MADRID BOMBINGS • ORGANIZATIONAL PROFILING • COUNTER-TERROR ON A BUDGET
Counter The
Official Journal of the Homeland Security Professional APRIL/MAY 2009
VOLUME 2 • NUMBER 2
From Normative to “Hybrid Paradigm”
INTERROGATION
An SSI Publication ®
APRIL/MAY 2009 USA/CANADA $5.99
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2 The Counter Terrorist ~ April/May 2009
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Counter The
APRIL/MAY 2009
VOLUME 2 • NUMBER 2
Official Journal of the Homeland Security Professional
COVER STORY:
CONTENTS
22
FEATURES:
12
22
38
FROM NORMATIVE TO “HYBRID PARADIGM” INTERROGATION by James Ching
6
Case Study: MADRID TRAIN BOMBINGS 11 March, 2004
by David Rivas
12
Strategic View: LAWFARE: PART 2 How Islamist Lawfare Tactics Are Targeting Free Speech
by Brooke Goldstein and Aaron Eitan Meyer
30
Firsthand: AN ATTEMPTED SUICIDE ATTACK by Mickey Hargaash
38
COUNTER-TERROR ON A BUDGET by Major Joseph A. Bail, Jr.
46
ORGANIZATIONAL PROFILING by Syed Manzar Abbas Zaidi
DEPARTMENTS: 4
From the Editor
37
Book Review
Cover Photo: © istockphoto.com/spxChrome
46
The Counter Terrorist ~ April/May 2009 3
Counter The
FROM THE EDITOR:
Citizen Leadership
Official Journal of the Homeland Security Professional
VOLUME 2 • NUMBER 2
By Chris Graham
G
APRIL/ MAY 2009
Editor Chris Graham Director of Operations Sol Bradman
reetings and welcome back to The Counter Terrorist. As a first order of business, I must correct an error. In our last issue,
Volume Two, Number One, the article “Heroes or Vigilantes?” referenced the 2007 Virginia Tech killings. Murderer Seung-Hui Cho was misidentified on page forty-nine as Wen Ho Lee. I am grateful to a vigilant reader for correcting the error that I did not. On the subject of correcting errors, I believe it is our obligation as citizens of a representative democracy to help our elected representatives avoid committing errors. As a counter terrorism professional, you are uniquely qualified to provide guidance to our representatives at all levels of government. If, for example, you were to discover that an individual without professional intelligence experience had been nominated to serve as the director of an intelligence agency, your input in the form of dialogue with your elected representatives could be tremendously valuable. The nation faces historic challenges. As our government prints more currency and contemplates the merits of a centrally planned economy, your input may be critical. If the restoration of a foundation for the U.S. economy, the defense of the nation, and preservation of liberty are important to you, our elected representatives can not afford to be deprived of your guidance. Semper Fidelis,
Chris Graham Editor of The Counter Terrorist
Director of Advertizing Carmen Arnaes Director of Production Kelli Richardson Contributing Editors John Andrews Jennifer Hesterman Richard Marquise Chuck Pfarrer Graphic Design Morrison Creative Company Copy Editor Laura Town Office Manager Lily Valdes Publisher: Security Solutions International Suite 204 14300 SW 129th Street Miami, Florida 33186 ISSN 1941-8639 The Counter Terrorist Magazine, The Official Journal of the Homeland Security Professional, 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, 14300 SW 129th 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 © 2009 Security Solutions International
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Case Study:
MADRID TRAIN
BOMBINGS By David Rivas
11 MARCH, 2004
is a date that will not escape the memory of the Spaniards. A jihadist Salafist group conducted one of the largest terrorist attacks in European territory on that day.
Counter The
6 The Counter Terrorist ~ April/May 2009
©istockphoto.com/cebesdotde
THE TRAIN ATTACKS
M
adrid, March 11, 2004, at 7:37 local time. The first bomb exploded in a train stopped in Atocha station, the center of the city. One minute later, another two explosions shocked the train. Chaos and destruction had arrived in Madrid city. At 7:38 two bombs exploded in two trains stopped in the stations of El Pozo and Santa Eugenia. At 7:39, four more explosions destroyed another train close to Atocha. In about three minutes, 10 bombs rewrote the Spanish terrorist equation. The country’s capital experienced the biggest terrorist attack ever in Spain. One hundred ninety-one people were killed and more than 1500 citizens injured. Understanding the coordination of the explosions is important to understanding how the perpetrators planned the massacre. All bombs were introduced in regular sport bags and bags for lunch and work equipment. All of the bags carried a bomb, containing an unknown volume of explosives (the official sources say from 5 to 10 kg) of a Spanish explosive called Goma 2 Eco used in carbon mines. The packs were connected with an electrical detonator made of copper or alloy, with wires going to the vibration system of cell phones made by Mitsubishi (Trium model). After the explosions, witnesses said “the air smelled hot and spicy,” a typical odor of this material. Obviously, in the previous days the killers had time to coordinate the operation and devise the timetable.
During the attack, they used a reduced number of operators to put the bombs/ bags inside the trains. They used four bags in one train, which two terrorists were probably responsible for placing onboard. It is also possible (but not proven) that they used some vehicles as caches to carry the bags to the final points and for storage. The terrorist group was formed by Salafist, Muslim extremists born in north Africa. They had created a competent infrastructure with safe houses in the regions of Madrid and Granada, areas with large Muslim populations. In fact, Granada was the last city recovered by the Catholic Kings in 1492, moving many Muslims outside of the Spanish borders. Today there are many Muslim immigrants who are sympathetic to “recovering this Lost Kingdom”; for this reason it was easy for the terrorists to move without restriction in this area. Between March and April, the terrorists Said Berraj, Abdennabi Kounjaa and Rachid Oulad Akcha rented two houses in Leganés and Morata de Tajuña (Madrid), and another one in Albelote (Granada). They also kept in contact with other jihadists in Belgium and Holland and family members of the cell who lived in Barcelona. To rent the houses, they used fake ID cards made by Pakistani criminals living in Spain. To buy the phones (legally) they went to a grey phone shop and didn’t need ID, using pre-paid cards. One of the key points of interest in the investigation was the failure of one of the bombs to explode. Forensic teams and Bomb Squads checking the trains
The first bomb exploded in a train stopped in Atocha station, the center of the city. One minute later, another two explosions shocked the train. Chaos and destruction had arrived in Madrid city.
The Counter Terrorist ~ April/May 2009 7
Two points are key: first, it showed that the terrorists were not conducting a suicide attack like many other attacks around the globe; second, it was a big mistake.
for possible WMD or additional bombs found a suspect blue bag in perfect condition in El Pozo station. Two points are key: first, it showed that the terrorists were not conducting a suicide attack like many other attacks around the globe; second, it was a big mistake. One wire of the detonator was alone, out of the cell phone system. It was easy to view in an X-Ray machine and, for this reason, the Tedax (bomb squad) evacuated the transit system and gathered valuable evidence for the investigators, including the number of the Sim card that was still in perfect condition. The information coming from this bag showed the remote initiation system used (not suicidal), the construction of the bombs and the charge of 10 kg with shrapnel (even when no apparent bomb fragments appeared in the victims). All the cell phones were set in alarm mode to activate the system.
LEGANÉS: A FALLEN COMRADE After the bombing, the officers of the intelligence unit of National Police and Guardia Civil, plus the National Intelligence Center (CNI), captured
©istockphoto.com/Tiniiiii 8 The Counter Terrorist ~ April/May 2009
the calls to the cell phone discovered in the blue bag. Surprisingly, the terrorists didn’t use the SIM card only for the bomb. Previously, they had used it to call to each other. This had been used to pinpoint the suspects from the phone numbers in the SIM. The technical unit in charge detected several calls to a phone that was linked to a cellular site in the area of the Carmen Martín Gaite street. The police forces started the deployment of undercover teams and located the target in the number 40th block of this street and detected the presence of seven suspects. For this reason they activated the GEO, Special Operations Group of the National Police and several other support teams including SIGINT and IMINT. At 6:00 p.m., GEO was contacted at their HQ in Guadalajara, about 50 km away from Madrid. They rapidly arrived in Leganés with technical equipment and began to subtly isolate the objective. However, a terrorist named Abdelmajid Bouchar, who was also a good athlete on a running team, went down to the street to deposit a bag in the garbage container. This man noticed the presence of security forces in the area. They were members of the UCIE (Exterior Information Central Unit) of the National Police, and Bouchar walked directly into them. When close, he suddenly ran, crossed a train track, and evaded the pursuers. He called his comrades inside the house. The security forces executed tactical operations immediately. They evacuated all the neighbors and residents of the target building. Fifteen GEO officers in full gear, including level III face shields, prepared to assault and moved toward the terrorist safe house. When the GEOs were ready, they received a call from the intel unit: a phone call was intercepted and the terrorist was talking with his family
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outside of Spain. “We are under siege and tonight will be dead,” he said. Also the intel heard other calls from the house to Morocco explaining that “tonight will be Shahid (martyr).” The special team used the standard work methods, including a map and house plans. They had luck, too, in that the neighbor wall-to-wall with the target was a police officer and recommended they use his house for an explosive entry through the wall. However, the absolute possibility of a large amount of explosives inside the target apartment was a risk. This officer related to the GEO that, when he was preparing to move outside the building, he heard some “people screaming or praying in Arabic and people moving excitedly.” The team deployed a jammer inside the building and prepared the tactical positions. They tried to negotiate with the terrorists and requested that one of them appear naked in the upstairs window in order to mitigate the risk of an explosive belt or vest. The operational chief requested the surrender: “We are around…nothing will happen to you if you cooperate…” Close to him, two other officers gave cover and the full team split into two cells, with the first going over the landing and the other under. At this moment, the terrorists shot and screamed in Arabic and Spanish. They said, “Enter you, mother fucker, enter!”. The surrender option was impossible. At about 9:00 p.m., the GEO used detcord to breach the door and launched tear gas. The terrorists said, “Okay, we are sending an emissary.” The GEO accepted the proposal and responded, “Naked and show me your hands.” In accordance with the official declaration of the operational chief, “after a few seconds, the house came down.” At 9:03, the explosion was aired from the TV channels live. The police took several days to recover
10 The Counter Terrorist ~ April/May 2009
human body parts. Two bodies went into a swimming pool and carried rudimentary belt bombs in plastics bags around their hips.
KEY INFO 1. One GEO operator was dead, 15 GEO injured, 7 terrorists dead, 3 civilians injured.
2. The explosive used in the attacks,
in accordance with the summary, came from Mina Conchita in northern Spain and was supplied by a popular criminal—who is known by information units and who was charged in June 2001 in a counter drug operation called Pipol with his brother-in–law. Police were confident and everybody knew that they were involved in illegal trafficking of hachis and explosives. The hachis business probably gave them contact with the terrorists, because most of them were also in drug trafficking.
3. The components of the terrorist cell have their own life system, and don’t depend on foreign money or al-Qaeda financial networks. Some of them even run their own small businesses or make money with drugs and small crimes. The group only needed technical training in Afghanistan before the attacks, and a hotline with ideological, spiritual and extremist thought leaders. For the meetings, the subjects usually went to the mosque and after the service moved to the private facilities to talk about jihad.
4. In fact, most of the terrorists have police records. For example, Jamal Zougan is a Moroccan citizen well known by French and Moroccan intelligence. He was investigated by a National Special Court in Spain in the case of 9/11 Spanish connections. Even the French sent a regulatory commission to Spain in 2001 to interrogate him in relation to the case of Maher and Contelier, two jihadists linked with Ansar al Islam.
5. The American and Israeli intelligence services were informed before the attacks about the presence of a jihadist cell ready for attack in the Spanish territory. The Israelis were not happy with the government because they thought the possible target for the big massacre was the Jewish community in Spain.
6. One of the questions that can take the attention of the reader is the option of negotiation by the Spanish authorities when dealing with jihadist terrorists when their typical tactics involve suicide bombers. Maybe the attacks on the trains, where no martyrs were discovered, pushed the option of negotiation thinking with Islamic terrorists not ready for suicide. 7. In another way, a dark point never
cleared in court when processing the large amount of suspects arrested after the attacks was the use of communication jammers by security forces. Nobody understands how they called Morocco with the jammer working. However, intelligence has the call records.
8. It’s important to understand the situation in Madrid after the bombings, where the alarm was total. Terrorists even attempted to attack the high velocity train in Toledo some days after March 11. 9. This situation can explain the presence of other information units besides the UCIE in the Leganés area where the suspects were located on April 3. Maybe too many officers made it easier for the terrorists to discover the police presence in the area, even accidentally.
10. In the demolished building of Leganés, some body parts of the terrorists were located. DNA signs of other suspects who were arrested later, 10 kg of explosive Goma 2 Eco not detonated, some packs of explosives with the fuse inside and 200 copper detonators like those used in the
trains were also found.
11.
The Muslim immigrants moved freely and easily in Spain, even if they were illegal. We have a crescent number (more than 1.5 million) and they have their own support network, including safe houses rented by legals and used for temporary sleeping quarters. We have noticed more than 70 people sleeping in a house of 70 meters. These houses are used for some weeks and the illegals move from one safe house to another until they obtain a good residence. In this house, the presence of two terrorist suspects who attempted to enter the U.S. from Mexico and were refused was detected. After that attempt, they moved to south Madrid on their way to other points. However, the notice arrived later to Spain and these two people escaped.
12.
Even today, after the National Audience judiciary sentence, the intellectual chief of the massacre is
unknown and nobody knows if they selected the targets or if someone else was in charge.
NAMES GEO—Grupo Especial de Intervention is a CT top team in the Spanish National Police, founded in 1978 with the assistance of GSG9 and SAS. In the last few years they have specialized in ship interdiction against drug smugglers on the Atlantic Ocean. UCIE—Unidad Central de Informacion Exterior is the top intelligence unit of the National Police focused on foreign terrorist groups. They have experience in the fight against jihadist groups since 1987 when an Iranian cell attacked a restaurant in Madrid that was used by American forces and diplomats. CNI—Centro Nacional de Inteligencia is the former CESID, the equivalent of
the CIA, and has relevant experience in the Middle East. Seven operators were killed in Iraq in 2003 when driving 30 km south of Baghdad in support of U.S. and Spanish operations in the country. Traditionally, the Centro has very good links in the Middle East and North Africa. GOMA 2 Eco—A type of commercial dynamite used in the mines. On the illegal market it is used in small, illegal mines or fishing.
•
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Mr. Rivas is a sergeant in the Spanish Navy (reserves), a University Expert in Intelligence Services from University Institute Gutiérrez Mellado, and holder of a Bachelor’s Degree in Security from Almeria University. He is president of the Spanish firm High Security Solutions and vice president of the U.S. company H3.
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Strategic View:
LAWFARE PART 2 How Islamist Lawfare Tactics Are Targeting Free Speech By Brooke Goldstein and Aaron Eitan Meyer
LAWFARE IN EUROPE AND CANADA Islamist lawfare is achieving a high degree of success in Canada and Europe because their judicial systems and laws do not afford their citizens, or American citizens for that matter, the level of free speech protection granted under the U.S. Constitution. With their “hate speech” legislation, liberal libel laws and virtual codification of “Islamophobia” as a cause of action, European and Canadian legislatures have laid down what could be called the ideal framework for litigious Islamists to achieve their goals. Counter The
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©istockphoto.com/mpalis
I
n February of 2006, the European Union and former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan issued a joint statement with the Organization of the Islamic Conference, in which they recognized the need “to show sensitivity” in treating issues of special significance for the adherents of any particular religion, “even by those who do not share the belief in question.”1 In June of 2006, the Council of Europe hosted a “Programme of the Hearing on European Muslim Communities confronted with Extremism,” for which a ‘Point of View on the Situation of Europe’ was presented by none other than Tariq Ramadan.2 Based on a draft resolution and the proceedings of June 2006, the Council of Europe recently released Resolution 1605, asserting widespread ‘Islamophobia’ and
calling all member nations to “condemn and combat Islamophobia.”3 Persons held accountable to the EU’s new legal standards include actress Brigitte Bardot, who was charged this past April, for the fifth time, with “inciting racial hatred” against Muslims and forced to pay a fine of twelve thousand pounds.4 At the time of her death in 2006, noted Italian author Orianna Fallaci was being sued in France5, Italy6, Switzerland7 and other jurisdictions by groups dedicated to preventing the dissemination of her work. On May 13, 2008, Dutch police actually arrested a cartoonist using the pseudonym Gregorious Nekschot, “…for the criminal offense of publishing cartoons which are discriminating for Muslims and people with dark skin.”8
Over the past ten years, we have seen a steady increase in Islamist lawfare tactics directly targeting the human rights of North American and European civilians in order to constrain the free flow of public information about radical Islam. The Counter Terrorist ~ April/May 2009 13
ENGLAND
©istockphoto.com/wragg
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UK courts, because of their libel laws, are particularly friendly jurisdictions for Islamists who want to restrict the dissemination of material drawing attention to radical Islam and terror financing.9 A major player on this front is Khalid bin Mahfouz, a wealthy businessman who resides in Saudi Arabia and who has been accused by several parties of financially supporting Al Qaeda. A notable libel tourist, Mahfouz has sued or threatened to sue more than 30 publishers and authors in British courts, including several Americans, whose written works have linked him to terrorist entities. Faced with the prospect of protracted and expensive litigation, most of the parties targeted by Mahfouz have issued apologies and retractions, while some have also paid fines and “contributions” to his charities. In 2007, when Mahfouz threatened to sue Cambridge University Press for publishing the book Alms for Jihad, by American authors Robert Collins and J Millard Burr, Cambridge Press immediately capitulated, offered a public apology to Mahfouz, took the book out of print, destroyed the unsold copies of the book, and made the outrageous demand that libraries all over the world remove the book from their shelves. Shortly after the US publication of Rachel Ehrenfeld’s book entitled Funding Evil, Mahfouz sued Ehrenfeld for defamation because she too had written about financial ties between Mahfouz and terrorist entities. The allegations against Ehrenfeld were heard by the UK court despite the fact that neither Mahfouz nor Ehrenfeld resides in England, while the court asserted jurisdiction over her merely because approximately 23 copies of Funding Evil were sold to UK buyers
online via Amazon.com. Unwilling to travel to England or acknowledge the authority of English libel laws over herself and her work, Ehrenfeld lost on default and was ordered to pay heavy fines, apologize, and destroy her books -- all of which she refused to do.10
CANADA Canada, with its “human rights” commissions, joins the list of countries whose laws are being used to attack the free speech rights of authors and activists. Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act bans the electronic transmission of material that is deemed “likely to expose persons to hatred or contempt by reason of the fact that those persons are identifiable on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination,”11 which prohibited grounds include both ethnic origin and religion.12 Such vagaries in what was probably a well-meaning, yet democratically incompatible and short-sighted law, has enabled a wave of “human rights” complaints in the Canadian Human Rights Commissions (CHRC) against outspoken critics of radical Islam and their publishers. Those summoned to appear before the CHRC include Maclean’s magazine, award-winning author Mark Steyn, and noted Canadian lawyer and blogger, Ezra Levant. The complaints against Maclean’s and Steyn were initiated by the Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC) and based on Maclean’s’ re-publication of excerpts from Steyn’s book entitled America Alone, which details Europe’s capitulation to radical Islam, and projects America as potentially the last bastion of freedom, and which the CIC13 argued in its complaint is “flagrantly Islamophobic.” Levant was likewise hauled before the Commissions on charges of “hate crimes” against Muslims after re-publishing the
Danish Cartoon of Mohammad in the now defunct Western Standard Magazine. Though the charges against him were dropped the outcome could hardly be considered a “win” for free speech, as he details on his website.14
THE NETHERLANDS The most frightening predicament of all is that of Dutch politician, filmmaker and outspoken critic of radical Islam, Geert Wilders. After releasing a tenminute self-produced film entitled “Fitna,” Wilders has found himself wound up in a litany of “hate speech” litigation, one such suit filed by a radical Imam asking for fifty five thousand Euros in compensation for his hurt feelings. Ironically, the film’s narrative is primarily comprised of quotes from the Koran and scenes of an Imam preaching death to Jews.15 Most disturbing however, is the fact that the State of Jordan most likely acting as a stalking house for the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) has issued a request for Wilders’ extradition to stand in Jordan for blasphemy, a crime for which Shari’a law declares the penalty to be death, though reports have emerged claiming that the maximum potential sentence would be three years.16 The Dutch parliament is taking the request very seriously, and has shut out Wilders from any multi-lateral negotiations. As a precaution, Wilders no longer travels abroad unless he can obtain a diplomatic letter from the destination state promising he won’t be extradited. At present, Wilders lives under looming death threats complemented by the threat that any day, Interpol may issue a warrant for his arrest at Jordan’s behest. If Jordan succeeds in extraditing a democratically elected official to stand trial in a non-democratic country for speech made in the scope of his duties
while educating his constituents vis-àvis their national security, all under the guise of blasphemy of Islam, what kind of precedent would be set? As much as the Islamists wish to punish Wilders, there is no question that his case is a dry run for bigger game. How long until some convenient court in an OIC nation decides to find another government official guilty of ‘blasphemy’ and demands their extradition? After Italian Minister Roberto Calderoli publicly wore a T-shirt depicting Mohammad, he was forced to resign.17 Upon his re-nomination to Prime Minister Berlusconi’s reformed government, thinly veiled threats of “catastrophic consequences” emerging from Libya forced Calderoli to issue a full public apology for his wardrobe.18
THE INTERNATIONAL SCENE: MUSLIM ORGANIZATIONS & THE UNITED NATIONS National lawfare efforts are being complemented with similar International efforts to outlaw blasphemy of Islam as a crime against humanity. Islamist organizations such as the Muslim World League are calling for the establishment of an independent commission to take action against parties who defame their Prophet Mohammed,19 and at the Dakar summit, taking legal action against parties who slander Islam was a key issue debated at length, with the final communiqué adopted by the Organization of the Islamic Conference denouncing the “rise in intolerance and discrimination against Muslim minorities, which constitute(s) and affront to human dignity.”20 The Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers at its thirty-fourth session in Islamabad, in May 2007, condemned the “growing trend of Islamophobia”21 and emphasized
“the need to take effective measures to combat defamation.” The Islamic Society of North America and the Muslim Public Affairs Council have both stated publicly that they are considering filing defamation lawsuits against their critics22 and CAIR has announced an ambitious fundraising goal of one million, in part to; “defend against defamatory attacks on Muslims and Islam.”23 Most recently, Muslim states and organizations have successfully lobbied the United Nations’ Human Rights
What are the chances that this provision will be applied to those who behead journalists in the name of Islam, or to Palestinian terrorist groups that call themselves ‘Islamic Jihad’?
The Counter Terrorist ~ April/May 2009 15
Commission to enact Resolution 7/1924, a document that turns the concept of “human rights” into an instrument of Orwellian thought control. The Resolution makes reference to the Durban Declaration, and expresses the intent “to complement legal strategies” aimed at criminalizing the
16 The Counter Terrorist ~ April/May 2009
defamation of religion. The Resolution “urges States to provide, within their respective legal and constitutional systems, adequate protections against acts of…discrimination,”25 and prohibits “the dissemination of racist and xenophobic ideas.”26 Note that it is ideas that are prevented here, not published words but
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defamatory thoughts against Islam which the United Nations is banning. The Resolution further expresses its “deep concern at the attempts to identify Islam with terrorism, violence and human rights violations.” What are the chances that this provision will be applied to those who behead journalists in the name of Islam, or to Palestinian terrorist groups that call themselves ‘Islamic Jihad’? To add insult to injury, signatories to the Resolution take the opportunity to “emphasize (emphasis not added) that everyone has the right to freedom of expression” but that this freedom may “be subject to certain restrictions” while stipulating that “the prohibition of the dissemination of ideas (emphasis added) based on racial superiority or hatred is compatible with the freedom of opinion and expression.” Signatories to UN HRC Res. 7/19 include China, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Qatar, the Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia and Sri Lanka, amongst others. This Resolution 7/19 looks like an initial attempt to establish a body of international law to be used in the future against heads of state who speak out against radical Islam as a threat to national security. Hence, instead of Muslim states unilaterally seeking the extradition of a Geert Wilders – or perhaps, a Donald Rumsfeld – Islamists can now employ UN mechanisms to force politicians to abide by a standard of ‘sensitivity’ to Islam defined solely by Islamists themselves. The European Center for Law and Justice, a not for profit public interest law firm submitted an engaging report to the UN High Commissioner arguing, correctly, that freedom of religion does not entail carte blanche freedom to practice your religion absent criticism. In fact, Resolution 7/19 is itself a violation of international law undermining the inalienable human right to free speech,
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especially on matters of important public concern such as religion and national security.27 Yet what are the positions of the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) on this issue? Where is the international media? Why is this issue being met with virtual silence on their behalves while American citizens’ basic human rights
to free speech are being trampled on? Perhaps the CCR is too busy with its suit against former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in Spain for alleged “war crimes” in Iraq, since the German case against him was dismissed.28
CONCLUSION The war against Islamism is as much a war of ideas as it is a physical
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battle, and therefore the dissemination of information in the free world is paramount. The manipulation of Western court systems, the use of western “hate speech laws” and other products of political correctness to destroy the very principles that democracies stand for, must be countered. Unfortunately Islamist lawfare is beginning to limit and control public discussion of Islam, particularly as it pertains to comprehending the threat posed by Islamic terrorist entities. As such, the Islamist lawfare challenge presents a direct and real threat not only to our constitutional rights, but also to our national security. Some have argued that the antiAmericanism of radical Islamists has little to do with anti-imperialism but reflects a profound contempt for the liberal social democratic society we have built and its emphasis on individual liberties and freedoms.29 Freedom of expression is the cornerstone of democratic liberty - it is a freedom that Western civilizations have over time paid for with blood. We must not give it up so easily. The true imperialists are those who seek to impose their perception on others, through violent or legal means, and who seek to conquer and subjugate contradictory points of view. The reality is that the Muslim community has nothing to gain from supporting the censorship of debate about Islam. If a cartoon with Mohammad is “hate speech” now, how much longer before the Koran gets the same treatment? As Jonathan Kay, National Post columnist, has aptly pointed out “human rights mandarins haven’t gone after mosques or mullahs – yet,” but it doesn’t take much to recognize that two can play at the same game. The actions of CAIR and the CIC and others who engage in Islamist lawfare offer a great rebuttal to those who see Islamism as compatible with democracy.
•
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NOTES
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/ node/3257 9 Where, in the United States, with our First Amendment rights to free speech, libel plaintiffs not only have the burden to prove that the speech in question is false and defamatory, but where matters of public concern are at issue, the libel Plaintiff must also show that the speech was published with a reckless disregard for the truth. In England, on the other hand, the burden is in exactly the opposite direction: the offending speech is presumed to be false, and it is up to the defendant to prove that it is in fact true. While on the surface the difference may seem trite, UK libel jurisprudence, in direct contrast to US law and due process considerations, effectively operates to declare Defendants guilty before proven innocent and UK courts have become a magnet for libel suits that would otherwise fail miserably in the US. And so heavy is the burden of proof put on the defendant that the mere threat of suit in a UK court is enough to intimidate publishers into silence, regardless of the merit of their author’s works. 8
http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL. NSF/fd807e46661e3689852570d00069e 918 48c61023cd19096f8525710e006df8 0b!OpenDocument 918/48 / 2 http://assembly.coe.int/Main. asp?link=/Documents/WorkingDocs/ Doc08/EDOC11540.htm 3 Adopted by the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly, April 15, 2008 http://assembly.coe.int/Main. asp?link=/Documents/AdoptedText/ta08/ ERES1605.htm 4 http://www.reuters.com/article/ entertainmentNews/idUSL158479912 0080415?feedT; http://www.dailymail. co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1023969/ Brigitte-Bardot-fined-12-000-racialhatred-claiming-Muslims-destroyingFrance.html 5 http://www.secularism.org.uk/39371. html#oriana 6 http://www.cbc.ca/story/arts/ national/2006/09/15/orianafallaci-obit. html 7 http://www.milligazette.com/Archives /01072002/0107200263.htm 1
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Instead, Ehrenfeld went on the offensive and counter-sued Mahfouz in a New York State court seeking to have the foreign judgment declared unenforceable in the United States. Ironically, Ehrenfeld lost her case against Mahfouz, because the New York court decided it lacked jurisdiction over the Saudi resident who, the court said, did not have sufficient connections to the state. Shortly afterwards and in direct response to the court’s ruling, the NY state legislature, in an unprecedented show of cross party solidarity, unanimously voted to enact the Libel Terrorism Protection Act which prevents the enforcement of foreign libel judgments over American authors and provides the opportunity for the claim to be tried in the US, on its merits, and according to American principles of free speech. A similar piece of legislation has been introduced in Congress by Arlen Specter and Joseph Lieberman in the Senate and by Joseph King in the House of Representatives, along with several cosponsors. 11 What is particularly disturbing about Section 13 “hate speech” laws is that 10
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the court costs of any one Plaintiff who files a section 13 complaint are entirely subsidized by the government, while the defendants are left to endure the financial burden of litigation alone. This is a rule that, on its face, obviously encourages frivolous litigation. Moreover the CHRC has had a one hundred percent conviction rate on section 13 charges. 12 As defined by Section 3 (1) of the Canadian Human Rights Act 13 The CIC, whose president Mohamed Elmasry once labeled every adult Jew in Israel a legitimate target for terrorists, has previously tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to sue publications it disagrees with in regular Canadian courts of law, including the National Post. 14 http://ezralevant.com/2008/08/ punished-first-acquitted-later.html 15 Fitna is available for viewing here: http://video.google.com/ videoplay?docid=-29495464755613999 59&hl=en 16 http://jihadwatch.org/archives/2008/ 07/021595print.html 17 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/ europe/4727606.stm
http://thestar.com.my/ news/story.asp?file=/2008/5/10/ worldupdates/2008-05-10T052806Z_ 01_NOOTR_RTRMDNC_0_-3350512&sec=Worldupdates 19 http://www.arabnews.com/page=4& section=0&article=77639&d=28&m=12 &y=2006 20 Final Communiqué adopted by the Organization of the Islamic Conference at its eleventh summit in Dakar (March 2008) OIC/SUMMIT-11/2008/FC/Final http://www.oic-oci.org/oicnew/is11/ English/FC-11-%20SUMMIT-en.pdf 21 UN HRC Res. 7/19 22 http://www.faithfreedom.org/oped/ RobertKing50905.htm and http://www. frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable. aspx?GUID={1E2DE909- C6F5-4A5FB852-0D90BE4FEA9C} 23 http://www.nysun.com/national/ treasury-department-tars-alamoudifounder-of/24211/ 24 For the full text of Un HRC Res. 7/19 see http://ap.ohchr.org/documents/ E/HRC/resolutions/A_HRC_RES_7_ 19.pdf
UN HRC Res. 7/19 Section 9 UN HRC Res. 7/19 Section 8 27 ECLJ report can be found at: http:// www.meforum.org/legal-project.php 28 http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/ paperchase/2007/04/german-prosecutorrejects-war-crimes.php 29 Tarek Fatah, “Triggering a State of Islam,” The National Post, May 13, 2008.
18
25 26
ABOUT THE AUTHORS Brooke Goldstein is a practicing attorney, an award-winning filmmaker and the director of the Legal Project at the Middle East Forum. The Legal Project is dedicated to providing pro-bono legal representation to authors, activists and publishers who work on the topics of radical Islam, terrorism and their sources of financing. Aaron Eitan Meyer recently received his Juris Doctor degree from Touro Law Center, and is currently Assistant to the Director at the Legal Project of the Middle East Forum and Legal Correspondent to the Terror Finance Blog.
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From Normative to “Hybrid Paradigm”
INTERROGATION By James Ching
“Interrogation is the systematic effort to procure information to answer specific collection requirements” such as the nature of enemy “elements, intentions, composition, strength, dispositions, tactics, equipment, personnel, and capabilities.”1 The U.S. Army, in response to the improper handling of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison, has revised its instructional manual for field interrogations to specifically exclude torture and to limit collection techniques to defined and highly prescribed methods.2
Counter The
22 The Counter Terrorist ~ April/May 2009
©istockphoto.com/pjludlow
H
owever, interrogation is no longer the sole province of the practical. Such close discussion of interrogation techniques has inspired a more theoretical approach. The larger question of what limits apply to any American interrogation is the subject of Professor Amos N. Guiora’s two new books. Fundamentals of Counterrorism, a first undergraduate text, and Constitutional Limits on Coercive Interrogation, a far more theoretical work, both embrace a “hybrid paradigm” for terrorist interrogation.3 Guiora has expanded the debate over interrogation methods by flatly requiring that battlefield detainees are given the procedural protections of American criminal defendants, a controversial result with no legal precedent.
NORMATIVE INTERROGATION The crisis in interactive intelligence gathering grounded in the unprofessional detention conditions at Abu Ghraib prison is first and foremost reflected in the normative and limited procedures of the U.S. Army’s newest interrogation manual. Field Manual 2.22.3 applies to all Army personnel, including civilian contractors and will probably be adopted in the whole by the other American armed services. The Manual requires that all detainees be treated humanely and in accordance with U.S. law, the law of war and U.S. policy.4 It adopts common Article III on the treatment of detainees as a first principle5 and specifically bans all “Abu Ghraib” treatment of detainees.6
The interrogator must ask two diagnostic questions: would the proposed technique be abuse if practiced on American forces and would the proposed technique violate a law or regulation.
©istockphoto.com/papadimitriou
The Counter Terrorist ~ April/May 2009 23
Within the boundaries provided by the “Abu Ghraib” limitations, even a junior sergeant has a great deal of latitude.
Eighteen specified and exclusive techniques of interrogation are set forth in detail.7 For instance, the familiar “Mutt and Jeff” technique is authorized on a case by case basis.8 However, there is a singular reservation even among these specified courses of action. Section 5-76 recognizes the possibility that a service interrogator may be without recourse to higher command and therefore may utilize his or her discretion in the interrogation of a subject. The interrogator must ask two diagnostic questions: would the proposed technique be abuse if practiced on American forces and would the proposed technique violate a law or regulation. Unless the answer to both questions is “No”, the technique should not be used.9 The two diagnostic questions provide a subjective and an objective basis for the field situation. The second question regarding violations of law is an objective test based, presumably, on the “reasonable interrogator” standard. This is no more than the rule of law which governs all soldiers. The first, or subjective, test is something of a conundrum. If a nicotine-addicted detainee is interrogated by a “three-pack
©istockphoto.com/slydeproductions 24 The Counter Terrorist ~ April/May 2009
a day” questioner and not permitted to smoke, there is probably a slight but arguable abuse depending on the length of the prisoner’s deprivation. The abuse is much greater if the detainee is deprived of water, although here the period of deprivation and the weather are crucial. Within the boundaries provided by the “Abu Ghraib” limitations, even a junior sergeant has a great deal of latitude. Presumably, this subjective and, therefore, discretionary aspect is what Guiora deems the “slippery-slope interpretation” of even the seemingly stringent Field Manual guidelines.10
“HYBRID PARADIGM” INTERROGATION Guiora proposes nothing less than a self-imposed body of legal restraints based on the Fifth, Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution for non-citizen detainees not within the United States.11 In an astounding “leap of faith”, he deems detainees a fully protected class under the Constitution.12 This desideratum cannot be based on an extension of the law, and the “hybrid paradigm” is ultimately a moral argument rather than a legal one. In America, the admissibility of confessions is governed solely by their “voluntariness” within the meaning of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.13 A confession is voluntary if, in light of the totality of the circumstances, the confession is the product of a rational intellect and free will and not the result of physical abuse, psychological intimidation, or deceptive interrogation tactics that have overcome the defendant’s free will.14 The term “voluntary” has a special meaning in this analysis; after all, much of the point of custodial interrogation is to obtain statements the
suspect would not otherwise have chosen to make. The question is whether the statements were obtained so involuntarily as to render the process of conviction based upon those statements a “mere pretense.”15 Guiora seemingly also advocates a precautionary warning like that of Miranda.16 In Miranda, the Supreme Court held that certain warnings are required to be administered to a suspect in order for a statement given by him during a custodial interrogation to be admissible as evidence.17 These exclusionary rules have one purpose, to keep the police from overbearing questioning. Police officers could be disciplined for violating mandatory rules of interrogation, but only excluding statements obtained by violating rules had any necessary effect on the criminal prosecution of the detainee. The same is true of the Miranda warning. The Miranda Court was concerned with the “inherently compelling pressures” attendant to in-custody interrogation of suspects, which work to undermine the individual’s will to resist and to compel him to speak where he would not otherwise do so freely.18 But once again, the issue of criminal prosecution must be separated from that of gathering intelligence information. The rules established by Miranda are solely prophylactic, i.e., their purpose is to guard against infringement of suspects’ Fifth Amendment rights against selfincrimination.19 Constable or Interrogator? The constable may not care about his own punishment for violation of normative interrogation rules but he does care about the detainee’s punishment. The purpose of Guiora’s paradigm is that of restraining the constable not through his punishment but rather through the voiding of his efforts, the confession.
©istockphoto.com/jamievanbuskirk However, the operational necessities of counter terrorism interrogation are usually quite different. An interrogator procures information, not a confession. Kalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-described military operational commander for al-Qaeda, was captured in 2003 in Pakistan, interrogated for a year in Poland, and was not moved to Guantanamo until 2006. During the course of his interrogation at a non-U.S. site, he was subject to waterboarding and various other means of coercion and therefore, his confession of crimes such as the personal beheading of Daniel Pearl, an American journalist, should arguably
The Counter Terrorist ~ April/May 2009 25
be inadmissible against him under Guiora’s paradigm should he be indicted for murder.20 However, Mohammed was a subject who would be more highly prized for his information about the workings of al-Qaeda than for his confession of murder.21 For example, the fact revealed by Mohammed under interrogation that Bin Laden personally chose the 9/11 targets are not the logical targets of exclusion under the paradigm as ultimately its utility is that it helps provides a structural and command feature of al-Qaeda. Mohammed’s explanation of the planning of the 9/11 attacks, including operational details and methods, provided a backdrop for counter terrorist operations against alQaeda and he was cited 60 times by the 9/11 Commission in its final report. Guiora’s paradigm does not encompass this form of information simply because Mohammed will likely not be prosecuted for the crimes encompassed by these details, however much they are related to and form the context for conspiracy and mass murder. Therefore he will never incriminate himself with his own coerced statements about methods and
organization. Mohammed’s principal utility is in his role as an informant, in his statements given to interrogators used for the pursuit of other terrorists, not in his culpability for organizational crimes. Guiora’s model has little to do with immediate field interrogation of suspects such as Mohammed because the American interrogation of a terrorism suspect outside the United States has little to do with the subsequent criminal prosecution of that suspect.22 If information is obtained through unauthorized methods, there is little justification for impairing analysis and dissemination of that information, let alone suppressing it entirely.
•
NOTES U.S. Dept. of the Army, Human Intelligence Collector Operations, supra at sections 1.4, 1.20. 2 U.S. Dept. of the Army, Human Intelligence Collector Operations (Field Manual 2.22.3, 2006). 3 Amos N. Guiora, Fundamentals of Counterterrorism (Wolters Kluwer 2008); Amos N. Guiora, Constitutional Limits on Coercive Interrogation (Oxford Univ. Press 2008). 1
U.S. Dept. of the Army, Human Intelligence Collector Operations (Field Manual 2.22.3, 2006) at section 4.1. 5 Article III bans “[v]iolence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture” and “[o]utrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment.” Id. at Appendix A. 6 Id. at section 5-75. 7 Id. at chapter 8. 8 Id. at section 8-65. 9 Id. at section 5-77. 10 Constitutional Limitations on Coercive Interrogation, id. at p. 101 [“[V]ague rules lead to the slippery slope.”] 11 This class is currently not within the jurisdiction of U.S. courts as the Constitution does not reach nonresident aliens who were injured extraterritorially while detained by the military in foreign countries where the United States is engaged in wars. Johnson v. Eisentrager, 339 U.S. 763. 785 (1950), United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, 494 U.S. 259 (1990), Zadvydas v. Davis, 533 U.S. 678 (2001). [O]ur Constitution has no “force in foreign territory unless in respect of our citizens.” United States v. Curtiss4
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Wright Export Corp., 299 U.S. 304, 318 (1936). But . . . aliens receive certain protections—including those rights guaranteed by the Due Process Clause—”when they have come within the territory of the United States and developed substantial connections with this country.” Verdugo-Urquidez, 494 U.S. at 271; Al-Marri v. Pucciarelli, 534 F.3d 213, 217 (4th Cir. 2008) [Motz, C.J., concurring], cert. granted 12/5/2008. Jurisdiction within the country of detention is normally postulated. Professor Guiora does not directly deal with the issue of whether the country of detention, e.g. Iraq or Afghanistan, might have an overriding interest in applying its own constitutional and criminal procedures to the detainee on its own territory. Thus far, the courts of the United States have done no more than allow detainees to utilize habeas corpus, a minimum protection within the Constitution which falls far short of
W. S . W.S
Professor’s Guiora’s model of procedural rights. Boumediene v. Bush, 128 S. Ct. 2229, 171 L. Ed. 2d 41 (2008); Rasul v. Bush, 542 U.S. 466, 485 (2004). 12 Fundamentals of Counterterroism, id. at pp. 72-73, 110, 121; Constitutional Limitations on Coercive Interrogation, id. at pp. 33, 42. 13 Oregon v. Elstad, 470 U.S. 298, 304 (1985). 14 Arizona v. Fulminante, 499 U.S. 279, 285-286 (1991) 15 Brown v. Mississippi, 297 U.S. 278, 286 (1936). 16 Constitutional Limitations on Coercive Interrogation, id. at p. 42. 17 Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 444 (1966). 18 Miranda, 384 U.S. at 467. 19 See Elstad, 470 U.S. at 305. 20 Harsh C.I.A. Methods Cited in Top Qaeda Interrogations, N.Y. Times, May 13, 2004; U.S. Contends Qaeda Leader Executed Pearl, N.Y. Times, October 22, 2003; Suspected Leader of 9/11 Attacks
J E NK JE NKS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Mr. Ching is a retired Supervising Deputy, Attorney General of the California Department of Justice. He is a former Special Agent of the U.S. Army Counterintelligence Corps. He has served as an adjunct Professor at John Jay College, U.C. Davis School of Law, and Humphreys College of the Law.
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Firsthand:
AN ATTEMPTED
SUICIDE ATTACK By Mickey Hargaash
It was just another late morning in February 2002, when a young man walked into one of Jerusalem’s old neighborhoods. He was wearing blue jeans and carrying a rucksack while entering quietly into the crowded “Caffit” restaurant. He was about to detonate a bomb with the intent of blowing the whole place apart . . . only “Arie” was there.
Counter The
30 The Counter Terrorist ~ April/May 2009
Photo: Scott Morrison
A
rie (lion) is a 55 year old tall guy, in good physical shape, with a smile and a matured look. “We never actually secured the place, we were simply asked to urgently bring a security guard to the restaurant. While arriving there and briefing a new recruit outside, someone came out and told us about a guy who entered the restaurant with a rucksack. At this point I simply flew in.” I stopped for a moment in order to understand what led up to the event. With a focused look and a calm voice he continued. “At the time, I was the area coordinator in charge working for one of the security companies in Jerusalem. On that morning I was requested to reinforce the layout due to intelligence that was spread, probably by the police. It kept me busy the whole morning until I finally found a new recruit who just finished his training.” “So they told you that someone entered with a rucksack and you flew in, and then . . . ?” “As I got in I saw the young guy talking to “Gabi”, the owner of the place. I stood next to him for a second in order to observe and listen to him. He actually looked like any other student, wearing jeans, sneakers and a rucksack on his back. But this is when I could see that he was trying to press something like a light switch. At this point I felt I was acting automatically as my eye recognized the
wire that was attached to his hand, and connected to batteries inside his jacket.” Arie improved his seating and, without any theatrics, simply demonstrated with his hand and said, “I attached my hand to the inner part of his jacket, grabbed the batteries, and tore them apart along with the cord and switch.” He then demonstrated the grab of the terrorist with his other hand and continued, “At the same time I pushed the other hand into his trousers’ belt, and started to quietly pull him out of the restaurant. The guy weighed about 80 kilos so I asked a waiter who passed nearby to help me, and the owner Gabi to call the police. While pulling him out Gabi asked me how come I don’t just shoot him.” Suddenly his face turned serious and authoritative. “So I told him to shut up and call the police. During this whole time people kept eating and talking, and never really realized it was a terrorist. We pulled him out, and I separated the bag from his back while pinning him to the ground. Police and Border Patrol teams arrived immediately, and the only thing I managed to do until then was to check his ID in order to see who he was.” Arie thought for a moment, reflected and proceeded. “Generally there was no real reason to suspect the guy. It was only when I separated the bag from his back and saw the gas container he had inside that I understood very well what might have happened.“
The Counter Terrorist ~ April/May 2009 31
Unfortunately even when all security organizations work simultaneously, each against relevant stations, some leaks still appear.
CITIZENS IN JERUSALEM WERE SAVED ON 7TH OF MARCH 2002. HOW CAN ONE DUPLICATE THE OUTCOME? The Caffit restaurant case naturally motivates us to search for rules, which may lead to future imitations and successes in countering terrorism in civilian areas. Unfortunately, natural reactions to fear first drive us to vote for the contingency element, for the need to have an immaterial solution (or none at all), or to regard suicide bombers as an exceptional challenge, which compels us “to reinvent the wheel”. Nevertheless, in pursuit of replacing fear with challenge, we may present the following questions in order to proceed with the motivation: Can success related to suicide bombers be accomplished by normal people? If not, must there be a “Rambo” at the scene? Generally, can we rely on “regular terrorism” in order to study suicide
32 The Counter Terrorist ~ April/May 2009
bombers? And finally, if it is possible to counter terrorist suicide bombers, what does it take? Casualness is problematic for several reasons. First, as a concept it can not be accepted by basic approaches of “national security” for obvious reasons. Second, this argument ignores other cases of countering suicide bombers in Israel by security guards in public contours similar to our study case, and even by bus drivers in public transportation, let alone military and police forces. Third, it also ignores actions that were taken, along with the fact that the tendency has changed in Israel; suicide bombing was reduced, either by reducing the number of infiltrations or by successes in the field at the attack site. In fact casualness does not help for better understanding or explanation. Must there be a “Rambo” on the scene, or other immaterial solution, is a question that takes us back to Arie from Jerusalem. When being asked for his background he seemed to have some doubts, but then modestly answered, “I simply took the course for Educational Institutions security guards (which is the basic one available), but at the time nobody taught anything about suicide bombers, it was new. In the army I was a combatant soldier in an Engineering corps unit and this was the relevant thing. I have retired from the private sector, and only in the year 2000 I moved into the security business, so I was actually new in the field.” At this point I tried to proceed with the line of questions in order to point out the sources for the capability he demonstrated. “I was born in Kfar saba and grew up in a Kibutz,” he said. “In the army I wasn’t an officer but I was a combat soldier, and I simply did what had to be done at the moment. Actually I wasn’t really thinking.” Suddenly he
waved a Merit Certificate that was placed aside and said, “You can photograph it if you want to. It was given to me by the police after the event.” “What about the other security guard that you brought to the restaurant, and where was he all that time,” I asked. “He simply vanished,” Arie answered. “He came to the office three days later as he figured out that security is a realistic issue, but nobody was really mad at him,” he emphasized. Arie presents a clear answer to our question: not necessarily a “Rambo” is needed, nor even a background of Special Forces or designated counter terror units. Yet his profile includes a combat soldier, with good physical fitness, and the graduation of an Institutional Civil Security course. In addition, he is the outcome of the Israeli socialization process, and therefore familiar with values like initiative and sacrifice. Finally he is matured and responsible, which is why he is being employed in a field managerial position. So not exactly a “Rambo” is needed on the scene, but we do need lots of “Not Exactlys” since the “last line of defense” includes practically every public place in the country. This is why in Israel the supervision and direction are being led by a governmental organization; it increases probability that the right person is at the right place, at the critical moment.
SUICIDE BOMBERS AND OTHER TERRORIST ATTACKS IN ISRAEL: NUMBERS AND WAVES VS. ACHIEVEMENTS The third question in the search for rules to imitate the success of countering suicide terrorist brings us to a further observation. As a new phenomenon, suicide terrorists don’t present an innovational challenge that compels us to start from the beginning, as if “to reinvent
the wheel”. After all terrorism includes “chameleon” type evasive organizations, and this time it has even gone beyond the expected. Suicide terrorism first appeared in Israel in 1993. It acted like a wave until 2007 with a frustrating peak in 2002. In 1994 suicide attacks were performed on buses with 40 killed. In 1995 the Islamic Jihad and the Hamas upgraded their attacks, using 2–3 suicide terrorists per attack causing 22 killed in January alone, and since then it has continued to escalate. In 2002 the peak included 59 suicide bomb attacks, with 230 killed. But then in 2003 the decline started with 26 suicide attacks and 144 killed, and proceeded in 2004 with 15 attacks and 55 killed. In 2005, 8 attacks with 29 killed in 2006, 5 attacks with 15 killed; in 2007, 1 attack with 3 killed; and in 2008, 1 attack with 2 suicide bombers with 1 killed. Numbers are not a confidential issue and appear on various sites, with a slight, but not significant, difference. Suicide terror has had a strategic impact. Israel had no security answers to the problem even in the year 2000, although the wave kept gathering strength. Nevertheless, from 2003 the decline started and the suicide bomber problem was able to be controlled. But suicide bombing is not unique in that relation. Different past and present waves of terror can be pointed out by their attacking characteristics, period of time they lasted, and the solution made to control the attacks by relevant security organizations. Skyjacking appeared in the late 60s and 70s with the non-Israeli attacks being the most famous, like the “coordinated skyjacking” to Jordan in 1970 and the Air France to Entebbe skyjacking in 1976. Hostage takeovers appeared in the 70s and 80s with the famous “Maalot”
in 1974, Savoy Hotel in 1975 and the “Mothers’ Bus” in 1988. During these same decades the demolition charges appeared in crowded cities with the famous heavy refrigerator that exploded at the center of Jerusalem in 1976. In the 80s stabbing with knives appeared, starting with the quiet stabs from behind on single victims and changing to noisy attacks on groups of victims while yelling “Allahu Akbar” (God is mighty). In the 90s shooting from bypassing cars appeared and at the end of the 90s buses driven towards mountain slopes. At the beginning of this decade killing in community settlements appeared in parallel with the increase of suicide bombings in the cities. Israel is still trying to solve the steep course bombing problem from Gaza, and the new “running down by tractors” attacks that appeared in Jerusalem in 2008. Obviously, the question of solving the entire terrorism issue that started decades ago cannot be answered positively. Nevertheless, focusing on our modest question, one can recognize the waves, as they turned to be controlled until they vanished, including suicide bombers with all other terrorist attacks. Efforts to control attacking capabilities of terrorist organizations include intelligence, attack and defense. Nevertheless, focus on defense and the tactical countering has never been left aside. The skyjacking of the 60s and 70s turned to be controlled with the famous “security on the ground” to prevent terrorists from getting to the planes, in addition to civil combatants on the air as the “last line of defense”. Hostage takeovers turned controlled with military CT units and the police famous “Yamam”. The killing attacks in community settlements turned controlled, with military foundation of civil combatant groups from within the
©istockphoto.com/shaunl
The Counter Terrorist ~ April/May 2009 33
settlements. The same happened with suicide bombers in the cities, as Israeli police started to lead, supervise and direct civil security companies with security guards to protect crowded environments.
VANISHING OF TERRORISM AND THE SECURITY PUZZLE Terrorism will not disappear easily, as it is simply one form of the social war phenomena. It is actually a strategy picked up in asymmetric conflicts and therefore requires an entire social change from the individual person to the international level (possible? Hopefully.). Nevertheless, winning the war is undoubtedly possible, and winning the battle is both possible and vital as helpless people are in jeopardy of being killed. Focusing on the killing being the source for terrorism’s strength should be
the principle; therefore, the means should aim for the “production line” of attacks. Hitting the “production line” should include intelligence, attack and defense to cover all stations; the decision makers and process to activate suicide bombers, resource gathering, recruiting and training, choosing the target, equipment preparation, leading and meeting of terrorist and explosives, transportation to the target, and the actual execution. Unfortunately even when all security organizations work simultaneously, each against relevant stations, some leaks still appear. In these cases, civilians have to face the actual execution of suicide attackers that made it to the end of the “production line”. “The defense line is bound to be breached” may be the argument to explain efforts made by Israeli police in leading all recruiting, reassignment, knowledge and operations at the
“last line of defense”. This is where police comparative advantage can be implemented regarding the security puzzle vs. the suicide bomber “production line”. The suicide bomber in the Caffit restaurant in Jerusalem 2002 was one of the first to be captured alive just before detonation. It involved useful forwarding of intelligence and clear instructions for reinforcement of layout, along with civilian awareness. But it also included a civil security guard capable of confronting the suicide bomber and other teams in the area as rapid reinforcement. No way could such outcome be duplicated, without the lead by a governmental organization.
SOME HOPE FOR THE FUTURE? Tactical winnings do not necessarily cumulate into strategic victory and, more importantly, peace. On one hand “Chabe chabe betsir kube” as our neighbors say means add one grain to another and you will get a cap (as a building structure). But maybe it doesn’t necessarily have to refer to combat. After all they also say “Hod men aladu sacheb” which means make effort to turn your enemy into a friend. In that case, maybe effort should be directed towards finding the possible friend? But in addition they say “elchimel iza tkassam, benshal” which means heavy burden, when divided for mutual help, becomes bearable. Unfortunately, such a possible friend is hard to find, and we have to keep on adding grains until one is found.
•
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Mr. Hargaash served in Israeli governmental and military organizations, and specialized in counter terrorism and guerrilla operations for the last 25 years. His insight for the above article is based upon direct interview of the individual participant. The individual’s identity is protected for security purposes. 34 The Counter Terrorist ~ April/May 2009
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BOOK REVIEW
The al-Qaeda Documents, Volume 1 Released by Tempest Publishing
W
hile searching an al-Qaeda member’s home in England, the Manchester Metropolitan Police discovered a number of computer files. An operational manual was found in a file described as “the military series.”1 The manual was translated into English and introduced during a trial in New York in 2002. The al-Qaeda Documents, Volume One from Tempest Publishing, 2002, consists of translated excerpts from the alQaeda manual recovered in Manchester, transcripts from an al-Qaeda videotape, and some United States court documents relevant to al-Qaeda. Within the first pages of translated material is the statement, “It is forbidden to remove this from the house.” Apparently, this document was intended to be made available in terrorist safe houses and not intended to be taken from them. Another translated statement reads, “Military Studies in the Jihad Against the Tyrants.” The following pages include poetic jihadist pledges, Koranic and Hadith verses, and an introduction that decries colonialism and vows support to the establishment of a caliphate.
The first lesson discusses military organization. Three requirements are set forth: a commander and advisory council, individual members, and a strategy. Logistical needs are listed and required operational capabilities are provided. These start with the expected, such as information gathering, kidnapping, and assassination, and progress to items like, “spreading rumors and writing statements that instigate people against the enemy.” Following lessons describe “Necessary Qualifications and Characteristics for the Organization’s Members,” “Counterfeit Currency,” “Forged Documents,” and “Apartments—Hiding Places.” Lessons five and six set forth techniques for communication, transportation, and training. Additional lessons include acquiring and transporting weapons, individual safety precautions, and operational security planning. The next translated lessons discuss acquiring information using “open methods” and “covert methods.” These subjects are rather unsurprising for a group interested in conducting terrorist operations; however, the
Reviewed by: Chris Graham final lesson may be one of the most interesting and underappreciated in the West. Guidance provided for prisons and detention centers is explicit in its instructions to publicly accuse government personnel of torture and mistreatment. It provides additional instructions for continuing efforts from confinement, and encourages members to refuse menial work and create Islamic prison programs. This volume also contains a transcript of an Osama bin Laden video. It contains documents from U.S. v. Richard C. Reid, U.S. v. Osama Owadallah, U.S. v. Abu Doha, and other cases. The Manchester Manual translations are highly valuable to first responders in the counter terrorism fight. Insight into terrorist methodology for intelligence gathering, operational security measures, communication techniques, and other operational tactics is critical. For those whose job it is to deter, detect, and respond to terrorist activity, this knowledge is required information.
NOTES
•
The al-Qaeda Documents Volume 1. Tempest Publishing. 2002. 1
The Counter Terrorist ~ April/May 2009Card 37 Circle 279 on Reader Service
Innovation in Chester, Pennsylvania:
COUNTER-TERROR
ON A BUDGET By Major Joseph A. Bail, Jr.
Counter The
38 The Counter Terrorist ~ April/May 2009
Pho to
: BL
AC K
HA WK
!
“Three terror targets were damaged; a fourth attack was prevented.” The USS New Jersey was damaged, the Liberty Bell destroyed, and the Commodore Barry Bridge rendered unusable.
F
ortunately, the above came from scenarios for my area that were described in “What if by Sea?,” an article written by John Giduck of the Archangel Group, Ltd for The Police Marksman magazine. It is a tragic model for what could happen in any jurisdiction with similar terror targets. In a London pub on the first leg of a four country anti-terrorism expedition in fall 2008, John and I discussed these types of problems and the likely law enforcement responses. The United Kingdom, Ukraine, the Republic of Georgia and Israel were the destinations selected for our study regarding information for U.S. government agencies to prepare for—and be able to adequately respond to—future terror attacks. As we sat in that pub on a rainy London day, ruminating over the need for American police departments to be as prepared as they possibly can be, my mind drifted back over just how far my department and I had already come. For me and the Chester, Pennsylvania, Police Department that I have served for the past 38 years, this world tour of terror was only the most recent step in a decade-long effort to ensure that we were as tactically capable of responding to an attack by terrorists as we could be. Long ago, we took the motto of the Russian Special Forces Alpha Counter-Terror Unit to heart: If not me, then who? We truly believed that someday, somewhere in America, innocent lives would again hang
in the balance. If it happened in our city, we knew we were the only ones coming for them, and we had to be ready. As with many departments, we are not a large force. The city of Chester is comprised of only about 42,000 residents, protected by a police force of less than 100 men and women. However, we sit at the end of the runways of the Philadelphia International Airport and have seven miles of Delaware River in our jurisdiction, including such nearby likely terror targets as power plants, factories, the Philadelphia Naval Ship Yard, the USS New Jersey—detested by some for its shelling of targets in Beirut in 1984—and a major elevated bridge connecting New Jersey with the state of Pennsylvania. Not quite the leafy, suburban Philadelphia neighborhood many might envision, Chester could have the sad title of “Most Violent Small City in America”. As our city is considered to be one of the more economically depressed areas in the country, the police department was expected to be able to respond to the worst possible attacks imaginable in America since 9/11, but without the money to accomplish either the training or acquisition of necessary equipment. Thus, more than ten years ago I set off on a journey to educate myself, train my people, and access every bit of important gear and weaponry possible on virtually no money. Our success in this undertaking may, perhaps, serve as a model for other agencies attempting to
As our city is considered to be one of the more economically depressed areas in the country, the police department was expected to be able to respond to the worst possible attacks imaginable in America since 9/11, but without the money to accomplish either the training or acquisition of necessary equipment.
The Counter Terrorist ~ April/May 2009 39
Photo: Scott Morrison substantially increase their tactical skills without the large budget to simply “buy” that capability. Our odyssey began with the North Hollywood Bank of America shootout in 1997. Seeing the increasing level of firepower and tactical equipment being accessed by the criminal minded of our society, my chief wanted a tactical response unit to handle similar incidents. However, financing was nonexistent and the workload in a crime-ridden city was too extensive to field a dedicated special response team. A part-time, or reserve, dual-purpose unit was the answer to the financial concerns, as such a unit would not be a strain on the already shortstaffed patrol division. Basic and advanced SWAT training was afforded to the team by members of the local FBI SWAT unit at no cost to the city. This came on the heels of a weeklong tactical familiarization course presented by one of the area police department’s SWAT team trainers. The best early exposure given to this novice team of warriors, however, was a week of training with the U.S. Army’s elite Delta counter terror unit in 1998. We had an old building that was to be razed, and I called down to Smoke Bomb Hill on Ft. Bragg and offered it to them as a training environment as long as they were willing to teach my guys. As history would later
40 The Counter Terrorist ~ April/May 2009
prove, the United States needed to train its soldiers to be cops and its cops to be soldiers in the Global War on Terror. We were getting there. The next step was getting equipment and weapons. The first tactical vests were purchased with funds secured by the trade in of the department’s 140 revolvers that had been gathering dust in a vault since the issue of 9mm semi-automatics. The Kevlar ballistic helmets came courtesy of the federal Defense Reutilization Management Office (D.R.M.O.) program. With a weapons complement of three Uzi’s, two H&K MP-5s’, ten Ruger mini-14s, and five S&W 12 gauge shotguns, the Chester TacticalContainment Team was deployable. Not pretty, but deployable. And it hadn’t cost the city or the department a dime. Still, I was not satisfied. As I was tasked with developing, training, arming, fielding and ultimately commanding this unit, I needed to ensure my men were prepared to operate in any environment they might be called into in our jurisdiction or the surrounding areas. SWAT training, together with the honing of important skills courtesy of Delta, made us ready to operate in our urban environment. However, a close look at our Area of Operation (AO) yielded the obvious: in addition to conventional SWAT training, Chester needed some
ability in Maritime Operations. So we packed our kits and headed out. In June 2000, five members of the Chester team went to Monmouth County, New Jersey, for training at the Sandy Hook U.S. Coast Guard Station for maritime operations in advance of New York’s Waterfest 2000 celebration. At the same time, four team members were trained by the Army’s 5th Special Forces Group for additional skills development. This still had not cost our city a single dollar in training fees, which kept the political coin counters very happy and out of our hair. Many people were wondering why we were getting all this diverse training, and even police department supervisors questioned its value for a metropolitan law enforcement team. When rumors would reach my desk that those in political power were considering terminating the team and its training, I ensured that they were made privy to federal appellate court decisions on liability exposure for failure to train and protect. Not wanting to be on the defendants’ side of these suits, the training continued and the abilities of the Chester Tactical-Containment Team grew. Then the phone rang early that September morning. One of my team leaders said, “They just attacked the Twin Towers.” I knew that hell had come to our nation and American law enforcement tactics and deployments would never be the same. I was more convinced than ever that the oft-repeated British SAS training motto of, “Our worst has got to be better than their best,” would have to apply to us. The local nay sayers stopped questioning our training and ability. Requests for utilization of the team increased, and training increased commensurately. We were finally ready to break into the other mediums of tactical performance.
Retired Navy Master Chief Steve Bronson, through his training group Tactical Watreborne Operations or TWO, presented two classes on waterborne surface assault and deployment. The city hosted the training for several other organizations, enabling us to place our team members in the classes at no charge. The Delaware River and “borrowed” ships, boats and tugboats provided a real life-training environment for assault exercises. Archangel presented numerous courses for the tactical operators. We received the benefit of an LE version of some of the tactical training they provide Special Forces soldiers. Rapid Engagement and Close Quarters Tactics, an integrated hand-to-hand combat and close quarters firearms program, has saved lives both in the U.S. and abroad. In addition to that, advanced training in the Russian Special Forces unarmed combat system was undergone. Additionally, Tactical Diving or waterborne U/W (underwater) training, which gave the operators subsurface approach skills and the ability to function in a black water U/W combat environment, was presented. The Police Dive Team underwent a naval hull search course at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, while the rest of the tactical Operators toiled through a maritime tactical drug operations course, giving the men the ability to search and secure commercial vessels. Following the Army Special Forces model, each side then taught the other what it had learned. The team was able to put all of this training together in a real life deployment when we were requested by U.S. Customs and Border Protection to assist in the search of a foreign ship coming into port. With the approval of the captain of the port, the ship was secured by Chester operators and our divers completed their mission safely. The training continued by the tireless donation of SCUBA
At this point, I had a great team of top level, highly trained officers ready to go to battle on land or sea. But we didn’t have a boat, and I couldn’t envision my guys dogpaddling through 7-knot currents in the Delaware River under fire from terrorists.
The Counter Terrorist ~ April/May 2009 41
instruction and certification from former Special Forces soldier and Wilmington, Delaware, Dive Instructor, Wayne Mumford. But we did not stop there. Examining the tactical realities of such incidents as Columbine, North Hollywood, the Nord Ost Theater in Moscow and the mass hostage siege a the Beslan School in southern Russia, it became obvious that we needed a quick response medical team. One member had prior EMT experience and he was sent on to graduate from CONTOMS. Upon his graduation he was able to convince the local Trauma Center, Crozer-Chester Medical Center, of the need and benefit to the community and hospital of fielding a medical support unit. This partnership resulted in the Medical Center fielding a fully trained and equipped Tactical Medical Unit, including an ambulance. That team now serves most of the SWAT units in Delaware County. In addition we were able to get instructors trained in Tactical Combat Casualty Care to insure that our officers get immediate care in a hot zone. This is, simply, the best trauma care training and information to come out of the Special Operations Command and their combat experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan. None of this cost us anything. The entire team was then trained as part of the countywide Major Incident Response Team (MIRT). MIRT is an entity of the Southeast Pennsylvania Joint Terrorism Task Force. While all these things were coming together, the Chief of Police decided that the team should be known as SWAT and approved a distinctive patch, acknowledging what the officers had accomplished and their membership in an elite unit. The next step was to integrate the Dive Search and Recovery Team with the developing waterborne capabilities
42 The Counter Terrorist ~ April/May 2009
of the SWAT operators—now official counter terror operators. With economic stresses forever at the forefront of city management, the Chief of Police agreed to put the Dive Team under the umbrella of SWAT. There would no longer be the unnecessary redundancy and cost of two distinct teams with scuba skills. If you couldn’t both find and retrieve it, and operate in the water for battle, you were gone. At this point, I had a great team of top level, highly trained officers ready to go to battle on land or sea. But we didn’t have a boat, and I couldn’t envision my guys dogpaddling through 7-knot currents in the Delaware River under fire from terrorists. I was, once again, preparing to beg, borrow and steal for my men. Through the collaborative efforts of Steve Bronson, J.J. Marie (President of Zodiac), and John Giduck, a platform for the maritime operations arrived in Chester in 2007. John presented the SWAT team with a RHIB (Rigid Hull Inflatable Boat) Zodiac, motor and trailer from Bayhead Marine in New Jersey for SWAT maritime deployments. With miles of target rich waterfront in our area of responsibility, along one of the nation’s largest inland commercial waterways, this vessel truly made the SWAT team available for almost any threat. As time went on, the U.S. Marshals Service trained members of the team in VIP Security. This was most recently put to use during a speaking engagement by the noted author Salmaan Rushdie, targeted for death by international terrorists and Iran, and a campaign stop by then-presidential candidate Barack Obama. The team has gotten firsthand insight and intelligence on many of the school shooting tragedies such as Columbine; Virginia Tech; Bailey, Colorado; Beslan, Russia and the Ma’lot school massacre
in Israel. This has constantly given the team the ability to upgrade its response and tactics. I have continued to take every opportunity to amass important intelligence on such attacks, and have personally traveled to all of these sites at my own expense, bringing important information back to my men. Sometimes these experiences resulted in me being asked to provide training for other agencies. When paid for these, I reinvest that money in other opportunities to become exposed to the worst that others have suffered, always in an effort to make my men and our team better. The important lesson is that any department can do this. Those of us in law enforcement, and particularly those in SWAT, must recognize that, much like our counterparts in Special Operations units in the military, this is not something we do, but who and what we are. Sacrifices may have to be made to make your people the best. Rarely did any of our training or equipment cost the department any money. Where possible, host trainings for other departments so that you can get your people in for free. It takes some time, effort and organization, but it works. Access every federal and military program available to better arm and equip your people for free. If you need a for-profit organization to provide other information or training you can’t afford, ask them to do it for free or at reduced cost in exchange for you writing an article in a police magazine about its benefits, or offer your own expertise as a consultant in something they are taking part in. If a group is developing a new course that hasn’t yet been tried and tested, offer your team as guinea pigs and yourself as a reference to other departments considering hiring that training. Access former Special Operations personnel in your area. Get them to
The Counter Terrorist ~ April/May 2009 43
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Giduck, J., “What If By Sea? The Real Threat of Underwater Terror Attack,” The Police Marksman, Vol. XXX, No. 3, May/June 2005. 1
Professionals
Additional courses planned
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review your training and teach you new tactics. Ask local college professors with demonstrable expertise in such disciplines as Middle East Studies and Islam to come brief your teams on relevant information. Most will do this for free, or just for the ability to put on their bios that they are consultants to your department. Even most helicopter charter services are owned by former military pilots and will let you “play” on days they aren’t working, and will often come running to deliver your men in an emergency. They are, after all, American heroes. Finally, take your “vacations” to places where you can learn something to bring back to your team. This effort alone has taken me to such places as Russia to investigate the Beslan siege, Russian occupied Georgia in that war, and the border regions of Israel and Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. As my mind drifted back to the warm beer sitting before me in that London pub, I realized we had, indeed, come a long way. But through it all over the past 11 years, the cost to my department for the actual training that my own team underwent was less than $2,000. I think the most important saying for any Police Department is the old Boy Scout motto: “Be Prepared.” For us, and those like us, we must be prepared for the worst.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Major Bail is the SWAT Commander for the City of Chester (Pennsylvania) Police
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Department. He has served that agency for 36 years. He is an Instructor and Consultant for the Archangel Group and
www.preventivestrategies.net IPS Ad 4.75 x 4.875.indd 1
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has conducted lectures for national and international special operations personnel.
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The Counter Terrorist ~ April/May 2009 45
ORGANIZATIONAL
PROFILING By Syed Manzar Abbas Zaidi
Suicide terrorism is a term classically applied to people who carry out a range of acts of violence knowing their chances to escape from the same to be zero or close to zero.1 Many researchers and scholars have postulated that extremist groups have increasingly started using suicide terrorism in the decades spanning 1980–2000, because they have considered it to pay off.
Counter The
46 The Counter Terrorist ~ April/May 2009
Šistockphoto.com/mpruitt
S
uicide terrorists sought to compel American and French military forces to abandon Lebanon in 1983, Israeli forces to leave Lebanon in 1985, Israeli forces to quit the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in 1994 and 1995, the Sri Lankan government to create an independent Tamil state from 1990 on, and the Turkish government to grant autonomy to the Kurds in the late 1990s. Terrorist groups did not achieve their full objectives in all these cases. However, in all but the case of Turkey, the terrorist political cause made more gains after the resort to suicide operations than it had before. Leaders of terrorist groups have consistently credited suicide operations with contributing to these gains.”2 The continuing search for the motives of suicide terrorism has revolved around the congruent efforts of finding definitions that contextualize suicide terrorism. Earlier definitions tended to categorize suicide terrorism as actions that necessitated the death of the perpetrator in order to achieve his mission.3 The commonly cited traditionalist studies of terrorism tend to treat suicide attack as one of many tactics that terrorists use and so do not shed much light on the recent use of this tactic as a political tool. The problem with the study of suicide bombing is that the literature is directed mainly towards finding individualist motives, which would tend to stress mainly religious indoctrination (especially Islamic Fundamentalism) or psychological predispositions that might drive individual suicide bombers. However, many observers fail to notice that suicide terrorism is not exclusively
limited to Islamic Fundamentalism. The initiators of suicide terrorism and the World leaders in the use of suicide terrorism are actually the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a group recruiting mainly from the predominantly Hindu Tamil population in northern and eastern Sri Lanka and whose ideology has Marxist/Leninist elements. The LTTE alone accounted for 75 of the 186 suicide terrorist attacks from 1980 to 2001. Even among Islamic suicide attacks during that time, groups with secular orientations accounted for about a third of the attacks carried out. Earlier studies into the evolution of this phenomenon tended to focus on profiling the individual’s sociological and psychological profile, which remained elusive. Indeed many studies turned up ambiguous results on this “profile”, which tended not to bring out too many differences between the profiles of potential and actual bombers and their peers.4 In fact, not a single identifying characteristic such as affective disorders, traumatic childhood, etc., were found to be prevalent among suicide terrorists.5 This is further complicated by the results of many studies that have come up with profiling of persons who are normal people, but comply unthinkingly with rules dictated by evil peers and unfair systems.6 The results of age profiling have also tended to differ in varying degrees. The earlier models tended to profile the candidates as uneducated, unemployed, socially isolated, single men in their late teens and early twenties. This was followed by profiling research that tended to show that suicide terrorists could be college educated or uneducated,
Photo from a Jihadist tutorial website for building explosive belts.
In fact, not a single identifying characteristic such as affective disorders, traumatic childhood, etc., were found to be prevalent among suicide terrorists.
The Counter Terrorist ~ April/May 2009 47
Trauma is also a potent factor in generating a violent ideology. People who sustain a trauma overpowering their feelings tend to get caught up in a cycle in which they become susceptible to generating more evil.
48 The Counter Terrorist ~ April/May 2009
married or single, men or women, socially isolated or integrated, from age 13 to age 47. In the context of Taliban and Afghanistan, Ahmed Rashid in his authoritative book on Taliban has mentioned that the Taliban command preferred young men between 16-25 yrs of age who were unbound by “family strings”. A recent empirically conducted psychosocial analysis mentions these kinds of boys to be pulled by matriarchal strings, when mothers have the burden of raising these children in conservative and patriarchal societies in which the fathers are away or are deceased in some conflict or the other. The mothers pass on their “burden” of despondency to these boys, who are prone to look for symbolic figures in order to join the mythological ranks of these heroes.7 The violent end to an otherwise unremarkable life becomes the final glorifying act of such individuals who go to their deaths imagining themselves to be achieving a kind of legendary status. Many studies have demonstrated recruiters only prefer younger men instead of older ones. In the absence of an all embracing definitive psychosocial profile of an individual suicide bomber, having age statistics only perplexes the scenario by adding a huge number of sample population to the profile, which is practically useless. The youth unemployment ratio in Waziristan (a tribal area which is the hub of tribal militancy) in Pakistan, for example, stands at around 80%. It is not possible to use this statistic in any useful way to profile young individuals, except perhaps as a general socioeconomic indicator. Trauma is also a potent factor in generating a violent ideology. People who sustain a trauma overpowering their feelings tend to get caught up in a cycle in which they become susceptible to generating more evil.8 It is clearly documented that male children raised in
cultures of violence are likely to become delinquents or criminals9 and, without intervention, victims of genocidal wars may bring up tortured children who further subscribe to this cycle of violence.10 9/11 reconceptualized profiling of suicide bombing by redirecting the attention on the society and culture that produced suicide bombers, Huntington’s clash of civilizations playing not an insignificant part in this change of contextual paradigms. This change was driven by the fact that individual profiling as a deterrence tool had failed to produce unambiguous results which could be used in strategic projections. A further complication was the fact that the common perception of the fundamentalist suicide bomber was diluted by many secular Muslim parties with even leftist ideologies joining the ranks of organizations utilizing suicide bombing, like the PKK. The PKK is a leftist leaning organization with a secular and anticolonialist outlook, even though they are Muslims.11 Other largely secular Muslim dominated organizations which used the suicide tactic were the PFLP (Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine) having many Christian members, and Fatah.12 Perhaps the case of the Black Tigers of the LTTE most clearly spells out the case of suicide bombing as a strategic tool, rather than an ideologically driven campaign. The LTTE are the most successful organizers of suicide bombing to date, and their struggle is not in enforcing any ideology but is purely nationalist in character. Apparently, both individualistic and social profiling techniques suffer from inadequacies. All of these aspects of the intricacies of the suicide tactic have spawned a third generation of profiling of the suicide campaign; that of the organization carrying out the suicide bombing
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campaign. Thus, the organization has become the focus of many studies trying to reach an understanding of the phenomenon, rather than the sociocultural and individualistic accounts.13 These accounts tend to focus on how an individual is indoctrinated into an organization, and the process of instillation of suicide ideology within him that enables him to carry out this life terminating activity.14 In order to come up with a definition that encompasses the diversity of organizations using this method, Mia Bloom has added a political element to suicide terrorism, saying that the suicide bomber goes to his death knowing that his death is a part of a campaign to achieve a political purpose.15 However, a broader, goal-oriented definition has been proposed; this stipulates that the purpose of the suicide bombing is to inflict the greatest harm proportional to the effort used, and the ultimate purpose is to achieve some form of a political gain. The mechanics of achieving this political goal is by application of psychological pressure to a much larger target population than the actual subset of intended victims of the suicide action.16 Thus, a suicide action causes terror in a larger population who are informed about the action by secondary sources, which translates into political gains for the organization masterminding the suicide bombing by putting pressure on the state to be answerable to the citizens. It also makes the state machinery seem vulnerable, and thus tends to boost the morale of the followers of the masterminding organization. All these are measures directed towards gaining strategic advantages. Crenshaw (1981) postulates that terrorism can be best comprehended in terms of its strategic function; it has been suggested that the same applies for suicide terrorism. The threat implicit
50 The Counter Terrorist ~ April/May 2009
in suicide terrorism is the message of more attacks to come, which play upon the psychological mindset of the target audience to convince them not only of the resolve of the terrorist group carrying out the bombing, but also exposes the soft underbelly of the state. Thus, examining the majority of such attacks carried out in the world or within the smaller subset of Pakistani variant as currently the most affected state in the world, these are not isolated or random acts by individual extremists but, rather, occur in clusters as part of a larger campaign by an organized group to achieve a specific political goal. An example of this sort would be the relative peace experienced by Pakistan during the period after Feb. 2008, when a new government was coming in place and the militants were biding their time as to what posture the new government would take regarding militancy. While the Pakistani politics were in a sate of flux, there remained comparative peace and negotiations were going on; when the establishment declared its resolve in getting rid of militancy and the negotiations tended to break down, a deadly attack was carried out on the vital military installation of Wah ordinance factory, for which the Taliban under their leader Baitullah Mehsud claimed responsibility. The hardening of government stance, particularly in carrying out operations preempted this act, the Taliban organization named Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (henceforth referred to as TTP) in turn indicating that it was serious in its resolve. Such cessations and continuance of the suicide tactic is a potent political tool in the arsenal of extremist organizations. Thus, groups using suicide terrorism consistently announce specific political goals and stop suicide attacks when those goals have been fully or partially
achieved. This tends to correspond with the TTP’s general strategy of entering negotiations with a view of gaining some tangible gains, during which time attacks tended to decline in number. The purpose of this leadership is to achieve specific political purposes: coercion of a target government to change policy (e.g., stop army operations against insurgency), to mobilize additional recruits and financial support, or a combination of both. For terrorist groups, suicide attacks become the favored political coercive instruments of choice .This is not an arbitrary process driven by ideological factors, but there are logical reasons for this choice. Suicide bombings have tended to become the weapon of choice for terrorist organizations due to their great tactical advantages; research involving American State Department reports has put the incident to casualty ratio as disproportionately high. According to these reports, suicide actions constituted only about 3% of the world’s terrorist attacks, but with a casualty rate of 48% of the total fatalities.17 Thus, suicide terrorism, particularly bombing, becomes the weapon of choice for any terrorist organization wishing to maximize the gains achieved by a violent action, at the same time signalling to the target state that it will not be held back by conventional methods of deterrence.18 Resolve of the terrorist organizations is reinforced by the fact that comprehensive methods of protecting target populations from this phenomena have not emerged so far.19 Contrary to popular western belief, suicide bombings are not random acts of violence by zealots unable to restrain uncontrollable drives; suicide terrorism today is mainly an organizational undertaking, and consists of actions planned by some kind of organizational structure which has an effective network
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of recruiters, handlers and planners of suicide terrorism, which operates over a certain period of time.20 There is almost always a political goal that needs to be achieved. An analogy with Hamas, which used the suicide tactic in a highly controlled manner, might be illuminating. In April 1994, as its first suicide campaign was beginning, Hamas leaders explained that “martyrdom operations” would be used to achieve intermediate objectives, such as Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza, while the final objective of creating an Islamic state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean may require other forms of armed resistance. This is an articulation of a specific target driven use of suicide tactics. Hamas leaders were probably aware of the enormity of the task of creating an all Arab state in the middle of the Israeli heartland, and were therefore mentioning “other” abstract notions of an armed struggle, about which they presumably did not have too many strategic directions laid out at hand. However, the suicide tactic was a tangible tool to be used for the realistic goal of evacuation of Israel from West Bank and Gaza. Strategists and profilers of suicide terrorism need to remember that suicide terrorism is primarily an organizational activity, which is driven by political motives. Thus, individualistic profiling may very well be useful for studying the phenomena, but organizational study of it is crucial. Reports emanating from Afghanistan have indicated that suicide bombers can be indoctrinated by very little motivation, and indeed group pressure can be as instrumental in this process as ideology or revenge. In this context, the organization indoctrinating the recruits becomes more important. Thus, it is time for strategists to devise sophisticated analytical tools for studying organizations that achieve their political means by using suicide bombers.
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NOTES Merari, ‘The Readiness to kill and die’194 2 Ibid. 3 Pape ‘The Strategic Logic of suicide terrosim’345;Boaz Ganor ‘Suicide Terrorism: An Overview’ 4 Harvey W. Kushner `Suicide Bombers: Business as Usual’, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism (1996), 19(4): 349-67. See Also, Emad Salib `Suicide Terrorism: A Case of Folie a Plusieurs?’, British Journal of Psychiatry (2003), 182(6): 475-6; John Rosenberger `Discerning the Behaviour of the Suicide Bomber: The Role of Vengeance’, Journal of Religion and Health (2003), 42(1): 13-20; Harvey Gordon `The “Suicide” Bomber: Is it a Psychiatric Phenomenon?’, Psychiatric Bulletin (2002), 26(8): 285-7. 5 Ariel Merari `The Readiness to Kill and Die: Suicidal Terrorism in the Middle East’ in Walter Reich (ed.) Origins of Terrorism: Psychologies, Ideologies, Theologies, State of Mind, New York: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and Cambridge University Press, 1990, p. 203; Atran `Genesis of Suicide Terrorism’ 1537; Ariel Merari `Suicide Terrorism’ in R. Yufit and D. Lester (eds) Assessment, Treatment and Prevention of Suicide, New York: John Wiley, 2004. 6 Dave Grossman ‘On Killing’(Boston: Little Brown and company,1995). Ervin Straub ‘The Roots of Evil: the origin of genocide and other Group Violence’(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1989) 7 Merari `Social, Organisational and Psychological Factors in Suicide Terrorism’ in Bjorgo (ed.) Root Causes of Terrorism. 8 Sue Grand, ‘The reproduction of Evil: A clinical and cultural perspective’(Hillsdale,N.J.: The Analytic Press,2000) 1
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54 The Counter Terrorist ~ April/May 2009
Judith Lewis Herman, ‘Trauma and Recovery’(New York: Basic books,1992) 10 Stein, Jang,Taylor et al ‘Genetic and environmental influences on trauma exposure and Post traumatic Stress Disorder syndromes: A Twin study’ American Journal of Psychiatry(October 2002) 11 Ami Pedahzur, ‘Suicide terrorism’ (Manchester: Polity Press, 2005)23. 12 (Pedahzur,2005)24. 13 Radio interview with Iyad Saraj and Ariel Merari ‘Today’s Suicide Bombers are the Children of the Previous Intifada’, Studio (2002), 134: 27 [Hebrew]; Bruce Hoffman `The Logic of Suicide Terrorism’, The Atlantic Monthly (2003), 291(5): 40-7. 14 Scott Atran `Genesis of Suicide Terrorism’, Science (2003), 299(5619): 1534. 15 Mia M.Bloom, ‘Palestinian Suicide Bombing: Public support, market share and outbidding’, Political Science Quarterly (2004), 119(1):61-88. 16 Scott Atran ‘Genesis of Suicide Terrorism’, Science (2003), 299(5619): 1534. 17 (Pedahzur,2005)12. 18 Pape `The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism’ 346-7. 19 For further elaboration on the advantages which terrorist organizations gain from using suicide terrorists, refer to Bruce Hoffman and Gordon H. McCormick ‘Terrorism, Signaling, and Suicide Attack’, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism (2004), 27(4): 243-81. 20 Pape `The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism’ 347. 9
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Mr Zaidi, LLM, LLB (Hon), MBA, MBBS, is a lecturer in policing and criminal investigation, University of Central Lancashire, U.K.
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