org/ case-study. 27 The Goldstone Report “Reconsidered”: A Critical Analysis, ed. G. Steinberg and A. Herzberg (Jerusalem: NGO Monitor, 2011). 28 See Anne Herzberg, “Lawfare Against Israel,” Wall Street Journal, November 5, 2008, http://online.wsj.com/article/ SB122583394143998285.html. 29 See the BBC interview with Richard Kemp (http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=WssrKJ3Iqcw), in which he makes precisely this point. No sooner does Kemp make the claim that Israel has the best record in the world in sparing enemy civilians, than the reporter shuts him down, claiming that there’s no more time. The parting promise to get back to him was never fulfilled. 30 Lauren Booth in Gaza, http:// hurryupharry.org/2008/09/12/laurenbooth-in-gaza/. 31 See Landes, Pallywood, http://www. youtube.com/watch?v=t_B1H-1opys. 32 On “useful infidels,” see Landes, “From Useful Idiot to Useful Infidel: Meditations on the Folly of 21st Century ‘Intellectuals,’” Intellectuals and Terror: the Fatal Attraction, ed. Anna Geifman and Helena Rimon, special issue of the journal Terrorism and Political Violence, Routledge (forthcoming). 33 Landes, Heaven on Earth, chap. 1.


Innovative Products Victory Boot This boot is made from components made in the USA: Velcro safety fasteners, 3M Thinsulate, and YKK Zippers. SSI Tactical Gear crafted a boot intended to allow full flexibility and light-weight performance. The sole is cut deep to give traction on any surface. It is made from 1,000 Dernier Nylon Cordura with a breathable antibacterial lining for all-weather resistance and provides a leather "tactipocket" on the side. www.ssitacticalgear.com

Government Identity Management System The system is designed to verify the identity of individuals before granting access to secure facilities. The cardholder enters a PIN which accesses data from the card's smart chip including an embedded photo. Further verification of identity is done by a fingerprint reader. All data collected is sent to a server-based certificate validation protocol to confirm that the individual's access privileges are current. The system integrates the results directly into a facility's access control system permitting specific rights and restrictions. www.homelandsecurityssi.com

ETA Trauma Kit A pull on the red handle filets open the pouch to provide immediate access to your medical components. The kit can be delivered containing: QuikClot Combat Gauze LE (1), HALO Chest Seals (2), MojoDart Decompression Needle (1), Naso Airway Adj. 28fr with Surgilube (1), Israeli Bandage (1–4"), Ace Bandage (1–4"), Z-Pak Gauze (1), Combat Casualty Card (1), Nitrile Gloves (1 Pair), pencil (1) and Tactical Combat Casualty Care instructions (1). www.itstactical.com The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013 69


Counter

advertiser index

The

DEC 2012/JAN 2013

Volume 5 • Number 6

Journal for Law Enforcement, Intelligence & Special Operations Professionals To request detailed product information, circle the appropriate reader service number (RSN) on the attached Reader Service Card. The card is self-addressed and includes postage. For more information on all of our advertisers and advertising opportunities, please visit our website at: www.thecounterterroristmag.com/advertising.asp Individual advertisers’ websites are also provided below for your convenience.

Page

Ad/Company • website and/or email........................................................................................................ RSN Number

14 37 75 42 22 36 18 13 65 41 7 47 76 51 62 28 54 25 23 27 39 50 67 50 55 29 43 3 67 66 26 16 12 17 61 53 14 42 44 40 71 19 45 35 30-31 11 52 15 4 74 2 57 10

7th Annual Border Security Expo• www.bordersecurityexpo.com...................................................................... 103 Adams Industries• www.adamsindustries.com...................................................................................................... 308 American Technologies Network• www.atncorp.com....................................................................................... 312 ARA Pointman • www.atncorp.com...................................................................................................................... 256 Center for Rural Development • www.ruraltraining.org..................................................................................... 265 Cobra Software - Preparation for Suicide/Homicide Bomber course • www.cobrafirstresponder.com....... 273 Controlled F.O.R.C.E. • www.controlledforce.com................................................................................................. 247 Counter Terror Expo • www.counterterrorexpo.com/TCTM1................................................................................. 267 Cyalume Technologies Inc. • www.cyalume.com................................................................................................ 305 Drakontas • www.drakontas.com.......................................................................................................................... 307 DSG Arms • www.dsgarms.com............................................................................................................................. 275 Elite K9 Inc. • www.elitek9.com............................................................................................................................. 279 Energizer • www.hardcasetactical.com................................................................................................................... 209 Enterprise LPR • www.platesmart.com................................................................................................................... 125 Federal Eastern International • www.fedeastintl.com......................................................................................... 178 G Squared Consulting • www.thorshield.com...................................................................................................... 97 George Washington University • www.nearyou.gwu.edu/ssl............................................................................ 283 Golden Engineering • www.goldenengineering.com............................................................................................. 83 Golight Inc • www.golight.com.............................................................................................................................. 285 Heat Armor • www.heat-armor.com...................................................................................................................... 175 Icor Technology • www.icortechnology.com.......................................................................................................... 81 IDGA 10th Tactical Power Sources Summit • www.tacticalpowersourcessummit.com........................................ 148 IDGA 8th Counter IED Training Forum • www.counterIEDsummit.com/CT......................................................... 115 IDGA Military Sustainment Summit • www.militarysustainmentsummit.com....................................................... 168 InfraTech • www.greenivative.com.......................................................................................................................... 309 International Military Helicopter Conference • www.militaryhelicpterevent.com............................................. 146 K9 Cop Magazine • www.k9copmagazine.com.................................................................................................... 277 Lenco Industries Inc. • www.swattrucks.com........................................................................................................ 13 Liberty Ammunition Inc • www.libertyammo.com............................................................................................... 231 MATEN • www.mega-arms.com.............................................................................................................................. 233 Mattracks • www.mattracks.com............................................................................................................................ 297 Mid-Michigan Kennels Inc. • www.midmichigankennels.com.............................................................................. 174 Military1.com • www.military1.com...................................................................................................................... 335 NEMO Arms • www.nemoarms.com...................................................................................................................... 237 NTOA • www.ntoa.org........................................................................................................................................... 222 Patriot3 • www.patriot3.com.................................................................................................................................. 301 PoliceTraining.net • www.policetraining.net......................................................................................................... 191 Reconyx • www.reconyx.com................................................................................................................................. 303 Southern New Hampshire University • www.snhu.edu................................................................................... 111 Southern Police Equipment • www.southernpoliceequipment.com....................................................................... 343 SSI Advanced Training in Israel • www.homelandsecurityssi.com....................................................................... 215 SSI Elevated Tactics Training • www.homelandsecurityssi.com............................................................................ 313 SSI PVBs • www.ssipvb.com................................................................................................................................... 226 SSI Visitor Management System • www.homelandsecurityssi.com/products....................................................... 295 SSI's Victory boot • www.ssitacticalgear.com........................................................................................................ 291 Sturm, Ruger & Co. • www.ruger.com/lc9........................................................................................................... 347 Tactical Medics International • www.tacticalmedics.com.................................................................................... 89 Tactical Products Group Inc. • www.tacprogear.com.......................................................................................... 101 Tex Shield Inc • info@tex-shield.com..................................................................................................................... 29 The SESOLINC Group • www.sesolinc.com........................................................................................................... 239 Thermo Scientific • www.thermoscientific.com/mil-chemID..................................................................................... 254 Trident Consulting Group • www.tridentconsultinggroup.com.............................................................................. 99 Zistos Corp • sales@zistos.com.............................................................................................................................. 311

70 The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013


The Advanced Global Security Workshop in

Israel SSI

®

SECURITY SOLUTIONS INTERNATIONAL

The experts on training in:

the Homeland Security professionals best resource

Since 2005, SSI has taken nearly 500 First Responders to Israel and shown them the basics of the Israel security concept. Thanks in part to that program, we are better able to defend ourselves in the United States. In response to demand, we are now offering a once-in-a-lifetime experience covering the following advanced subjects:

May 17-25,

2013

Hezbollah - a threat as deadly as al-Qaeda - Learn about them in their own territory, along Israel’s northern border. Hostage Rescue - Discover how they go wrong. Hospital Response - Find out how Israel’s critical response hospitals handle surge and multi-casualty incidents. Israel Counter Terrorism units - Learn how they operate. Israel National Police - National Academy; See how they train? Sensitive Installations - Participate in a day-long exercise and training program in how to set up a complete security system. Secret Israel Homeland Security Simulator - See how this works at a base south of Tel Aviv.

Stay in Haifa, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and visit some of the most amazing sites! Register now if you are US Military, a Homeland Security Professional, a Security Professional, an EMS, or an EMT.

www.homelandsecurityssi.com

LEARN MORE at: Call now for more information. Circle 215 on Reader Service Card

Phone: 866-573-3999 Fax: 866-573-2090 info@homelandsecurityssi.com Circle 50 on Reader Service Card Circle 215 on Reader Service Card

SSI

®

SECURITY SOLUTIONS INTERNATIONAL

Protecting the Homeland Together ®

The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013 71


Training Review

RKI Vehicle Dynamics

W

hether you are a law enforcement agent, a personal security specialist, or a special operations soldier, driving skills are critically important to operations. I have been fortunate enough to attend several high-performance driving courses over the course of my career and I recently had the opportunity to conduct driver training with RKI. Don Barrack and the RKI instructors brought years of racing experience and instructional experience to the table.

Day One Training began in the classroom. The instructors started by encouraging students to use optimal body position while driving. We discussed braking. The instructors emphasized that threshold braking was the fastest method of stopping the vehicle while retaining steering under most circumstances. We were told that the fastest way to stop in deep sand or gravel was to lock the brakes. We also discussed efficient footwork and were encouraged to place the heel in line with the right side of the gas pedal and to pivot toes to the brake with the heel in place when braking. In high-performance driving, traction has to be budgeted between braking and steering. We discussed recovering from going off road by coming off the gas and making small steering inputs in situations of understeer and oversteer. The instructors emphasized that understeer resulted in the front tires skidding and to recover by easing off the gas. Oversteer would result in a rear tire skid, which would require coming off the gas, counter

By Chris Graham steering, and looking at the target you wanted to drive toward. Practical exercises were conducted in Ford Crown Victorias on a closed track. We took some warm-up laps and learned the track and began to practice line selection, looking for the optimum route on the track and specific markers to hit that would get us the most beneficial path of travel. After our warm-up, we practiced skid control and counter steering on a wet skid pan. We also practiced threshold braking and braking while steering through unevenly spaced cones in a serpentine, the objective being to drive through as fast as possible. The instructors taught us to focus on looking at where we wanted to go, not at the cone we wanted to avoid, and to control weight transfer. After these exercises, we received a lecture on fully armored vehicles. We practiced driving from the passenger seat after the driver had been incapacitated. We then took some laps at night on white light and drove an NVG course in Nissan Frontiers with PVS-14s.

Day Two The second day’s instruction commenced with a discussion of equipment. We discussed tire pressure and the optimum PSI for different performance preferences. We then talked about the contribution of good shock absorbers and brake pads. The instructors emphasized the importance of quality equipment such as carbon Kevlar pads for high-performance driving. The discussion then turned to driving conditions. We talked about line selection

72 The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013

for street lines when there is oncoming traffic to consider. The instructors discussed straddling the centerline into the turn and warned of the dangers of letting oncoming traffic see you enter their lane, but that it is okay for them to see you exiting their lane. We took laps with oncoming traffic added, backed at speed using the mirrors and focusing on objects on the horizon. We negotiated reverse serpentines and made Y- turns We received a class on PITing (using the precision immobilization technique) and we practiced these skills on the track PITing other vehicles. We also discussed defenses against PITing. In addition, we received a class on ramming and practiced ramming through roadblocks, including ramming through both the front and the back end of vehicles arranged as a roadblock. Finally, we took laps in heavy, fully-armored vehicles forward and in reverse. We also practiced PITing other vehicles on the track.

Day Three On the third day of instruction, we practiced immediate action drills. The drills included exercises with teams operating in multiple vehicles. In the morning we practiced tactics including “drive through” and “push out,” as well as bailouts and vehicle evacuations. In the afternoon, we practiced these skills with role-players and pyrotechnics.

Day Four On day four we received a class on manual transmissions, such as those common on Third World vehicles, in the event that it was necessary to


Crown Victoria under attack. Photo courtesy of RKI. commandeer a car or truck. We discussed double clutching; clutching first to neutral then clutching again from neutral to second. We also talked about shifting without a clutch—applying gas and moving the stick toward second gear, pressuring the stick while decelerating until the speed was right, and allowing gears to match up for shifting. We then practiced the various shifting techniques in the Nissan Frontiers on the track, changing gears without the clutch, both upshifting and downshifting. We also practiced starting the engine in gear without a functional clutch. In addition to our discussions on using equipment, we discussed unimproved roads and cornering and lines on a surface that might pile such as snow and sand. We drove serpentines on unimproved surfaces, in both two-wheel-drive and four-wheel-drive vehicles. We also had

the opportunity to take a blind track in four-wheel-drive at our best speed.

Day Five The final day was the off road course. We negotiated challenging obstacles in our Frontiers using the logic, “slow as possible, fast as necessary” for vehicle preservation. Crawling over some of the obstacles, it was necessary to add brakes to inhibit the free spinning tire and get power while the other side was negotiating an A-frame or mogul, which required getting over it with one side of the vehicle off the ground. With the manual shift, the right foot sets the gas pedal and the left foot modulates the brake to crawl over these obstacles. We approached the obstacle at an angle to lift the weight of one tire at a time. We also had the opportunity take our Frontiers to a custom-built obstacle

course that had pyramids, railroad ties, log bridges, moguls, and even a short wall to crawl over—and we negotiated it backward. We talked about the hierarchy of getting unstuck: first having the skill to drive through, second using a tow or snatch strap, next using a jack or using a jack and digging, and finally, using a winch. We practiced each skill and then had the opportunity to take the Frontiers to an off-road area of hills and sugar sand. We climbed extreme slopes and dropped over the edges of very steep declines. The RKI training was five days of valuable vehicle training. We worked track and off-road, using automatic cars and manual trucks. We also had a lot of fun. www.rkigroup.net

The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013 73


Mobility, Deployment, Maintenance, Sustainment And Operations Systems Deployable Command Centers Enhanced Command and Control Secure Communications Video Conferencing Increased Protection for Sensitive Equipment

Increased Mission Flexibility Multiple System Configurations Deployable via Military and Commercial Vehicles Air-Transportable and Sling-Loadable

Deployable Data Security Data Container Maximum Flexibility Completely Customized to Client Requirements

HVAC Venting

Weather and Fire-proof ISO Compatible Enclosure

Fire Detection and Suppression

Racks

Phone (866) 312-6226 (571) 259-2817 Fax (800) 862-9489 Email info@sesolinc.com

www.sesolinc.com Circle 239 on Reader Service Card

74 The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013

360째 High Density Insulation

HVAC Condenser/ Evaporator Chilled H2O

Un-Interruptable Power Supply (UPS)

THE

Power Distribution Unit (PDU)

SESOLINC GROUP


Introducing the New ThOR 640x480 100mm 5X Thermal Weapon Sight

Contact info: American Technologies Network 1341 San Mateo Avenue South San Francisco, CA 94080, USA tel: (650)989-5100, 800-910-2862 fax: (650)875-0129 e-mail: info@atncorp.com www.atncorp.com

TheRmal WeapON SIghTS

NIghT VISION gOggleS

ThOR 320X240/640X480 WeapON SIghTS

WIDe VaRIeTY Of NIghT VISION SYSTemS

DaY/NIghT SYSTemS

TheRmal mONOculaRS

pS22/pS40 NIghT VISION clIp-ON SIghTS

NeW ODIN-14 TheRmal mONOculaR

manufacturer of advanced Thermal and Night Vision Systems Circle 312 on Reader Service Card

The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013 75


®

Engineered to be virtually indestructible, Energizer® Hard Case® Tactical® lights are multi-functional, lightweight and versatile, with features critical to military personnel to combat terrorism. Check out the complete product line at HardCaseTactical.com!

BRAVO

HCT2GU21L

A swivel-head light with white, red, blue, and green LEDs and IR for night vision compatibility.

TANGO

ROMEO

HCTMOS11L

A compact vest light in white with red, blue and green filters for light discipline.

HCTHLU11L

White and blue LEDs and IR and IFF for night vision compatibility. Includes helmet and vest mounts.

Energizer® Military Lithium AA L91 The world’s longest lasting AA battery in high tech devices, the Energizer® Military Lithium AA weighs 1/3 less and outperforms alkaline AA and Lithium 123 batteries in temperature extremes. TM

www.HardCaseTactical.com Circle 209 on Reader Service Card © 2012 Energizer

76 The Counter Terrorist ~ December 2012/January 2013

Energizer and other marks are trademarks of Energizer Circle 209 on Reader Service Card


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.